One of the things about living in the shadow of a suicide is that everyone involved is going to have some guilt, is going to wonder, 'What could I have done? What could I have said?'

Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today.

One of the things about living in the shadow of a suicide is that everyone involved is going to have some guilt, is going to wonder, 'What could I have done? What could I have said?'

It's the same things your whole life. 'Clean up your room!', 'Stand up straight!', 'Pick up your feet!', 'Take it like a man!', 'Be nice to your sister!', 'Don't mix beer and wine, ever!'. Oh yeah, 'Don't drive on the railroad track!'

The greatest gift of life on the mountain is time. Time to think or not think, read or not read, scribble or not scribble -- to sleep and cook and walk in the woods, to sit and stare at the shapes of the hills. I produce nothing but words; I consumer nothing but food, a little propane, a little firewood. By being utterly useless in the calculations of the culture at large I become useful, at last, to myself.

I’ve always liked edges, places where one thing becomes another…… transition zones, boundaries and borderlands. I like the mixing that happens, the juxtapositions, the collisions and connections. I like the way they help me see the world from a fresh angle.