Strike a match above a sheet of paper and time becomes visible. Before the flame touches the page, one movement of the hand can prevent the damage. Once the corner catches, another kind of action becomes possible. Smother the flame. Tear away the burning edge. Save what remains. But after…
Tag: Loss
Contemplation and writing on the subject of loss.
Health & Longevity 
The Body Slowly Learns Hope
There is a strange mercy hidden inside our livingness. We suffer as if grief has carved its final name into us. We believe, in the first violence of loss, that what has happened has become a permanent country within the soul, a dark nation with fixed borders, a place from…
Memoir & Life 
The People We Lose by Living
We begin life surrounded. Before we know our own name, others have already spoken it with hope. Hands lift us, feed us, wash us, carry us from room to room. We arrive into a world already occupied by faces bending over us. Mother. Father. Grandparents. Siblings. Neighbors. The first truth…
Love, Romance & Eroticism 
When Intensity Pretends to Be Destiny
There was a time when I believed that the depth of a feeling revealed the truth of it. If love struck with enough force, if longing rearranged the inner weather, if a face returned again and again in silence, if the heart suffered with a devotion it could not explain,…
Philosophy & Spirituality 
The Evil That Does Not Need You to Become Evil
There is an evil more frightening than wickedness. Wickedness at least has a face. It has a knife, a lie, a hunger, a mouth that speaks destruction. Wickedness can be named. It can be resisted. It stands somewhere in the world and says, Here I am. Hate me. Fight me….
Philosophy & Spirituality 
Between Birth and Disappearance: What Makes Human Beings Special?
We rise each morning into a world that did not begin with us. Light reaches the window after traveling across distances the mind cannot hold. The earth beneath the house is ancient beyond our family names, older than every language, older than memory, older than grief. The trees keep their…
Philosophy & Spirituality 
Blessed Be All
By afternoon, the beggar had reached the center of the city, where the streets widened, and the stone buildings seemed to look down on human ruin without surprise. Along the square, beggars sat in rows against the walls, and near the steps of the churches, each with a bowl, a…
Memoir & Life 
I Hate Unfinished Business
Last year, this was the week when my brother told me that doctors are suspecting that Dad might have Cancer. He was not getting better and all other options were crossed. Doing a Biopsy was the last remaining test. This was hard for him and everyone. I suspected this through…
Memoir & Life 
To Feel Pain Is To Be Alive
Do what you need to do, do what you want to do. Anticipate pain. Without pain, you won’t last long under pressure. Pain is the jet fuel for inner motivation. People say pain is temporary, don’t give up. Don’t quit. BS. Pain is not temporary. Pain is intermittent. It should…
Memoir & Life 
Everyone Says It Can’t Be Done
How do you know if you will be successful? How can you tell if you will make it to the end of the tunnel? The answer is “you can’t!” The only thing you can do is to keep the faith and keep walking. You can only give your best. You can…
Health & Longevity 
The Day We Began Counting Time
My father died from Stage IV stomach cancer on March 5, 2016. What follows was written before I knew exactly how little time remained. At the time, I was not writing a story about death. I was trying to prevent one. I was keeping notes because events were happening faster…
