Mannnnnnnn….cooking a hot dog in the woods!!
It doesn’t get much better than that!
This lady goes the extra mile and cooks her buns out in the woods, too.
Pretty cool.
“fading away” James Taylor
How many things have good songs gotten me through?
It would be hard to count.
I don’t listen to….no, what am I saying? I was going to say that I don’t listen to as much music as I used to, but I listen to music all day in my Jeep, driving the mail around. I listen to a b-load of music. I’m all about the music….still.
I’m all about the music….and the music is still helping me from time to time.
I love music.
I was looking for a different James Taylor song….and came upon this one again….with the line, “something out in the garden I want to show you”….
Now, the line is fraught with import.
Apparently, James may be encouraging a locale that would prove to be the starting point for a romantic moment.
Hooray, James!
We have little kids in tow, now….and have to either stay in the house when they’re asleep….or occupy our tagalongs when they’re with us….so the thought of a romantic garden excursion is not on our radar, really.
Stolen moments are rare at our house.
But….what a great line.
Something out in the garden.
We have a garden.
I should try that out if I get a chance.
I saw this on Facebook and liked it a lot……fitting to find after a birthday. I’ll share and then go away…..(pay attention).
I am almost a hundred years old; waiting for the end, and thinking about the beginning.
There are things I need to tell you, but would you listen if I told you how quickly time passes?
I know you are unable to imagine this.
Nevertheless, I can tell you that you will awake someday to find that your life has rushed by at a speed at once impossible and cruel. The most intense moments will seem to have occurred only yesterday and nothing will have erased the pain and pleasure, the impossible intensity of love and its dog-leaping happiness, the bleak blackness of passions unrequited, or unexpressed, or unresolved.
You get old and you realize there are no answers, just stories…
Photography: Ania Powalowska
(Meg Rosoff/Garrison Keillor`s quotes)
I turned 56 yesterday….and today Merle Haggard turned 79….and passed away from complications from pneumonia.
I heard somebody say that they asked one of their professors whether or not Dylan was a poet….and the response was that “he wasn’t a poet…. he was a songwriter. There’s a difference between a poet and a songwriter.”
I don’t know that what the educated man said was completely correct.
I think that Merle was kind of a poet….in his plainspoken way.
Thanks for some great music, Merle.
Thanks for being around.
This is one of my favorite Merle songs…..
“kern river” Merle Haggard
How old do you have to be before your age engenders respect?
Maybe you never grow into that phase?
That’s what I’m worried about.
No….actually, I’m not worried. I only said that for effect.
I turned 56 today.
My birthday fell on Easter Sunday last year.
This year I don’t have that kind of competition.
You can’t compete with Christ….for a lot of different reasons.
It’s not a good thing to compete with Christ for attention.
That’s kind of sick to try to do that….and not very Biblical.
It is kind of interesting growing older…and, whether or not you have any great affection for birthdays, hopefully it’s something that keeps happening for a while.
I wonder if maybe the way you grow into respect as you age is to never voice any questions about how old you have to be before you’re old enough to deserve respect?
There’s nothing cool about neediness….no matter how old you get.
Here’s my bucket list…..
- Take Nate to school.
- Take the trash to the dump.
- work on the treehouse.
- get rid of some clothes that I’m too old for now….all the “hip” stuff….the youthful stuff.
- buy some pleated pants with elastic waistbands
- eat some cake
It’s a short list…I don’t want to push things.
One day at a time….that’s my new motto.
Wait…one more….number 7. Start taking fish oil more regularly….it’s good for your heart.
I should exercise some, too…..maybe with that limber old lady on the television….windmills and deep knee bends and that thing where I sit in a chair and hold rolls of toilet paper out in front of me.
Man….there’s a lot of responsibility in growing older.
I’m 56….and I have a two-year-old daughter.
I’m a pretty darn young 56!!
I’m still pretty immature for my age!!
If I keep up this trend of immaturity….and don’t ever really learn to act my age….I should live forever!!!
Ahhhhh, but who wants to live forever? Not me, for one.
Who wants to type forever, too?
Not me….for one.
Anyway, I think that the secret to living a happy life is to live it in an “outward” way as much as possible.
It’s harder to remember how old you feel when you’re concentrating on the people around you.
That’s a leaf I’m going to turn in the coming year….quit all this navel gazing.
Living the victory!!
Living the victory!!!
That’s me…living the victory…on my birthday!!
If there’s one thing that all these blog posts have done for me….over the course of three plus years….it’s that, in addition to maybe a little bit of self-realization, it’s made me a better typist.
Now, I know that typing isn’t writing.
Typing is a mechanical thing.
It’s a motor skill.
But….I couldn’t write this blog if I couldn’t type.
Maybe it’s like art….you could reproduce what you think you see with great skill and precision, but if you didn’t develop the ability to really see, all the art you did would be nothing more than a randomly aimed photograph.
It’s the seeing that’s hard.
That’s the difference between a real artist and someone who has a lot of skill at…..wait a second….it’s like typing!
You could fill up the page with letters or a well-turned line, and if there isn’t something other than facility behind it all, it’s just empty words on a page….or a portrait with no soul.
There are a lot of people with great skill in the world…..but, maybe….there aren’t a whole lot of people who really take the time to see?
Ahhhhhhh, who knows?
I certainly don’t.
I’m just typing!
My “little” niece is going to have a baby anytime….maybe today.
That’s exciting!
A new life!
I’m looking forward to any news about that.
A book I love had a quote….maybe from Thoreau? (I don’t remember…..)
“After the first artist, only the copyist”….or something like that.
