I've been interviewing myself. It's a memoir exercise — a long set of structured questions about my own life, answered out loud while I walk, cleaned up afterward. I talk into my phone in a neighborhood in Oklahoma City like a man having an argument with nobody. What I expected was to remember things. What's … Continue reading Ahead of the Room
The Way Back
Home tonight, twenty-two hundred miles from where we were just a couple of days ago. There's no feeling like it. The house smells like our house. Everything is where we left it. Tomorrow is for laundry and pictures and getting my head pointed at the week, and tonight is for sitting down. Going somewhere is … Continue reading The Way Back
Ready To Go Home
Last full day at sea. Tomorrow we're in port, then an airport, then home. And I have to admit something I've never once been able to say at the end of one of these. I'm ready to go. Every other cruise I've taken has ended with me dragging my feet up the gangway. The last … Continue reading Ready To Go Home
A Hundred Feet
Standing off the back of a ship at night in the middle of the ocean is the strangest feeling I know. The deck lights throw a haze that hangs out over the water, a kind of halo, and inside it you can see about a hundred feet of wake — white foam churned up and … Continue reading A Hundred Feet
Twenty Years
We got into St. Thomas at seven this morning and walked off not knowing what to expect. It's a small island and it feels smaller — tucked away, unhurried. People wanted our business but nobody put anything in our faces about it. We rode a gondola up to a lookout and stood there a while … Continue reading Twenty Years
