Quarantine Day 11

Quarantine Day 11 –  How did we get here?  I asked. – What do you mean? Julie was looking down over an edge where the sea of winter dead grass became a two-foot wide running gulley; the water was pulling us somehow. I meant How did this hike that began as mere daily chore become a Wander? She and I were now only loosely connected; disappearing from each other behind willows and hillocks of dead sod. The vast meadows lay underneath and around in uniform directions as though we explored…

The Year of the Rat

I walked into the retirement home wondering if we would ever again be able to tell truth from lies, propaganda from news. These are dishonest, sleazy days. A rat is somebody who tells. But what they tell is the truth; or it wouldn’t warrant telling. So who is afraid of a rat? Who’s afraid of a Whistle-blower? An acquaintance, Colleen, was dying upstairs on a mild Colorado winter evening at the start of the New Year. My wife Julie and I stopped for a visit. Climbing the stairs I thought…