Collections

Other Side of the Coin

Posted on 5 min read

  May 5 In my dreams the compulsion reveals itself: Unless I’m constantly doing, it doesn’t feel that things will be ok 6 It always seems to come back to surrender… or the middle path… or self acceptance… or fear 6  Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow reminds me that I wanted to write novels. Some people can balance the creative role with their profession. For years I tried to as well. But it feels like a bridge too far. 7 Watching the wind moving over an open field feels like home. Tall grass moves like water. It looks and sounds the same to me as the wind blowing across the …

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April 23 – Survival, If You Can Call It That

Posted on 3 min read

1 Landed from LA and repacking my bags for a turn to Germany. It’s been 3 months since I’ve seen my daughter. A little longer than usual, but not nothing compared to Covid. I feel scared and nervous. It’s been hard to reach her lately. Is this the inevitable teenage distance people tell me about? I’m at breakfast when tears start quietly rolling down my face. What are you feeling right now? I don’t know. A lot. Once it passes I realize the cause is the table sitting behind me, a father with his daughter who looks about seven. It’s the ambivalence of anticipation in seeing my own daughter and …

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Collections – Nowhere

Posted on 8 min read

Germany, Iceland, Denver, Boulder – 30 What magic there once was in Europe seems lost to me forever. Even Iceland is gray, miserable and suffocating. Physically, I’m depressed and grimy. My laptop was stolen in Amsterdam, but that happened a week ago, and I quickly moved passed it. An expensive mistake on my part, that’s all it seems like now. Instead, the malaise is a spread of realization. The time to play, and be happy, has passed. Now it’s seriousness in life, career, and the care for those around me. However, Europe had seemed to escape these symptoms of growing older. But now, practicality has made short work of the …

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Collections – If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home By Now

Posted on 12 min read

Prague, Dresden, Boulder, Kansas City, St. Petersburg – 23 — As I’m cleaning my apartment I find a small notebook that was left by the person before me. The first thing I notice when I open it are the pages full of numbers. Some have names beside them, others have countries. The hand writing is small, neat, and clean. In the front of the notebook there is a poem about 9-11, a rant to a newspaper, and a laundry list of neo-conservative national actions, including withdrawing from the UN and NATO and reinstating the Monroe Doctrine. This little number is also in the front: “As an American who has lived …

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Collections – Let the Vltava Rise Up

Posted on 13 min read

Prague, Stockholm – 23 While renting a movie I realize that I’ve been in Prague long enough to see a full life cycle of Czech films: The movie posters on billboards several weeks before they opened in theaters, the same poster plastered on the walls of DVD rental shops months later, and finally those posters taken down and replaced with newer releases.  Realizing this is the first time I can fully grasp the amount of time I’ve spent here. — We see a group of kids with fair complexions, and different natural hair colors, get on the tram. I would guess Norwegian, but when they start speaking it’s unbelievable. “Where …

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Collections – MSG’s Are My Everything

Posted on 11 min read

For the last twelve days I have been out of Prague. I spent ten days in Japan, one day in transit, and one day in Paris. This first entry is about my time in Paris: On my way to Japan I decide to return to Paris for a night, because of a standing invitation from a British girl to stay at her place. When I land I take three trains into the center of Paris. It startles me to hear French, and my natural reaction is to respond in Czech. Which complicates things, because by then they’ve realized I’m not French, and have started speaking to me in English. Everyone …

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