In a Dark Time … The Eye Begins to See

As if I weren’t already paying enough attention Life tapped me once more on the shoulder. “Pay attention, dammit, You’re dying one day at a time.” And I paid attention, and more, and the sun was shining, and the air crisp golden, fallen leaves encircled a barren tree and it was almost like I wasn’t dying at all.

Younger, full of passion I scoffed at settling for less than perfect. No second-best for me. I’d do it right, or not at all. Older, realizing the gravity of the situation, knowing things inevitably settle in their own time no matter what we do, I still fought to hold up my end of the bargain. In the end, though, settling suddenly seems not half-bad, standing silent as the meaningless slips away, mere [...]

Sitting in the dark, cavernous Goldendale junior high auditorium at five years old, watching the magician’s scantily-clad assistant appear and reappear at the magician’s will, I knew I wanted to be a magician long before I grew up. At twenty five, confident I’d finally discovered the most powerful incantation of all, I stood stunned as I watched love disappear, my heart silently [...]

Jutting into Puget Sound like a giant, rude thumb, this remnant of ancient forests refuses to succumb to the blight of ARSECO, Weyerhaeuser, this City of Destiny. Ringed by million-dollar homes, forced to endure the indignity of latex condoms aluminum beer cans, the land feigns indifference, concealing man’s neglect, behind three-foot-high ferns. Scarred by forest fires, but saved from ravaging chainsaws, this forest quietly harbors [...]