Sunrise
Thursday, October 23rd, 2008

Dawn breaks at a later hour this deep into fall, which makes sunrises easy to come by for late risers. Just past seven o’clock, the first pronouncement of day is the band of pink sky on the horizon and above it bands of purple and blue.

I sit hunched in my daughter’s bedroom looking out on the block. From the second floor, the houses across the street appear distant and dark, almost unreachable, the way they might seem from across a river. In the strange light, the street becomes a deep divider with strong undercurrents. (more…)

Posted in Piece of Mind | No Comments »
Tags: Morning

My Generation
Saturday, October 4th, 2008

By early October, the morning light has changed and the air in those earliest hours is so mountain-cabin thin that breakfast smells weigh it down. Fresh coffee and eggs are boiling in the kitchen, seaping out the windows and door frames to fill the house as subtly as the morning chill left on the furniture by cracked windows.

In the backyard, the dogs give off their first barks, chasing squirrels that balance along the fencetops and powerlines, or in suspicion of random hedge apples that fall invisibly behind the fence and land in the underbrush with rustling sound. They are animals in a long line of creatures that came before them, as we are, and yet they are in some cases 4-5 generations removed from the farm dogs that ran these fields when I was much younger and the pastures were yet to be made over into suburban housing.

My generation is all grown up now, and making the table for children of their own. The first real generation defined by media (or maybe defied), raised with Henry and Ribsy – with Pony Boy and Dally – with wet recesses sitting “Indian style” watching Reading Rainbow and Electric Company, then all that giving way to Nirvana, phony apathy and downtrodden plaid. (more…)

Posted in Piece of Mind | No Comments »
Tags: America, Morning