Category: Place


  • I am driving down Hull Street Road, coffee in the holster, string cheese in my teeth, driving into the sunrise. I am back in this town with my boots strapped on tight and my coat swishing at my knees when I walk, so I can run on the ice and so I might not get…

  • For the last year, I’ve been sleeping on couches, borrowed mattresses, and at last, my own thin IKEA futon thrown down on the floor. I have lived out of a suitcase since last August. This last week I spent wound tight, my attention turned so intensely inward that I left threads hanging to tangle in…

  • I wrote a post about feeling displaced last January, three weeks after I’d had to move out to give my [now] ex-husband the space he thought he needed to clear his head and recommit to our marriage. I wasn’t able to tell you all why I was writing that post then, so I shrouded my…

  • I wish I had a picture of that last sunset on that last night. It was one of those cloudless Valley haze sunsets, where the sky filtered evenly from yellow to blue to twilight dark behind the mountains. There was a small parking lot with a few guests, halfway to LA from Reno, unloading their…

  • I’ve avoided saying these words to myself for a long time, but it’s really the most accurate description: When I was 12, my family moved from California to the east coast to join a cult. I haven’t felt at home anywhere since. *** There were other factors, of course. Economy, family ideals for finding a…