Absence makes your heart fonder. I know that is a cliche but it is true. I have been kept a little too busy on my vacation 
to miss my wife and menagerie particularly my dogs too much. I have called my wife every day and made several quick calls. My vacation to New Orleans has two days to go and then I fly back. I see my lifelong friend once a year. Once a year we reconnect. After fifty years Chuck still makes me laugh and that is an accomplishment. I had fun. Saturday we go out on a charter as long as the weather behaves and I will probably catch the biggest fish of my life. Chuck said some speckled trout weigh several pounds. So I am excited about that. My vacation here will end in a bang.
Tags: absence makes your heart fonder, charter boat, cliche, dogs, fishing, lifelong friend, my wife, New Orleans, pets, speckled trout, vacation
Posted in God, life, love, nature, pets, relationships, time |
The weather was absolutely gorgeous. I checked the car thermostat. It was sixty degrees deep blue sky without a cloud in sight. I was running to the store for a last minute errand and quickly realized the silk shirt I had on was too warm and I had to take it off. I was going to see my friend Chuck and it was going to be at least twenty degrees warmer in New Orleans. I immediately put a tee shirt on when I arrived back from my errand. I was excited. I had arranged to have a window seat on both legs of my journey today. Vacations are usually another “world”. For a short time you enter someone else’s reality. We can get so used to our own and not see what is directly in front of us any longer. Vacations in a strange place have a way of jarring you. And that is a good thing. Occasionally, anyway.
Tags: airplane, deep blue sky, God, gorgeous weather, my friend, New Orleans, someone else's reality, tee shirt, vacation, visiting an old friend, window seat
Posted in balance, beauty, God, knowledge&learning, life, local, relationships, sports, wisdom |
What do I know for certainty? My wife loves me. So does my favorite dog–Tilla. Probably Coco, his sister. Maybe, that needs to be enough. Two dogs and my wife. Maybe, that should be sufficient. Let me bask in that love. I did nothing to earn that. Of course, I did not mention Jesus. He loves me, too. I don’t know why you can feel so separated and so alone sometimes?
Tags: Coco, dogs, feeling separated and alone, God, Jesus, love, pets, the love of my dogs, the love of my wife, Tilla
Posted in animals, God, life, marriage, pets, relationships, wisdom |
My birthday is coming up (and I am just depressed). I can not tell you exactly why although I can guess. Part of that is grief. Most of my life is over. I can’t go back. Wishing is futile. Somehow I need to settle things. My relationship with my daughter is fractured. I don’t know how to repair it. Lectures and judgements don’t do it. I am aware of the ticking time. I am running out of time. I guess, everyone wants to leave a legacy. I am working at getting my first book of poetry out but it is a long and uncertain process. My wife is the only one who really cares about that. She is my editor and a good one. Things really don’t matter. I really don’t know how much time I have left. For that matter, no one knows for sure. I know that somehow I need to make peace with the people who matter to me. I don’t know how. I am just depressed. That is all I know.
Tags: birthdays, depression, editor, grief, make peace with people, my birthday is coming up and I don't care, my daughter, my fractured relationships, my legacy, my wife, peace, poetry, publishing a book, running out of time, time, writing
Posted in balance, children, death, God, life, love, mental health, relationships, time, wisdom, writing, your job/mission/profession |
I don’t know why it is so hard
to get rid of old letters–some decades old. Some memories I don’t want to delve in any longer yet I save the faded correspondence. Cards with nothing notable on them I trash easily. Some letters from my sister I wonder about. The memories seem so far away. Some are bad, some are good. Once in awhile a photo drops out of the letter and the passage of time is revealed. Was I really that young once? I have grown old. I don’t want to to rid myself entirely of past memories. Friends and lovers.
And I know when I am gone someone else will probably trash them. I just can’t bear to throw away most of my letters. Part of my life is embodied in those letters.
It is so hard–patches of my history, my life is everywhere. Dates are sometimes important: they mark milestones of my past. I am always surprised how porous my memory is. Friends wrote me letters I have long forgotten. I do toss some. People have fled in the corridors of my mind. It is so hard. Clues of my history, my life is everywhere.
Tags: family, friends, getting old, good and bad memories, greeting cards, i have grown old, lovers, memories, my life, My past is buried in my old letters, old correspondence, old letters, old photos, parting with old letters, passage of time, people long forgotten, Resurrecting the past, sister, throwing away old letters
Posted in balance, death, life, love, relationships, time |
I had to remind myself of the scripture that says, ‘Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger.’ My wife kept complaining I was interrupting her all the time. And I thought of that passage from the bible and it gave me a weapon to help me to stop doing that. It was a bad habit I had and now I had a way to stop doing it. It would not be easy, though. I would have to work at it.
