The Human Experience – R. Francis Williford

I don’t know

Don’t need to know. Don’t need to be so consumed with information that I forget to tell you I love you. Life is short, they say, and they’re right. In the grand scheme of things, our time here is brief. Time here is made up of passing days thinking about what we should have doneContinue reading “I don’t know”

inspired by a tweet

Like most people who have Twitter, I find myself scrolling quite aimlessly sometimes, thumbs moving from the bottom of my screen to the top and back to the bottom again, only diverting this rhythm to tap the heart or cycle icon. Most of the time (at least this year), there’s a(n) (un)healthy amount of doomContinue reading “inspired by a tweet”

Love, Robbie

A short letter to every relationship, romantic or otherwise, that ended as I was trying to forgive myself. To you: This house we built with all of its gardens and cobwebs we no longer knew how to tend to is haunted. The shutters we painted are dry and cracking under the incessant sun. The flowersContinue reading “Love, Robbie”

Four years later

To Yia Yia, I keep a small jar, once strawberry preserves and now keepsake container full of lost buttons, on my desk that sat in your sewing machine drawer for years. If you were still around, I’m sure you wouldn’t even have noticed that they were gone. You’d find them one day amidst my messContinue reading “Four years later”

Thirty.

I’ve been thinking about the last decade of my life. On the verge of thirty and I don’t fully know who I am or where I’m supposed to be going or what I’m supposed to be doing. When I was on the verge of my twenties, I was filled to the brim with ideas ofContinue reading “Thirty.”

Show up

“You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place. Like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be this way ever again.” -Azar Nafisi, “Reading Lolita in Tehran” Today feels like hot coffee andContinue reading “Show up”

In other words

It’s been almost a year, and I have not been myself since. The things I didn’t say to him. The things I’ll never get to say to him. Things I’ll never get to do with him, like spend a meal across from each other, somewhere in between where our lives are, sharing stories and photographsContinue reading “In other words”

In review

“I’ll tell you this and I haven’t told many people,” I said to a good friend hours before the close of 2018. “I don’t know if I have any resolutions, but my word to live by for 2019 is bloom.” “That’s beautiful,” they said. Then silence. What followed was a beautiful space to live deeplyContinue reading “In review”

Coffee black

I didn’t start drinking my coffee black until after my father died. Turns out that’s the way he liked his coffee each morning, rain or shine, to start his day. It happened almost unconsciously. I gathered the materials to grind my own beans, pouring them into the hopper of my manual grinder, turning the metalContinue reading “Coffee black”

On grief and blooming

I. I’ve spent so many years of my life wishing things were different: where I’m from, my body, being so damn shy, exploring my emotions as a man, and wishing I was a better brother/uncle/son. Much of that time trying to change to fit into other people’s vision for who I am meant I wasn’tContinue reading “On grief and blooming”