Dear Maria,
Today brought one of those nearly perfect afternoons when the breeze calls to mind—my mind, at least—sailing across our local harbor. By chance, yesterday I happened to post a piece of poetic shorthand that I called “Wind and Tide”, an imperfect metaphor to be sure for our daily experience. But, the lines came to me as a way to consider the forward press of living a life.
So many of us do in our own fashion push off into the day which will have forces so variable as to surprise us—happily or not so happily—and so we must adjust to an ever shifting reality. Of course, much of the day may be as predictable as the tides which are charted out for us if not exactly, at least with much precision. The confluence of what we expect lies before us and what actually befalls keeps life interesting. To say the least.
And is there ever a better moment than we are in accord with the world around us, so harmonious that there seems almost a hum in the air. Sailing brings such a moment when the wind and the boat and the waves are balanced so that the hand on the tiller may relax and even let go as the boat moves forward as if on a rail rather than the rise and fall of the water’s surface that bears it weight. Gloriously, all aright in time and space.
Sooner than desired more often there comes a gust, a change in pressure or a change in direction or both, and reflexively the body tightens and the hand grasps more firmly the tiller to bring the boat back to alignment with the direction ahead.
Be not disquieted, I wrote. Such is the ride that comes when pushing off from the dock. Old Ulysses understood the need to push off. We do not live by standing still, but in our stepping aboard we must understand we are but one pair of hands on a very small boat in a very big ocean.
In a nice bit of connectedness, a friend this morning asked whether I was sailing again. I am not, yet.
Trust the sky to be fair, the wind favorable, and the sea ahead no tempest brewing, but keep your wits about you.
As of now, I am still, srk
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Off the Clocks!
Dear Maria,
Greetings from the Land of Slow Time! Hope all is well with you and the family. No, not rubbing it in, honestly. Actually, that phrase is not quite accurate—the passage of time is, at times, still fast, too fast.
Now that the pace of my day is not regimented by an outside agent—bells no longer tolling for me—I move about as I wish, attend to matters or don’t as I so choose. Except for doctors’ appointments. Those are confluences of space and time not to be denied. Ever. Most days, if I am idle for a few moments, or even longer—no problem. Curiously, even as I slow my pace, the days zip by and the weeks still hurry along. Greetings from, paradoxically, the Land of Slow Pace and Fast Time.
Looking back, has it been six weeks since we last spoke? Has it been more than a month since my birthday? Already four days after sitting with former colleagues at the game Friday night?
All so fast, until I want something to happen, and then the anticipation flummoxes my temporal rhythm. Looking ahead to a rendezvous or a holiday or a celebration, I embrace saying just two more weeks or at the end of next month or three months from now. I save myself a disheartening dose of yearning by not saying in 90 days, or even worse, in more than 2,000 hours.
I am a fan of the phrase in three sleeps rather than 3 days or 72 hours. But, when looking out longer, wising for something to happen, I think in three moons has a nice, sort of poetic feel to it.
Of course, sometimes I dare to imagine life beyond an orbit or two around the sun. I can’t abide thinking 730 days, no matter how fast they seem to go. Even 24 months makes me scowl. Nope, not calculating the hours.
So, how about two leaf-falls? Just twice more, the leaves turning as a few are now, with the attendant raking and smoky haze over piles about the neighborhood. Two? I can do two of anything.
Let the seasons unfolding, days at full tilt, take the measure of what will come.
Yours, and not counting, but always, srk
Greetings from the Land of Slow Time! Hope all is well with you and the family. No, not rubbing it in, honestly. Actually, that phrase is not quite accurate—the passage of time is, at times, still fast, too fast.
Now that the pace of my day is not regimented by an outside agent—bells no longer tolling for me—I move about as I wish, attend to matters or don’t as I so choose. Except for doctors’ appointments. Those are confluences of space and time not to be denied. Ever. Most days, if I am idle for a few moments, or even longer—no problem. Curiously, even as I slow my pace, the days zip by and the weeks still hurry along. Greetings from, paradoxically, the Land of Slow Pace and Fast Time.
