It was the Thursday before Easter. I faced 23 university students clustered around a conference table. We were just past the halfway mark of our course called Writing for the Ear. Today we are going on a soundwalk, I said. No talking, no texting. Remain silent and amble behind me at a comfortable pace. Try to take in the world through sound. Turn down your...
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It was a fall night. A friend was helping to present an acoustic music concert at the Unitarian church in Doney Park. She was stationed in the lobby, selling tickets. I didn’t know anyone else there, so I sat by myself until a man edged into the seat beside mine. A woman was behind him. They held hands. As soon as he settled into his chair, he turned...
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It was in the evening a few Mondays ago, and the city center was empty as I walked home from the university. I rounded the corner onto a side street. About half-a-dozen kids huddled in front of a shuttered storefront just outside of the cone of light the streetlamp cast. We were the only people around. From their height I pegged them at about...
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I caught an episode of The Twilight Zone last night. A grade school-aged sister and brother sit beside a pool with wet hair. Towels drape their bony shoulders. The father looks dressed for work; the mom looks as if she is off to the country club for mahjong and Mai Tais. The parents glare at one another and give the children the news: We don’t like each...
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Football game white noise from the wood-paneled den. The curling perfume of dinner rolls in the oven. Dad wears an apron and wields the electric carving knife over a golden hump of overcooked turkey. Again we gather at the big family table for Thanksgiving. We are seven Kellys and a shaggy assortment of strays—South American exchange students, a foster...
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