The longer this pandemic flows on, the more it seems the days grow somehow quieter, eerily quiet in fact. The bar beneath us hasn’t made a peep in well over a month. There are fewer cars on the street below, fewer voices on the corner with no one waiting for the bus. I know it’s […]
Category: Updates
Updates to my life, where I currently am, what I’m currently doing, and what I’m currently thinking. Sometimes, the line between “essay” and “update” is a bit blurry.
Quarantine, Day 46
Purchasing groceries under a quarantine is a huge stressor, at least in North Jersey. I’d taken to ordering the food via pick-up to try to avoid having to go into the store, but because so many of the online order apps are sold out, you have to get lucky to find anything available within one […]
Quarantine, Day 37
Coming out of the Great Depression, one of the Civil Works Administration projects of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal was the construction of a small stretch of road through Bergen County, New Jersey and into lower New York State. It’s maybe one of the most beautiful drives you can take in this part of the […]
One Month in Quarantine
A long while ago, in what now feels like another life, I was a painter–acrylics on canvas. I took it seriously enough that my portfolio at one point won me a $50,000 visual arts fellowship. I was, however, a terrible student of art. Something about being “assigned” an art project or having to work with […]
Quarantine, Day 13
Right after I returned from twenty-seven months of Peace Corps service, the next three years were absolute mental hell. I had actually returned by boat, leaving from Barcelona and landing in Fort Lauderdale, and maybe it’s because of the sea legs I couldn’t shake for nearly a month, but I began to believe in the […]
Quarantine, Day 12
I woke up at 3:00 am choking and sweating and generally in a state of panic. I got out of bed and went straight to the bathroom feeling like I might vomit, repeatedly whispering to myself, “It’s just anxiety, it’s just anxiety, it’s just anxiety.“ The operative word, of course, is “just,” as if anxiety […]
Quarantine, Day 9
As of this evening, the county where I reside is under a lockdown and the New Jersey National Guard are activated and are on “high alert” with imminent orders forthcoming. Only businesses deemed “essential” like grocery stores and banks are open. In five minutes, as I write this, we begin an 8:00pm curfew. Today actually […]
Reflections on Holy Week
Someone told me today this is “Holy Week,” that Easter is this Sunday, and it caught me off-guard. There was a time very recently when, not only would that have been incredibly pertinent to my life, but my work would have revolved around the whole week in some way or another. Nowadays, it couldn’t be […]
The Smells and Changes of Hurricane Ridge
I don’t think it’s commonplace for us to regard nature as an olfactory experience. We tend to spend a lot of time out in the world viewing things, and maybe it’s just that I’m from a part of the country where freshly mowed grass is the closest you come to any sort of overwhelming smells […]
Between the Canopy and the Dirt
Work brought me to Oregon. Its beautiful scenery kept me there a little longer. I’m fortunate enough to have an old friend who runs a summer camp out on the edge of the Oregon coast, and it’s always nice to know someone from an area you’re visiting because they’ll know all the best go-tos. In […]
