Memoir

Day 100: An end

Left early this morning, driving it in one-go from my friend’s home in Brigham City. My Toyota Camry packed up with literally everything I own (save for a few boxes I left with my parents).

Heading west now on I-90, over the floating bridge, I take in hills and trees and…

Day 99: Empty squares

There’s a home, of course, and it’s always evening, the lamps giving off a warm glow. Must be Sunday, because I’m returning from something that has me in shirt and tie. My wife and I kiss, and there’s a dish towel in her hand — so I ditch my tie and work beside her. Vague kids making…

Day 98: The Porch, Spring 2015

The host stood on the stage and read out a name. Not mine. An old classmate from English lit. I half-listened to her story (desire and fear a mess in my head and heart) as she half-read it from a journal.

Day 97: Let him enter

Chandeliers that glitter and hang from high ceilings. Ornately crafted handrails and doorknobs. Embroidered cushions at every seat. An exercise in monochromatic opulence.

Is this heaven then? The name would suggest so — the Celestial Room — as would the process to…

Day 96: Or maybe there were just too many goodbyes to count

“I don’t care if it’s a sad good-bye or a bad good-bye, but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t, you feel even worse.” -The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger

Day 95: The case against blessings

Okay, so let’s say I kneel down and say, “God, thank you for ____________” Just fill in the blank. Literally any good thing can go there.

What does it mean for me to thank God thusly? It means I assume he (just using the pronoun I grew up…

Day 94: No return

I want to tell you about the first time I let a woman touch me. About how she asked me if she could and I said yes and she did.

I want to tell you because it’s one of the few memories I have in my head that’s perfect, that I wouldn’t change a thing about. Leave me just…

Day 93: My bosom be burned

The feeling most frequently associated with Mormon testimony is a “burning in the bosom.” If you look past the antiquated phrasing, I think most of us will discover a familiar thing: that warmth which spreads through your core at particularly emotion-filled moments.

Day 92: On being done

After I realized I wasn’t going back to church, I started telling people: roommates, family, a few of my classmates.

“I’m done with the church,” I’d say.

That was my phrasing. Not I’ve left or I’m leaving or I’ve stopped going or I no…

Day 91: Safe travels

You were heading out from our house in Sedona — back to Tucson I think. Maybe that will help you place this in time.

I was reading my scriptures in the back bedroom, and you’d just leaned in to say goodbye. I continued my study, heard you gather your stuff by the…