I used to be interested in mountains.

They moved at a speed I could deal with. They waited for me to catch up.

It was like that all my life.

It’s the summer of 1966, and Sheila and Peter are a young married couple living in Berkeley. They are very much in love, and also very high—tripping on acid for the first time in their lives, in Tilden Park

My exodus occurred after years wandering the wilderness of my hometown. For bread to live, for bread to leave, I worked a part-time gig at the Oregonian’s downtown insert facility, stacking pallet after pallet of inky-ass newspapers. 

Every morning at Raines Elementary School in Jackson, Mississippi, all us black third graders were forced to stand and pledge allegiance to the stitched stars and bold bars of the American and Mississippi flags. 

In 2016, at age ninety, the Welsh historian and essayist Jan Morris began keeping a ­diary for the first time. She composed an entry a day ­(occasionally two) for 188 days, ruminating on ­history, current affairs, art, and literature alongside matters of old age, love, fellowship, and creature comforts. The following is a selection.

One morning, almost fifteen years ago, I woke up from a dream that was so vivid and powerful that I knew it must be true. I still remember both what happened in the dream and the feelings it left me with. 

Our house on Emerald Isle, The Sea Section, is divided down the middle, and has an E beside one front door and a W beside the other. The east side is ruled by Hugh, and the bedroom we share is on the top floor. It opens onto a deck that overlooks the ocean and is next to Amy’s room, which is the same size as ours but is shaped differently. 

It’s quite possible that the existence of these eight short stories, taken word for word from a collection of 148 diaries found in a dumpster in 2001, would come as a surprise to the diarist, Laura Francis.

Seen from a distance, a woman, etched against the darkness. Whether it is a woman, in fact, is hard to tell, we’re so far away. Framed by mountains of rubble, a tiny white figure.