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Archive for the ‘Reflections on the everyday’ Category

Rows

Posted in Reflections on the everyday on August 16, 2014| Leave a Comment »

On a farm yesterday morning. Walking acres of orderly vegetable rows with the rising sun.  Rooster sounds in the distance.

Taking photographs for marketing purposes in exchange for gorgeous, chemical-free produce.  A sweet deal and a good trade, at least for me.

Corn, cabbage, beans, abundance.  Hard work, sweat, blighted tomatoes, it is all here.  A gift.

Focus ahead. Rows of seedlings give way to lanes of mature onions and cauliflower.  Row upon row of varied texture, size and color, convergence out of frame.

I get the shots.

Looking back, I am startled at the view just passed.  Similar order, but striking difference in look and feel.

Try it sometime.

Oncoming views are new only once, but the mutable nature of the past remains constant.

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Live Wire

Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, tagged on June 23, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Life burns.

Consumes, invigorates.  Paradox.

Death is cold, empty.

My father passed away suddenly two weeks before the Keeper.  Hard spring.

The day before my father’s service, I stood at his gravesite.  Plywood pieces rough over a clean rectangular hole.

A glance into the grave.  The earth — deep, alive and waiting.

Next day, nearing the open casket of my father, I felt the nothingness. Waxen facade drove home the vivid perversity of preservation.

At the cemetery, staging, 21-gun salute, veterans who knew how to deliver death to the bereaved.

My father died at the end.  My friend died in the middle.

Life is a fist-sized beating heart. When it is done, so are we.

Live wire,  get it while its hot.

 

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The Keeper

Posted in Nature, Psycho-Bubbles, Reflections on the everyday, tagged on June 6, 2014| Leave a Comment »

In the span of a lifetime perhaps we are lucky enough to know a handful who count.  Not to say that all others are without meaning, but simply, real keepers are few.

To the Keepers we entrust soul and story, sadness and sweet wisdom.  In turn, they hold, know, witness and Keep.

Keepers can be old or new, but oftentimes they appear at the beginning, willing and able to share the elusive and changeable quality of Time.

Like the venerable Oak, they offer shade, support, silence and deep conversation decade after decade.  Because they Are, we can Be.

A brilliant Keeper in my life passed away suddenly just a week ago today.  Mortality is a deep flaw of the Keeper.

With him went the better part of me, which he had been slowly returning to me after long years in a poorly made marriage.  For I knew him long before.

I do not believe I kept his life as he kept mine.  I have not that depth, and his support of me was not exclusive.  The Keeper loved and mentored many.

The Keeper was a truly great man, one much needed.  He is gone too soon.

Yet he is not.  The Keeper is out there, in the wind, moon and stars of the Big World.  For that is very much his Nature.

For he was, and forever will be, a keeper.

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Birds and broken bones

Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, tagged , on May 8, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Four Baltimore Orioles, one Flicker, one Blue-Jay, one Goldfinch, two squirrels.  One Cardinal, three Robins, two Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, a wild variety of richly colored sparrows, a Downy Woodpecker – one Cowbird.

The view out the picture window at the office of the physical therapist.  Inflexibility may have its seasons, but distraction has its day.  Grateful for that.

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Howdy Stranger

Posted in Reflections on the everyday, tagged , , on April 15, 2014| Leave a Comment »

This morning I lifted a piece of fruit to my mouth with my left hand.  With some effort I completed the deal.

Later, I lifted both arms straight above my head and tried to touch the sky.  I did not quite make it, but close.

Bringing hands down, I did my best to let left meet right.  Fingers touching as if in prayer, they made it.  Right fingers knobby and normal.  Left fingers swollen, discolored.  It is okay.  They met again.

About five weeks ago, they looked pretty similar.  A break in the action changed that.

Now they rest together.  The left entwined with the right, in a posture we call folded.  But I know better.  Two old friends, once parted, now together again.  Each leaning on the other for comfort.  Howdy stranger.

 

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The Ides

Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, tagged on March 15, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Many years ago, the midpoint of March gave me pause.  A riotous time, no less for the energies that stir after winter, as for the fate of one Julius Caesar.

Imbolg, the vernal equinox, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, they all have their feet in the experience of emergence.  Nature, human or not, cannot be contained.

Back then, it seemed smart to open the doors and windows and let those energies pass through.  Now I am more likely to join in the dance myself, one hand and all.

The crows do not fly for you.  Unless you be despot, fear not the Ides of March.  Marvel at the moon, run in the rain…but try not to fall down.

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Spring wind

Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday, tagged , on March 15, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Spring wind is quixotic, my favorite kind.  Coltishly tossing dry leaves off the ground or moving like a tide through bare trees, it has a curiosity and willingness I admire.

Tuned through objects fixed and transient, spring wind makes its thoughts audible.  A song of springtime.

Full moon upcoming, vernal equinox next week.  Onward.

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One-handed world

Posted in Reflections on the everyday, tagged on March 8, 2014| Leave a Comment »

I took a step, I took a fall.

On the way, I had the briefest of moments to choose.  Hand or foot.  I chose stability over ability.  Probably says something.

Wrist broken in a couple of places.  Surgery ahead.

Today begins unique appreciation of the world with one hand.  So far, the child-proof cap on the pain medication and the pepper grinder proved frustrating.  Whoever invented arm slings that adjust in the back never wore one.  Bootlaces are out for the count.

Always felt lucky to be able-bodied.  Many are not.  Different challenges now.

Onward.

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The Unburied lead

Posted in Psycho-Bubbles, Reflections on the everyday, tagged , on February 23, 2014| Leave a Comment »

It is in there.  The idea. The thought overlaid by conditions and conditioning.

It is in there, glistening, succinct.  I have difficulty seeing it.  Although I put it there.

Cut away the chaff and you have it, the unburied lead, the path and point of it all.

In paragraphs that tell our stories, truth, maybe destiny, await the right editor.

It is in there.  I have difficulty seeing it.  Although I put it there.

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Happy Valentine’s Day

Posted in Reflections on the everyday, tagged on February 14, 2014| Leave a Comment »

I am a fan of Valentine’s Day.  You might already know that.

While some consider this a Hallmark holiday, I consider it a shame there is only one day per year set aside to express gratitude, love and appreciation for the souls that share our planet.

Every single life is story.  Some connections are regretted, some tightly held forever, long after flesh has given way.  All we really have is that story and each other.

For those that teach my children, clear my street, help me through and dig deep to be decent, this day is for you.  In the broad, seething tide that is humanity, if you are capable of love, there is plenty to be had – if only by staring at the stars.

There might be space and light might seem far off, but while we breathe, and when we do not, no one is ever truly alone.

The snow swirls, the stars shine.  Consider the millions of others.  Love sent is love received.  Happy Valentine’s Day.

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