“If you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes.” Portland weather is fickle. One moment, divine sunshine beams on evergreen covered hills. The next moment, torrential downpours send you running to the nearest overhanging branch. C’est ma cite. In first grade, I lived less than a mile from my elementary school and would walk to […]

Her spoon clinked on the sides of her mug as she poured the sugar into her seeping cup of tea. She was warming up after her wet ride to the coffee shop in NW Portland. “How was the show last night?” she asked the writer, wrapper her fingers around the warm mug. “So good!” he […]

The writer shook his head quickly after catching himself in a daze staring at the performers’ feet. Under the clench of the banjo’s hypnosis, his eyes slowly moved up the feet of a wooden stool, across some dirty Vans, over a pair of cut-off jeans, focusing on the banjo sitting on a man’s lap. Notes […]

His eyes looked extra blue today. It may have been that slim fit white polo with light blue stripes or the glasses he wore because he knew it would make me happy… and he probably didn’t want to deal with his contacts, but for story sake, it was for me. I even got to try […]

The barista steamed some milk from behind the counter as he and I shared a conversation and exchanged our words. From time-to-time, some words would roll across from his corner. “Sin jadfjal jdfa dfasf asf blessed. Asd kfajdf dfjaldfj Eternity sdj kfj akdj salvation.” I’d slip them under the table, discreetly trying to dispose of […]

The sun shined through the cracks in the blanketing clouds in the sky as they drove to a coffee shop for live music in downtown Portland. The rain had just stopped, and steam danced on the road as the cars drove over. “I can’t wait to fall in love with a girl and marry her,” […]

Give me a large body of water and a night sky, and I’m gone. Mid-July amidst the summer heat of the Pacific Northwest, my high school youth group drove your typical yellow school bus almost 400 miles to the Dworshak Reservoir. The expanse of pure Idaho water runoff covers sixteen and a half acres amongst […]

For this Oregon boy, the sun was scorching, and the air was humid. It was an hour before the championship race of the 400-meter hurdles at the NAIA national championships in Marion, Indiana, and I could hardly keep my head on right. He and I were jogging over to the indoor facility to warm-up, and […]