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:

...

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.

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.

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