Category: Nature
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A Spadeful of Earth
Grief is the price we pay for love. –Queen Elizabeth II In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. –Abraham Lincoln When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent…
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Into The Woods
“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darkness of other people.” –Carl Jung In the rearview mirror of the last three weeks of my life, I see I’ve left behind many things and added many memories. I’ve left behind the heat and sand of Florida, the peaches and boiled peanuts…
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The Tragedy of the Commons
But the darkest scriptures of the mountains are illumined with bright passages of love that never fail to make themselves felt when one is alone. –John Muir There is irony lurking just below the surface of this blog. Irony, youth, pleasant times and not so pleasant times. There’s quietness and beauty sublime. And, dogs. It…
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Adulthood Rising
I have a hard time learning languages. Some people have an ability to pick up German, Portuguese, Farsi or Russian with ease. High School French was the first of my stumbling blocks. I used to “get sick” in the morning to avoid Mrs. Lowe’s first period freshman French class. I tried…I really tried…to understand the…
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Shadows
Like the wallpaper sticks to the wall Like the seashore clings to the sea Like you’ll never get rid of your shadow You’ll never get rid of me –Al Jolson & Billy Rose Fast. Fast I ran, as fast as my little legs could carry me. I glanced over my shoulder. It was still behind…
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The Toboggan
It’s not really a wedding gift…it’s a gift for the future beyond that. When I was growing up in Owego, NY we had a garage that my father built using spare lumber he had accumulated since the late 1940’s. I cannot locate a proper photograph because I, more than likely, never took one. The whole…
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My Way Home
This morning, about an hour after dawn (6:45 am locally), I was lying in bed, propped up by my three pillows, checking on the responses from my last blog. Beside me, Mariam dozed, probably dreaming of new mask designs. More than likely, she was exhausted from walking me around the living room to help alleviate…
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Dealing With It?
I’ve been through a lot of situations in my life thus far. I fell into a glacial crevasse, got lost in Alaska, got lost in the Adirondacks, capsized a canoe in the Susquehanna River and visited a grave on Cemetery Hill at midnight. But I could deal with it. I spent nearly a week in…
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A Winter’s Drive
The elderly couple had the kind neighbor woman to help in loading their car. It was late morning and the temperature bounced around the zero level. When they first pulled the car down the drive, it was -0 F. Then it climbed to +0 F. What a difference. Their car was a Honda Fit, dazzling…
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Recipes For Disaster
It’s long been known that shoveling snow can kill people. Consider the picture below: When I was a little boy, I’d see an elder (usually a man) struggling with the foot or two of snow on his sidewalk. I figured the guy had to be really old…in his sixties at least. That was old. It…
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