~Upstream and Down~

When Christmas was over and I packed up the decorations for another year, I decided not to put the snowmen away. I wasn't quite ready to go from Christmas to normal overnight. It was winter after all, a very snowy one. And I happen to love snowmen. Today with spring's official arrival only two weeks away, I decided to gather up the snowmen and pack them away. One was wearing a scarf of ivy that was stretching in the springlike sun. Enough already. Enough shoveling the driveway, enough four wheel drive, and boots, and ice sidewalks. Enough of the ugly gray patches of snow that edge the roadways. I'm done with snowmen no matter how cute their cheery faces. Maybe when they're in storage winter will recede. Not that I blame my collection of icy men for the weather, mind you. But I'm ready for new green growth, nesting birds, and green grass. Mother nature with her quirky sense of timing, however, has more snow planned even as I pull snowmen from their perches and set ...

Kevin Preach It was snowing the day my son called from his college dorm to tell me that a former high school classmate, a Marine, had been badly injured in Afghanistan. The truck he was in had driven over an IED. Kevin had lost both legs and was badly burned. Kevin was in a coma, Dave said. Could I get him the family's address so he could send something? Friends were rallying, supporting Kevin's girlfriend, collecting money for the family, gathering on Facebook to console. There was hope; there always is, especially when you're young. After I hung up, I pulled on boots and gloves and went out to shovel the driveway. I cried . . . because Kevin is too young to suffer like that, because he is one of so many who suffer, and because I didn't think he'd live. He didn't. He was buried today [Feb. 2009]. The funeral and procession to the cemetery were covered on the local news, like so many we've seen through the years: small town, friends and neighbo...

Sometimes when the world is full of madness and mayhem and I'm tired of it all, I grab my camera and head out to focus on something that's not on TV or the radio, not in the newspaper or the Internet. Today I drove forty minutes a place called World's End . I don't know who named it, or why, but I'm guessing because it feels like the edge of the world where land meets sea. The world at large indeed faded away as the beauty of this spot--rolling hills jutting into the ocean, whisk broom trees scratching a cloudless sky--seeped into my soul. I was by myself, but not alone. Others were also trekking the snow covered lanes. There is nothing like the rhythmic crunching of footsteps in the snow, huffing and puffing a little, sweating a lot, birdsong, and warm sun, to melt the frustrations of the real world. Or maybe this is the real world. I wish . . . ~~~~~ It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the world owes the world more than the wor...

Carrying the torch~ Like a wedding after a whirlwind romance, the inauguration of our 44th president captured the country's heart--and the world's: a ceremony of promise and hope. All new relationships start with hope. To a country with a debilitated economy and fractured expectations nothing is needed more at the moment the torch is passed from one administration to another than this positive emotion. Hope! And change. Things will change. Change is constant. Change comes from making choices, or not making them. Things will change. We hope it will be positive. And here is where hope is tested. When the emotional high fades, and real life resumes as it always does, differences that seemed easily surmounted stand out starkly. Change--what must change and how--is clarified. Disagreements arise. Ideologies diverge. Goodwill dissipates. Hope fades. And without hope we lose ourselves. Many have already stated what they believe are the most critical issues the presi...

In this fourth New England snowstorm--a beautiful one with snow falling gently and clinging to trees--I took my camera and braved the poorly plowed roads to capture the beauty in pixels. Feeling expansive, thinking of the nation poised to inaugurate a new president, I chose my wide-angle lens to shoot landscapes. I'm aware that my mood, my mindset, controls my photography. I was not in the mood today for close focus, certainly not the minute detail a macro lens allows, and I had already zoomed in on birds waiting in the tree by the driveway for their turn at the feeder. I wanted to think about the country while I focused on the beauty of the countryside. I don't know what the future holds. I listen to the president elect's words on the radio in my truck and think how he has not provided specifics, but he's fed hope to a hungry nation . . . a nourishing meal, as long as it lives up to its promise. I'm anxious for a breath of fresh air that a new administrati...

I can’t . . . won’t . . . judge the combatants in the Israeli Palestinian battle in Gaza. There are plenty who have strong opinions; plenty who think one side—either one--is justified, but not the other. Plenty have voiced their thoughts . . . some in words that are as piercing as the weapons soaring across the border. Words are weapons, too. Incendiary as bombs, they injure; they imprison others in hate. They strike without warning. “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” Not physically, maybe, but they do hurt. Eventually it becomes physical. Thoughts. Words. War. How many degrees of separation? I do have opinions, but what good are they? What do I know, really? This issue goes back so far that my fifty plus years of sheltered living in the United States are not nearly enough for me to grasp the hate, the rivalry, the fight to the death mentality that is part of the middle east, and has been for centuries. I’m naïve enough to wonder why everybody can’t ...

We love new beginnings. Time to start fresh, forgive others, forgive ourselves. A time to try, try again. And at the stroke of midnight here’s our chance: a new year. Unmarked. Like fresh snow. No mistakes. Like a newborn baby. Poor year has a hefty load to carry: all the hopes and dreams of the world. Hopes are pinned on 2009—all six plus billion of them—for peace, prosperity, blessings. Health, wealth, and good luck. Happiness. Happy New Year! But already we see the tracks in the snow. Awful ones in the Mideast. Terrible ones at a Beijing nightclub on the very stroke of the new year. Still more that carried over from the past year, and the one before that, unto the dawn of time. Yes, there will be joys and blessings this year, too. Many. I’ve experienced some already. But I prefer to take my blessings--and sorrows--one 365th of the year at time. One day at a time. Happy New Day! ~~~~~ We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book i...