Category: Reflections

There is a paper wasp nest dangling from a tree on our easement, high above the street. It is easily the size of a human head, even desiccated as it is from winter months of disuse. Back in autumn, after the leaves had fallen and made the nest visible to anyone who walked by, I…

That morning, I met with Oleg in the house in the valley at the bottom of the steep road that nobody with any sense would ever try to drive up, the one carved straight up the side of the hill because people in that part of the world had apparently never heard of switchbacks. I…

I had always played right field, except for the year. Right field was reserved for the worst player on the team, because it was junior little league (whatever they called it when there was still a machine on the pitcher’s mound instead of a player), and so hardly anyone ever hit the ball into the…

Out beyond the fields behind the elementary school, there were seasonally transitory ponds that attracted various wildlife, such as ducks and frogs. This is where the fanged ones lived. We never went out there; the farthest we’d go was the edge of the ball diamond, where the adults would put up markers to let us…