The spiders were still hibernating. The cobwebs on the ceiling quivered in the drafts. Juan del Llano scrunched over far enough to squint at the clock: 7:57 glowed green through the dust. The old black Sony she gave him for Christmas 15 years ago. Did people really used to wake up to the radio? He [...]
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Six weeks ago looking south
Good Morning! Here’s something I tweeted this morning that I wanted to share. I hope everyone reading this is fine today. I tell myself to stay alive, get through the winter, and thank God we’re living in New Mexico. May everyone be well, no matter where you are. https://twitter.com/jhfarr/status/1337077715107684364?s=20 Same for me personally, by the [...]
Seventeen years in this place, no wonder we’re going mad. The elms are eating the house, the spider webs and dust are eating me. We did all right for a long time: it used to rain, there were gardens, I even cut the grass—which means at least there was some. Now everything is weird and [...]
His kingdom for a can
They’d found a house, he dreamt. It was on a hillside. “I like it,” she said, stepping down onto the gravel drive that curved off from a wider one that led straight back into the woods. Pine woods, with space between the trees, and at the end a larger house where strangers lived. He had [...]
Some men are like that, though. The ones who “prune” a tree by cutting all the branches like they’re dealing with asparagus and not a being with inherent grace, a form, a destiny. I don’t know how we get that way. It’s just not possible for me. Every weed and flower has a soul. When we lived in Maryland, I’d walk past a field of barley waving in the wind and feel the power like the tramp-tramp-tramp of marching armies. And a tree, my God. You have to ask permission of a thing like that. It wants to live, it has a purpose. Just ask the birds, if you can find one.
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