Tags: "quick to listen slow to speak and slow to anger", Bible, God, interrupting my wife, scripture
Posted in balance, God, life, local, love, marriage, mental health, relationships, wisdom |
My wife and I have a fierce Scrabble rivalry. I taught her all my tricks. Now she beats me more than I beat her–at least it seems that way usually by using all her tiles in one move: there is a fifty point bonus if you do that. Recently I had a game where I did that three times. I won that game.
Lately our games don’t last longer than an hour. She used to deliberate forever: I taught her how to focus logically on the words and premiums played. There was a time years ago she thought counting points was mercenary. I taught her how to maximize her points.
In the instructions of the game it says the total of the points scored in one game is usually between 500 and 700 hundred or more depending on the skill of the players. Yesterday we played our second highest score (890 points). In over ten years we have played hundreds of games between us. It is hard to lose a game when you score 419 points but I did: she had 471 points.
She has become a worthy opponent. That we have an activity we both enjoy so much and are so equally matched is only by the grace of God. And she is my wife. I still think she has become a better player than me. Only by a hair.
Tags: 890 total Scrabble score, a game of Scrabble takes an hour, fierce Scrabble rivalry, grace of God, maximizing your score in Scrabble, my rivalry with my wife, my wife, Only by grace we have an activity we like so much, taught her all my tricks in Scrabble, using all your letters in one move of scrabble
Posted in God, knowledge&learning, life, local, marriage, relationships, time |
I can’t believe how fast the time is going. A little more than two weeks we will have reached winter officially and another thirteen weeks spring-officially anyway. It seemed as if Thanksgiving has just come and Christmas is less than three weeks away. Then New Year. I know every January and February we have at least one “freeze”. And those periods will seem forever. Before we know it the Farm Show will be here. And it invariably snows that week. There is always two periods of time. The Greek language described time at least two different ways. There will be the period where it flows forever. And then where everything happens in slow motion. All this at the same time.
Tags: Christmas and then winter and spring, Farm Show, February, freeze, Greek language, January, New Year, snow, thanksgiving, time, time going fast, time in slow motion, Time is experienced differently at the same time
Posted in life, local, nature, seasons, time |
How sad you stopped noting your birthday years ago. You led too solitary a life. There was no one around you to make a fuss about your birthday. Hermits stop celebrating their birthdays. You get one special day a year. If there is no one around you to make you feel special that day you stop noting that day. My family (and some friends) always noted that day. It is just so sad there is almost no one in your life to do that. So you stopped celebrating your birthday.
Tags: birthday, celebrating your birthday, hermits, ignoring your birthday., led a solitary life, make a fuss about your birthday, my family, my friends, one special day a year, sad you stopped celebrating your birthday
Posted in balance, life, relationships, time |
The pheasant I saw to the left of me on the side of the road seemed bewildered: it did not know whether to go left or right. An hundred feet ahead was a small flatbed truck which released several more pheasants. Several hunters with their pickup trucks milled around. This was near a public game land. I felt bad for the birds. It was as if the hunters wanted to see where the pheasants went. This did not seem very sporting. Later on I returned and four trucks were parked neatly in the game land parking lot but I saw no hunters. I guess they were now hunting the pheasants. I just felt bad for the birds.
Tags: birds, felt bad for the birds, hunters, hunting pheasnt did not seem so sporting, pickup trucks, public game land, releasing pheasants in the wild, the sport of hunting pheasants
Posted in animals, birds, life, local, nature, sports |
What is creativity?! If you are a composer, it is putting together the notes in a fresh way. If you are a musician, it is not simply playing the notes by rote, it is putting your feelings in it. If you are a writer, your composition feels fresh: it has cohesion. These are only a few quick observations what someone else’s creativity feels like.
‘It is contagious’: Tolstoy’s definition. You should have no doubt what the piece was about: anger, sorrow, grief, joy, etc. These feeling are conveyed instantly upon hearing the piece, viewing a picture, reading the piece whatever vehicle the person chose. Of course, these observations are not exhaustive by any means. This is just a quick sampling.
Tags: art, artists, compose music, creativity, creativity in art, emotions in creativity, musician, Tolstoy, what is creativity?!, writer, writing, writing cohesively
Posted in art, beauty, knowledge&learning, life, music, your job/mission/profession |
I praised the Lord, again. I took a shower and had hot water. To many that may be a small thing but for months our hot water heater kept shutting down. We were able to buy another one and have pay someone to install it. Now we have hot water every time. On demand. I forget all those times we did not have hot water. It went on for months. So, again, I praise the Lord for this luxury. Yes, luxury. Hot water. For that matter, there are literally millions, maybe billions, of people in this world who do not have plumbing. Or even clean water. And I am considered poor in this country. Americans are so spoiled and have no idea how rich the average person in this country is. Compare yourself to the multitudes who do not have plumbing in their house. Or worse yet have no clean water. Americans are so spoiled.
Tags: hot water, hot water heater, poverty, praise the Lord, take a shower, the luxury of hot water, the poor and plumbing and clean water, the spoiled Americans
Posted in God, life, local, money, wisdom |
