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The Man From ’Stanbul

I am the “man from ’Stanbul.” Yes, I cannot pee. Oh, I can squeeze out a few drops here and there. I can dribble; I can even trickle. Occasionally what passes for a stream arcs into the commode. But it’s no McDonald’s golden arch, let me tell you, not the yellow rainbow of satisfaction I once knew so well, the Victoria Falls of my not-so-distant youth.

The Bedroom

A piano bench, creaky beds, a carving of a swan’s neck and head

Too Close For Comfort

A fifty-dollar bill every Christmas, the enveloping calm of crystalline snow and limitless sky, a blip on a monitor

Into Silence

Over the course of two years I photographed my grandmother Marjorie Clarke on my weekly visits to her home in rural Butler, Maryland. With her health declining and Alzheimer’s disease loosening her ties to everyday reality, I spent much of my time reading aloud or singing songs to her, attempting to hold her attention as long as possible.

Good Friends

A backyard barbecue, a Portuguese man-of-war, a game of croquet

Help

A black Labrador, the Beatles, skinny-dipping

Sunbeams

On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time.

George Orwell

The Full Catastrophe

Unless you show up to write, you don’t get to experience the heartache and the joy of writing; you don’t get to drop into a place without words and then, miraculously, find just the right words for what you discover there.