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Missing

One week before the planes flew into the towers, I secured my first full-time, salaried job. I had applied to work for the New York City Parks Department at the suggestion of my roommate, Ethan. He’d recently quit his Parks job—not because he hadn’t liked it, but because he was, by his own reckoning, in the midst of a quarter-life crisis, brought on by the unexpected death of his father a few years earlier. Ethan regarded me as lucky because my mother had at least told me about her cancer diagnosis before she’d died. From his father he’d inherited a three-bedroom apartment on Roosevelt Island, just one subway stop and a short walk from Central Park. Ethan sublet my room to me for $667, a remarkably low rent for a building with a doorman, pool, and gym.

Glory of the Seas

A couple of years ago I moved into a retirement village and had to do some serious downsizing. My shell collection went from five shelves to two, not counting the larger shells on lone display and the dozen or so whelks scattered about.

I’ve kept a few rare and uncommon shells: the junonia, the paper nautilus, the carrier shell. I’ve also kept the ones Mother sent me from her own collection. The bleeding tooth. Shells and rocks friends brought me from their vacations. Fossils I picked up on the beach. The purple cockle half Bobby—now Bob—and I found fifty years ago. (He has the other half.) The small, ocean-battered Triton we found during his first visit to Oregon. Various turkey wings, tulips, and spirulas. The fossilized whelk.

My life story on two shelves.

Overheard While Bird-Watching

Killdeer, Charadrius vociferus
Morning, pal. Chilly night, hope you fared OK. That fat old yellow sun ought to crest the ridge any minute. Or maybe not, given these rain clouds. I’m shooting to be an hour, two tops. Cool with you? My intention is to take it slow, avoid creating a ruckus. That said, I’m absolutely cranked on black coffee, like cranked cranked, a full French press plus a commuter mug in my jacket pocket. I’ll try not to be the most annoying guy you’ve ever met, but no promises.

Time in the Shape of Hills

My bones wake me up at night. It was my hips at first, then my femurs screaming. Now my ankles. But my doctor won’t listen. It started last year when my son and I walked the Camino de Santiago, the ancient pilgrimage route that runs through Spain. I’m sure that’s why my bones hurt—from all the walking.

My Ghost Fleet

I have spent hours in attics, the kind reached by pulling a rope in the ceiling and ascending to a stagnant room. It was in attics that I found love letters tied with ribbons, and wedding dresses in paper boxes the size of coffins, and sepia photographs of uncles in uniform and children who’d died of scarlet fever. I sifted through images of wraparound porches and white chickens, three-legged dogs and men with cigars. I think there is a reason why the past collects in attics: heavily, above us.

Timing

A broken clock, a chance encounter, a long-distance relationship

A Thousand Words

A Thousand Words features photography so rich with narrative that it tells a story all on its own.

The Next Peak

The mountain in winter enables the kind of sleep that restores, heals, allows brains to solve problems. The days have more than enough darkness to crawl inside.