No Poem Is the Only Poem. No Story Is the Only Story. Since 2015.
Devan sleeps as I wind through the biggest trees. Devan sleeps as I read all the road signs out loud (grandfather tree, one log cabin, tsunami hazard zone). we are both wide awake as I slip and slide down 13 vertical miles of slick red clay, speedometer counting decimals.
It’s been impossible to even glance at him since he said the first irreversible things. This inability to look him in the face is many-faceted. In the beginning, it was the pain of longing and wishing he felt the same. Then there was the avoiding him in the mornings so he couldn’t see me in my tracksuit bottoms and wild, morning hair. And now, with the news of his bedding down with a partner for this globally terrifying event, the avoidance feels more jagged...
...My godmother lived an isolated, sterile existence. She rarely left the house and had no interests or hobbies, nothing she felt passionate about. She had no friends. Apart from her doctor and her priest, her only contact with the outside world was my mother, with whom she spoke on the phone religiously, bridging the five hundred miles between San Francisco and Los Angeles each Sunday.
Coasting: Pretend you're an airplane. Turn off your motor. Stop buying things. And see how long you can remain in the air.
My friend Tal and I used to crash piano stores for fun. Here in Los Angeles, millionaires cruise around in cutoff jean shorts and Priuses. It was never difficult to convince salespeople that a couple schlubs like us needed a showpiece baby grand for the solarium in our imaginary cliffside haunt in Malibu. Once the ruse was set, we’d head straight for the Bösendorfers and Blüthners, feigning indifference to their half-million-dollar price tags, ogling their European curves, and using our fingertips to coax fluidity out of their nascent, delicate actions.
My parents were always looking for adventures for us. Growing up in Boron, a small Mojave desert town, about an hour from the nearest incorporated city could easily lead to boredom. There were no movie theatres, no malls, not even a chain grocery store to entertain us. The population of about two thousand only accounted for one small food mart and three family-owned restaurants. So, when John suggested taking us up Saddleback Mountain my mother and father jumped at the opportunity of something new.