Chapter Seven I chose to make the Ocoee drive early in the morning instead of the night before. I left at six for the three hour drive, which would put me there a couple of hours before the trip. I prefer

Climbing the steps of the bus was like stepping into a thick wall of silence and dread. I took the dogs out and came back in as quickly as possible. I didn’t say anything. I just sat there with her. She

Chapter Six Sammy had a lowland boil going. His large wrap around deck was arranged with tables and chairs everywhere. It was probably closer to five o’clock than four, and the crowd was already there,

The second morning waking with Mary was much more delightful. My head felt clear. The world was starting to lighten up, dark blue and dim. Mary made the perfect little spoon, and I was content to breathe

Chapter Six Sammy had a lowland boil going. His large wrap around deck was arranged with tables and chairs everywhere. It was probably closer to five o’clock than four, and the crowd was already there,

I’ve been having these thoughts lately. I guess I need to flesh them out. They’re thoughts about health, science, mind, and emotion. I’d like to think that I have grown out of anxiety – the sort that affected

Chapter Five “Hey!” “Hey, river rat!” I said. “You’ve been gone for a good while.” I had a small fire going. Mary lay out a towel and dumped a bag of rocks onto it. She was smiling like a kid, showing

After the smoke and the dust settled, I found this part of my life. So here's to life on the road as a river gypsy, little communes, naked hippies and witches, searching, and finding deeper and deeper

It's your stories that remind me of my stories. The more you live, and the more you share, the more I remember.

At Jaws, the right side where we were at was all rock, great bones of earth rising up from the water and stair-stepping up in short climbs. Across the river, the blasted, quarried stone that made the

The summer of 1995. I was STILL trying to finish college. Clay and I were right up front for this show. It was an outdoor concert on the World's Fair grounds in Knoxville. My apartment was literally within

1994 I think I felt every breath that year. Each breath was a labor...painful and difficult to take. I had just bought this CD. I had recently come into a circle of amazing friends, and it was one of those

In the summer of 1985, I was 13 years old, and my world was an inferno. I lived in an old civil war plantation mansion on the edge of a tiny town in the southeastern U.S. It was a mining and farming community,

When you wake in the morning and some song is playing in your head that seems to have no business being there...you haven't heard it recently...maybe it wasn't even a song that you particularly like...

I've published part of this recently, but in keeping with my goal, I'm going to post the entire chapter here. I hope the reading of it is at least half as enjoyable for you as writing it was for me. Chapter

Chapter Two My head was splitting when I woke up a few hours later, still before dawn. I don’t drink often anymore. I tossed down a glass of water and put some more on the stove to boil for coffee while

I prefer to write in fiction, and there is a huge difference between the structure and intent of story telling, and the flow and purging in my early morning musings and poetry, which I primarily keep to

...I really liked this young woman. When we got to the top of the mountain, I pulled into the wide space to the right of the road where people park their horse trailers. The headlights were shining on

I wake up pretty early in the mornings...early enough that it's still dark...early enough that it takes time to catch up to where you left off the day before. I'm sleeping in a small city now, not high

Chapter One “Why don’t you go back?” Her attention was fully on me and there was no judgment. She waited for the answer. “I do sometimes,” I said eventually. “But you can’t go back to a time. Things happened.