Blog – Krin Van Tatenhove

The Woman in 4C

No one remembered exactly when Yasmin appeared in the building, which should have been the first warning.

It was a faded, four story complex tucked into a side street of Los Angeles, where ceiling fans clicked through the heat and distant traffic hummed at all hours. Each apartment had a small balcony overlooking the courtyard with its dry grass and rusty park benches. Most of the tenants had been there for years, and certain patterns were like clockwork. Maria in 3B watered her plants at seven each morning. Darla in 1C played the same Coltrane record every evening after dinner. Daniel returned from his nightshift, slamming his door too early in the wee hours. The landlord, Mr. Alvarez, collected rent on the first Monday of the month, never making direct eye contact.

Then one day, without ceremony, apartment 4C was no longer empty. There had been no moving truck and no hauling of furniture up the exterior stairwell. Just a name penciled onto the row of mailboxes.

Yasmin.

The first person to notice her was Maria. Yasmin was standing very still on the exterior staircase, late afternoon sun highlighting her long dark hair. She wore a knee-length charcoal coat despite the heat, and her pale eyes shifted over the courtyard, then the hazy L.A. sky, never settling on one thing for too long.

“Oh,” Maria said, startled into politeness. “You must be new. Did you move in recently?”

When Yasmin turned, she seemed to look through Maria, not just at her.

“I suppose I’m new,” she said, “but I’ve been here long enough.”

Her voice was neither warm nor cold, a bit unnerving.

“Well, let me welcome you,” Maria said. “We’re a close knit group of neighbors.”

“Yes, I know,” said Yasmin.

That answer stayed with Maria long after they parted.

The second person to notice her was Daniel in 3B, though he didn’t realize it until later. A struggling screenwriter by day, he worked swing shifts for UPS, sleeping late and awakening around noon to confront his persistent writer’s block. One day, after a cup of strong coffee, he noticed minute details out of place in his apartment: a book shifted slightly on a shelf, a chair angled a few degrees differently, his notebook open to a page he didn’t recall writing. It wasn’t enough to report a break in; the police would think he was batty.

He told himself he was only tired, but then he read the line in the notebook. It was undeniably his handwriting.

“You keep treating the future like a possibility instead of a memory.”

Daniel stared at the sentence for a long time. Not only was he sure he hadn’t written it; he couldn’t even remember thinking it. And its meaning was so cryptic that he couldn’t wrap his mind around it.

That same evening, he came upon Yasmin for the first time. They were in the courtyard near the mailboxes, where Yasmin flipped slowly through a stack of letters. She was still wearing her charcoal coat, and Daniel wondered how someone who had recently arrived could receive so much mail.

“You’re new here?” Daniel asked, trying to sound casual.

Yasmin swung her gaze to him.

“By some definitions of new,” she said.

Daniel frowned a bit. “Right.”

They stood there a beat too long, staring at each other. Daniel was intrigued by Yasmin’s pale eyes.

“You write,” Yasmin said, breaking the silence.

It wasn’t a question.

Daniel blinked as a slight chill ran up his spine. “I try.”

“You doubt yourself,” she said. “That’s the part that always slows you down.”

Daniel felt a flicker of irritation. “Do I know you?”

Yasmin considered that, as if weighing her answer.

“Not yet,” she said.

Then she slipped past him and ascended the exterior stairs, leaving him with a feeling he could only describe as queasy

By the end of the week, everyone in the building had a story. The college student in 4D swore that Yasmin quoted a line from her private journal. A struggling actor on the second floor insisted that Yasmin quietly muttered lines from an audition scene he had only practiced alone. An older woman near the back stairwell said Yasmin asked her whether she planned to visit her son in Sacramento again, even though she’d told no one of their estrangement. Mr. Alvarez insisted he had no record of a lease for 4C, though he remembered collecting rent from someone. One tenant claimed that Yasmin congratulated him on a promotion before he even applied for the position. Another said she passed Yasmin in the hallway and heard her softly humming a song played at her husband’s funeral twenty years earlier. The young couple in 1A had been arguing in the hallway when Yasmin passed them and casually remarked, “You already know which one of you leaves first.”

The stories overlapped in an unsettling way that was clear to all of them. Yasmin seemed to know things she shouldn’t, and she never seemed surprised.

Maria tried to ignore it. She had lived in the building long enough to understand that people were strange in their own ways. But one morning, as she watered her plants, she noticed something that made her pause. Across the courtyard, through the window of 4C, she saw Yasmin sitting at a desk. A pen rested in her hand, and she was working on something. That wasn’t strange by itself. What was unusual was Yasmin’s rhythm. She would jot down a few lines, pause, then look up as if listening to some source Maria couldn’t see. Then she would nod, put down a few more words, and repeat the pattern.

Maria had always been bold to the point of meddling, a trait that had gotten her into trouble over the years. The next morning, she decided to visit Yasmin and get to the bottom of things.

She knocked on the door of 4C and it opened immediately. “Yes?” Yasmin said.

Maria hesitated. “I hope I’m not bothering you. I just wanted to ask you something.”

“Of course,” Yasmin said.

Maria glanced past her with no attempt to hide her nosiness. The studio apartment was sparsely furnished with a desk, a chair, and a bed. No unpacked boxes or signs of settling in.

“What do you do?”

Yasmin tilted her head slightly, her lips curling as if she was slightly amused.

“I pay attention,” she said.

“That’s not really an answer.”

“It is the only one that matters.”

Maria crossed her arms. “People are saying things about you.”

“I’m not surprised. They usually do.”

“That you know things,” Maria pressed on. “Private things you shouldn’t. Things you would have no way of knowing.”

Yasmin studied her for a few seconds, then stepped aside.

“Would you like to come in?” she asked.

Maria should have said no. Instead, she crossed the threshold. The air in the apartment was still, and on the desk was the open notebook she had seen through the window. Maria’s eyes fixed on it longer than she intended.

“Go ahead and read it,” said Yasmin with her cool, neutral tone.

Maria hesitated. “That feels invasive.”

“It’s only invasive if it’s not already yours,” Yasmin said.

Something about that answer unsettled Maria more than if Yasmin had simply refused. Slowly, she approached the desk. The open page was filled with neat, deliberate handwriting, and as she started to read, her breath caught. The words were about her. Not just vague or general observations, but specific details. The way she counted steps without realizing it. The way she avoided calling her sister because she didn’t want to admit how distant they had become. The way she watered her plants at seven each morning because it gave her a small sense of control. The way she sometimes replayed old conversations in the shower, changing what she should have said years earlier.

Maria stepped back, feeling a mix of curiosity and anger.

“How do you know this?” she demanded.

Yasmin didn’t move.

“You told me,” she said.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Not in words.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“It does,” Yasmin said gently, “if you have the right way of observing.”

Maria shook her head. “This isn’t normal.”

“No,” Yasmin agreed. “Unfortunately, it isn’t.”

Maria shook her head, growing angrier by the second. “But why are you writing about us?”

Yasmin looked at the notebook for a long moment before answering.

“Because people reveal themselves long before they understand what they’re doing,” she said quietly. “Because they rarely notice the full spectrum, just like they can’t see the full spectrum of light.”

Maria frowned with anger “What the hell does that mean?”

Yasmin’s eyes bore into hers.

“It means most people only register one surface of things.”

“And you’re somehow able to recognize all this?”

Yasmin sighed as if she was burdened.

“I’m just catching up,” she said.

___

Maria was the primary gossip in the building, so she quickly told the other residents what had happened in Yasmin’s apartment. That was the exact moment that fear began to take root. It spread quietly at first. A shared glance in the hallway, a conversation cut short when Yasmin came near, and doors that closed more quickly.

Other things happened as well.

Daniel started writing again, feeling a compulsion he hadn’t known for years. The sentences came faster, sharper, and more precise, flowing as if an internal dam had busted. One night, he wrote a line that made his hands go still on his keyboard.

“She sees people the way we usually see memories and unfinished thoughts.”

Daniel stared at the words.

Then he heard slow and measured footsteps outside his door. He got up and cautiously opened it to find Yasmin standing there. He wasn’t surprised.

“You’re getting closer,” she said.

“To what?”

Her expression was almost sympathetic. “To the part where your plot lines stop feeling like coincidence.”

Daniel swallowed. “Who are you, really? Or should I ask, what are you?”

Yasmin considered the question. “Someone who stopped pretending moments arrive one at a time.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It is the only one that will make sense later.”

Like Maria, Daniel felt a surge of frustration and anger. “Later when?”

Yasmin met his eyes.

“Soon,” she said, then walked away.

___

People had trouble sleeping. The building seemed claustrophobic, as if the walls had shifted slightly inward. Maria lay awake, staring at the ceiling, replaying the words she had read in Yasmin’s notebook. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something had already been decided and that she was moving through moments that had been written long before she ever reached them.

In his apartment, Daniel sat at his desk, staring at a blank screen. He knew what he was supposed to write. He didn’t want to, but his hands moved across the keyboard anyway to form a short sentence.

“She never seemed surprised.”

At that instant, sounds erupted through the building: doors, footsteps, and echoing voices. One by one, all the tenants felt the need to exit their apartments and gather in the courtyard, compelled by a something they couldn’t name. Daniel got up for the same reason and joined them.

They looked at each other in the wan light, uncertain what was happening. Then they looked up. The sliding glass door to the balcony of 4C was open, its drapes blowing even though there was no wind.

Daniel glanced around the circle of onlookers. “What the fuck? Maria and I will go up and check to see if Yasmin’s okay. We’ll be right back.”

Maria needed no further prodding. She and Daniel quickly ascended the exterior stairwell, entered the hallway on the fourth floor, and proceed to 4C. The door was open so they stepped inside.

“Yasmin!” called Daniel. No answer. The apartment was empty, but the desk was still there with Yasmin’s open notebook on top.

Daniel approached it hesitantly, then he looked down and read the words aloud.

“The moment you realize you were never standing outside it is the moment you begin writing the story that matters most.”

Maria stepped closer. “What the hell does that mean?”

Daniel turned the page as his face went pale.

“What?” Maria asked. “Tell me.”

He swallowed. “There’s no more. Just blank pages.”

A faint breeze moved through the room through the open sliding glass door.

___

The next day, apartment 4C was empty again. No name on the mailbox. No record with Mr. Alvarez. Not a trace.

The tenants tried to move on, acting as if the whole interlude with Yasmin had been some kind of collective hallucination. The routines of the building resumed. Maria watered her plants at seven. Darla bopped to Coltrane after dinner. The actor rehearsed in front of his mirror. Mr. Alvarez collected rent with his usual stiff silence.

