New round started today, and I've spent most of it taking things apart instead of adding to them. Seven habits, same as they've been. Bible reading, calorie tracking, water, exercise, reading, gratitude, and this — the daily writing. Two of them changed shape, though, and the changes are the whole point. Bible reading and the … Continue reading One Thing At A Time
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
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
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
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