I’m probably mangling the quote.
What is all this about, anyway?
You have to fill up the page with something.
You live, you create….you live to create.
Typing is as good a place to start as…..
This is one of the final scenes from a movie that Kevin Costner was in a while back called “Black or White”.
It’s a spoiler scene.
Don’t watch it if you haven’t watched the movie yet.
I guess that what it really does come down to in the end is the interaction we have with each other.
I appreciated this movie.
“Racial issues” are pretty weird.
How’d that ever get started, anyway?
One of the podcasts I listened to the other day had an interview with a fitness expert and nutritionist who called the morning cup of coffee a “cup of fear”.
Hah!
Cup of fear!!
Gets my mojo working.
I’m up….early again….and watching the new Point Break movie on Kodi….and I figured that I better write a quick blog post before everybody else got up.
Things change when the little guys get up….you can’t watch a movie when the little guys are up.
You can’t really write a blog post, either.
I took some time off….so this is the beginning of what I hope will be a 4 day weekend.
I can’t take enough time off from my job….but who can say that they can take enough time off from their job?
I don’t know anybody who can say that.
That’s the thing about jobs….you look at it (a lot of the time) as a job.
J….O….B.
It’s not a calling….most times.
It’s not an obsession.
It’s something you do until you get a chance to ….not do it.
What would it be like to do something I was obsessed with?
Who knows.
Cup of fear….that’s a start….maybe the rest will become apparent as I get jacked up on another “cup of fear”?
I’m glad coffee is still legal.
It doesn’t help me figure things out, though.
Here’s a spoiler….this guy lives in the woods….and cusses like a young sailor.
So….if you don’t like “cussin”….this isn’t the video for you.
I did learn a new word though…..”pregnated”.
Cool.
I guess.
I guess it’s “cool”.
There is some crazy stuff out there roaming around….hope things stay a little bit “uncrazy” in my corner for a while.
At least, to my perspective, I hope it doesn’t feel too crazy.
There’s all different ways of living in the woods.
I hope I pick one of the “not crazy” ones.
I need to get back to the Post Office today at a certain time.
The time is….earlier.
I need to BLAZE.
BLAZE….but extremely safely.
Last night, I was dreaming about boxes.
That’s the trouble….the will may be there, but I’m hobbled sometimes by a lack of space.
If I had a big van with unlimited cargo area, I could haul everything….but my Cherokee only hauls so much and then I have to worry about things a little. (Read this in the whiniest inflection imaginable.)
Handling the overflow is weird now that we deliver out of a town that’s miles away from our delivery zone.
So….I dream about boxes…piles and piles of huge boxes. I dream that I can’t even see my case for all the boxes. I dream that I can’t fit two of the big boxes in my Jeep at all. I dream that I can’t get my mail and the boxes to fit at the same time. I dream that I shuttle and shuttle and deliver and deliver….and it’s getting dark….and I’m missing my cutoff point….and….
All because of these boxes.
These hypothetical dream boxes.
Worry is a funny thing.
I worry about the worst scenario….and my imagination is strong enough that I can conjure all sorts of possible disasters.
Funny. Strange.
THAT’S HOW I ROLL, THOUGH!!! A CATCHER IN THE RYE IN AN AREA THAT ISN’T KNOWN FOR PLANTING GRAIN.
What the heck….I’ll make it.
If I’m dragging a suitcase of angst behind me, I’ll just drag a little faster….pull a little harder.
No matter how much easier it would be if I put all my worries in an old kit bag….(and SMILE, SMILE, SMILE)….I will make it.
Except for all this worrying, I’ve got it MAJOR EASY!!!
Stupid boxes.
I couldn’t sleep last night.
Of course, I eventually did fall asleep…but I couldn’t get there in the beginning of the evening.
Usually, when I get so tired that I stop “trying” to sleep is when I finally fall.
Before I left to dream, I thought of contentment….and then, I thought about how strange it is to think that I could chase it.
Hah! You can’t chase contentment!
You really can’t search for happiness, either.
That’s another thing, though.
You don’t get your ducks in a row to the point where you find contentment.
It’s either here with you or someplace else.
You don’t chase after it with any real hope of success….and you don’t chase success with the thought that you’re going to be contented when you “get there”.
You can’t think like that, of course. You have to be able to fool yourself and believe that the next best thing or better situation is going to make everything alright.
How else could you keep moving forward?
Belief….even if it’s misguided….is what keeps us going.
Maybe “moving forward” is only good if forward is pointed in the right direction?
(I have to remember, too, that “contentment” isn’t the same thing as “complacency”. You need to work at something….you just can’t go around disappointed all the time.)
Now, of course, the thing that I have to remember is that if there’s something that is fostering what I perceive as discontent….if there’s something that’s making my life feel hard….well, then….I need to work at jettisoning that thing from my life.
That’s easy.
There’s no real telling if getting rid of it will make me happy….or leave me with the feeling of contentment that I think that I’m missing out on.
It’s hard to tell….ahead of time…..but, it’s really pretty easy to do.
Shucking an irritating shell so that you can grow isn’t impossible or hard….believing that it’s easy is the hard part.
And, you know? That’s life. You make changes….and then adjust to the changes….or change again somewhere down the line if you want….or need to….or, even, are able to.
Nothing’s cast in stone….except, maybe, a tombstone….and that’s really just a jumping off point, anyway.
But….I can’t chase contentment.
I need to be content in the middle of this storm.
That’s something I could carry with me…not something that’s situational.
Ahhhhh, contentment! Come find me!! I’m patient….and I’m waiting!