My latest piece is up at Open Salon. Here’s an excerpt:

I want to put a seed in the ground, throw a little water down, and then have steamed zucchini on a plate. I don’t want to wait, and I certainly don’t want to tend. I’m hungry now! And no matter how much compost I throw down, no matter how much I crouch on the ground waiting for the little green shoots to crack the dirt, I have absolutely no control over the timing.

This is why you’ll find me, in the coming days of early spring, with the seeds in the ground and all the life happening where I can’t see it, four or five times a day staring intently at my little two hundred square feet of tilled-up dirt. I squat, I stand, I get down on all fours and squint, then stand back up again, wave my hands over the whole business, and shout, “GROW!”

There you have it: a picture of my spiritual life in action.

And as to the identity of the "friend" I mention in the story – all I will say is that this is the most highly-fictionalized piece of creative nonfiction I’ve ever written. No essayist tells the entire truth; David Sedaris, Anne Lamott, all my literary nonfiction heroes pepper their personal narratives with changes of detail, meant to protect the innocent*, as it were. All I’m saying, kids, is don’t litter my comments section or my Facebook wall with guesses, mmmmkay?

* The person(s) in question are hardly "innocent," but they didn’t ask to be written about and certainly don’t deserve to have me shouting their names from the rooftops, even if such a thing weren’t legally questionable.