It’s mid-afternoon in Bellingham (WA), and a bonfire burns behind our house—split timber from last winter’s tree fall towered high and bright. An October breeze gently feeds the flames. There’s a break in a week’s worth of rain, and the wind has blown the grass dry, begging us to sit outside.   With me is David James Duncan—the revered author, …

2020 was disorienting, a year that made mockery of our plans and expectations and made division and uncertainty an aspect of daily living. It was a climb over false ridges, navigating across a landscape I didn’t have a map for—that none of us had a map for.  Lost?.. yes, and loss itself seemed everywhere. Our social, political and professional worlds …

  On late evenings like this one I’ll collapse into bed still dressed and dirty and too tired to change.   I smell of wood smoke and bamboo and my long sleeves are soaked wet with creek water. Most of the time, my bedtime stories tell themselves. Nights often end this way after countless days saturated by water and fire, …