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Editor’s Note

On Writing

Mondays are not good writing days. One has had all that freedom over the weekend, all that authenticity, all those dreamy dreams, and then your angry mute Slavic uncle Monday arrives, and it is time to sit down at your desk.

Abilities

As I drank my tea, I hoped I wouldn’t remember my dreams tonight. Last night’s dream about Walter confused me — I hadn’t thought of him in years. He had been two lovers before Fletcher, my first serious relationship as a divorced woman. I wondered what had become of him.

Occupational Disease

Loggers are notorious hard-asses. Hard labor, danger, long hours, and constant, male-only intimate companionship almost guarantee a hardening of the heart. Work gloves can protect soft hands but psyches protect themselves with calluses. It seems simple enough when seen from a distance, but up close, like everything in life, it gets more complicated.

When Work Is Play

Writing is like psychotherapy, or a spiritual discipline. It is a way of encountering reality. It teaches me about myself and the world around me. I’m not sure how it does that, just as I’m not sure how the revelations of religion and psychotherapy happen. People who don’t “believe” in writing don’t know what I’m talking about. To them I call it my work, putting it in a context they can understand.

The Hand That Shook The Hand

I didn’t go to my grandfather’s funeral. I had excuses at the time — I was living 500 miles away, no money for plane fare, other obligations, and so forth — but mostly I suspected that funerals were some kind of superstitious pagan ritual.

The Heavenly Smile Studio

Eddie thought. “And does The Man With No Head ever go to the photographer?” “Yes.” “And when the photographer asks him to smile?” “He spreads his arms.”

Earned Wisdom

A not so dirty book, the alchemy of experience, Spanish lessons

Falling Water

I sense that my preacher friend isn’t playing with a full deck. I suspect he views certain people as angels and remembers them as colors.

Notes