But the familiar patterns no longer felt unconscious.

People hesitated before speaking, as if listening for words before choosing them. Several tenants began anticipating knocks on their doors before they occurred. Others found themselves thinking of people they hadn’t spoken to in years, only for the phone to ring hours later. A woman on the third floor burst into tears; she had smelled her late mother’s perfume in the laundry room just moments before she learned that her childhood home had been sold. The actor began having strange intuitions during conversations where he already knew the next sentence the other person was about to say, along with the exact expression that would cross their face. A young mother on the first floor began setting an extra plate at dinner without understanding why, only to receive unexpected visits from relatives later that evening.

Daniel kept writing, a story about an apartment building filled with a diverse cast of characters and a stranger that came into their midst. He changed the names and altered circumstances, but it was all there. His writing continued to flow freely, unnervingly precise, and he told himself that Yasmin had merely shaken something loose creatively.

One evening he froze after typing a particular sentence that seemed to come from nowhere. “Maria stood at her kitchen sink for almost ten minutes, rehearsing her first sentence before she finally called her sister at 9:14 p.m.”

Daniel stared at the screen.

That night, shortly after 9:00 p.m., he quietly watched Maria’s apartment through a gap in his curtains. Her shades were open, so he could see her clearly. At 9:04 p.m., she stood at her kitchen counter, and ten minutes later she slowly lifted her phone.

Daniel backed away from the window as though burned.

___

No one spoke openly about Yasmin anymore. That was the strangest part. It was as though they had a silent pact to never name what had happened.

Weeks later, Daniel felt the urge to return to 4C. It was still vacant, so he asked Mr. Alvarez for permission, using the subterfuge that he wanted to take pictures for a friend who needed new lodging. Mr. Alvarez shrugged and gave him the key.

Inside, dust had coated the bare floor and the air smelled musty. The room was silent except for that distant traffic hum that seemed to penetrate the entire building. He stood there for a long time before noticing something propped against the sliding glass door on the balcony outside.

A notebook. His stomach tightened because it wasn’t Yasmin’s, it was his.

He opened the door and picked it up. Inside, once again, was a sentence in his handwriting that he had never seen before.

“She was never staying here. She was just teaching you how to see.”

He flipped through the rest of the notebook. It was blank except for a final line waiting on the very last page. It read: “You were noticing long before you understood what you were seeing.”

Daniel slowly lowered the notebook. Across the courtyard, lights glowed behind apartment windows, and for one strange instant the entire building felt conscious of itself.

Then, somewhere in the courtyard four floors beneath him, he heard a woman’s voice drift upwards.

“You must be new here.”

May 23, 2026May 25, 2026 by krinvan Tags: eerie, fiction, mysterious, mystery, short-story, speculative-fiction, writing 1 Comment

What Gets Left Behind

Jayla Elkins, 3; Shayla Elkins, 5; Kayla Pugh, 6; Layla Pugh, 7; Markaydon Pugh, 10; Sariahh Snow, 11; Khedarrion Snow, 6; and Braylon Snow, 5.

I have this odd, persistent obsession with things that get left behind.

The un-popped kernels at the bottom of a bowl. Fruit that ripens past its moment and is consigned to the compost bin. The hardened heel of bread that ends up in the trash can. A sock without its partner. A notebook abandoned after a few hopeful pages. A toy along the highway, thrown out of a window. The last sliver of soap, too small to hold, that slips to the shower drain and dissolves into the sewers. A pen that runs out of ink mid-sentence and is never picked up again. A bent photograph continuing to fade in the back of a drawer.

Small things, for sure, a microcosm of trivial loss. But I see the same pattern playing out in the macrocosm of our lives. Not with objects, but with the human beings that surround us in our hurried, smartphone obsessed society.

Hana Dehqani, 8; Reza Habashian, 7; Arya Bahadori, 9; Ali Asghar Zaeri, 8; Zahra Bahrami, 7; Ahmad Soltani, 8; Hamed Par-ashegh-nezhad, 7; Mahdis Nazari, 7

I see it in those experiencing homelessness, men and women hidden in plain sight. We rarely engage them as neighbors, having learned to quietly turn away.

I see it in children caught in crossfires of war or mass shootings, their lives crushed before they can discover their gifts or embrace their futures. Their names flicker briefly across our TV screens, then disappear into the churn of the next crisis.

Nevaeh Alyssa Bravo, 10; Jacklyn Cazares, 9; Makenna Lee Elrod, 10; Jose Manuel Flores Jr., 10; Eliahna Garcia, 10; Uziyah Garcia, 10; Xavier Lopez, 10; Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, 10

I see it in those living with mental illness or intellectual disability. Their words don’t always follow our expected patterns and their behavior unsettles us. Instead of drawing closer, we too often step back, increasing their isolation.

I see it in nursing homes, which were a regular haunt of mine during my decades of ministry. Some of the residents received visits from family and friends, but some had been virtually abandoned.

Ahmed al-Zaazou, 4: Ayloul Qaud, 7; Tahani Hafiz Barbakh, 3; Hala Abu Steita, 7; Mohammed Salah, 5; Samir Tamraz, 1; Joud Duhair, 7

I see it in immigrants who come to our borders seeking refuge. They arrive with stories stitched together by courage and hope, yet many are confined to detention centers, held in a limbo that erodes their time and dignity. Near my home, there is a one of these for-profit facilities euphemistically called the South Texas Family Residential Center. It has been cited for its abysmal conditions.

It strikes me how ordinary all this has become for many of us. Not because it should, but because we have allowed it. Just as no one thinks twice about tossing the uneaten fruit or ignoring the last slice of bread, we have developed subtle, socially reinforced ways to overlook people without fully realizing we are doing it.

It rarely begins with malice. It begins with distance, distraction, and the quiet assumption that someone else will notice, someone else will act, someone else will care. Perhaps, more importantly, it begins with the mind-numbing regularity of violence and the innocence it leaves in its wake.

Do you know why I’ve included the series of names in this post? They are children lost to unspeakable brutality.

The first were shot by their father, Shamar Elkins, in Shreveport, Louisiana on April 19, 2026. The second are a few of more than 100 killed as America bombed a school in the Iranian town of Minab on February 28, 2026. The third is a partial list of those gunned down by 18-year-old Salvador Ramos on May 24, 2022, at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The fourth is just seven (JUST SEVEN!) of the nearly 20,000 children massacred by Israel in its genocidal sweep through Gaza.

There are too many other lists. You know. I know it.

Anyway, I’m going to finish this post because I need to go out and mow our front lawn. It’s gotten kind of long from recent rain. Then tonight I’ll probably watch an inane show on one of my streaming services.

Catch you later.

Nine of the children gunned down in the Robb Elementary School massacre

April 27, 2026May 25, 2026 by krinvan 2 Comments

Pole to Pole with an Age Old, Liberating Truth

I’ve been watching Pole to Pole, a National Geographic series hosted by Will Smith. His objective intrigued me: “to travel across all seven continents, to explore the world’s most extreme environments, seeking answers to life’s important questions by stepping into the unknown.”

Episode Four finds him trekking to the Himalayan nation of Bhutan. He was there to explore the secret of happiness, famously enshrined by the Bhutanese in their concept of Gross National Happiness. You got that right. GNH, not GNP.

In one scene, Smith sits with a Buddhist monk who offers a disarmingly direct message. If we contemplate death regularly, not as a morbid obsession but as a truth we refuse to look away from, it sharpens our awareness of being alive. It makes the ordinary radiant. It turns the fleeting resource of time into something sacred.

We’ve always known this, haven’t we? It’s one of humanity’s oldest lessons, hiding in plain sight. The fact that we will die is not a curse. It is the condition that gives life its urgency and texture.

And yet, think of how much effort we’ve poured into pretending otherwise.

The pharaohs of ancient Egypt didn’t just accept mortality; they aimed to defeat it. They constructed pyramids, had their bodies mummified, and buried themselves with treasures, all to ensure that their power continued in the afterlife.

Chinese Emperor Qin’s Terracotta Army has stood for two millennia in silent formation beneath the earth. Thousands of life-sized soldiers created to guard him in the next world. Imagine the slave labor, the resources, and the sheer will it took to bring that vision into being. All of it to satisfy an “afterlife ego.”

History is rife with other examples. Roman Emperors deified themselves, casting their likenesses in marble and bronze as a desperate attempt at permanence. Medieval alchemists searched for the elixir of life, convinced that somewhere in the crucible of chemistry lay a secret that could outwit time. Ponce de Leon searched unsuccessfully for the Fountain of Youth.

Fast forward to our modern world. The demand for cosmetic surgery continues to rise, promising a veneer that masks the inevitable. Companies offer cryogenic freezing, allowing us to gamble on a future where science might reverse the irreversible. Even our language reflects our resistance to embrace death’s reality. We “pass away.” We are “no longer with us.” “Grandma is in heaven with Jesus.”

I get it. It’s profoundly unsettling to think that everything we are—our memories, our relationships, our inner worlds—will simply stop. It’s not just our fear of pain or the unknown. It’s the erasure that unnerves us.

As I watched Smith speak to that Bhutanese monk, it was clear to me. The problem isn’t death itself. It’s the energy we spend trying to outrun it.

So, even though it’s obvious, let’s say it again. Each of us will die. Not someday in the abstract, but actually. No exception. No workaround.

The art is to make this a portal to liberation. Once we stop buffering ourselves from death, it clears the clutter and exposes what matters. Petty grievances lose their grip. Delayed dreams start to feel urgent. The people we love become more vivid, more necessary, and more present in our lives.

Contemplating death doesn’t shrink life. It enlarges it. It makes our morning coffee taste a little better. It makes the sunlight on a wall feel like a small miracle. It reminds us that the conversation we’ve been putting off might be worth having today. It prompts us to feel grateful, knowing how quickly everything can disappear.

Let the thought of your own finitude sit beside you today. Not as a threat, but as a companion. Let it moisten your appetite for the ordinary yet EXTRAORDINARY fact that you are alive RIGHT NOW.

This is not a morbid discipline. It’s a beginning.

March 28, 2026May 25, 2026 by krinvan Tags: bhutan, buddhists, carpe-diem, death, life, philosophy, travel Leave a comment

Still Stitching

On a recent morning, I sat near the precipice of the South Rim Viewpoint, Big Bend National Park. Its 2,000 foot plunge gave me more than a tinge of vertigo. I took deep breaths and swept my gaze over the stunning panorama—from the Chisos, across the Chihuahuan Desert floor, over the Rio Grande, to the Sierra del Carmen mountain range of Mexico.

