michaelboy

In those days of flannel shirts, Levi’s and younger skin, it didn’t always matter what the lyrics were. It mattered more that I wanted to fit into a place of my choosing: Longing for a girl who would be intractably longing for me and sometimes looking into a mirror imagining how that might be –- clouded with the scent of Flex Balsam Shampoo – hippie style

Water in a plastic cup - sensible and obedient knowing such acquiescence in rigid form...or in the color of earth - yielding and forgiving - remembering its supplication in the potter's hand

What is beautiful, without regard is continuous and outward always as the rambled interstate which travels through your heart

One may never want to feel lost such that intimacy becomes less important than the trappings of an every day life together. Whether complicated or simplistic: matters of career, housework, social media, politics, television, alcohol or other mind-altering substances can take us, in a blinding way, to places we might never have expected to be.

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I am frequently drawn to bits of "what is left". It is kind of hard to explain. It might be a section of roadway that has been cut-off by the interstate, which no longer serves a practical purpose - where crabgrass, briars and black locust saplings begin to dominate - where there are still the remnants of cracked pavement, rusty guide rails, broken shoulders, and mostly peeled line paint. I can't explain it but I'm am very drawn to it. However, it isn't my hope or fancy that I'll turn things around and revive any piece of it.

Along the abandoned right-of-way with a strip-like building of what once was a motel-diner now hosts crows roosting in the open rafters, all next to the remnants of a Sinclair service station with porcelained metal siding and oil-stained concrete islands where gas pumps once stood.

It isn't just that simple. It is more the memory (imagined or actual) of how things must have been - and how little or no thought could have even been given to the notion that there someday may be a diminished physical importance in what we had wrought. Yet, in spite of knowing this, it still has importance to me.

It feels like the pyramids..to me.

Sing it:

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This lake has many interesting birds: Canada Geese, Ducks, Ospreys, Blue Herons, Kingfishers, Bank Swallows, Bald Eagles, Red-Tailed Hawks, but my very favorite are the Loons. They kind of half-sink in the water so that you usually can only see their necks with that characteristic head/beak tilt. They dive under the water for up to a few minutes at a time and are basically loners, except they do gather occasionally..as they have here at "The Long Branch Saloon"

...

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This Red Oak tree is growing on the hillside just above our property on the lake. It is over 18ft in circumference, so it's diameter is nearly 6ft, at 71.6". Using a standard red oak tree aging estimation formula, where the tree growth factor for this species is usually taken at 6.7 (Although this factor could be lower in this area), the tree could be as old as 71.6 x 6.7=480 years old. Even utilizing the lowest growth factor of 4, this tree would be at least 285 years old. I certainly have no expertise in such estimation, but I can say this oak is one of Ohio's oldest and has been around for more than a minute.

Makes me wonder. if it was ever lonely or ever thought that...

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What I may learn is bigger than me or you and wraps itself around the pounding in my chest.
I cannot re-write history or even a now -- so it is best to listen with the great fortune I've found until my heart stops coursing.
It's just our lives that are short and testified to, by flowers that grow in places where houses used to be.

The person of analytic or critical intellect finds something ridiculous in everything.
The person of synthetic¹ or constructive intellect, in almost nothing.
~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

I often wonder where I fall in that spectrum of intellect. I believe that perhaps Goethe's words were not meant as a laudatory statement of either, in the extreme.

but.......

I realize it has been far too easy for me to be overly critical of people and their expressions - enslaved by a quest to find imperfection or fault.

Bah.....I just don't want miss the good things.

¹ In my eyes, the term 'synthetic' used by Goethe isn't a reference to hipocrisy or 'fakeness' - rather to a quality of creative induction.

Shifting attention to the alure of static is simple enough. We can easily be raptured by the less important and in one breath, convince ouselves of significance. With such a short life, especially with what is left, I hope to focus more on kindness, listening, helping, understanding and grace...and much less on the noise and anger which often festers over something like a new restaurant logo.

The unspoken current threads gently between
it is neither demanding or without veneration
In such a littoral place, a quiet hearts rests
wondering what life in this tidepool might be

I drive by a mature cornfield a few times a week. While most of the corn is green, lush and tall, there are several areas - some along the margins and some even deep within the field that are extremely sparse or even barren.

