I don’t know whether I thought enlightenment was outside the box, or it was boxed up, inaccessible unless you really worked hard to empty your mind. But emptiness is both inside and out, The box is also you, has always been you, always will be you. You see, I sat down and discovered I was…
Author: J. Parrish Lewis
J. Parrish Lewis was born and raised in Maryland. In his youth there, he and his brother had many adventures in the dogwood forests near his home. His nostalgia for these adventures has strongly influenced his characters, their relationships, and their perspective on the world they inhabit. He moved to California’s coast to earn his degree in communications and now lives with his family in the San Joaquin Valley. Lewis is profoundly deaf and uses American Sign Language to communicate. He enjoys hazelnut coffee, captioned movies, and walking his dog.
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Choosing Grief
I never liked the word pet to describe an animal adopted into one’s home. I guess if all the animal is there for is to guard the house or perhaps entertain the kids, perhaps then it’s a pet. But we don’t adopt pets. We adopt animals, dogs usually, to become part of our family. I…
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The Elephant On The Page
Here’s a drawing I started this morning. It’s the first I’ve done in a while. I judge myself constantly, as an artist, as a writer, as a human being. It is this judging that holds me back from creative practice. This elephant on the page is a recurring theme in my life. It is the…
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What’s it like being Deaf? A snaphot moment.
“What’s it like, being Deaf?” he asked. “Well, for me, it depends on who I am with at the moment. If I’m alone, then I am content with being Deaf. If I’m with people who can communicate with me, that’s good too. It’s not an issue. But when I’m with someone who can’t communicate with…
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The Mountaintop
Back when I was a young spring chicken, my Grandfather convinced me to go on a bicycle trip with him, a 1700-mile loop around the inside of California. I was hesitant because frankly it seemed intimidating, but he had his ways of being persuasive. It’s been roughly 25 years since then, and a few years…
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Pockets of Nature
I mentioned recently that I’d started geocaching lately, which has turned out to be an actual blessing. Not only do I now have an added activity to do outside where it’s more safe from COVID-19, which provides an opportunity to get a little light exercise, I’ve found that being out geocaching has given me a…
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Geocaching in Times of Coronavirus
I’ve recently begun geocaching with my younger son, which I think is a perfect activity these days since it’s outside and social distancing is fairly easy to do during this activity. If you haven’t geocached before and have no idea what it’s about, in a nutshell it means to go around searching for hidden “caches”…
I get hung up on what philosophers call “the fruits” of my actions. They all say, in one form or another, to not get attached to the fruits of our actions. This is the outcome, the results that we were waiting for. The finished project: the book, the movie, the meal, the Lego creation. I…
I stop myself from writing posts like these because in the act of writing them, I judge myself for whatever I might say. I second guess my words. I dismiss them. I think I should edit it, and then edit it a whole bunch of times more, and I think about how after I have…