Fifty Miles is a memoir in linked essays that addresses addiction and alcoholism. The book traces the life and death of the author’s son, Gray, a talented but troubled young man, to a drug overdose at thirty, as well as the author’s own recovery from substance abuse.
Introduction 13
I
Do No Harm 22
Fireflies 39
Yarn 41
It’s Come Undone: Crocheting and Catastrophe 43
A New Kind of Poem 56
Leatherback Sea Turtle 57
To Drink a Glacier 59
Call of the Bagpipes 70
The Third Step 77
Thinking about The God of Questions on Winter Solstice 84
II
First Days 87
Back Home 88
The Amaryllis Bud 89
Fifty Miles 90
Undoing a Death 96
Essay in Search of a Poem 98
Waiting for the Toxicology Report 101
January 9, 2015, 3:18 a.m. 103
Visitations 104
Ode to a Sea Star 106
Morning Walk On the Beach 108
Visiting The Netherlands 109
The Past 111
Into the Jungle 112
One Morning 124
Hiking in Wyoming, After a Death 127
Memory, Ever Green 134
III
Parking Lot Nights 142
IV
The Ink that Binds: Creative Writing and Addiction 180