Former Career Fire and EMS Lieutenant-Specialist, Writer, and Master Photographer.

Tag: Amelia Phoenix Desertsong


  • The Places That Made Me, And The People Who Never Left

    Some mornings, you don’t wake up so much as you surface—pulled out of a half-dream, half-memory place where the weight of the past is heavier than the day ahead. Today was one of those mornings. I woke up already sad, already somewhere else, and I let it happen. The playlist was Bear’s Den and Bruce…

  • All Roads Led To Amelia

    Some of the most significant moments in life slip in quietly, like soft footsteps on a worn-out wooden floor — so subtle you hardly notice until they have already rewritten everything you thought you knew. Our story started, as most modern stories do, with a reply on Twitter. Some of the most significant moments in…

  • On Friendship…

    On Friendship…

    This past weekend, I drove back to the place where my story began. The road to my mother’s house is the same as it’s always been. That drive always stirs something in me. A reminder of who I was before the world turned hard and unforgiving. I didn’t just go to see my mom. I…

  • From Rescue Girl to Rebirth: It’s Time To Run The Banner Down

    There comes a moment in every life—every soul forged in fire, tested by wind, worn down by time and lifted by impossible grace—when you look at the sky and realize the storm isn’t passing over. It’s waiting. Waiting for you to stop standing there like a goddamn monument and move. That’s where I am today.…

  • Crows, Queerness, And The Rain In My Head

    Out of nowhere, my former niece Makayla—who, decades ago, for all intents and purposes, had become my unofficially adopted daughter—reached out and asked if I could pick her up. The timing was uncanny. She called while I was out with Amelia, and the moment I learned she needed a ride as soon as possible, I…

  • A Reflection On Love, Loss, And What Remains

    I drove like hell through the night, the highway stretching endlessly before me, my headlights cutting through the darkness like a blade. The only sound was the hum of the tires on the asphalt and the music playing on my cell phone. I didn’t stop, didn’t slow down. I just kept driving, pushing forward even…

  • I’m Going Through Changes

    Day breaks, the lost girl inside wakes, the birds sing, the wind blows through the trees, and the angels sigh. My mornings in Vermont begin early with the rising sun, my days often occupied with my own pursuits of untamed introspection as I try to unravel the mysteries of life, followed by early nightfall to…

  • The World I Came Into Has Gotten Too Scary

    My earliest memories are of being a small child sitting on the marble floor of our Greenwich Village apartment. There was something comforting in the coolness of that floor, in its immovability, in its seeming lack of opinion or judgment. It was a respite from the complexities of life in a large city with multiple…

  • I Love You I’m Sorry

    I Love You I’m Sorry

    On February 1, 2025 at 6:43 PM, Amelia sent me a text message… I’ve spent four years drowning myself in reverie, fantasy, and artifice. But right now, I need to focus on reality. I have discovered a girl out of time, a Bohemian free spirit meant for a New York forty years ago. She is…

  • Easternmost

    Easternmost