October 21, 2023 it’s a mysterious feast you attend, but it offers an affable scent of the cauldron, the light of abundance poured over every table… ~Amy Beeder, Because our waiters are hopeless romantics   I made the mistake of getting a little bit hopeful, excited even, about the possibility of solving the long-term “hip pain […]

October 20, 2023 You are talking about happiness, mine. As if it were real. ~Marjorie Maddox, Chimera   Something different happened yesterday. When my new Rolfing practitioner put the words “hip replacement” and “you should consider one” in the same sentence, my knee-jerk rejection didn’t show itself. Instead, I listened with curiosity and open-mindedness, rather […]

October 17, 2023 Third of Five [Hugh]: You are not Borg. Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: That’s right. And I hope to stay that way. Third of Five: You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile. Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: That’s gratitude for you. ~Star Trek The Next Generation, “I Borg” (1992)   I’ve had […]

October 14, 2023   —Are you mad? Please don’t write about these things. ~Adonis, Desert (translated by Khaled Mattawa)   It’s a cloudless morning, but it seems to be getting dimmer. Luckily, I had just gotten an email notification from Suzi’s Buy Me a Coffee site about watching today’s eclipse. Oh, that’s right. Some big deal […]

October 12, 2023 Where true Love burns Desire is Love’s pure flame; It is the reflex of our earthly frame, That takes its meaning from the nobler part, And but translates the language of the heart. ~Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Desire   Inevitably, when the magic of the Fall season rolls around, my longing for a […]

October 10, 2023 The black speck of it, then the outsize sting… The flea that looks, through the magnifier, like the villain spaceship from a science-fiction movie… ~Rick Bardot, The Flea   A flea! Talk about a triggering event. Last night (while he was sitting in my lap), I complacently observed a tiny black speck […]

October 7, 2023 Know’st thou not at the fall of the leaf How the soul feels like a dried sheaf Bound up at length for harvesting, And how death seems a comely thing In Autumn at the fall of the leaf? ~Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Autumn Song   I’m enveloped in a not-unpleasant fog much of […]

September 23, 2023 You load sixteen tons, what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt Saint Peter, don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go I owe my soul to the company store ~Merle Travis, Sixteen Tons   There’s a level of slavery much more insidious than owing our souls to the […]

September 20, 2023 All I want is a room somewhere Far away from the cold night air With one enormous chair Oh, wouldn’t it be loverly? ~Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe, “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly”   Eliza Doolittle is a microcosm of humanity. Wanting a cozy room of one’s own, out of the weather and […]

September 14, 2023 The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself…that’s where it’s at. ~ Jesse Owen Not to be inconsistent, but I’m really not over my angst about people wearing masks. A mental exclamation point and eye roll were my reactions yesterday when I was in a parking […]

September 11, 2023 You have to get over your resentments, the sun in the morning and the moon at night, all those shadows of yourself you left behind 
on odd little tables… then hoist yourself up onto that yonder mountain. ~Dick Allen, What You Have to Get Over   Somewhere, a cosmic trickster is smiling. […]

September 9, 2023 Thank God for fatigue and boredom, which see routes of escape away from quarrels, celebrations, events “everyone” likes, dead friendships… ~Hans Ostrom, Wisdom in Disguise   There’s probably an unwritten rule that people who are puttering along on an even keel aren’t supposed to express boredom. Bad form, old bean. You’ve got […]

August 26, 2023 You know what it feels like to hold a burning piece of paper… until all you’re holding is a curl of ash by its white ear tip yet the words still hover in the air? That’s how I feel now. ~Dean Young, Belief in Magic   A hurricane. An earthquake. A double […]

August 19, 2023 The great victory, which appears so simple today, was the result of a series of small victories that went unnoticed. ~ Paulo Coelho I’m having to seek tiny things to help me stay in equilibrium. Trudging through the minimum necessary in a day is worthy of a gold star. Remembering to smile […]