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Her Cottage

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She lives in a one room, cozy cottage she built in the middle of a lush green forest. Her home sits in a grassy clearing, backed up to the base of a fern-covered cliff where in the Spring, sweet clean water trickles down to her waiting barrels. Tiny, baby blue flowers grow amongst the ferns on tender, too-thin stems of pale green. She is young, and happy, and full of hope. One day a pebble dislodges from the very top of the cliff. It’s not much larger than her smallest finger. It tumbles as it falls, briefly touching its brothers along the way. Seeing the pebble’s joy, the brothers break free and join his race down the steep slope. Others join, larger friends, who bring larger friends. And soon they are singing a thunderous roar of glee as they race each other ever faster down. She hears the song and runs out of her cabin, looking up to see them ripping through the ferns, plucking the flowers and consuming all in their bliss. She backs away, then trips. As she hits the gr
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My Brother is a Spectacular Man

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I drove to Idaho to hang with my brother this weekend. He and I don’t get a whole lot of time together and I haven’t been up there in five years or more, so the trip was overdue. This weekend it struck me once again that my brother is a spectacular man. Being over four years my junior, I always thought of him as my little brother. But he’s not really, and hasn’t been for a long time. In fact, often I feel it’s the other way around. He was 14 when dad died and he was an infant when mom died. Think about that for a second. Not that our family has the market on tragedy or anything. But that one fact seems sharper when I think of my brother, the youngest. If he turned out to be a career bank robber you might say, “Well, he did lose his mom so young and his dad when he was a teen. Such formative years.” But somehow, in the way the universe delivers somehows, the opposite happened. My baby brother is generous, absolutely overflowing with love and so friendly it still
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Summer Thoughts

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So I stayed off social media for the summer, which is my SOP. It was not a good summer. The fires were unprecedented and before that the heat was significant. A bit glad it’s over. Throughout the summer, I’d periodically write down one thought or another. For what it’s worth... here they are. Life is not a football game, it’s a garden.  Sometimes I smell on Sunday. Also I alliterate inadvertently.  A mystery coworker leaves puddles of water on the sink in the bathroom every day. Our failing patience may be the downfall of all civilization.  My body is less of a temple and more of an amusement park: one that is fifty years old and in need of repairs. Big trucks make me smile. Really big trucks make me laugh. If you don’t allow a man his deficiencies, you’ll never recognize his excellence.   People who scream “Get in the hole!” at golf tournaments suck. I cherish the simple joy of watching my son catch a fish. Tent camping is dirty goodness.
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How Many More Times?

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We are tent campers. If you camp, you already understand that there are different types of campers. There are cabin campers, a’la KOA. There are RV campers, a’la they can afford it. There are even yurt campers a’la “Duuuuude”. But we do the tent thing. It’s how we started when we were as poor as dirt, and... I’m sitting here at Patrick’s Point this Labor Day Weekend in the Abalone loop space #35. Nice little fire going. Kettle on the cook stove for coffee. Tent to my left. Tent to my right. Love all around. So I’m old now. Fifty. And this is and has always been difficult: get all the stuff, prepare and load everything up, drive three hours, set up the tents and the campground, get the fire going, sleep on something that is not my bed, break down, drive three hours, clean and put everything way, etc. But behind all of that activity, all the prep and clean up, all the monkey business, there is now a certain panicky mourning happening. I’m starting to wonder how many more
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And just what do you think you're going to do with that?

I stumbled upon my blog this morning while waiting to go get my first ever colonoscopy. There's an interesting sentence. I'm not sure if I want to blog anymore. But the idea of just letting the 148 previous posts stay out there in the internet, waiting forever, made me kind of sad. I should note that part of this sadness is due in the fact that I haven't eaten in nearly 40 hours and last night I shit out the contents of my entire digestive system. Meaning I'm not thinking clearly. I'm emotional. I'm hoarding my blog, which hasn't been touched in 3 years. So what do we do about that? My blog friends aren't blogging anymore. Why should I? Nobody reads these things. But maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it'll free me up to type what I wouldn't normally type. Share what I wouldn't normally share. Expose what I wouldn't normally expose. Yeah, that's always been a good idea in the history of everything. Not. But here it is.
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The Truth and why NaNoWriMo is a great idea!

Hugh Howey wrote this article on the NaNoWriMo site last year. The bottom line truth of what he is saying here is gold. If you want to be a novelist or screenwriter or any other kind of writer, heed these words. October 3, 2014 8:58 am NaNo Prep: The Truth of What It Takes to Be a Writer NaNo Prep season is here, and we’re asking friends of NaNo HQ to help you get ready to tell your story this November. Today, author and NaNo Writers Board member Hugh Howey reveals the truth behind the lie of what it takes to be a novelist: To paraphrase John Grisham: “Writing a novel is not as easy as some readers think. Nor is it as difficult as many writers make it out to be.” Mr. Grisham proceeded to describe his daily writing routine: He spends two to three hours every morning writing, and most of the rest of his time is spent fishing. This is enough to produce one riveting and bestselling novel in just a few months. His admission came as a revelation to those in the audience who had neve
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Remember

As I slow down, remember me healthy and hale Remember when I carried you, after I grow frail As I get cold, remember my warm embrace Remember my lighted eyes, as pain shades my face As I grow dumb, remember how I used to smile Remember me now, not as I'll be in a little while
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