Looking back, has it been six weeks since we last spoke? Has it been more than a month since my birthday? Already four days after sitting with former colleagues at the game Friday night?
All so fast, until I want something to happen, and then the anticipation flummoxes my temporal rhythm. Looking ahead to a rendezvous or a holiday or a celebration, I embrace saying just two more weeks or at the end of next month or three months from now. I save myself a disheartening dose of yearning by not saying in 90 days, or even worse, in more than 2,000 hours.
I am a fan of the phrase in three sleeps rather than 3 days or 72 hours. But, when looking out longer, wising for something to happen, I think in three moons has a nice, sort of poetic feel to it.
Of course, sometimes I dare to imagine life beyond an orbit or two around the sun. I can’t abide thinking 730 days, no matter how fast they seem to go. Even 24 months makes me scowl. Nope, not calculating the hours.
So, how about two leaf-falls? Just twice more, the leaves turning as a few are now, with the attendant raking and smoky haze over piles about the neighborhood. Two? I can do two of anything.
Let the seasons unfolding, days at full tilt, take the measure of what will come.
Yours, and not counting, but always, srk
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Down Deep, You Dig
Dear Maria,
Well, I figured you have been busy. I may be unencumbered, but I do understand, still. First, glad to hear you are mostly happy and well. Of course, a little sadness seems inevitable if you are at all sensitive and take a look at the world as it goes from time to time.
As for thanking me for sharing my thoughts and feelings, you are welcome. Folks did once upon a time share verbally, but now few talk and nearly everything is a matter of record in texts and emails, etc. Has it made us more skittish? Maybe. I figure either I trust folks and trust my instincts or I tiptoe through life as nothing more than a minefield of gotchas. I’m going with trust.
As you guessed, I did not see the PBS show on assisted suicide, and these hard questions you raise are beyond fathomable in any real way. I do believe that I always would put down a suffering animal, but to think of another human being and, well, the questions explode.
Maybe we go with the heart’s intentions--we are presented with choices, we pray, we cogitate, we agitate, we reflect, and then we do what we think is best for the other person. So, the drug is administered that will end another’s life as requested. Two days later, a miracle drug is released that would have kept the person alive.
Would I feel horrified for my action were I the one to have acted thus? Yes, devastated. I do not know how I would recover even as I acted to end a person’s suffering in the most moral fashion that I could based on what I could know at that moment.
This reality that I cannot possibly foresee what is around the next bend in the river, so to speak, is the central difficulty for me in this life of ours. I do not want to do harm, but I do not live and love and interact in a bubble. We are connected to each other, we need each other--others are here for us. To accept limitations, accept the unknowing, and accept that there is risk in all we say and do is a tough spot to be in when reflecting upon such ideas.
Don’t forget all the other stuff that is in the mix—the beauty of the world, the awe that is awakened by the night sky, the loveliness that attends to hearts in sync, the joy of music, the shared laughs, the triumphs. And that so much good comes at us without any foresight on our parts is also woven into the fabric of daily living.
Okay, enough. See what happens when you take a few moments to share? Maybe this is why no one wants to after all. Be well. Always yours, srk
Well, I figured you have been busy. I may be unencumbered, but I do understand, still. First, glad to hear you are mostly happy and well. Of course, a little sadness seems inevitable if you are at all sensitive and take a look at the world as it goes from time to time.
As for thanking me for sharing my thoughts and feelings, you are welcome. Folks did once upon a time share verbally, but now few talk and nearly everything is a matter of record in texts and emails, etc. Has it made us more skittish? Maybe. I figure either I trust folks and trust my instincts or I tiptoe through life as nothing more than a minefield of gotchas. I’m going with trust.
As you guessed, I did not see the PBS show on assisted suicide, and these hard questions you raise are beyond fathomable in any real way. I do believe that I always would put down a suffering animal, but to think of another human being and, well, the questions explode.