I’ve spent countless hours hiking in backcountries across America, seeking not only the tonic of solitude, but the thrill of views such as this one. If you had been standing near me, you would have heard me exclaim “Ahhhh…”

A naturalist once told me that her forays into the wild are what “stitch her into the fabric of Creation.” I love that! It resonates with me, especially because my day-to-day schedule can too easily consume me, diverting my attention from the beauty that surrounds all of us.

Sitting there amidst the splendor of Big Bend, I thought of other places in my adopted homeland of Texas that have woven me into the natural world. They exist in the present tense in my mind, no matter how long ago I experienced them.

Hiking through Palo Duro Canyon, admiring the variegated colors of its geologic formations.
Closely examining the splendid crystals deep within Sonora Caverns.
Wandering over a boardwalk through the Big Thicket, marveling at carnivorous pitcher plants, sundews, and bladderworts.
Kayaking through the labyrinth of bald cypresses draped in Spanish moss at Caddo Lake State Park.
Strolling along the edge of Aransas Bay near dawn, seabirds squawking around me, a squadron of pelicans passing in silhouette. Light from the rising sun playing over the gulf waters in lava lamp swirls of red and orange.
Touring Spring Lake at the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, peering through our glass bottom boat at the ancient artesian springs that feed the San Marcos River, alligator gars passing beneath us.
Lifting my arms in joy at the top of Guadalupe Peak!

And then there’s the wildlife I’ve encountered, our native brothers and sisters of so many species!

Coming upon a red-shouldered hawk taking a bath in a stream at McKinney State Park.
Focusing my camera on a baby alligator sitting atop its mother’s head at Brazos Bend State Park.
Thrilling to the vibrant color of a rough green snake as it slithers across a trail at Phil Hardberger Park.
Quietly observing a two-tailed swallowtail as it alights on a thistle bloom in Government Canyon State Natural Area, a perfect contrast of purple and yellow.
Sneaking up on a nine-banded armadillo at Colorado Bend State Park, surreptitiously watching it snort, chuff, and dig for grubs.
Vermillion flycatchers, painted buntings, green jays!

On another trip to Big Bend, I hiked into Santa Elena Canyon for the third time, escorting a friend who had never been there. It was early morning. We sat on a rock and watched sunlight dapple the surface of the Rio Grande like liquid amber. It was mesmerizing.

My friend turned to me and was about to say something. Instead, she glanced back at the golden ripples on the river, then up the steep cliff walls. We heard the melodic call of a black-throated sparrow echoing through the canyon.

My friend turned once again to face me. Our eyes met, we nodded, then each of us took a deep breath of crisp desert air.

We were stitching!

February 23, 2026May 25, 2026 by krinvan Tags: hiking, national-parks, nature, photography, travel Leave a comment

Ramón’s Decision

Delano, California

It’s just before dawn, and even though it’s early spring, the mornings are still cold, seeping through the boards of the shack that Ramón Salazar shares with his family. He awakens to the sound of his father’s stubborn coughing, like an engine that won’t start.

The date is March 17, 1966. Ramón doesn’t know this because it’s written anywhere. He knows it because he’s been counting down to it, each day like a bead on a rosary that he fingers in the dark.

The farmworker’s camp squats at the edge of Delano like something the town spat out. Rows of wooden shacks lean into one another, patched with tar paper and tin. Between them, tents sag with dew, their ropes creaking softly. The ground is a churned-up paste of dust and old mud, smelling faintly of human waste. A single spigot stands at the far end of camp, issuing water that is rusty brown. Still, every morning, a line of women arrives before dawn with dented pots to fill, their shawls pulled tight around their shoulders.

Ramón sits up on his cot, a slender young man of 17 with dark, sullen eyes. His sister, Ari, is still asleep on the cot next to him, her hair fanned across her pillow. She dreams with her mouth open, one hand clutching the edge of a blanket that smells of sweat. Their mother lies on the other cot next to their father. She is also awake, staring at the ceiling, and when she hears Ramon move, she turns her head.

“Hoy te levantas temprano,” she says softly.

Ramón nods. His chest feels tight from the excitement of the coming day, as if a rope has been pulled a notch tighter every day for months. He puts on his threadbare jacket and steps outside.

In the predawn light, he can see grapevines stretching out in neat lines into the distance. Most of the workers have been striking for months, leaving clusters of fruit unpicked. At first, Ramón felt the protest would be futile, but now a faint hope has been flickering among both the Filipino and Mexican workers. They are daring to believe they might finally secure a union contract with the growers. That hope has grown stronger because Dolores Huerta and the union organizers will arrive this morning to help launch the historic march to Sacramento.

As Ramón’s gaze sweeps across the vineyard, his hope mingles with an old, acidic anger. It has burned inside him longer than he can remember. He imagines the juice that has stained his hands since he was a young boy, joining his family on their annual migration through the vineyards and fields of California. He sees the looks on his parents’ faces as they wince from the pain in their backs. He visualizes the growers’ foremen squinting at their tally sheets, finding reasons to dock their pay. Gloves. Water. A broken ladder that “must have been your fault.” It was always something, and as if that humiliation wasn’t enough, there were the low flying planes that sprayed pesticides on both workers and crops alike.

He swallows the anger like bile and decides to focus on what this day promises. He hears the laughter of Filipino men nearby. He has learned some of their words by spending time among them. They’ve taught him card games and shared meals of pancit and pinakbet. They’ve been on strike longer than the Mexicans, longer than anyone, and their patience has worn thin. Everyone’s has.

He walks toward a large flatbed truck parked near the edge of camp, a makeshift stage for the day’s event. People are already gathering. He can hear murmurs: Huerta viene. Hoy es el día. Someone starts a chant, testing it like a drumbeat: “¡Viva la Causa!” It falters, then catches, echoing through the camp.

His father comes up beside him, hands shoved deep into his pockets. José Salazar’s face is lined from sun and constant worry. His eyes seem permanently narrowed against glare and disappointment. He smells of sweat, tobacco, and the faint metallic tang of blood from a cut on his arm that never quite heals.

“Escucha,” his father says, nodding toward the stage. “Pero no te hagas ilusiones”

Ramón swallows. No illusions? Too late! He has allowed them to enter his mind as this day approached. They have crowded his skull, buzzing like bees. He has listened to the union organizers in the evenings. Having taught himself to read with the help of a woman in the encampment, he has understood the pamphlets they distribute. He reads them by lantern light, tracing the letters with his finger, learning new words: dignidad, justicia, sacrificio. Words that feel like something you can build your life upon.

The crowd continues to swell until, right on time, Dolores Huerta arrives with fellow organizers from the National Farm Workers Association. The gathering grows quiet. Huerta carries herself with calm certainty. The throng presses close. Ramon can smell sweat and damp clothing. A baby fusses until its mother presses it against her breast.

“Estamos aquí porque hemos decidido caminar,” Huerta says. “Caminar juntos. De Delano a Sacramento. Para demostrarle a este país que los trabajadores del campo merecen dignidad, justicia, y respeto.”

A murmur runs through the crowd. Ramón’s heart thuds so hard he’s sure the people next to him can hear it. Standing near him is an Anglo student organizer, one of many who have joined the cause. Ramón can hear his Mexican friend translating for him. We are here because we have decided to walk, To walk together. From Delano to Sacramento. To show this country that the hands that feed it are tired of being invisible.

“Nuestra peregrinación mostrará nuestra fuerza,” Huerta continues. “Pero recuerden esto: caminamos en paz. Caminamos unidos. Y caminamos porque nuestros hijos merecen algo mejor.”

Again, the whispered translation. Our pilgrimage will be the match to light our cause. But remember this: we walk in peace. True courage is not in raising a fist, but in offering your own body, your own suffering, for the good of others.

Ramón thinks of his mother’s cracked hands,, of his father’s cough, of Ari’s bare feet in winter. He thinks of the growers’ houses he’s glimpsed from the road with their wide lawns, white fences, and sprinklers ticking like clocks that always tell the right time.

“Sacrificio,” says Huerta. “Unidad. Estas son nuestras armas. ¡Viva la Causa!”

The shout erupts, loud and fierce. “¡Viva la Causa!”

“¡Viva la huelga!” someone yells.

“¡Viva la huelga!” The chant rolls and lifts, like a huge kite whose tail you could grab and ride into the sky.

Ramón feels something click inside him, like a door finally opening. He is seventeen years old and tired of bending. Tired of watching his parents swallow their anger like bitter medicine. Tired of being told to wait, to endure, to be grateful for scraps.

He looks at his father. José’s face is unreadable, as if carved from stone. His mother stands a few rows back, Ari beside her with eyes wide.

When the speech ends and people begin to talk in excited knots, Ramón knows what he must do. He will join the march. He will do more than move from one field to another, picking crops with nothing to show for it. He will make his life count for something larger than mere survival.

His mother, who seems to know him better than he knows himself, comes to stand near him and his father.

¿Qué te pasa? she asks her son, the trepidation in her voice showing that she already suspects the answer.

He takes a breath. The words feel too big for his mouth. “Voy a unirme a la marcha,” he says finally. “Voy a ayudar al sindicato.”

His father’s jaw tightens and his mother’s face goes slack. Ramón braces himself, anticipating their objections, ready to respond with the speech he has rehearsed a million times in his head. I’m not a child. This matters. I can help.

He expects anger and fear. Instead, his father exhales, long and slow, as if he’s been holding his breath for years.

“Sabía que esto venía,” José says.

His mother reaches for Ramón’s hand. Her fingers are rough and warm. “Tienes miedo?” she asks.

“Si,” Ramón says, surprised by his own honesty. “Pero más miedo tengo de quedarme igual.”

Ari looks between them, confused. “¿Te vas?” she asks, as if she can’t quite believe it.

“Por un tiempo,” Ramón says. He smiles at her, trying to ease her anxiety. “Voy a caminar mucho.”

His father nods once. “No te vamos a detener,” he says. “Pero prométenos algo.”

“Que?”

“Que no olvides quién eres,” José says. “Y que regreses.”

Ramón’s throat tightens. No matter how much he has been frustrated by his parents’ submission to the injustice of their plight, he could never forget them and their loving dedication to their family. He will never forget his roots. And returning? Always, no matter how far the time or distance. These are easy promises to make.

He nods. “Claro. Lo prometo.”

___

The march begins just as the sun clears the horizon. Feet hit the dirt road that leads out of the camp to the highway, a mixed crowd of Filipino workers, Mexican workers, clergy, students, and Anglo sympathizers. Union organizers help lead the way, alongside banners emblazoned with the image of the Virgen de Guadalupe. Always at the head of the march is the legendary Cesar Chavez.

