Merry Christmas kind folks…

When the dust settles, an interesting article about Charles Dickens visiting New York and elsewhere in the U.S.   Charles Dickens in U.S.

morning light…

“Oh! that my soul had winged its flight,
When first I saw the morning light,
To worlds of liberty!”

George Moses Horton, slave/self taught/poet

 

strolling the beach for treasures…

“Words today are like the shells and rope of seaweed which a child brings home glistening from the beach and which in an hour have lost their luster.” Cyril Connolly

Chinese writing…

Perhaps someone could explain the meaning? I could not locate the usual, nearby explanation for what I was viewing beyond a pleasing water feature.

fear of flying…

haunting childlike dreams

jumping, flying from the stairs

stomach in our throat

then climbing stairs ever upward

some inner struggle

 lies ever present beneath

born in younger years

Voodoo & Observation

Seekers always looking for a magic potion, a bullet. Betting the farm on a color, a size, a shape of fly. Carrying an arsenal of what if’s & maybe’s. Sometimes their face bears the glassy eyed true believer’s look as they finally meet the divine. Almost sacred, yes actually sacred, a mystique is built upon the entire pursuit of the sea run trout…the steelhead. Pick a color…your color? Or the fish’s color? Gear tuned, fortunes spent, easily rationalized…what price Nirvana? Not the warm, up canyon winds of Summer now, but rather the hammer smashing frozen fingertips of Winter. Rods, lines, loads, casts and in the end the most important: presentation and voodoo magic. 

The flow of ideas…….

“May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.”   Rainer Rilke

The Shed: trapped

Brush away the webs

that collect the old worries

and keep us trapped

Where does time go?

The holiday season, in particular, elicits a great deal of thoughts and emotions for many. Yes, the blessings or seeming lack there of preys upon the mind, heart and stomach. But, whether your life is bountiful or lonely another element ever more preys upon my mind….time. Fleeting time. It is true what they said long ago, when I was young, ‘the time just seems to fly by ever faster’. And you know what, it does. Days, weeks, months and then years fly by ever faster. A few trips, a few family gatherings, a few accomplishments and a whole lot of time unused, wasted, evaporating. When you are younger it seems never ending and when you are older I think we still take it for granted.

I have this memory etched into my mind: my Mom was in hospice in our home. She was dying of cancer. She became more reflective and withdrawn. We never did have long conversations about our inner thoughts. Just didn’t happen. But, one day a short utterance from her came forth. “You know Gary, I never really did anything in life. It all went by so fast. I still feel like a little girl…afraid.” 

A strong recollection, a prompt to live life and love life. The time is still going to fly by. So what are you going to do today to make it a little bit more meaningful for you and those you like & love? 

In the attic…

of my mind. Memories stored, mostly forgotten now sitting in the dust covered boxes, bins and bags of my life. Some how, along the perilous way, one is able to take the most wrenching, disturbing, offensive, hurtful acts and stuff them into containers and close the lid on them. Out of sight, out of mind. Ah, but are they? No…Out of sight, but always seeking escape beneath the lids. Unresolved, pure acid, destructive to all. ‘Welcome’ can be so deceiving up in the attic of my mind.