Maybe we go with the heart’s intentions--we are presented with choices, we pray, we cogitate, we agitate, we reflect, and then we do what we think is best for the other person. So, the drug is administered that will end another’s life as requested. Two days later, a miracle drug is released that would have kept the person alive.
Would I feel horrified for my action were I the one to have acted thus? Yes, devastated. I do not know how I would recover even as I acted to end a person’s suffering in the most moral fashion that I could based on what I could know at that moment.
This reality that I cannot possibly foresee what is around the next bend in the river, so to speak, is the central difficulty for me in this life of ours. I do not want to do harm, but I do not live and love and interact in a bubble. We are connected to each other, we need each other--others are here for us. To accept limitations, accept the unknowing, and accept that there is risk in all we say and do is a tough spot to be in when reflecting upon such ideas.
Don’t forget all the other stuff that is in the mix—the beauty of the world, the awe that is awakened by the night sky, the loveliness that attends to hearts in sync, the joy of music, the shared laughs, the triumphs. And that so much good comes at us without any foresight on our parts is also woven into the fabric of daily living.
Okay, enough. See what happens when you take a few moments to share? Maybe this is why no one wants to after all. Be well. Always yours, srk
Sunday, September 8, 2013
In A Word or Two
Dear Maria,
While drinking coffee this morning just before the sun made it up over the horizon, I was struck by how lucky I am that I have friends who still use the word lovely and who still understand the prettiness and gentleness that is embedded in that word. I think somehow that super-pretty would not have done justice to the mix of light and breeze and temperature in one of those moments we delight in when it occurs.
Even grouchy old Housman let us read “Loveliest of trees, the cherry now / Is hung with bloom along the bough." Of course, I’ll spare you the rest of the sentiment, but the image if you can conjure it in your mind is, in fact, lovely.
A cherry’s blossom might even be exquisite. I hope that word still finds room in the various vocabulary workbooks used in our classrooms. Francis Bacon—Sir Francis Bacon—knew that “There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.” In the story “Ligeia," our Poe went with “There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness in the proportion."
Any chance then that ecstatic has not been outflanked by the peppier and perhaps even sunnier super-excited?
Yesterday morning I chanced to see high in the neighbor’s trees a shadowy form settle in the branches, but I couldn’t find whatever it was by taking a longer look. Then I said out loud that it was about time for my—yes, my—red-tailed hawk to make its annual appearance. Sure enough, a moment later that large, full-bodied squirrel-slayer, the terror of the tall pines, the raptor of the apocalypse, did swoop down and make a majestic arc over the ridge of my roof.
Delight on my face? Oh, yes, I was quite super-happy. Dang squirrels.
Oh, I finally did read City of Thieves. Thought I might be able to recommend it to former colleagues as a good read for English 5 or even 4 if the shift is made toward world lit. The story takes place in Russia during WWII, but while the writing is fine, I’ll have to let others judge how the plot goes.
Hope the weekend was—dare I say it—lovely in all ways. Blessings for your family. Simply, quietly, srk
While drinking coffee this morning just before the sun made it up over the horizon, I was struck by how lucky I am that I have friends who still use the word lovely and who still understand the prettiness and gentleness that is embedded in that word. I think somehow that super-pretty would not have done justice to the mix of light and breeze and temperature in one of those moments we delight in when it occurs.
Even grouchy old Housman let us read “Loveliest of trees, the cherry now / Is hung with bloom along the bough." Of course, I’ll spare you the rest of the sentiment, but the image if you can conjure it in your mind is, in fact, lovely.
A cherry’s blossom might even be exquisite. I hope that word still finds room in the various vocabulary workbooks used in our classrooms. Francis Bacon—Sir Francis Bacon—knew that “There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.” In the story “Ligeia," our Poe went with “There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness in the proportion."
Any chance then that ecstatic has not been outflanked by the peppier and perhaps even sunnier super-excited?