I always wonder why....and always have since I was very young.

Sure, there are searchable scientific explanations but inexplicably I prefer not to know the answer and simply choose to remain naive.

Sometimes, things* hurt people I love and sometimes it hurts knowing why...in my futile avoidance and never-ending endeavor to remain a child.

* or me

While it will always be important to recognize, delineate and fight against wrong, it is equally and sometimes even more important to affirm and nurture the good in our own world.

Collectively, if we keep searching only for the shortcomings in our situation, each other or in some other side, we may never find much good in anyone -- and it will surely become our addiction and sustenance, putrid as it may be.

*

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I am forever catching myself in this -- and then end up feeling rather foolish. There is so much more I need to understand about me.

She passed away this morning on the way to the vets.

Loved her so much. So fortunate.

I was 46 when Marie passed away in 2003 and now I'm creeping up razor close to 70. The time leading into my forties seemed forever expansive and extensive. Now, in an eye-blink, I'm what most consider elderly. What the heck happened?

I had a 40 year career as a mining engineer and IT manager which readily paid the bills, and allowed me to save some as well. Now I'm a $13/hr marina employee, hospice volunteer, hospital ER volunteer, and litter picker-upper. The former means little to me now, other than it gave me a basis to do more of what I love.

The great discovery was coming to the realization that the thing that truly satisfies and rewards is finding different ways to help and striving to be kind to others. It just took a damn long time to figure it out -- and now I have just a very limited time to do so.

Find a way to serve someone because of, you know..time. Hopefully when we are gone, a newer life might be inspired to do the same for others. One of the most precious things to remember about a person was their capacity, willingness and action to be kind. It lasts beyond lifetimes.

It's all good.

*Originally a Jimmy Buffet song, but Dave Mathews, Jack Johnson and Tim Reynolds perform a cover version of "A Pirate looks at Forty" that is an interesting testament to missed opportunities and aging.

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Years ago, I put 50 cents in the machine, pulled the handle and with a boom at the bottom of a sheet metal tray out came a fresh pack of Marlboro cigarettes.

It felt good, but then so did the hope to find someone who found my young self, desirous - someone who would want to lustfully tangle their arms around me.

It's been a very long time, since I smoked a cigarette.

If I could run everything backwards
adding up each upside-down page
it wouldn't be the unfolding of my life
and never the same or nearly as good.
So it isn't really the summing of the parts
or even every bad thing ever unleashed
but is purely the direction we are carried.
If I looked for parts of you that were imperfect
and made careful castings of your heart
for all the hungry shoppers with blue light eyes
I would blind myself to hurt you deeply with it
And, If I never allowed hurt to be without anger
(or even with no apparent sign of reason)
I'd simply be an angry person.

You are in fingertips wrinkled by water
but how is that so?

You travel in places I've walked
and more by letting go.

How can one miss somewhere they've never been
yet believe they know?

I'm supposed to start volunteering in the ER by late July. Honestly, I'm excited but also a little nervous. It has been almost eight years since I've been in that environment and being a bit older makes me a little unsure of myself. Oddly enough, I especially want to make those who are gone from my life, proud of me. I guess it is a way of honoring them (since words are no longer possible) by doing my very best.

This simple little tune in its words -- reminds me and describes love lost, love kept, my weaknesses, my fears, hopes and failures and so many things I tried to be but couldn't or didn't always. It is both good and very hard for me.

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* * *

Gardening Tips

In each unspoken sound and every unwritten word
the preponderance of unreckoned silence is deafening
I may not see the shadows that encumber your heart
(during your everyday life)
or a grow a garden tomato from one of your vines
yet the same sun that brings such consternation,
equally brings warmth, desire, joy and hope.

* * *

Remember, Red. Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things and no good thing ever dies. I will be hoping that this letter finds you, and finds you well. Your friend, Andy.
~ From: Shawshank Redemption, excerpt from "Andy's" letter to "Red"

I'm rather low on words now, for various reasons.

Star brought her new fawn. This is her fourth year of having little ones. Fuzz Head was born two years ago but I believe was shot by hunters this past fall- he was a big guy with large antlers but trusted me more than any have. I miss him dearly.

This new fawn, is Maybelle. She is shy and all legs.