Adam Byrn Tritt's Blog

I want to be
Diaphanous. So thin
You don’t know I’m here.
Wraithlike, drawn like the
Wire, sounding only when
Plucked, brushed,
No voice of my own.

Wispy, vaporous.
Watery.

This business of
Food in the mouth
Comes to no good.
Disgusting (I tell myself)
But there I go again.

Walk a little more.
Lift a little more.
Did you eat that?
Why? Do something
About it. Get rid of it.
You don’t want that
In you.

But you will do it
Again. And again
You will feel
The shame of consumption,
Existence. The physical needs...

I was asked, as part of the Caring Committee, at my Unitarian Universalist Church (Unitarian Universalist Friendship Fellowship in Rockledge, Florida) to help create a service to introduce the committee and the idea of interdependence. To bring them to the idea and they were not alone, that asistance was available, and we were here to help. Needed, for a bunch of stalwart headstrong intellectials. I said yes, of course.

We planned. And planned. We even planned an exercise where toe whole cong...

Skookum

I had this dream.

A longing. A thirst.

I would go to the Pacific Northwest
And live among the tall trees.
Wake to cedar and coffee,
Fish for salmon,
Create.

I would learn from the Chinook,
Keep my mythos close to me,
Prosper from the green land,
Take life as pleasure.

I even learned their Trade Jargon,
The Chinook Wau-wau so much the
Creole of the Pacific Northwest.

I am called there but
It is a battle upstream
And I am exhausted,
Humpbacked,
Old.

I am too busy working to spawn...

I have four names. Not nicknames. I’ve never had a nickname. Yes, once a a friend of a friend insisted on calling me Ad, because, one must assume, adding the phonological onset of “um” was too much for her to add to “Ad.”  I refused to answer until the behaviour extinguished itself. A department head called me “Little Adam,” until I asked her not to. Her calling me this made little sense, apart from my height, because there was no other Adam and, hence, no need to distinguish me from a wholly hy...

I want to write about the most beautiful thing.

We traveled south on Highway 101, making our way along the Oregon coast after coming west from Portland to Tillamook – a long day’s meandering drive before heading east in the pre-sunset evening, over the Cascades, to Klamath Falls. We traveled the road, soon hugging the wild shore, stopping here and there, as we pleased, Lisa and I, to stretch, walk, look out over the Pacific, visit a shop, sit over coffees and cliffs. Unplanned.

The one pla...

This was published today in Florida Today. I’ll leave it to speak for itself.

Tenth grade honors English class. Students were working on a short writing exercise. The stimulus? A quote by Alfred Adler, the famed psychologist and personality theorist who postulated humans are driven by the will to power. The desire to affect their world. “Meanings are not determined by situations, but we determine ourselves by the meanings we give to situations.” We have already read similarly in Shakespeare and i...

There is too much-The coming and going of pixels, products, and personalities,Demands, desires, deadlines, debts,Bandwidth saturation and buffering,Buffering, always,While the world continues to clickclick.Who hears anything?Who sees anything?Pay attention—a friend of mine just died. I didn't write acquaintance. I wrote friend.He needed things. Not much.I couldn't pay attention.It isn't all my fault, butReally it is.Not his death, butHe could have left with more love andCare. In...

Today is my anniversary. The clock moves on, pages pulled from calendars,  life moves on, people move on. But dates remain, along with the people for whom they mean something. This date means something to me. But not to anyone else. Not anymore.

And so the day goes on. Lisa is at a funeral. I am at work. I’d be at the funeral too, but today is the last day of mid-term exams, and the last day before the winter break. Taking off today was simply not going to happen. People move on.

Bob was a friend....

What’s in a name? For a rose, very little. Roses don’t care. But people. People care, and why would they not? Identity, history, connection, and potential futures can come and go with a mis-identification, mis-recognition,or mis-spoken name. Names have power. Names have weight.

But old patterns die hard. They weigh more. Life changes, but old patterns don’t. The brain changes but the patterns are still recognised. Still followed. They are the watercourse.

Know a girl since you are fifteen, marry, ...

What’s in a name? For a rose, very little. Roses don’t care. But people. People care, and why would they not? Identity, history, connection, and potential futures can come and go with a mis-identification, mis-recognition,or mis-spoken name. Names have power. Names have weight.

But old patterns die hard. They weigh more. Life changes, but old patterns don’t. The brain changes but the patterns are still recognised. Still followed. They are the watercourse.

Know a girl since you are fifteen, marry, ...