Yesterday morning I chanced to see high in the neighbor’s trees a shadowy form settle in the branches, but I couldn’t find whatever it was by taking a longer look. Then I said out loud that it was about time for my—yes, my—red-tailed hawk to make its annual appearance. Sure enough, a moment later that large, full-bodied squirrel-slayer, the terror of the tall pines, the raptor of the apocalypse, did swoop down and make a majestic arc over the ridge of my roof.
Delight on my face? Oh, yes, I was quite super-happy. Dang squirrels.
Oh, I finally did read City of Thieves. Thought I might be able to recommend it to former colleagues as a good read for English 5 or even 4 if the shift is made toward world lit. The story takes place in Russia during WWII, but while the writing is fine, I’ll have to let others judge how the plot goes.
Hope the weekend was—dare I say it—lovely in all ways. Blessings for your family. Simply, quietly, srk
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Come, September
Dear Maria,
Yes, I am still a sucker for turning the calendar’s page to a new month. The start of something, some kind of beginning. We all seem to duly note new years, new months, new weeks, new days. Around here, of course, we spent most of the summer yapping about the rain. August gave us but just shy of 6” here in Ladson. Dry month.
Now the roses reach aggressively as the sun’s angled light drops a little lower with each passing day. The lantana, nearly drowned and of late mildewing, are suddenly back to life and should be carrying yellow flowers again by the end of the week. Gardenias managed two blooms last week, and maybe some more of those white flowers will come along.
Should the weather cool down a bit, we will all pick up our steps. Funny how school and football have come calling—and asking for so much energy—before we are refreshed. That fall should be called refreshing is nicely ironic—yes, yes, still always with the irony. Hahahaha!
This morning at breakfast in the garden I was joined by a much greater number of birds flying about and riding the branches overhead than has been the case all summer. More telling, perhaps, the morning flock of geese instead of flying west to east, as they have the past two months, today were headed southwest by my reckoning. That they were the same flock of birds, I honestly cannot say.
So a new month is set before us. I am grown of late especially fond of saying “Didn’t see that coming”. I do have some sense that I will take on some larger projects around the yard, but beyond that I do not know. Oh, some writing and reading, too.
At least, today is arrived, and tomorrow—well, I will turn that page when I awake. Here’s to the first days of the months. To a sense of beginnings. Even old April 1st—maybe especially so, hahaha!
Hope this quick note finds you in good spirits. As ever, srk
Yes, I am still a sucker for turning the calendar’s page to a new month. The start of something, some kind of beginning. We all seem to duly note new years, new months, new weeks, new days. Around here, of course, we spent most of the summer yapping about the rain. August gave us but just shy of 6” here in Ladson. Dry month.
Now the roses reach aggressively as the sun’s angled light drops a little lower with each passing day. The lantana, nearly drowned and of late mildewing, are suddenly back to life and should be carrying yellow flowers again by the end of the week. Gardenias managed two blooms last week, and maybe some more of those white flowers will come along.
Should the weather cool down a bit, we will all pick up our steps. Funny how school and football have come calling—and asking for so much energy—before we are refreshed. That fall should be called refreshing is nicely ironic—yes, yes, still always with the irony. Hahahaha!
This morning at breakfast in the garden I was joined by a much greater number of birds flying about and riding the branches overhead than has been the case all summer. More telling, perhaps, the morning flock of geese instead of flying west to east, as they have the past two months, today were headed southwest by my reckoning. That they were the same flock of birds, I honestly cannot say.
So a new month is set before us. I am grown of late especially fond of saying “Didn’t see that coming”. I do have some sense that I will take on some larger projects around the yard, but beyond that I do not know. Oh, some writing and reading, too.
At least, today is arrived, and tomorrow—well, I will turn that page when I awake. Here’s to the first days of the months. To a sense of beginnings. Even old April 1st—maybe especially so, hahaha!
Hope this quick note finds you in good spirits. As ever, srk
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