An Ordinary Life

In the telling of a great love story, the natural impulse is to start at the beginning, or at the end. Yet the long middle is the true heart of a great love story. With Jansen, we don't have an end yet. There is a "nearing the end," and it's a phase...

Jansen was a crotch sniffer, a trait that Jarrad reminded me of the other day. It’s funny how quickly illness shifts and distorts behavior and perception. Jansen lived with us for six years, and the last two months of his life he had cancer. Two small...

I really like seeing you, little lion,                                A little lion cub, morning sunbeam
walking under the sun                                                   drawing my eye like a magnet
I really like you, little lion                                             My heart is the sun, father of all color...

I grew up along different points of the Mexican-American border until I was 15. It's impossible to ignore the influence the border plays in daily life, or to underplay the significance of Mexican culture in the region. Of course, the whole area used...