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Quaking

The landfill under the office where I work holds the decomposed bones of old ships and piers, derelicts not worth repairing, sunk in the harbor. Our building has piles sunk straight down to bedrock, supposed to keep us standing when the ground all around quivers and liquefies.

Birthdays

A waxed floor, a box of chocolates, a first bra

The Sixties

Investigating conscientious-objector status, attending a rock festival, plucking strychnine tufts from a bag full of peyote buttons

Sunbeams

If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.

Albert Camus

Sunbeams

War: A Sunbeams Supplement

Trying To Quit

Show me someone more ridiculous than a jogger smoking. I can do five miles on the track, but only with cigarettes. Show me someone more dexterous and adroit than a swimmer on her back, floating, sucking on a cigarette like a submarine. If I am conscious, I am smoking.

Tales Of Lord Shantih

A seeker approached Lord Shantih with a question. “My Lord,” he said, “what special task do wise men perform in honor of the gods?” Lord Shantih struck him with his staff. “A wise man,” he shouted, “performs all his tasks in honor of the gods!”

High In The Himalayas

Twenty years ago I had my first and only mescaline trip in a remote part of the Himalayas that borders India and Nepal. I had already traveled and studied Tibetan Buddhism in India for three years.

The Apple

Late at night I heard a scream. Ivan was shaking me violently. “Father’s dying!” he shrieked. It was pitch-black in the room. I sprang out of bed, and both of us ran to our parents’ bedroom. “Where’s Mother?”

The Lives The Dead Have Given