Days turn into weeks as Ramón walks with strangers that quickly feel like family. They pass through farmworker camps and small towns across California’s Central Valley. They sleep in churches, on floors, and in fields beneath the stars. Ramón watches organizers labor tirelessly—planning meetings, encouraging workers, and reminding everyone to remain disciplined and nonviolent. Ramón carries signs, hands out flyers, and listens to nightly talks. His conviction grows stronger as he learns to speak to people who are angry, afraid, and skeptical.

Often, they pass police lines and jeering crowds, opposition the organizers have warned them to ignore. Ramón keeps his fists unclenched even when insults fly, strengthened by the movement’s commitment to nonviolence. He learns that suffering shared becomes lighter, and he feels something knitting together inside him.

When the march ends in Sacramento, they are greeted by thousands of supporters. During the rally, organizers ask the originales to come forward, the small group of marchers who completed the entire 300-mile journey. Ramon stands among them with tears in his eyes, both proud and humbled.

But Ramón doesn’t stop. He stays. He becomes an organizer, moving up and down the state, from fields to towns, learning to weave Spanish, English, and Tagalog as he shares words of hope and struggle. He is arrested twice but quickly released. He writes letters home when he can.

And not once does he regret the decision he has made

___

Nearly a year later, Ramón crosses back into Tijuana where his family lives during the months they aren’t picking crops in the US. He walks along familiar streets, some paved, some dirt. The air is warmer, carrying the smell of fried meat and diesel. A stray dog eyes him warily as he turns and walks down the alleyway that was the backdrop to his earliest memories.

His parents’ house is small, but it is home. Ramón and his father, with the help of neighbors, built it piece by piece from cement block. Rebar sticks out from the roof, where the Salazars dream of one day adding a second floor, a dream that has been deferred for a decade.

When Ramón knocks, the door flies open.

His mother pulls him into her, laughing and crying. “Mijo!”

Ari seems so much taller as she also joins the hug. His father stands back for a moment, looking him over, as if to be sure he’s real. Then José grins, wide and proud.

They feast that night. There is carne asada, beans in a thick broth, and rice flecked with cilantro. A crowd of neighbors join them, packing the house with a sense of community. Ramon tells stories of the march and his organizing in the days since it ended. Remembering what the movement taught him, he is careful not to make himself too important. It is la gente, the people, who are the real strength in la lucha.

He watches his parents listen and sees the way their shoulders straighten.

When they eat, his father lifts a bottle of beer. The room quiets.

“A mi hijo,” José says. “Que caminó por todos nosotros.”

Ramon’s eyes burn. His father raises the bottle even higher. “¡Viva la Causa!”

They echo the cry, their voices filling the room and spilling out into the night.

February 8, 2026May 25, 2026 by krinvan Tags: cezar-chavez, history, injustice, protest, sacrifice, short-story, united-farm-workers, unity Leave a comment

Julia’s Thin Place

To observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence. – Jiddu Krishnamurti

The restaurant smells like toasted sourdough, garlic oil, and espresso. Outside the windows, San Francisco bustles with activity while inside, forks click against plates, chairs scrape, and a server calls out an order for the lunch rush.

Julia Ravenwood sits with her back to the wall, lost in thought, watching reflections slide across the window glass. She’s a tall woman with cropped black hair and muscles toned from time in the gym. Her face has a strong jawline and cheekbones, but her eyes are soft and lustrous, giving her an androgynous look. Across the table sits her wife, Emily, a blonde whose lithe figure speaks of her devotion to yoga. Emily’s soft features are highlighted by tasteful makeup.

This restaurant is their favorite hole-in-the-wall eatery, conveniently close to the IT firm where they both work.

Emily leans forward. “So,” she says with a smile, circling back to the previous night’s discussion, a theme they’ve rehashed for years, “what did you think of the reading this week?”

Julia sips her coffee. “It was good. Pema Chödrön is a mental warrior, and like I’ve said, on one level I do get it. Mindfulness is attention training, a sort of cognitive hygiene. But the way our culture and your classmates talk about it, like it’s some gateway drug to enlightenment, drives me nuts.”

Emily chuckles. “You’ve always been allergic to overclaim.”

“I’m allergic to claims that can’t survive daylight,” Julia says. “Buddhism talks about impermanence, which I respect. Christianity talks about love, which I respect. Hinduism talks about the divine in everything, which I respect. Then each of them turns around and insists that their map gives the best directions for how to live our lives.”

Emily tilts her head. “Maps can still be useful.”

“Until people start idolizing the map,” Julia says. “Most world religions solve a problem they defined to begin with. The problem of sin, the problem of ignorance, the problem of suffering. But for me, the solutions don’t generalize to the billions of people on our planet. They don’t account for the diversity of human experience. They don’t account for me.”

Emily sips her water as the ice clinks. She has learned to slow play their discussions, never rushing to debate. “What about secular philosophies? We haven’t talked about that for a while. Do any of them still hold your attention?”

Julia smiles despite herself. She loves the repartee. She loves having a partner that will deep dive beyond chitchat. “Stoicism is good for getting through the day but not for explaining why the day matters. Existentialism is honest about the void, which I appreciate, but it treats meaning like a do-it-yourself kit with missing parts. Humanism is lovely, but it assumes our species will be more noble given enough time and good intentions. Really? Just read any fucking news stream and you can see that isn’t true.”

The server drops off their sandwiches. The smell of melted cheese and tomato arises, laced with oregano. Emily waits, letting them both begin eating before responding. That’s one of the things Julia loves most about her. The space she creates, the way she doesn’t try to win conversations.

“I know I’ve invited you to my classes too many times,” Emily finally says. “I get so much from them, and I think you could also. I just want to share the experience with you.”

“I hear you,” Julia says quickly with a hint of exasperation. “But I’d appreciate it if you’d stop asking. I don’t think you’re wrong. That’s your path. I just refuse to perform openness. I don’t want to fake wonder that I’m not feeling.”

Emily nods. “Fair enough. This will be the last time.” She says it in a neutral tone, devoid of disappointment. She’s never been one to gaslight her wife.

They continue eating while the restaurant’s piped-in music features a saxophone bending notes like light through water. Emily watches a couple at the next table lean toward each other, their heads almost touching, and she feels a familiar ache, her mind roaming over the travels she and Julia have shared. Many of those trips were an intentional survey of what others call “thin places.” Julia was searching, as always, and Emily was glad to accompany her.

“I was thinking about Iona yesterday,” Emily says.

Julia’s mouth tightens, then softens. “I remember the wind. The way it smelled of salt and wet stone. And the abbey ruins were beautiful, like the bones of belief. Someone else’s belief.”

Emily nods.

“And nothing happened,” Julia adds, playing her part in the script. “No voice. No burning bush. No sense of being seen by something other than ourselves.”

Emily continues the litany. “Machu Picchu?”

“Stunning,” Julia says. “Green like it had been invented that morning. Llamas chewing like mute philosophers. And those sacred mountains rising against that blue sky! Maravillosa! I kept waiting for my awe to turn into revelation.”

“Ghost Ranch?”

Julia laughs, syncing with the rhythm of their game. “Red earth and wide sky. Georgia O’Keeffe certainly knew how to capture and frame that landscape. I wanted…” She stops, surprised by the sudden nakedness of her emotion. “I hoped something would break through. That I’d feel… addressed.”

Emily reaches across the table and squeezes Julia’s hand. Her palm is warm, familiar, and grounding. “I’ve loved every mile of our travels. Even if they speak to us in different ways.”

Julia looks away. “I can’t help it if I want something more tangible, some kind of contact. Would you want me to change to meet your expectations? I guess I could join your classes if it really means that much to you.”

Emily’s smile is gentle and teasing. “Nope. I love you just as you are, my Iconoclast. And you keep me on my toes. That’s for sure.”

Julia snorts. The Iconoclast nickname has stuck. Even some of their coworkers have begun to use it to address Julia. “I don’t smash icons for fun,” she says. “I just don’t bow to them.”

Emily’s eyes are soft. “I know. It’s just that I see how you get a bit melancholy about all of it. The empath in me can’t help it, especially with those I love.”

Julia looks down at their joined hands. “I really don’t want to be closed. I just don’t want to lie to myself or anyone else.”

Emily squeezes once more, abruptly changing the subject. “We can be open tonight.”

“With a head count?”

“Bearing witness,” Emily says. “Point-in-time counts of those experiencing homelessness really does matter. It can turn their invisibility into the funding that St. Vincent de Paul needs to continue their work.”

Julia nods and shakes off her cynicism. She also believes this, deeply, and has enjoyed volunteering with Emily at the shelter. Outside, a siren rises and falls. “So, the Tenderloin?”

Emily’s mouth curves into a determined line. “The Tenderloin.”

They pay their bill and step back into the city, where the afternoon light of a summer day seems brittle. A bus passes in a whoosh of turbulent air as they begin their two-block return to work. Striding next to Emily, Julia feels a familiar mix of affection and ache for her partner, the longing that comes from loving someone who has a quality you desire for yourself. Her mind roams over the supposed thin places they discussed at lunch. As often happens, she feels a quiet, stubborn hope that she pretends not to have.

___

The sun sets behind the buildings like a coin slipping into a pocket. The Tenderloin smells of asphalt and old beer, of urine and frying onions from a corner food cart, of damp cardboard and sweat. Julia walks with Emily and a small group of volunteers. They are holding clipboards and wearing reflective vests that catch the day’s last light.

The streets are busy, voices drifting from doors and alleys. Julia hears laughter, sudden and bright, then an argument that burns out in mid-sentence. Another person’s cough goes on for too long. From the open window of a building, the thumping bass of a rap song echoes over the street.

The group turns into an alley. It’s narrower than Julia expects, the walls close enough to touch with one’s hands and feet if you were to stretch out on the pavement. There’s cardboard flattened in various places along with dirty blankets. A shopping cart stands sentinel, filled with plastic bags that rustle in the breeze, as if they’re whispering to themselves. About a dozen people are there, some loitering, some already bedding down.

A young Black woman sits on a tarp, her back against the building. She wears a knit cap pulled low, her jacket too thin for a San Francisco summer night, when the legendary fog will likely creep into the city. Her eyes are bright and alert, not guarded like many of the others the volunteers have encountered. She looks at Julia as if she’s been waiting.

“Join me, sister,” she says, patting the tarp beside her.

