drmstream[writing]

The man who built the house was killed in the bent south bed­room by a woman who was not his wife, but who moved in with the widow to con­sole her. A dark chasm stretched beyond the win­dow. Gen­er­a­tions later Tim put his red sol­diers in a line at the horizon’s fold and dreamed of […]

We like to put the lit­tle guy to bed together. He tilts his Tiger pil­low pet against the pil­lows. I lie down on the left side of the bed, T. on the right, and the lit­tle guy squares off his sturdy shoul­ders and flops his legs from one of our thighs to the other, whispering […]

I read a book the other day that is very pop­u­lar with peo­ple who are look­ing for answers to uni­ver­sal ques­tions. The writ­ing was con­cise and clear, and the imagery was acces­si­ble, despite strik­ing me as overly sim­ple. Most strik­ing was the style. Every chap­ter was short, every para­graph was short, every sen­tence was short. The […]

A gen­tle slope drops from the back of our house to an old stone wall, and beyond, a pond sur­rounded by high trees.  The pond was a lime­stone pit once; the still sur­face mir­rors the dark­ness below.  An oak tree fell into the shal­low south end and in the warm months a slen­der grey heron […]

Detec­tive Sun­der­son walked back­ward on the beach glanc­ing around now and then to make sure he wasn’t going to trip over a piece of drift­wood. The wind out of the north­west had to be over fifty knots and the blow­ing sand stung his face and grated his eyes. It was below freez­ing and the surf […]

… All these moments in the individual’s life, when the uni­ver­sal laws of human fate break in upon the pur­poses, expec­ta­tions, and opin­ions of the per­sonal con­scious­ness, are sta­tions along the road of the indi­vid­u­a­tion process. This process is, in effect, the spon­ta­neous real­iza­tion of the whole man. The ego con­scious per­son­al­ity is only a […]

The ques­tion you have to answer is whether you hold your­self away or throw your­self in; whether you ignore the con­se­quences of fail­ing and insist that the joy is from try­ing; whether you keep mov­ing when you feel your­self slow­ing down. Here is a para­ble: A woman pushes a gro­cery cart up a steep side­walk. The […]

This isn’t our nor­mal Mother’s Day. I didn’t get to the card store. We had to go to Ken­tucky to the Derby. We missed my niece’s First Com­mu­nion. The boys keep falling down while we’re gone and send­ing us texts with pho­tos of their ugly bruises. When you wake up this morn­ing, I want you […]

I want to assure you with all earnest­ness that no writ­ing is a waste of time — no cre­ative work where the feel­ings, the imag­i­na­tion, the intel­li­gence must work. With every sen­tence you write, you have learned some­thing. It has done you good. It has stretched your under­stand­ing. I know that. Even if I knew […]

Part Two: What’s Going On? Reck­less, urgent, hun­gry? Seiz­ing the moment, mea­sur­ing out rea­son to sus­tain the mad­ness needed to make that true love take root in the dri­est ground? Empty, des­per­ate? — What do you think of me? — You’re going to take over the world. — Is that why you won’t open up to me? Soft, chocolate […]