national spelling bee 1987

i can't hear you

Stopped for gas yesterday and was horrified to hear the gas pump blasting an audio commercial from its tinny speakers. I'm sure you've heard them before too. "Stop inside for an ice cold refreshment. 20 ounce soda on sale for . . . blah blah blah."

nicole smiling

photo: jackie theriot

My sister Nicole has been gone almost twenty-six years, but this year, after spending a lot of time scanning old family photographs -- almost 400 of them so far -- I feel a new sense of closeness to her. I'm thankful to have so many photographs to help me remember.

a clearing in catahoula

photo: jetheriot

They've cleared out a patch of woods between the big bridge in Catahoula and Red's Levee Bar. I rode my bike there yesterday to check it out. So strange to see an empty space where before there had always been wilderness.

meditation room

photo: jetheriot

Paper stencil taped to wall, ready to be traced.

i dreamed . . .

. . . I performed a series of aerial acrobatic maneuvers in an enormous domed skateboard park. It must have been a mile high. Flapping my arms I ascended to the iron arches forming the ceiling of the dome and did backward somersaults all the way down to the smoothly undulating concrete floor where I grabbed a handful of lozenge-shaped reindeer lichens from a glass platter and swallowed them whole.

au bout de la chaintre

photo: jetheriot

We'd just turned on to the dirt-and-gravel road that leads to the camp when my dad, who was at the camp, called to ask us if we were on the way. My mom, in the back seat, said, "We're almost there. We just turned on to the shant." I said, "What did you call it?"

project houndstooth, day 3

photo: jetheriot

doctor tea

The moment the woman who savored birdsong was wheeled into the classroom she asked me if we were going to be listening to birds again. It had been three weeks since we’d listened to my mockingbird and bluejay recordings, and the experience had clearly stuck with her, because from that point forward every time I saw her she greeted me with a plea for more birdsong. Last Thursday was no exception.

it was not the hunting

project houndstooth, day 2

photo: richard ramirez

the woman who swayed to music

Last year I treated a woman who was in a minimally conscious state. This is what it's called when a brain has been so severely injured that it's hard to get more than primitive reflex responses from that person, and that person is able to perform only very basic behaviors, like reaching for an object that's wiggled in front of the face.

tingle in g major

This is going to serve as a congratulatory sound on the habit tracker feature of my Peaceful Habits app.

little paint rollers

1973

photo: jackie theriot

I've been going through my parents' photo albums, peeling off old photographs.