Emily’s hand tightens on Julia’s arm. “We shouldn’t—”

“It’s okay,” Julia says, surprised by her certainty. She hands her clipboard to Emily, then settles next to the woman. She can feel the cold pavement seeping through the tarp into her pants. The woman smiles at her, and up close, Julia can see the fine lines at the corners of her eyes. Her gaze is steady, one of those people who seems to occupy her body fully.

“My name’s Mariah,” she says.

“Good to meet you. I’m Julia.”

“Look up,” Mariah says, nodding toward the slice of sky above them.

Julia turns her gaze skyward. Stars have begun to prick through the twilight, resisting the city’s glare. A plane passes, its lights blinking, a mechanical constellation cutting across the dark.

“Do you see it?” Mariah asks softly.

Julia’s chest suddenly tightens. Something speaks to her. It’s not a voice, nor a vision, nor an answer to a question, but a simple and powerful widening. The sounds of the city fall back, as do the smells of the alleyway. Time seems to loosen its grip as the present thickens into a presence both luminous and intimate.

Julia feels it like a warmth spreading through her ribs, like a recognition without an object. She knows intuitively that this is not about proof, but simply the fact of being here, with this woman, under these stars, in this narrow place that opens unexpectedly into a depth she has always longed for.

Tears come, uninvited. Then Julia laughs, breathless, the sound startling in the quiet.

“Yes,” says Mariah. “I see it also.”

Emily crouches nearby, her worry easing into wonder. The other volunteers instinctively give them space. Mariah begins to hum a low tune without words.

They sit for moments that Julia can’t measure because time has lost its edges. Then she becomes aware again, gradually, of smaller things: the chill creeping up from the concrete, the faint ache in her knees, the smell of old rain trapped in the brick behind her. A breeze moves through the alley, lifting a scrap of paper that skitters and settles. None of it breaks the spell. It just folds into it.

She thinks, fleetingly, of all the arguments she has honed over the years. How she has dismantled certainties piece by piece, proud of the clarity she felt she possessed. But in this instant, she realizes that her clarity was never the same as fullness.

Later, Emily will say nothing profound about Julia’s experience. She will not try to name it or wrap it in language that shrinks it. Instead, she will say, “I could see it on your face,” and that will be enough. For now, she waits, honoring the stillness the way she has learned to do, by not interrupting.

Mariah stops humming. The silence that follows isn’t empty. It hums of its own, a low resonance that seems to come from the walls, the sky, even Julia’s own chest. Julia thinks of the word communion and, for once, she doesn’t feel the need to bracket it with disclaimers.

“You never know when it will happen,” Mariah whispers, as if she’s talking about the weather.

Julia nods, unable to speak. When she finally stands, it’s as if her axis has shifted. The grimy, cramped alleyway looks the same, but it no longer feels accidental. It feels chosen, as if this place, of all places, has been quietly waiting to be seen without judgment.

“Thank you, Mariah,” she says.

Mariah smiles. “Come sit with me again, sister.”

Julia and Emily join the other volunteers and they walk on. The count continues with quiet questions and small kindnesses. The city exhales into night, its neon and shadow interweaving. Julia listens to footsteps, to distant traffic, to her own breath, and realizes her search has shifted. The thin place was never somewhere she needed to arrive. It was something that happened when she stopped standing apart.

And now she carries that alleyway with her, as well as the soulful eyes of Mariah. Not as some kind of proof, but as an ongoing invitation.

January 31, 2026May 25, 2026 by krinvan Tags: epiphany, homelessness, mindfulness, san-francisco, short-story, tenderloin, wonder Leave a comment

The Only Law West of the Pecos

On February 21^st, 1896, Judge Roy Bean made national headlines by promoting a unique boxing match. Robert James Fitzsimmons was to fight James J. Corbett, the heavyweight champion, but the Texas Legislature had outlawed boxing. While promoters sought a new location for the match, Corbett retired, handing the title to Irishman Peter Maher, who soon agreed to fight Fitzsimmons. Bean arranged for spectators and the press to travel by train from El Paso to Langtry, where he held the fight on a sandbar on Mexico’s side of the Rio Grande. Texas lawmen had no authority there and Mexico had no law enforcement on hand.

The desert along the Rio Grande looked especially ancient that morning. Canyon walls towered above the sparkling coil of the river. A cool winter breeze blew across the sandbar, carrying the smell of mud and horse sweat. The sun climbed quickly, illuminating a throng of spectators gathered around a makeshift boxing ring. They had travelled by train from El Paso to Langtry, and they were eagerly awaiting the contest.

John Walsh worked the crowd.

He moved easily among them, a lean man of twenty-five with dirty blonde hair, dust on his boots, and a practiced smile. He had learned at a young age that confidence was mostly a matter of posture and timing. Just short of a swagger, he told himself, because no likes a poser. A wide-brimmed hat shaded his face, and beneath his coat, pressing against his ribs, hung the leather satchel that held coins, bills, promissory slips, and the occasional gold watch. Anything that could be wagered. John’s hands were quick, his voice calm, and his gaze scanned for new prospects.

“Maher pays as long as a dry summer,” he told potential bettors. “Fitz is the favorite for sure, but Maher could surprise the world.”

He said it casually, like something he might not believe. That was the trick. Men trusted doubt more than certainty. Some of them laughed, shaking their heads. Others leaned in closer, smelling opportunity the way vultures smell death. Walsh gave Maher odds so generous that they bordered on insult, and the crowd responded exactly as he knew they would. Money flowed toward the underdog like water downhill, pooling fast and deep.

That was the plan, and Judge Roy Bean had calculated it perfectly.

Walsh had quickly learned about the judge’s shrewdness when he had drifted into Langtry at age nineteen, half-starved, riding a stolen mule whose ribs showed through its hide. Abandoned in Detroit at 12 years old, he had lived by his wits in the poor Irish neighborhood of Corktown. He sold matches and newspapers to survive, sleeping in whatever empty building or alcove he could find. Finally, with no prospects, he jumped a freight train heading west. He drifted between towns and jobs, often getting into trouble for theft. When he reached Langtry, he was at his lowest point, desperate for a new beginning.

He remembered the way the town first appeared to him, a cluster of buildings crouched in the desert along the Southern Pacific tracks, miles away from any other settlement. The Jersey Lilly Saloon stood at its center, leaning slightly. It was there that the legendary Roy Bean held court with his reputation as a “hanging judge.” He had famously called himself “the Only Law West of the Pecos,” a phrase the newspapers picked up and spread.

Bean had been sitting on the porch of the saloon that afternoon. He had a grizzled gray beard and a worn black Stetson perched on his head. There was a law book open on his lap, but even then, Walsh suspected it was more for show than reference. The judge watched the boy approach with the lazy interest of a man who had seen everything twice.

“You hungry, boy?” the judge had asked.

Walsh had nodded, too tired to lie, too proud to beg.

Bean fed him, then put him to work with the horses. He made it clear from the start: steal from me and I’ll hang you, steal for me and I’ll protect you. It wasn’t said cruelly or kindly. It was simply the truth, a verdict already reached.

Walsh mucked stalls until his arms ached and his back screamed. He hauled water under a Texas sun that seemed to burn him to the bone. He learned the smells of the stable and the moods of the horses. He also learned the rhythm of Langtry’s rough justice, listening from the doorway as Bean held court, watching men argue for their lives or their money under a mounted bear skin and a framed photograph of the famous English actress, Lillie Langtry.

Walsh never understood the judge’s infatuation with the British woman. He’d probably never meet her, and she certainly didn’t care about him. He claimed he had seen a photo of her in a magazine, and she embodied all his ideals of femininity and culture. Then again, since the town was named after George Langtry, an engineer who supervised Chinese labor for the railroad, maybe the judge just linked the last names in his mind. Either way, Walsh figured it was part of Bean’s calculated mystique, along with the “hanging judge” label even though he’d never executed a man.

Over time, Bean sent him on small errands, then longer ones with packages carried by horse to Del Rio, Uvalde, even San Antonio 200 miles away. Walsh knew that the bags could be sent by rail, and that Bean was simply testing him. A courier had to be trusted. He had to do what he was told and keep his mouth shut. Walsh learned which roads to avoid, which men to ride past without slowing, which questions not to ask.

He learned that reputation traveled faster than a horse, and that his was tied forever to Bean’s. People knew not to trouble John Walsh. If they did, they would answer to the Only Law West of the Pecos.

Now, standing amidst the spectators at the prizefight, the weight of the money satchel pulled at his shoulder, a physical reminder of how much trust rested on him, and how easily it could tip one way or another.

The crowd thickened as the hour approached. Sportswriters in stiff collars jotted notes, already shaping tomorrow’s headlines. Gamblers argued odds until their voices grew raw. Somewhere upriver, Texas Rangers fumed, unable to touch what happened on Mexican sand. Bean had chosen the place perfectly. It was just across the border and out of reach. He knew that Mexican authorities, if they even cared to come, would be delayed by distance in this remote stretch of the desert.

Walsh finished a final transaction with a cattleman from El Paso, then stepped aside to count. The sum dwarfed anything he’d ever carried. Enough to disappear, to buy land and anonymity.

That very thought had been creeping into his mind for weeks. Roy Bean treated him well, but Walsh knew the truth. He was a useful thing. Trusted, yes. Protected, yes. But loved? Maybe, in Bean’s rough way, but Walsh knew he would always be subservient, an extension of another man’s will. It had been grating on him.

Suddenly, the fighters entered the ring to a roar that echoed off the canyon walls. Fitzsimmons looked calm, coiled like wire, his eyes steady. Maher, broader and heavier, was already soaked in sweat, perhaps aware that he carried the hopes of every longshot gambler in the crowd. Walsh felt a flicker of sympathy for the fellow Irishman.

The bell rang and people began shouting encouragement to their favored fighters.

95 seconds later it was over.

Fitzsimmons’ rock-hard punch landed clean under Maher’s jaw, collapsing him like a toppled statue, his head hitting the packed sand with a finality that quieted the crowd for an instant. Fitzsimmons stepped back, his arms raised in triumph, while Maher remained motionless on the ground.

Then chaos erupted. “This fight was rigged!” yelled the gamblers who’d believed in miracles. Others jeered, some cursed, and some stared as if they’d just awoken from a dream.

Walsh stood still, watching a medic kneel beside Maher. Even though Bean had just hit the jackpot, disappointment washed through him. After all the maneuvering, bribing, and scheming to organize the fight, it had ended as suddenly as a candle snuffed out by a gust of wind. That was the world in a nutshell, Walsh thought.

