Change

Xpat Magazine September, 2007

changeI pen this letter from a remote stretch of shore on Kootenay Lake, an enormous, unmolested body of water hundreds of kilometers long, slung in a deep valley in British Columbia’s Rocky Mountains. As a child I spent countless summers running barefoot through these cedar forests. Today is the first time I’ve reclined on this quiet shore in more than 1,000 days; 1,000 days since I’ve lain on this rocky beach, smelled the clean mountain air perfumed with cedar and gazed at a night sky flooded with more stars than darkness. It’s sunny, but not hot. The waves lap at the pebble shore where I sit against driftwood in the shade of a poplar tree. I should feel at ease but I don’t. I’m lonely and I’m frightened.

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My Pop

Published under the pseudonym Salvatore Paradisio
Xpat Magazine June, 2006

My pop, or my pappy as I like to call him, had open-heart surgery last fall. He had, not one, but two triple bypasses. Then, about a month ago, he returned to the hospital for a pacemaker installation.

During his latter visit to the hospital he didn’t hear from me. In fact, he hasn’t heard from me since.

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