Life Along The River

Unravel

I awoke to unravel. The word. The verb. I don’t know why. I listen to my heart beat. Listen to the seemingly endless thud, thud, thud. It pauses and flutters and then as if I hit refresh, continues to bump along. I guess many things would unravel should the beat fail. Unravel, as in fail….

Cattails

My son runs ahead of my husband and I on a thin path that trails off into mudflats. We’ve parked along a narrow road that stops abruptly in front of a dike. We cannot see the water but we can see, just barely, the tops of cattails. We have come here, to the Skagit River…

This Friend of Mine

I keep thinking of the voice on my answering machine. The small, tinny voice. Distant and full of echoes, as if my friend is at the bottom of a deep well, and she has a phone and calls. She calls to say she can’t make it to the wedding. I don’t remember why. She leaves a…