Tag: Ordinary Thanks

On normal little things and being grateful.

What the moon tells us

Every 28 days, the full moon returns. Why is that monthly reoccurrence so magical? Why does it appear like a stranger in the sky? Why are there names for our full moons — the Strawberry, the Cold, the Harvest — and why are we made blue when two of them visit us in a calendar…

50 Things That Make Me Feel Normal

When things are out of whack, it’s a good time to make a list of the everyday ordinary things that set you on the path to average again.I had a few of those days when I felt a little bit out of kilter. When I was driving from yoga on Saturday, I started making this…

No Matter How Small: Lunch with Tom

Tom Stroik Mother Fucker

If it so happens that Tom Stroik is in Kansas City (which he may not be), then I have on my list to hunt him down and — at the very least– have lunch with him, if not whiskey and ribs. Yeah, teachers change our lives. We all remember that one “Dead Poets’ Society” prof…

About that goat farm…

Goat at Beltane Farm

If you think about it, you and me “regular” people rely heavily on the super-bravery of other seemingly-average folks. I call these people “small business superheroes.” In the town where we live, a new little brewery, Fairfield Craft Ales, just opened. It’s literally down the block from also-break-now-behemoth Two Roads Brewing Company. Colin and I went…

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…

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…

If I Bother to Look Up

This is where I’m writing, if you are looking for me. If I bother to look up, this is the view from my desk, where I work, over my left shoulder. I often don’t look up, because my head is “in the game.” I may be found checking FB now and then, or pausing to…

An Open Letter to the Generally Sad and Disconsolate

vast eternity by e. Howard

You’re not happy. You’re still all-you.Dear You, Hey. Are you feeling a little “over-seen” in these past few weeks? Yeah, I know how you feel. When “public” suicide happens, it’s so substantially private — so completely hidden inside the person who has departed — that it’s hard not to feel an equal sense of horror and…

10 Reasons to Travel Back in Time

This past weekend, I had the chance to return to a place I once considered home: Kansas City. By home, I mean it was the place where I became the person I am now. I lived in Kansas City from the ages of 24 to 34. For those 10 years, I was single, except 2…

All These Years of Loving You

See this awesome family? These grown-ups are two of my oldest friends, T. Mallie and Adrian Brathwaite. Mallie (yes, that’s what I call her) and I have known each other since we met working at the Iowa State Daily back in 1990. She and Adrian met the same year when she was bartending and he…

A Mindful Month

Last January and again now this one I’m taking part in the 2014 “Mindful Writing Challenge” given out by my writer friends, Buddhist priests Satya Robyn  and Kaspalita. For all of January I’ll be writing “small stones” on my home page site, where I post some of my poetry. If you care to participate, you…

In Love with ‘Love, Actually’

Love Actually Perfect

Because I forgot to take the bacon out of the freezer Christmas Eve, I got the chance to see “Love, Actually” again this year. It just so happens that this is the 10th anniversary of the film, and for some reason that means that people are thinking/talking about it and revisiting their dusty opinions of…