Category: Ponderings

On thoughts, and the thinking behind them

On Being Called an Idiot

Stupid idiot shenpa

It’s a perfectly lovely, breezy day, and I’m walking my daughter to school and taking the dog for a stroll. Conversation surrounds whether the dog minds being on a leash and “Dogs have feelings too mom!” I’m feeling general anxiety I haven’t felt in weeks, frustration that ebbs over the general state of the world…

Leonard Nimoy’s Tree

Green Powered Car

Leonard Nimoy’s rumored penthouse in Vancouver Was easy to spot– a pin oak tree growing Atop the 19th floor at English Bay. Think about the inches nearest To you. What’s in your line of Vision? Mine: Target bags of plastic eggs A rubbery Fitbit, Telling me to move. Wood. The mantle carved, The Pictures framed, the copies…

I wonder what JFK would have to say

I wonder what JFK would have to say If he, on the occasion of spring break, Found his flight cancelled. And thus re-booked for such an early a.m. Could not decline the logic of overnighting JFK Queens Radisson. Took the AirTrain to the hotel shuttle to The recently remodeled lobby and The second floor with…

My (Internal) Midwestern Landscape

Midwestern Thunderstorm

Here is the look of the Midwest in a summer storm. To me, this landscape is not only the most familiar, it is the most comforting. How can a sky look so forbidding — so menacing and beautiful — but we are not allowed to do so? I was 14 and in my first year…

The Hard Way

Dog in a Sunbeam

We’ve got two lives: one we’re given and the other one we make, And the world won’t stop, and actions speak louder Listen to your heart, and your heart might say Everything we got, we got the hard way.  –“The Hard Way” Mary Chapin Carpenter Chapin’s song “The Hard Way” was released on the album “Come…

Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

eternal sunshine

I was visited by an old friend in my dream. In the dream, he was as physically real as I am right now. The scruff on his face. The sound of his voice. Even while he and I talked, I knew it was a dream. I knew this truth: in a few minutes, he will…

Hypnotized by the Mundane

Wild and precious life Mary Oliver

Life is wild. Though… It is sometimes hard to see it. Especially since life can masquerade as being quite mundane. Get up. Go to work. Go to bed. Go to work again. Make food. Eat food. Wash dishes. Make food again. Laundry. Laundry. Laundry. Even the most thrilling parts of life – like taking a…

On 45 Years of Friends

JD and Isaiah working men

For 45 years, I have been a friend and had many friends. Even after all this time, I am surprised by all the wonderfulness that makes being a friend new all the time. All Kinds of Friends I have friends I have never met in person. I have friends who are old lovers. I am amazed…

I’ll always remember you 2014

Sparkler meaning of auld lang syne

My mother was not sentimental. She saw the world in a very pragmatic way. If you were not feeling happy, well… just cheer up. If you were feeling ill… well, wait awhile. Things were bound to change. The Meaning of Auld Lang Syne I wished I’d asked my mom more questions about her own level…

Into the Zone – #reverb14, Day 4

Creativity is Subtraction art by Austin Kleon on Brain Pickings by Maria Popova

We are all lightning rods, conduits for that which the Universe wants born into this world. What energies did you channel this year? — While day 2’s post I sang my song of multitudinous life, there’s a hidden secret to what drives my writing. When I am writing, I am “in the zone.” It is…

It’s Just the Weather – #reverb14, Day 3

Just the Weather

It’s all too easy to put off loving where we are until everything is perfect. What can you love about where you are now? Blergh. If I were a weather man, that’s how I would describe the weather today. Cold, damp, rainy, grey. It’s all about the view. I look out my window and what…

Alone is Where We Are

Randi Jane Davis Three Blind Men

The deluge came out in the general direction of Ridgefield artist Randi Jane Davis this past weekend at City-Wide Open Studios. Her painting (above), called “Three Blind Men” (in private collection) wasn’t the only wonderful piece of work I’d seen that day. But it was the one that reignited my feelings about aloneness. So Ms. Davis…

This is home

Happy at Happy Joe's in LeClaire

Two flights, five burgers at the Atlanta TGI Friday’s airport location. A bag of gummy Lifesavers, and of course, the real lifesavers: four headsets, an iPad and two iPhones with digital movies. One hour’s drive, and we are home. By home, I mean. HOME. Not Iowa, the place I grew up. I mean: here. Connecticut.…

On Year 44

What All Those Birthday Wishes Mean to MeAs I walked from home to the playground today to pick up the kids, it occurred to me that — perhaps — at some point in one’s life it is considered “untoward” to make such a fuss about one’s birthday. Of course, not that I’ve ever given a…