Good Friday Prayer
a late snow in early spring and winter’s resurrection has driven me west again finding no warmth, I keep moving discovering comfort in the friction of my tires on the road signs on the interstates warn me to watch for falling rocks and watching for too long my eyelids...
Fear of Flying
I can’t remember whether my flight left at 10:20 or when I gave up on home cruising at thirty-eight thousand feet for four hours and six minutes from Milwaukee to San Francisco is the farthest I’ve been from the land billowing white below me clouds gather with the...
Change the World, Change Yourself
Friends and family tell me I too often focus on the negative. My doctors and therapists have told me me this, too. Diagnosed as I am with severe depression and surviving two suicide attempts, I used to believe them. Part of my recovery involved completing a cognitive...
Walking the Trapline at Unist’ot’en Camp
The snowstorm arrived at Unist’ot’en Camp a day before we did dropping over a foot of snow and stillness on the territory. The clouds cleared the second night we were there opening the skies to the silent music played by the twinkling of countless stars. While most of...
DIY Resistance: Grasp Things At the Root
I recently attended another sustainability conference at a local university. The experts sat in a half-circle facing their audience in rank-and-file foldable chairs. I, like most of the audience, hoped to hear a brilliant solution to the ongoing destruction of the...
DIY Resistance: I Love You, Dad
“Your mother and I are worried about you,” my dad said looking down into the beer his hands cradled on a wood table in the Morris Inn at the University of Notre Dame. We came to Notre Dame to honor two now decades-old father and son traditions. The first, seeing...
DIY Resistance: Resistance is Sexy
I suffer from a profound sense of loneliness. I always have. I do not know why. And, I suspect I always will. Sometimes, I wonder if I cling to some strange addiction to loneliness. There are too many decisions I’ve made in my life knowing full well the alienation...
DIY Resistance: Post-Modern Robin Hoods
For the last year, it goes like this: My phone rings precisely at 6:30 AM. I groan in bed and reach towards the shelf holding my phone. By the time I locate my phone, I’ve missed the call. It’s from an area code I don’t recognize. They’ve left a message, so I curse,...