Santa Ana

My niece went halfway up the ladder for the high dive and then back down. “You can’t go back down, once you go up, you have to dive,” a kid said to her. Stupid kid. “I think you want to do it,” I told her. She climbed back up. Last year beat me so hard […]

Shelter

Completed in 1895, the 23rd Regiment Armory is a Romanesque red brick armory. Armories were originally important places to train and store weapons for America’s locally-based military units before the Civil War. During industrialization, National Guard troops were used to quash labor protests. After World War I, bronze tributes to soldiers from that conflict were added. […]

The West Coast

The man with the moles on his back, speckled. The man with the circular scar on his cheek, a piece was taken out, or replaced, he rang up my Mickey Mouse shaped pencil. The man we asked a question and he answered in gestures and the English people who cannot hear use, and we acted […]

Medicine

Much of life is the one hour you wait for the medicine to kick in, and this week is the hour we are waiting in America. I am waiting. I was at my monastery in Atchison, Kansas, and overheard one of the sisters say that a sniper had shot police officers. Mealtime discussions with the […]