…Sometimes I Need a Witness

Peo­ple say, “You look younger.” Or, “Have you met some­one?” Or, “If you keep look­ing younger every time I see you it’s gonna get weird in a few years.” I don’t know what to tell them, except that it’s hard not to live a lit­tle more fully when you spend a lot of time with ideas that are beg­ging you to do so. […]

You Set Me Right: Favorite Songs of the Aughts

For most of The Aughts I com­piled my favorite songs onto CDs and gave them to a few friends as Christ­mas presents. My tastes skew sharply toward acoustic folk music so there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of any­thing that I like. A few of my peo­ple love it too, though, and they tend to be less dili­gent (obses­sive) about find­ing the new stuff than I am. That’s where I come in. I claim no author­ity. These are just the songs that opened my eyes the widest from 2000–2009. Because I’d never stop if I didn’t impose some kind of limit, I have picked songs that fit on one CD (plus some hon­or­able mentions). […]

Falling Back

I live in the woods now in Car­rboro. It’s fall here just like it is in Asheville. From my bal­cony I can reach out and touch oak leaves that are the deep­est red when back­lit by the sun. There are more dogs than I can count in my apart­ment com­plex. I am redis­cov­er­ing the peace and joy that comes with soli­tary liv­ing. My cat seems more like himself–curious and talkative–than he has in years. The spirit of this town reminds me a lot of Asheville. […]