Several years ago, for no apparent reason, my writing shifted into the creation of intense personal essays, which combine my own experiences, the lives of ancient sages, and other ingredients to explore deep human issues beyond conventional wisdom. Here is a selection of them, and a couple of poems as well (latest works listed first). 

• A Lullaby to Thucking. My wife and I coined the term to describe the sense of bodies cuddled so soft and close they practically merge. This tiny essay celebrates thucking and its unexpected connection to, um, bread baking. Published in Glint Literary Journal. 
• I Tell My Young Daughter Stories About Cars. The title is self-explanatory. The essay appeared in the premier issue of Twisted Tongue, and working with the editors there was pure joy.
• I Will Have None of This (click the link, scroll down a couple of screens to where it says Nonfiction, then click on the essay title there. Or listen to the audio version!) Animals—at least those who’ve lived with us—do death in a very different way than we humans do. I wonder what this says about us. Published in Penumbra Online. 
• ​My Earliest Memory, but Not Really.  All my life, I've cherished this memory of 10-month-old me crawling on a floor in my childhood home. But how on earth would I remember that? This tiny essay examines the memory and then takes it apart. Published in JMWW. One guess who the baby in the photo is. 
• Your Belly Is Just Your Belly.  A musing on Zen, God, my long COVID, my expanding belly, a reckless drive to Ottawa to escape from it all, and how escape and disappear are two entirely different things. Published in Halfway Down the Stairs. 
• Where Words and Music Fail.  After producing their masterpieces, two of my all-time favorite artists--James Joyce and John Coltrane--tried to go further, stretching boundaries and getting criticized in the process. There was a poem in there somewhere, I've known there was for years, and it finally made its appearance this past March. Published in Braided Way ("faces and voices of spiritual practice").
• Good Enough Church. So many churches are in decline nowadays, yet those who remain still make up the whispers of a community. This flash fiction piece is my love letter to them. Published in Amethyst Review (“new writing engaging with the sacred”). 
• nts. My wife set a honey trap on our kitchen counter to cut down on the ant population. They outsmarted her. Published in Rejection Letters. 
• Loveys. Every weekday morning, a gray striped cat droops on the other side of our sofa. In 1886 a girl in France took over her older sister’s room. For months I have held a photo of my wife in mind. We are all doing the same thing. Published in Amethyst Review.
• ​Pink, but Deeper.  A brief mystical essay about my gender journey, told in colors. Published by The Citron Review. 
• Take 'em Both. ​Sometimes, when you're facing a major life decision--like which cat to bring home from the pet store--an angel may whisper in your ear. Or it could be a cabbie. Take your pick. Published in Boudin. 
• Love May Be All of This. My wife leaves clumps of hair in the shower drain. I pick them up so she doesn’t have to. I think this qualifies as love. What else does? More than I would have thought, as I learned while writing this. Published in Braided Way, whose editor was good enough to nominate the essay for the Pushcart Prize.
• ​Inside Girl. A memoir from junior high school, as told by two voices: the man I resemble to most people, and the woman who’s always lived inside me. Published in HerStry.
• You Don't Know What You Have Here. Three-year-olds are supposed to have an attention span of six minutes, maybe eight. Watching my daughter 15 minutes into whatever she was building in her sandbox, I realized I had so much more to learn about her. Published in The Sunlight Press. 
• Someone Else's Phone Call.  An offhand question, posed by a total stranger to her beloved on the pay phone two feet away, gave me the courage to keep writing. Published in Young Ravens Literary Review. ​
• How the Secrets Came Out. The girl inside me is not my darkest secret. That’s what makes her so important: the reminder that not all deep secrets are dark, and that they come out or don’t come out in their own ways. Published in Catapult along with a follow-up essay, Before There Was a Q.
• Ordinary Essay. I spent years trying to do extraordinary things, only to find myself as ordinary as the next person. As it turns out, that’s not so bad. It depends on which definition of ordinary you’re using. Published in Psaltery & Lyre.
• Wrong-Way Dog. For the first time ever—on the last walk of her life—our dog headed in the wrong direction. A brief story of the walk I’ll never forget. Published in the tiny journal.
• Mad Dash. One sunny day our four-year-old disappeared into a meadow. I couldn't imagine what possessed her to do so until 17 years later, when I did the same. Published in do geese see god. 
• Slow Zen Horse. A tiny flash essay about riding--no, trudging--through a snowy wilderness on Iceland's most reluctant horse. Published in ​The Mantelpiece. 
• Thérèse and the Friendship Creed. Some of my closest friends are dead, as in the long-gone Catholic nun who showed me that friendship is so much bigger, and more liberating, than I ever imagined. Published in Amethyst Review.
• No Thank You Necessary. How can you do something when you don’t know what it is? Many ancient traditions tout the value of gratitude, and most parents have reminded their young children to “say thank you.” But there must be more to it than mere words. This essay digs into the “more.” Published in Amethyst Review.

• Into the Arms of the One True God(s). Somewhere in the chanting of divine names—Govinda, Krishna, Ganesh, dozens of voices in a cross between music and roar—I looked around the auditorium and saw Jesus and didn’t know what to think. Published in Braided Way.