A Way Home: Oregon Essays

By Scott F. Parker, BS ’04 (General Science and Philosophy)

A WAY HOME is a love letter to Oregon and an ode to living in the present moment. Living for several years in Minnesota, Scott Parker finds himself longing for the Oregon of his youth. He explores this longing by returning to his home state both over the course several visits and through the unfolding of memory, to find out what he is capable of understanding about time, home, and himself. The temptation of nostalgia is regarded from many angles—rueful, ironic, yet always still beckoning. Its antidote: being present in the actual moment, with its paradoxes and mixed blessings. Parker's passion for his subject is apparent, and his meditations prove him to be a nimble and penetrating thinker on absence and presence.

Small Press Distribution, August 2018