It’s hard to open a mind that doesn’t want to be open. Same thing goes for hearts and souls. A lot of good people move through life unfulfilled because they’re unwilling to change their narrative. They’ve established a persona, a way people expect them to be, so they fear that being anything else will chip … More get out and stay out
Taste of fall this morning. Cool, gusty wind coming off Grand Lake. Lots of waves. The temperature will probably stay below 70. Not cold, but not warm enough for swimming or dragging people around the water on a tube. So, our activities will be land-based. Cornhole, ladder ball, sitting and standing around, talking. All of … More the drinking brain after 1 year and 10 months of sobriety
A morning alone at the cottage. No breakfast. Only coffee and water and the buzzing of the 40-year-old refrigerator fueling me as I head straightaway into two years of sobriety, fourteen years of marriage, and another autumn that leads to months of cold, stories unfinished, travels not taken, amends not made. The water will run. … More 9:30 am, Saturday Morning
I don’t know where it all goes. They were here yesterday, soft and playful. Running around the house all day. Needing me. Not for the important stuff. Mom is always there for that. But for games and feats of strength. To reach things up high. Carry them upstairs to bed. Tell them stories. Just be … More The Dad Job
Many of us don’t use our time wisely. We’re unable to recognize opportunities. We don’t capitalize on them when we do. And so, we sit, get weak and weary and bitter, and we fit ourselves into routines we’ll never break from. … More into another day
All we need we’ll take with us when we go. When we leave this place. Move on to the next. So, it’s okay to enjoy the plastic and metal, the concrete and virtual. Go ahead, experience the highs and lows. Run, walk. Freefall. Taste the salt of sweat and tears—our ocean. Remember the puppies, the … More they’re growing up
Most of us fit into the system. Run along as best as we can within the structure. Marking days off the calendar. Checking off to-do lists and bucket lists and shopping lists. Identifying each other by our numbers, our belongings, the rungs we have or have not reached on the ladder to success. Some strange place or feeling that we’re supposed to have if we do this, that, and the other things. … More patterns to possibilities
I’ve spent so much time over the years reigning myself in that my writing has been too measured. Maybe it’s not about the iceberg theory—making meaning by what’s left out. Maybe it’s good to simply say it straight out. Do what the energy wants. Rip off the band-aid. Let it bleed. Let it breathe. Just let it be. And maybe this change is about more than writing. Maybe it’s about my life.
… More October 21, 2021
Dreamt I drank. Felt guilty as hell. There was no desire to drink. Just did it. I was driving my son’s car. 2009 Toyota Corolla LE. Going to get it tuned up for him at a friend’s garage. Strange. Surreal. Exciting and worrisome, as dreams often are. I felt good, buzzed up, but I knew … More phantom hangover
I wrote A Prayer in 2004. I was a different person, but I wasn’t. There’s immaturity in that writing. That’s natural. As artists, we grow—if we dedicate time to the craft. What was best though. was seeing that I’d grown as a person. I don’t even recognize some of the stories. I get the meaning. … More a prayer
The Crooked Steeple 