“If You Can Do Anything Else”

I started writing yet another reflective essay about how I'm not writing the way I wish I were writing. I decided a free verse poem would be more compact -- thus, this column of thought.

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Beyond Recovery: Dunes and Dragonflies

If recovering from discombobulation is like swimming from the depths of the sea to a beach, then daring to become "more" might be like climbing a dune! I discovered that my mother is a rip-current and my father is a beach-umbrella -- and neither is what matters most. After playing with insect metaphors TOO MUCH I decided that dragonflies are a better example of transformation than butterflies. Moreover, I can sense that I'm reaching another inflection point in my development and I want to share my insights with everyone.

Owl-Whiskered: A Weird, Beautiful Mental State

This post is an update about my perspective on life and my 'Self' but first I want to talk about owls, their eyes, and facial quills. Vision is not solely a function of sight. *** This post is quickly becoming an opus for ‘nonlinearity’. A falcon is a raptor but so is an owl... differently. My brain is sneaky-soft-nonlinear rather than wind-whipping-target-sticking linear.

A Stereo-Cabinet Painted Black

Step 5) In the sub-freezing garage, paint a second coat. The coverage looks good but a few hours later the last sections to be painted are literally frosted — it must be moved to the basement and a third coat applied. Still doable. Mutter curses. Throw it down the stairs — no, don’t! Move it, because I’m in my best physical shape. Scuff the cabinet on the way down— but don’t sweat it.

Halloween Day: My Truck, My Tablet, and a Pink House

I called truck #212221 'Desirae'. Google tells me this is a French name for "the one desired". I found a poster of Ray Lewis propped against a pump-canister in the back of the flat-faced Isuzu my manager assigned to me: perhaps a desire but even more a discovery. "I'll call you 'Rae-Rae'-- short for Desirae."…

Poké Lessons: Firestones

I will risk showing both my age and some "geekiness" in this piece. When I turned thirty, two years ago, I started secretly replaying my copy of Pokémon Blue Version. Chalk that one as a reward for finishing graduate school or else something to fill the space between accepting a new job and discovering the…

Message in a… mentholated lozenge?

I threw away all the fortune-cookie-slips when I purged my desk, except for one that says "Action is nothing without the Motive". I almost discarded a cough-drop wrapper with them, except that I noticed something I overlooked: words in tiny font. "Be resilient"; "Go for it"; "Get back in there, champ!" All are excellent phrases…