Larger Than Me
Somewhere, there is a large rock, on a hillside, above a stream, in the woods. It is large enough to sit on if you are a young child, and probably […]
Author Archives: cartochronographer
PAN Forum 2013
Note: This is a repost from last year. It’s about to happen again. Science still needs your support. What am I doing in Washington, DC, and why am I pestering […]
Throwback. Love in Winter.
There’s no good time to fall in love, except when you’re young, and stupid, and don’t know any better, and think (mistakenly) that you have nothing to lose. Outside of […]
Stuck things
This is a pile of things in the corner, a day of things undone, a list of intentions, a string of words that won’t come. It’s the feeling of the […]
Swim
This river. I know this river. More than just a little. First, from high above, from the bedroom window of my apartment in Washington Heights, the view greeted me when […]
The River
It’s late afternoon and I’m sitting at the end of Pier 25 in Manhattan, a concrete oasis that seemingly sprung up overnight from the broken pilings and submerged wreckage of […]
Unfinished.
The world is a little quieter. A little less clamorous, my friend. A little less wise, and a little less petulant. I need to tell you that a stillness, the […]
No Self
In the quiet solitude of morning, the dogs nuzzle my hand for attention and breakfast. All is quiet. I make coffee, one cup, pouring the boiling water over the grounds. […]
Blue
Comfort me. Fill my eyes with sky, and color so my mind is full and there is room for only sky, and color. Make the sky that blue. Make the […]
Sleepless
Used to mean so many things — the quiet night, the stillness of solitude, dominion over all the quiet spaces while the rest of the world slept. A walk outside, […]
Calamity
Things unexpected. Calamity and consequence. Ruptures. Earthquakes. Sinkholes. The collapse of the ordinary. The tiniest distance in space and time between the ordinary and the extraordinary. I have a memory […]
Five
I am five years old. The world is swing sets and digging tunnels in the sandbox with my hands. The world is tactile — catching butterflies in my cupped hands, […]
Rituals
When we talk of ancient people, silent, except for the physical objects unearthed, no words to explain their meaning, the lives they lived, the civilizations they built, we look at […]
Impermanence
It’s early morning. The sun isn’t up yet and I’m trying to remember that most likely my neighbors aren’t either. I have finished with the sleeping for today. It’s quiet, […]
Fighting. Yelling. Dying.
I wrote about stillness. The words are fighting me. They are jamming up and congregating in unauthorized areas and refusing to transit single file. They are being unruly. Transitions are […]
Stillness
I went skydiving once. I did what is called an accelerated free fall (AFF) from 12,500 feet of altitude with two dive instructors in the Mohave desert in California. I […]
This Sacred Morning
Memories are tricky things. Life flows by day to day, slipping gradually, usually, from one thing into another. This year is different from last year in subtle ways. Last year […]
Bookends
Having reminded myself how to change a flat on my bicycle, I’m now giving the beast an overhaul. I sort of, mostly, know how to do this. Parts of things […]
Breathe
Breathe the air. Breathe the air. Breathe real air into my lungs. Now write. This is about afterward. This is a story about Linda (my sister), but not Linda. This […]
Pearls
A stick, a stone. A gesture, a heartbeat. Connections to the natural world, an ephemeral feeling of something larger and interconnected, flowing through, at one with. Experienced in the wind, […]
only one thing matters 