More on: adolescence

The American self contains multitudes: believers, unbelievers, the proudly heterodox, the meekly agnostic, conscientious objectors, freethinkers, vegans, and still other varieties of spiritual aspirant too obscure or holy to name. In this country’s perpetual adolescence, it can feel impossible to bring these ways of being together into a single whole . . .

I MET THE MAN we chose to call Satan in Myrtle Beach in the spring of 1986, and my only direct dealings with him took place over a period of less than twenty-four hours. The last time I saw his face by light of day he was clutching a can of warm Meister Brau on…

I RECALL THE FACE OF A BOY wearing a blue sweatshirt, and I want to tell him that I’ve fallen in love and that I saw a fox midday like a flare, that I saw a black bear in the laurel just this evening and that the roar of life is in me. And I…