By late afternoon, he’d finished collecting all the wagers, invoking Bean’s name to men who were reluctant to pay. The satchel was almost obscene with its weight. Bean would be richer than ever. Langtry would buzz for years on this event alone. The judge’s legend would grow, fed by exaggeration and envy, while Walsh would remain a footnote.

He mounted his horse as the sun dipped west. But instead of riding north towards Langtry, he headed south. No one stopped him. Why would they? He was Judge Bean’s man.

He rode along the river, keeping to the low ground where tracks were more concealed. The farther he went, the more the satchel spoke to him. Not with words but with possibility. Each mile put distance between the life he’d been given and the one he had decided to claim for himself.

By nightfall he reached Boquillas del Carmen, a small village clinging to the banks on the Mexican side. He paid cash for a room without giving his name. Its walls were bare, its bed narrow, and it smelled heavily of dust. Walsh barred the door with his saddle, then sat on the mattress and untied the satchel, spreading out its contents. It was more money than he’d expected. With this, he could vanish into Mexico and be nobody’s man but his own.

He lay down with the bag under his head, one arm looped through the strap, telling himself he would sleep lightly and awaken at the slightest sound. But he was restless, surprised at how much his conscience bothered him. He told himself that what he’d done was no different than what Bean had done all his life. He was just seizing his chance when it came. Then he recalled a quote from Mark Twain he’d heard a man once tell him: “A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.”

He tossed and turned until sleep descended harder than he expected.

He dreamed of the Rio Grande rising without warning and washing everything away. All the money and players, the boxing ring, even the border itself. Then he dreamed of Judge Bean sitting in his chair without a face, the law book open to blank pages.

He was torn from sleep as the door to his room burst inward. Rough hands seized him. He reached for the satchel by instinct, even as someone twisted his arm behind him.

“Don’t,” one of them said quietly. “Ain’t no call for that.”

Walsh recognized all three men as Bean’s employees. He had worked alongside them and ridden with them. They didn’t strike him or curse at him. They simply moved with the quiet efficiency of men following orders.

They rode north under a full moon. Walsh watched the silvery river slide past and thought about how close he’d come. Another hour, another day, another hundred miles south, and he might have outrun his old life. The men didn’t speak to him, giving no explanations. They didn’t have to. Langtry pulled at them like gravity. Judge Bean always knew where his people were. That was the real law, a presence that followed you even when you tried to cross a border.

Langtry seemed smaller in the early light of dawn. The Jersey Lilly leaned the same way it always had, like it might collapse any minute. Bean sat inside at his massive mahogany desk, his law book closed, his reading glasses low on his nose. The men brought Walsh to stand before him, then laid the satchel open on the desk, its riches spilling out as if it were a cornucopia.

For a moment, Walsh considered speaking up for himself. He would lay out the justification he’d rehearsed on the ride back. A man only gets so many chances; he must seize them when he can. Surely the wily old man would understand that brand of conniving. But as he looked at the judge, it all drained away. This was the man who’d fed him, trusted him, and pulled him up from rock bottom.

“I’m sorry,” Walsh said quietly. “I have no real excuse. I just fell prey to some grand dreams I’ve never had before. I’ll take whatever punishment you see fit. Even hanging. I deserve it.”

He waited for the sentence. He waited for the rope.

Bean studied him for a long time. The room was silent except for the distant nickering of horses.

Finally, the judge spoke.

“Go muck the stalls.”

Walsh blinked.

“You heard me,” Bean said. “You’re starting over. And I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to trust you again. Just get your ass back to work.”

That was it. No lecture. No sentence. No gallows.

Walsh felt weak with relief. Shame burned hot in his chest, but beneath it ran something else. A gratitude that was both fierce and painful. He turned and walked out toward the stables, the sun rising behind him, the desert still ancient and indifferent.

The stable door creaked as he pushed it open. The familiar smell embraced him, a mixture of manure, hay, and warm animal breath. Horses shifted in their stalls, their ears flicking, their eyes rolling toward him with the dim patience of creatures who understood work and routine but not ambition.

He took up a shovel and began his toil, sweat gathering quickly. As he worked, he felt something settle inside him, a kind of grounding. This was how he had begun, by doing what was set before him and doing it well. No matter how long it took, he vowed to return to a place of respect, if not in Bean’s eyes, at least in his own.

Outside, Langtry continued to awaken. A door opened. A voice called out. Somewhere up the hill, Judge Roy Bean took his morning coffee and sat on the porch of his saloon, the world lining up before him as it always did.

Walsh kept shoveling until any thoughts of what lay ahead disappeared. The future could wait. Right now, there was only the task before him. Right now, there was still breath in his lungs.

Simply being here and working was a grace he hadn’t earned.

January 22, 2026May 25, 2026 by krinvan Tags: boxing, fiction, gambling, judge-roy-bean, mexico, old-west, prizefight, short-story, texas 2 Comments

A Meeting at the Crossroads

In a parallel dimension of time, the first light of dawn revealed a bucolic landscape. Morning fog lifted from green fields. Silhouettes of scattered oak trees were like ink strokes in the mist. A nearby brook murmured over stones as birds offered their first notes of the day.

At the center of this suspended countryside, two dirt roads converged at a crossroads beneath an ancient sycamore. Its leaves caught droplets of dew like sequins, and a faint breeze carried the scent of wet grass.

That’s when the meeting occurred.

From the western path came the sound of sandals brushing loose gravel. A hooded figure, dressed in a robe of simple linen, walked with an unhurried pace. Simultaneously from the east, another figure approached. This one wore a saffron cloak with its hood tied loosely at his throat.

Just as the sun had cleared the horizon, their paths intersected beneath the tree and they stopped.

The one in linen pulled back his hood. His beard was full but trimmed, his dark hair falling to his shoulders. His eyes were warm and alert, and he smiled with a grace that could disarm the hardest heart.

“Peace to you, traveler,” he said.

The saffron-robed man lifted his own hood and returned the smile. His face was calm, and his eyes held the serenity of mountain lakes. He bowed his head slightly.

“And peace to you, also.”

They regarded each other for a moment, wind stirring the leaves above them.

“It seems,” said the man in linen, “that even though we came from opposite directions, we were meant to meet at this exact moment. Even more curious, we understand each other’s native tongues.”

“Perhaps these paths are not what they appear,” the other replied.

The man in linen chuckled softly. “They rarely are.”

The other studied him carefully, recognition lighting his features. “I know of you. The stories of your compassion travel far beyond time. You are Yeshua of Nazareth.”

“And you,” Yeshua answered, his voice touched with reverence, “must be Siddhartha Gautama, the one they call the Buddha, the Awakened One.”

The fog thinned as if to give their meeting more space. The men stared deeply into each other’s eyes.

“Will you sit with me?” said Yeshua, motioning to a massive log beside the crossroads.

Siddhartha nodded. “It will be my pleasure.”

They sat beside each other on bark worn smooth by weary travelers. For a while, neither one spoke as the morning settled warmly around them.

At length, Siddhartha broke the silence.

“It is rare,” he said, “to meet one whose words have shaped the hearts of so many, not only in the past but for ages to come. Your teachings have been transmitted across every continent of this earth.”

Yeshua tilted his head, thoughtful. “Hundreds of earth years separated our lives, but I have also heard of your far-reaching influence. Your path of liberation, your understanding of suffering and how to end it. I know that countless people have been healed because of your teachings and example.”

Siddhartha folded his hands in his lap. “I simply gave witness to what I discovered in my own struggles. I found that freedom begins within. If our mind is tangled, the world appears tangled as well. If our heart is bound up by chasing illusions, no external revolution, no remedy of any government, can loosen its knots.”

Yeshua nodded thoughtfully. “I understand. And yet, societies can crush even the most open hearts with their oppression and violence. Like you, I tended to the wounds of my followers’ souls, but I also challenged systems of oppression. Sometimes the sickness is personal. Sometimes it is communal.”

A soft rustle of wings sounded overhead as a raven landed on one of the sycamore’s branches, cocking its head at them with curiosity.

“I would like to know,” said Siddhartha. “How did you learn the compassion that shaped your path?”

Yeshua took a deep breath. “It started early. My parents taught me that our Creator fashioned every one of us in the divine image. They encouraged me to see this divinity in each person, no matter how low their condition. Later, as I walked from town to town, I looked into the eyes of the poor, the broken, the shunned, and I recognized them as my kin.”

He paused, the memory of dusty Galilean roads flickering in his eyes. “I touched the lepers when others fled. I ate with tax collectors and prostitutes. I tried to help them heal not only their bodies, but their sense of worth in the eyes of God. I saw beauty where others saw disgrace. But please know this. It wasn’t just an effort of my own will that caused this. It was a gift from my Heavenly Father, a calling that I embraced.”

A smile warmed Siddhartha’s face. “I have no belief in deities, but my earthly father surely affected me. He raised me to take my place in the upper class of Brahmins. I still remember his anger and disappointment when I left the palace where I had been raised. I threw off the privileges that shielded me and sought to understand suffering by witnessing it firsthand. I came across the sick, the aged, the dying, and each encounter shaped me.” He turned his head to gaze down the eastern road. “I saw that compassion is not merely a virtue. It is a law of nature. I taught my disciples to love all beings as a mother loves her only child.”

Yeshua leaned forward slightly, intrigued. “Yes. To love beyond all the conditions taught to us by the world. Even to forgive those who wound us.”

Siddhartha’s eyes softened. “You forgave even as you suffered greatly.”

Yeshua nodded and lowered his gaze. “It was hardest thing I ever did, but I saw that those who harmed me were trapped in their own fear and ignorance.” He paused. “And you, my new friend, renounced the wealth of a kingdom. I merely left a carpentry practice that I shared with my father.”

Siddhartha chuckled. “You make it sound superhuman, but it was a matter of my own survival. I was suffocating in gilded bondage. Silk chains are still chains. I knew that my contentment would never be found in luxury.”

Yeshua nodded. “I also taught that the love of wealth blinds us. This earth’s riches exist to be shared with the poor, not hoarded by the powerful.”

“Tell more about your notions of generosity.”

Yeshua shrugged. “My words are simple. I teach that wealth is not measured by possessions but by giving. I once encountered a widow who offered two small coins to the temple treasury. They were worth less than a cup of water. Yet she gave more than all the wealthy combined, because she offered everything she had out of love.”

“Intent over quantity,” said Siddhartha. “Purity over display.”

“Exactly.”

“In my own teachings,” Siddhartha said, “I spoke of dāna, the perfection of giving without the attachment of expecting a reward. As we practice dāna and grow more enlightened, there is a sublime offering we have for others. I call it the gift of fearlessness. To me, this is perhaps the highest form of generosity because it helps ease the anxiety and turmoil of others.”

