I don’t know anything. I don’t mind admitting that, but I have a problem meaning it. I like to think I know at least some things; how to tie a shoe or write a poem, for example. But then I remember how small I am. There’s a video somewhere of people ages 5 to 99 giving advice in chronological order. It starts adorably, then deepens, then grows sweet and morbid. It ends with a 99-year-old man staring directly into the camera. Continue reading

for Mom, the fearless creator

Olivia walked up the spine where w­aves met sand and wished the grains under her toenails were words. She would go home, swing her legs over her desk, and shake the syllables on to paper. She hadn’t written in three months.

For her entire memory, people had loved Olivia’s writing. Teachers’ compliments extended across her history like boxcars. She pictured her career cutting over purple plains where stories sprinted along the tracks before heaving themselves in. Olivia knew she was good. Good and frozen. Continue reading

It’s a graceful wasteland with trees reaching like warped fingers from the undulating rock face. They’re craggy and wind-whipped, the kind that look most alive when crowned with buzzards. Orion toddles at my side, unaware that the sun baking the abandoned rock rectangles is going to set soon. The blank sky glares over the former rock quarry, and I have no idea where I am. Continue reading

Norm Fintel considered himself lucky on the day that he died. He told his nurse, “I think I’m one of the only people that can say if I could go back, I wouldn’t change a single thing. How lucky am I.” This was after a lifetime of spreading that luck in the form of wisdom and compassion. He wove a large, adoring family and a profound legacy from the fibers of faith, vision, and work. He was Robby’s grandfather, and I wanted to write down everything he ever told me. Continue reading

In my dream, I died. I instantly sat up and looked around, where a girl I might have grown up with said, “This is heaven.” Heaven was my apartment. I slid out of bed and walked across the floor, thinking the real heaven might be in the living room. It wasn’t. Continue reading