video kids

The trip to the video store with your friends. Everyone grab two movies and we’ll meet in the middle for the big negotiation. Comedy, horror, documentary, action, new, nostalgic, good because it’s bad, campy but fun, let’s see what you got. Oh and the snacks, make sure you grab a box of candy. It tastes different if you buy it from the check out line. The choices seem endless within these walls, but also more limited by ten-fold than what you can get at home. It’s good to have boundaries, it’s good to be back at the video store.

photo by Kailyn Hooley

Invitation by Mary Oliver

Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy

and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles

for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,

or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air

as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine

and not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude –
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing

just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.
I beg of you,

do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.

It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.

craft in the pointless

july 14, 2025. History. Human history. From a time when detail mattered and craft was infused into the things we know see as a means to an end. Architecture was an expression. When did it tip? When speed and efficiency edged out intention and patience? What takes long lasts long. In the lines that adorn the entryways, in the lines of the palms of the chiseler.

still, unknown.

Maybe life in 30 years won’t be all that different. Cooking dinner in the kitchen with the people that matter the most. A little more lost, a little more gained, more wisdom, more coziness with the un-understandable, trusting that all of our tomorrows bare the same amount of mystery.

The stretch

I took a walk with Phil. It took us a while to coordinate our meet up— our phones weren’t playing well with the Canadian cell service. I sat myself on a stone bench at a park on Place D’Youville and sent my location, hoping my phone wouldn’t die before we made contact. About seven minutes later, Phil rolled up, looking sharp as always. We hit the streets, looping through the cobblestones of Montreal’s old town. I read an article a couple years ago about how walking with someone, shoulder to shoulder, is a way better way of catching up because you’re moving together in the same direction. It’s a co-creation. Plus, walking in new cities happens to be one of my favorite things to do.

Phil and I made our way through the neighborhood, passing a vape pen back and forth a few times. We ordered some overly-sugared and overly-priced juice from a stand right in the center of town. I snapped a few photographs, like this one. We talked about depth in male friendships, how we crave them and that it’s getting harder and harder to make time and space for superficiality in friendships. There’s so much housekeeping, so many happenings that feel important to share, but also can distract from the real, deep, juicy stuff. We continued to turn down random streets, buying time with each other, digging in to what’s been on our hearts recently, knowing that we had too short of time to talk about all that has transpired in the last 7 years since we last saw each other. Sometimes you need a container, an end in sight, to help you sink deeper into presence with a friend. No time for bullshit. We agreed that we’d send each other photos from our lives. We’d pick up the phone if we felt called to it. We’d try not to ask each other, “How have you been?” in that way that means nothing.

We arrived at Phil’s hotel and he offered me a ride back to where I was staying. I gladly took the ride, my legs were tired from walking all day and I was happy to have a little more time with Phil. We pulled up to my spot, grateful that we’d be seeing each other the following weekend at another friend’s wedding. There’d be so much more to dig into, more deep conversation to be had. But the following weekend, on the morning of the wedding, I got a text that read, “Bad news Jesse." All of the flights to Philly had been cancelled. He wasn’t going to make the wedding. Our walk in Montreal would be the last time I’d see him during this chapter of travel. He, in Florida, and I, heading back to Alaska, retreating to the opposite ends of the country. As I flew back to my home, away from the many familiar loved ones of my past, I remembered what my mom often says to me.

“I never knew my heart could stretch that far.”

a delicious stretch

I’ve been stretching the last few nights and tonight I had the most delicious stretch and I think something has clicked. As I breathed deeper, my hips began sinking towards the ground, the earth, the center, and a way from my head, the clouds, the unknown. In that moment I switched from the “knowing” of my head to the Knowing of my body. It started to feel uncomfortable, the stretch, but I stuck with the discomfort. I breathed through it. I breathed into it.  The deeper I went, a surge of energy came to me as I pushed past what I thought was my limit. Every time I wanted to stop, I postponed the decision by 3 breathes.  The tools were right there, in my body. All of life’s lessons are demonstrated by something the body goes through. I sunk deeper. I found myself wanting to stay there, to stay forever breathing into my knees and calves and hips. I’ve never stretched consistently—I’ve aways been afraid that it would take me so many years to get back to where I should be. But tonight wasn’t an act for some flexible future Jesse, it was for the body that showed up right in that moment. To enjoy like a meal. A message telling me to give more to the now.

Inventors

We got to the campsite early, before all of our friends arrived. We didn’t really have anything to do so we took an edible and decided to invent something. We came up with a pretty great idea (which we prototyped when we got back to town). I can’t give it away because it is simply too valuable. But in the midst of our genius, an empty pack raft floated down river. Twenty minutes later a man came floating down and asked if we’d seen any lost paddlers. We hadn’t seen anyone, but we had also been busy working on a $10 million+ idea, so it wasn’t impossible that they passed us by, screaming something like “help us, help! You guys! What’s that idea? It seems like a really brilliant idea! ahhhhhhhh.” A while later the guy came back with the straggling paddlers who had gotten ejected upstream. Everyone was okay. They were safe but annoyed and we were high, but on our way to being rich.