Yeshua looked moved. “I mostly agree. But a hungry person would much prefer a loaf of bread over a philosophical truth. Either way, I taught that when we comfort others, we become a light in the darkness.”

The raven took wing, drifting gracefully over the countryside towards the horizon. Both men followed its flight with their eyes.

“Our teachings align in many ways,” said Siddhartha. “Compassion, nonviolence, and generosity. Yet there is that difference you already mentioned. Perhaps it is rooted in the worlds from which we came.”

Yeshua turned to him. “Yes. I feel it too.”

Siddhartha’s voice grew introspective. “I would like to discuss this more fully if you are willing,”

“Of course,” said Yeshua.

“My path focuses on the individual,” Siddhartha continued. “I teach that if each person frees themselves from desire and delusion, then suffering decreases in the world. A tree grows strong when each root is healthy, not when we try to force the whole forest into harmony.”

Yeshua’s eyes shone with understanding. “Go on, please.”

“I believe that a liberated consciousness radiates outward naturally. Peace in one person becomes a lantern for those nearby.”

Yeshua gazed down the western road. “While I agree with you in many ways, I walked among people who were burdened by more than their own desires. They suffered under a conquering empire, unjust rulers, and a religious structure that was burdensome rather than uplifting. So I spoke directly to those powers. I confronted corruption. I overturned tables in the temple. I challenged those who used their sacred laws to exploit the vulnerable.”

A gust of wind stirred the leaves above.

Siddhartha considered this. “Your liberation was both inner and outer.”

“Yes,” Yeshua said. “Because a society can trap a soul as surely as craving can.”

“And yet you carried no weapon.”

“Love was my only force,” Yeshua replied simply. “The moment we harm another, we harm ourselves.”

Siddhartha smiled. “In this, we are brothers, even though I question if societal structures will ever truly change. One only needs to view the entirety of human history to see how oppression continues from generation to generation, how violence begets violence.”

Sunlight slanted across their faces. For a moment the men seemed less like historical figures and more like long-term companions sharing memories.

Yeshua clasped his hands together. “Siddhartha,” he said gently, “your path turned inward to heal the roots of suffering within the heart.”

“Yes,” the Buddha said. “That was my way.”

“I also sought a kingdom of the heart,” Yeshua said, “but one that actively confronted the unjust structures of the world.”

Siddhartha breathed in the scent of the fields surrounding them, “I often wondered if my path should have addressed the world more directly. But I feared that confronting systems would drag me into the very entanglements I sought to dissolve. How can you uproot a poisonous tree while remaining free from the toxin?”

Yeshua gazed upward as the sunlight gathered strength. “I wondered the opposite. Sometimes confronting those forces only made them more determined to strike back. It also sharpened my tongue and my approach. Perhaps my willingness to challenge them so openly hastened not only my own suffering, but that of others as well. Yet I felt compelled to name injustice wherever I saw it.”

Siddhartha bowed his head in recognition. “Different approaches. Neither of them easy.”

“Yes,” Yeshua murmured, “very different methods. But we both sought peace.”

“And unity among all beings,” Siddhartha added. “A world where compassion is like the air that people breathe.”

They looked at each other with quiet, profound understanding.

Siddhartha looked up at the branches of the sycamore. “Sitting here reminds me of the most important night of my life. I had tried one form of meditation and asceticism after another. Finally, weary that I would ever experience full awakening, I sat beneath an enormous tree, determined to break through or die on that spot.”

Something caught in Yeshua’s voice. “I, too, found my greatest moment of victory with my back against a tree’s wood. It was only then, in the depths of my worst suffering, that I was able to embrace the fullness of what I had taught.”

They both fell into silence, recalling the pathways that led to this moment outside of time.

Finally, Yeshua rose to his feet. Siddhartha followed. They stood facing one another.

Siddhartha said, “The world is large, Yeshua. Too large for one method alone.”

“You speak the truth,” Yeshua replied. “The world needs multiple invitations toward wholeness.”

Siddhartha’s eyes brightened. “Then may our teachings be like two rivers flowing toward the same sea.”

The wind picked up again, rustling their robes. Yeshua extended his arms and embraced Siddhartha. The Buddha returned the embrace without hesitation.

When they stepped back, Siddhartha placed his palms together at his heart and bowed. “May all beings find the end of suffering. May you walk in peace, my friend Yeshua.”

Yeshua lifted his right hand in blessing. “Shalom aleichem. Peace be upon you, Siddhartha, wherever your steps lead.”

They smiled like two old friends on that road between worlds, joined for a moment where past and future dissolve.

Then, with no further words, they turned. Siddhartha headed westward to new horizons, the sun casting his shadow before him. Yeshua walked eastward with a new understanding, his shadow following behind him.

The crossroads was quiet, except for the wind in the sycamore and birdsongs echoing over the fields.

And for a breath of time outside of time, the world felt a bit more whole.

December 30, 2025January 23, 2026 by krinvan Tags: buddhism, christianity, compassion, enlightenment, interfaith, jesus, siddhartha Leave a comment

Lucid Reunion

Dreams are the touchstones of our character. – Stephen LaBerge

The sign on my office door says John Longfellow, PsyD – Individual and Family Counseling. I’ve been a psychologist for 20 years, helping people unravel their burdens and find resolution.

About three years ago, my enthusiasm flagged. Call it a midlife crisis, but listening to others grew tedious, especially with clients who took little responsibility for their healing. I nodded my head and kept appropriate eye contact, but I felt like a bobble-head toy. My wife noticed that I’d lost my lost my passion.

“You’re just not yourself,” she said, kindly but with an edge of exasperation. “I don’t have a prescription, but you need to find a way to connect with your old zest. You still have a lot of years ahead of you. We still have a lot of years ahead of us.”

She was right. I needed a new spark, a fresh avenue of exploration.

That direction came unexpectedly. I was listening to a podcast on my way to work called Wake Up Inside Your Dreams, a fascinating overview of lucid dreaming. The podcaster said, “It’s possible to step into our minds with our eyes open. We begin to see the architecture of our fears and our longings. We realize that we’ve built every wall and horizon ourselves.”

I’ve always had vivid dreams, but their meanings evaporate as I awaken. I knew a little about lucid dream theory, but the podcast spurred me to sharpen my research. I devoured everything I could find, from Jung’s Red Book to LaBerge, Bogzaran, Holziner, Aspy, and every article archived by The Lucidity Institute.

I began to experiment in my own life, keeping detailed dream journals and using practices like reality testing and mnemonic induction. It paid off. I could stay longer in my visions, understand more symbols, and even translate a few simple lessons into my waking world.

But still, something eluded me, something deeply connected to that sense of joy I’d been lacking for so long.

Gradually, I integrated this new focus into my practice, becoming a guide for others in their nightly walkabouts. Word got out through the therapeutic community. New referrals sought me out for release from night terrors, recurring guilt dreams, or lost loves who visited frequently like ghosts. I taught them to stay calm, to recognize the subtle distortions of the dream world: a light switch that doesn’t work, a clock whose hands refuse to move, words that rearrange themselves when you blink. These are the cues, I told them. The seams of the dream world. Pull at them, and you can wake up inside your own story.

I never imagined the fullness of what my own subconscious was preparing for me.

It began one winter night after an exhausting day of sessions. I’d just finished with Claire, a woman haunted by a recurring nightmare of drowning in a river that looked suspiciously like the one outside her childhood home. That night, perhaps still affected by her angst, I dreamed of a place I’d never been, an old train platform under a sky the color of brass.

It was still at first. No wind, no movement, just a suspended hush. The platform stretched endlessly in both directions, lined with benches and antique lamps that cast faint halos of light. A few people milled about, blurred, like they were painted in watercolor.

And then I saw him in sharp focus.

Across the tracks, on a bench opposite mine, sat a boy. He was swinging his legs and rolling a toy car from the palm of one hand to the other. I didn’t need to guess who he was. I knew instantly that I was looking at myself at eight years old.

The shock of recognition was almost physical. Inside the dream, I felt my chest tighten and my breath quicken. He looked exactly as I remembered myself. Thin, serious, with that same stubborn cowlick that refused to lie flat no matter how much my mother spat on her palm. He was wearing a red windbreaker I hadn’t thought about in decades.

I called out his name—my name—but even as the sound left my mouth, a train thundered between us, all smoke and screeching metal. When it passed, the bench was empty.

I woke up with my heart hammering. The clock read 3:14 a.m. My sheets were twisted around me, damp with sweat. I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and tried to tell myself what I’d tell a patient: it’s just an image, a projection of memory, nothing more. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something in me had been waiting for this encounter.

The dream came again the next night.

This time the station looked older, like a faded photograph. The air shimmered with sunset light. The boy was there again, farther away, walking along the opposite platform. I shouted, but my voice came out thick, like a sound underwater. He turned his head slightly, enough for me to see his eyes. There was no surprise in them, only recognition and something else I couldn’t name.

Then the scene shifted, as dreams often do. The tracks vanished. I was standing in a field outside my grandparents’ farm, the one I hadn’t visited since childhood. The boy was near the tree line, still holding that toy car. I started toward him, but the ground turned to mud. I slogged forward, desperate to reach him, until the earth pulled at my ankles like quicksand. Just before I sank, I woke up gasping.

By the end of that week, the dreams were nightly appointments. Sometimes I’d find the boy in places I hadn’t thought about in years. The hallway of my elementary school, the corner of our old backyard where I set up battlefields for my toy soldiers, my childhood bedroom as sunlight streamed through the window. Each time, I was a step closer to him, but each time, something intervened.

The researcher in me cataloged every detail in a notebook: dates, colors, emotional tones. The therapist in me found it thrilling to be recording pure, personal data. But the man in me felt a form of grief. There was something I’d lost in the past, and it was still slipping through my fingers.

I began to see small echoes of those dreams in my waking life. A boy on the bus holding a toy car. A poster in a coffee shop showing a train steaming into the horizon. It was eerie enough that I called a colleague I trusted and explained what was happening.

“I hear you, John,” he said. “Do you know Jung’s theory of synchronicity?”

“A bit. Describe it to me.”

“He said that sometimes events coincide in time and appear meaningfully related, but they lack any real causal connection. That sounds like what’s happening to you.”

I muttered an agreement as we hung up, but I knew better. I knew that my subconscious was breaching the border between worlds. And I began to understand the exasperation of my patients. As one of them had said about his recurring nightmares, “If there’s a lesson here, just fucking teach it to me and get out of my mind! You’re driving me crazy!”

