michaelboy

These things seem to appear everywhere: roadways, sidewalks, parking lots, parks, floors, playgrounds, creeks, stairwells, etc.

Being rather non eco-friendly, especially in terms of being a single-use plastic, they also apparently can be a major cause of gum damage. As my dentist put it, a user tends to "saw" into their gum line. Plus, since the string is rigid, it is difficult to properly work the floss around the tooth, especially at the base of each tooth.

Beyond all of this, I just can't imagine performing dental care in my car or while strolling down the street and then simply tossing said tools on the ground. Dental care just seems better done at home.

Now that you've read this, according to the aforementioned phenomenon, you will more than likely start seeing these dental picks everywhere (usually in a dull bluish-green color) as I do.

You're welcome.

In a twist of the wrist
or even a lemon
you may fabricate
your life as it sits
but it wouldn’t
be as striking
as what you are
or just that far
and how it fits

It seems we have all run into this in a few folks over the course of our years and this seems it really isn’t something meant to harm anyone but maybe more a mechanism of internal protection. It wholly reminds me that we are all weak in ways, and all need others whether we admit it or not.

* *

If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were.
From: Mediation XVII, John Donne, 1624

Below what I know
wants to find its way
around your hips
simply by touching.

It could be your shoulder
leaning into mine,
or even how good you smell
in a quiet morning.

Where have we gone?

* * *

In autumn, while most leaves fall through the process of abscission, several species of trees seem to hold on just a bit longer. Notably, the pin oak refuses to let go until spring and the American beech will often preserve a few sparse low-hanging branches of ghost-white leaves and hold a small number throughout winter as if they, like us, resist shedding parts of themselves which no longer serve them. 



This process is marcescence and eventually, in the spring, they will finally set the leaves free.

No matter how many times I’ve heard the cries of profound grief, it still is never easy. It reminds me of how many times we all have to let go. Somehow, there is goodness in this – surely an appreciation of how fragile life can be.

When I was young, I was so afraid to say goodbye and while age and experience has somewhat tempered this fear, we all have an undiscovered place and inevitably, all leaves fall. Letting go is sometimes loving more - somewhat like trees do.

But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all

- William Shakespeare, From: "Hamlet" Act 3, Scene 1

Over his long career, my father was a fine art teacher at Ohio University and at local high school. When I was really young (in my single digits), he supplemented his teaching income by working as the manager at our local community park and pool.

I recall many wonderful folks on staff there, many of which who took time to entertain me and my siblings. There was one older scruffy-looking gentleman, Henry Huggins -- the grounds keeper for the park. He was my favorite friend and I admired his twisted sense of humor, kindness and gentle approachability. Henry would often let me sit on the park's big Oliver tractor, which thrilled me to no end. I remember so wanting to be like him when I grew up. I am not sure if I have actually done so, but he certainly influenced my character into adulthood.



There are moments recently where I seem to struggle. I'm not really sure if it is purely situational and out of my control, or simply that it's my lack of ability to properly accept change and assimilate properly. Wisdom is often such an elusive quality and is not always bolstered through chronology.

In fresher days, I often hoped to build something great. Whether it was a path in the woods, an underground covered foxhole or even a collection of sticks that felt marginally like a clubhouse. But I now realize, in a deeper way, that it was never the place or even the end result, but more the act of dreaming to make it so.

Sometimes, with an increased sense of mortality, I think about not having the opportunity to finish a particular project -- but then it really doesn’t matter so much. On any new project, I always hope to finish it, but even if I never do, it is the numerous nights before sleep of dreaming about the design approaches that has given me everything I could ever want in regard to its purpose – for this and many other dreams I’ve had.

During a few summers in my early twenties, I spent much of my time turning an abandoned farmhouse (that once belonged to a family by the name of Speers) into a place we all could go. It was a ramshackle two-storey place next to an old strip mine. There was a large sturdy barn and a small pond on the property.

After a few hundred hours of re-construction work, we found a pot-bellied stove, some old furniture and a few other household items. I had planned to use a rainwater recovery system so that it would have a bathroom facility and had even placed a toilet but the house became too big of a party place and that ultimately led to several police interventions. Eventually the barn and house were burned to the ground and the land reclaimed. I drove by this place a few years ago, and because of the re-contouring of the land, it was really difficult to remember where everything once was.

* * *
"We ran into the barn at Speers and I placed my hands around your hips just so I could feel them move. Your unwashed jeans were smooth, your thick hair was dark and I remember how you smelled. Everyone was partying in the house but I wanted you with me. This never really happened, but I've often thought it should have."

* * *

And when in Rome:

In Plutarch's dilemma of Infinite Regression:



The need to be wanted is often way more powerful and essential in regard to well-being than any imaginable personal sentiment, expression, or manifestation of outward desire for another.

More simply put: to believe someone wants us is often the key to our desire for them.

Surely, anyone can love another without a physical component, but without it, there isn't always an equitable foundation.

I had seen her turban-covered head the previous week but didn’t manage to connect. She was back the following week looking inordinately frail and thin. We talked at great length about cancer, chemo, treatments and hope.

On the drive home, it occurred to me that I was really very lucky. It’s not because I didn't have cancer. It was more that we were able to share a few important words and that I was able to make a positive connection with someone who likely had fewer days left than I did. It’s funny how hope works. It never directs or necessitates an outcome, but it is certainly worthwhile.

Suffering will always be a part of our lives, but to turn away from it, does not eradicate or lessen it.

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

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: