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.

*

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.

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.

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.

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.



* * *

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 remember looking at my dad and thinking how strong he was. In the summers, he smelled like sweat, work, sawdust and paint.



So many years later in a geriatric chair and in his loneliness, I remembered him the same.

Near the end of his life, after several debilitating strokes, I had brought him home from the VA hospital for an afternoon. It was raining that day and the front yard was mushy. After our visit, I pushed him in his wheelchair across the yard and out to the car when one of the front wheels of the chair dove into the soggy ground. Down he went and I fell over and into the mud with him. For a moment, I thought he might have been injured and was worried. We paused there for a few seconds and said nothing.

We then we started to laugh in our wet muddy mess. I was so happy that he was able to enjoy something and I couldn't have loved him more at that moment. This was our best last day together.



This was the last painting he ever created. Even with all those unfinished strokes and odd colors that had changed him and his expressions substantially, he was still mountain strong to me.

When small, we are launched into a life where we may not be left with any obvious lands or grooves to depict just how we were guided. For all anyone knows, we may have randomly tumbled as cabbage butterflies might...



Pale green-white pair tumble and roll along lazy grasses -- together in a field.
Not boldly colorful or friend to the gardener
around in a field at the feet -- darting lovers as an intimate dance in a more precious summer.

We all have a story:

It is amazing how the pattern of a scent can be so complex and yet so precise.

I imagine holding my yellow oilskin rain slicker (somewhat like the Gorton's Fisherman's apparel) and remember its smell most of all. With that, I am in a steady warm downpour waiting for my sisters and dad to come home from school. The coat has a stoplight pattern safety theme print on the inside of the coat. Near the curb, I am stomping and humming to myself and I like the way it sounds as the rain patters on the detached beaked hood. I am wearing a pair of oversized black rubber boots - the kind with slotted steel buckles that jostle with a very characteristic metallic sound.

Now many raincoats are vinyl which really doesn't remind me of rainwear - rather I think of swimming pools, beach balls, and those guaranteed-flat-by-morning air-mattresses.

* * *

I depart as air—I shake my white locks at the run-away sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles.

"You will hardly know who I am, or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged,
Missing me one place, search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you."

~ From: "Leaves of Grass", Song of Myself, Walt Whitman

I just purchased the entire Ken Burns' Civil War series and watched the first episode today. It's been years since I first saw this series but, in my opinion, it is one of the finest produced documentaries ever made.

Sometimes my mind wanders and wonders - at how awful people can be, especially at how one human can treat another person. Sometimes, it happens during war - even though we do share the same flesh and spirit - we are able to torture, mame and kill - and even, at times, under the blessing of righteousness and justice. I know I am an inexorable part of this history but I still feel embarrassed by it.

In contrast, I think as many horrible acts that can be imagined, there are incidents and times born of better human character that make me feel proud. The writer Walt Whitman, didn't hold a rifle during the American Civil War but I think in his own way, he battled. Some folks might question his motivation - whether his political fervor or sexual interests bolstered him, but regardless of any such notions or declamations, he spent many precious hours with wounded soldiers from the war. Often he would read poetry or prose to them, share trifles such a tobacco or candy or simply spend time listening. He saw many men suffer greatly and saw many men die. But in my mind... I think he also loved greatly.



"In one bed a young man, Marcus Small, Co. K, Seventh Maine -- sick with dysentery and typhoid fever -- pretty critical, too -- I talk with him often -- he thinks he will die -- looks like it indeed. I write a letter for him home to East Livermore, Maine -- I let him talk to me a little, but not much, advise him to keep very quiet -- do most of the talking myself -- stay quite a while with him, as he holds to my hand -- talk to him in a cheering, but slow, low, and measured manner -- talk about his furlough, and going home as soon as he is able to travel."

* * *
A more than worthy excerpt:

Watch on YouTube

Most of the deaths I encountered in the ten years that I volunteered in the Sewickley Hospital emergency room in Pittsburgh were due to heart disease.

In one moment, a man my age was routinely taking out the garbage at home and in the next all there is for the family to see was the stub of an intubation tube in the mouth of a lifeless body.

If there is one thing I could say to folks, is to please do not wait until someone like me leads your grieving partner and family into a silent treatment room. It's really hard and really really sad. I promise. So please make yourself a promise -- to eat better food, and to start to make exercise and healthy living more of a regular part of your life.



* * *