I tried all the techniques I taught others, but none of them stopped the dreams. If anything, the lucidity deepened. I could feel the texture of the air. I could smell dust and rain. I could hear my own heartbeat, quick and young, as if borrowed from the boy I pursued.

Three weeks in, the dream took a new turn.

I found myself in a park I knew intimately. It was where my father taught me to ride a bike. The grass was impossibly green, the air full of the smell of lilacs. My father wasn’t there, but the boy was sitting beneath a tree, his knees drawn up, that toy car in his hands.

For a moment I couldn’t move. After all my pursuing, it now felt wrong to approach him, like I was intruding on sacred ground. But the boy looked up, and I saw no confusion or fear in his face, just patience.

“You took long enough,” he said. His voice was clear and even, nothing ghostly about it.

“I’ve been trying to reach you,” I said.

He smiled, my own smile softened by time. “No. You’ve been trying not to.”

Those words cut through me. I wanted to ask what he meant, but he stood and started walking toward the swings, motioning for me to follow. The scene wavered, colors bleeding at the edges. I fought to stay asleep, to hold the moment.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

He stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “Because you finally are.” And then he walked right up to me and handed me the toy car. I looked down and recognized it instantly, a Matchbox green Camaro that had been one of my favorites. Our eyes locked and he smiled in a way that filled my body with light and warmth.

“I lost this years ago,” I said.

He shrugged and sighed. “You stopped looking.”

When I woke, my hand was open, my palm warm, as if I’d been holding something small and solid. There were tears on my cheeks. For the first time in years, I didn’t feel tired. I felt lighter, as though some long-frozen part of me had started to thaw.

Still, I’m a scientist at heart. I spent the morning journaling and cross-referencing symbols. The park. The train. The toy car. All anchors of memory, all pointing toward one obvious conclusion: the boy represented my unintegrated childhood self, the part I’d buried under professionalism and adult control. I regained my usual clinical detachment.

That afternoon, during a session, one of my patients—a middle-aged woman suffering grief after the loss of her mother—told me she’d dreamed of chasing her mom through endless corridors, never quite reaching her. Normally, I would have guided her toward strategies for confronting the dream figure. Instead, I said, “Maybe she’s not running from you. Maybe she’s leading you somewhere.”

She stared at me, wide-eyed, and nodded slowly, as if I’d just offered her a map.

In truth, I was offering one to myself.

The dreams didn’t stop after that, but they softened. The boy would appear beside me now instead of across some impassable barrier. Sometimes we’d sit quietly together on a curb, a hill, or the roof of a house. He never said much. It was like communion, and it lasted longer than any other dream experience I’d had, time rolling out ahead of us.

Changes seeped into my waking life. I started taking walks with my wife after dinner instead of falling asleep at my desk. One night she held my hand and said, “I like this new spring in your step.” I called my sister, whom I hadn’t spoken to in months. I even dug through an old storage box in the attic and found a Polaroid of myself at eight, sitting under that same tree in the park. My father had written on the back: To my brave boy. Keep going.

That night, the dream came again, but this time there was no boy. I was standing alone in the park, dusk settling around me, the air thick with that lilac scent. The toy car lay in the grass at my feet. I picked it up, turned it over, felt its weight. From somewhere distant, I heard laughter—mine, but younger. Then everything faded into light.

I woke before dawn, not startled this time, just awake. Truly awake.

Since then, my dreams have changed in tone. Sometimes the boy appears, older now, walking beside me through unfamiliar cities. On other nights, he’s absent entirely, but I feel his presence like a hand at my back. I no longer chase him. We’re walking in the same direction, a deep, lucid reunion between who I was and who I’ve become.

A few weeks ago, a patient asked me, “Dr. Longfellow, what happens when we master lucid dreaming and can control everything?”

I smiled. “I’ve learned in my own dreams that control isn’t the point. It’s more important to listen and let the dream speak its own strange language.”

She nodded and looked down with tears on her cheeks.

These nights, when I drift toward sleep, I feel an exciting flicker of anticipation. I know that somewhere in that vast theater of my mind, a child version of me might still be sitting beneath a tree, turning a toy car in his hands.

And he’s not waiting anymore.

December 8, 2025 by krinvan Tags: dreams, lucid-dreaming, memory, therapy, writing Leave a comment

The Necessity of Wildness

(Click here to download my expanded compilation of text and photos called The Necessity of Wildness. Best viewed as a two-page spread in Adobe Acrobat)

John Muir once said that “wildness is a necessity.” I agree, and it’s a truth that stands as an indictment of our current society. We live in a culture that multiplies distractions. We confuse convenience with meaning. We mistake consumer goods for necessities. Against the backdrop of this noise, wild places call to us—not as optional luxuries, but as lifelines to our truest selves. This call has echoed through my life since childhood, sometimes quietly, sometimes like an alarm.

I grew up in the Los Angeles Basin, a hazy expanse of freeways, stucco homes, and constant motion. In those early years, before the Clean Air Act of 1970 curbed the worst pollution, Smog Alerts were frequent. Our teachers sometimes kept us indoors for recess, because the outside air literally burned our lungs.

My childhood could easily have been devoid of natural beauty. But my father, at the considerable sacrifice of commuting long hours, insisted on something different. He moved us to an area of the Los Angeles Basin that still held remnants of old Southern California: chapparal covered hills, orange and avocado orchards, creeks running through ravines.

My brothers and I roamed those hills as if they were our personal kingdom. We named special places, caught lizards and toads, and wandered stream beds that smelled deeply of loam. I can close my eyes even now and see the silhouette of a great horned owl gliding over our house at twilight, taking its place in the eucalyptus trees that bordered our property. I remember falling over backwards, not to make a snow angel, but to carve an outline of my body in a field of tall wild mustard, gazing at the blue sky above, listening to the buzz of pollinating bees.

As I grew older, Boy Scouting deepened my relationship with wildness. Our troop hiked the John Muir Trail, rafted the Colorado River, and camped in the Mojave Desert surrounded by Joshua trees. I began to understand Muir’s belief that these places were “fountains of life.” I felt that fountain rising in me. Still, as adulthood encroached with work, ambition, and responsibilities, I sometimes forgot to return to the source.

Years later, emerging from one of the most difficult periods of my life, a spiritual guide got my attention. “As you piece together this new beginning,” he told me, “reserve time alone in nature. This isn’t just nostalgia about your childhood. It’s a portal to the serenity your soul is seeking.” That simple truth rang like a bell. I listened. Since then, immersing myself in nature is no longer a casual hobby; it is woven into my schedule as an essential practice. If I neglect it, I feel the restlessness immediately, a tug from the wild reminding me of what I’ve forgotten.

Once I’m there, these three necessities impress themselves on my soul.

The Necessity of Stillness

Stillness in nature is not the absence of sound. Anyone who has walked in a forest knows its constant music. Stillness is the presence of something deeper, a rootedness. Nature invites us into this realm, and if we let it work its magic, it loosens the grip that multitasking and digital overload exert on our spirits.

I once took a group of inner-city boys from Los Angeles on a backpacking trip into the San Gorgonio Wilderness. It required days of preparation just to get them ready. We had to borrow gear, teach some basic skills, and coax parental signatures from families who had rarely ventured beyond their barrios.

On the trail, the boys kept up a steady stream of macho joking until I stopped them with a challenge. “For the next half hour,” I said, “let’s walk like the Serrano People, the earliest inhabitants of this area. No talking. Just listen.”

They were skeptical, but they fell silent to indulge me. Almost immediately, the forest honored our reverence. Soft wind whispered through the Ponderosa pines. Scrub jays chattered nearby. We saw a family of mule deer browsing in the undergrowth.

Then, a rabbit emerged on the trail ahead. I held up my hand and we paused. Suddenly—almost mythic in its timing—a huge red-tailed hawk swooped down, seized the hare, and lifted it into the sky. We could hear the flapping of its strong wings.

The boys gasped. These hardened kids who had seen too much violence and too little beauty now stood in awe of something vast, powerful, and humbling. In their eyes I saw something I will never forget. Wonder. Pure, undiluted wonder.

The Necessity of Wonder

Wonder expands us. It loosens the grip of our egos, reminding us that we are a small but precious part of a vast, intricate universe. Though I’ve often shown the Hubble Telescope’s eXtreme Deep Field photo to illustrate this point, it’s far better to experience it firsthand. Find a dark sky preserve and lie on your back beneath the Milky Way. Let your eyes drift across the heavens, realizing that some of the “stars” above you are entire galaxies, each holding billions of suns.

So often, when our minds stretch, our spirits follow.

And wonder isn’t reserved for the cosmic. It pulses through ordinary experiences when we pay attention: the scent of creosote after desert rain, the echo of thunder over a plateau, the iridescent shimmer of a dragonfly’s wings. I once awoke in a bamboo hut on Maui to a series of booming sounds. Only later did I learn that it was humpback whales, joyfully slapping their tails in the dark waters of the bay. Wonder like that stays with you, a quiet ember you can relight repeatedly.

The Necessity of Gratitude

If we stay with it, wonder evolves naturally into gratitude, one of the most stabilizing forces in human life. Meister Eckhart once said, “If the only prayer you ever said was ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”

Gratitude opens our eyes not only to the gifts we receive but to the responsibility these gifts confer upon us. When we understand that wildness is a necessity, we feel compelled to protect it, to become stewards of the land and advocates for species that cannot speak for themselves.

This can begin simply with recycling, conserving energy, or planting a pollinator garden. And for some of us, it goes much further. As a Texas Master Naturalist, I have seen ordinary people become extraordinary guardians of the earth. They clean the rivers, remove invasive plant species, and help restore native trees and prairies. They remind me of my own responsibility to help protect the fragile web of life.

Returning to the Wild

A few years ago, on the Pinnacles Trail in Big Bend National Park, I sat beside some ancient rock spires. The noise of modern life, engrained in my chattering thoughts, faded away. Technology, politics, identity, worry, all of it dissolved in the beauty of that place. What remained was a profound stillness. It was an epiphany, both humbling and energizing, connecting me not only with the earth, but with all human beings who have transcended their conditioning and embraced the natural world.

And so, I will always return to the trail, because Muir was right: wildness is not optional. It is a necessity for stillness, for wonder, for gratitude, and ultimately, for becoming whole.

Happy trails to all of you!

December 2, 2025December 3, 2025 by krinvan Tags: ecology, gratitude, hiking, life, nature, spiritual-discipline, stillness, travel, wonder, writing 2 Comments