“A month ago, anybody who knew Joaquín for any time at all would have guessed that tonight he was going out on an abalone run. Abalones were out of season, at least officially, but what was that to Joaquín? He never paid much attention to seasons, or quotas, or anything else, and had been the […]
Looking north on the river, there was a solitary rowboat, way out in the distance and a long way from anywhere. It could have been Arturo, but she knew it wasn’t. All by itself, it made the river appear a lonely place, and she felt a certain melancholy that she was at a loss to […]
“Want to know what else?” Dale was acting like he had a surprise for all of them. There was a general bobbing of heads. “One of her biggest and best teachers will be Cuco.” Nobody said a word and all were expecting him to explain. “He just knows so much and she’s with him all […]
“Good tobacco, Spanish guitar, homemade bread and Maria’s voice. That’s what floats my boat.” Antonio had just finished listing the things he liked in life, after I asked him what he wanted for Christmas. From the sequel to In the land of Fire (unpublished).
“Speaking of the wind, a few months ago, Antonio had suggested that I pay attention to it, and not just to its ferocity or coldness, but to its musical qualities as well. At the time it caught me by surprise. I had never once thought of wind as music, but he did, and so I […]
“Things are complicated enough, and it’s only our fault that we keep forgetting that. The fact is that life is part of Nature, and Mother Nature, like all good women, is complicated. There’s nothing simple about her. Take the weather for instance. Nothing to it? Well, think again. Any kind of weather no matter where […]
According to Antonio, pumas lived mainly on hare and guanaco, with the latter being their favorite prey. To date, I had never seen one in the wild and probably never would. “All a puma has to do is stand still and you’ll never see one from the air,” said Antonio to me once when I […]
“Dale was the newest member of the family, as one might say. A way of saying he was more than a friend, and another of Pia’s so called “uncles.” With his help, they had figured out how to teach her enough to get her started in second grade, so she could be with kids her […]
“Winter. Was it the best time of the year or the worst? How to know for sure? Arturo had just decided that winter could be both. He sat on his boat letting his mind wander, his thoughts drifting every which way, at the same time, contemplating the low clouds, the fog about to envelop him, […]
“Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.” E. B White “He had been thinking of Kiwis because he knew that his last customer of the season as luck would have it, was a Kiwi name of Finn, and the guy, if he was anything like the other New Zealanders he’d had as […]