“Enjoy every Sandwich” Warren Zevon. 

Me and my daughters at Christmas. Katie is on the right and Sarah is on the left; I was enjoying my sandwich.

“I’ve always thought of friendship as where two people really tear one another apart and perhaps in that way learn something from one another.” – Francis Bacon

Paul Celan wrote, Poetry is a sort of homecoming.” When I read poetry, it feels like I am getting a glimpse into the poet’s abode. It is something personal that I have been given permission to see. I am no poet but when I do write I think it comes from the wellspring and whispering of my heart. Each word is music and each line is unique.

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.” – Mark Twain

My parents taught me the values that I have carried with me through my entire life among many life lessons: Be generous in praise, refrain from criticizing, and be eager to encourage. We all struggle with our own demons; don’t pull the rug out from under your neighbor’s feet. Smile, people are just as important and we will have to make an atonement when it’s all said and done. Today we can embrace all human beings. Let kindness prevail.

You say you are holy,

Because I have not seen you sin.

Aye, but there are those

Who have seen you sin, my friend.”

-Stephen Crane

Nothing seems to be anyone’s fault anymore. Blame gets tossed around like confetti at a ticker tape parade. I did not realize that responsibility had suddenly become a four-letter word.

Walking through the woods in any season is like walking through the door of the most ornate cathedral. I get a lot more from being among the wood fibers than all the hammered stone in the world. You can have the Taj Mahal, I’ll take a grove of white pine anytime.

,,🤩

There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about death. It is my constant companion. You cannot escape it. When you’re full of yourself, it will just creep up and bite you in the ass.

“If A is success in life, then A=X+Y+Z. Work is X; Y is play; and Z is keeping your mouth shut.” – Albert Einstein 

I have now discovered another annoying sound; the back-up alarms on heavy equipment. They are clearing some land across the street from where I live. The incessant beeping drives me nuts.

“You just have to scrape the shit right off your shoes.” From Sweet Virginia by The Rolling Stones 

My Granddaughter, Eloise. Another sandwich I enjoy! Grampa and Dad are such honorific titles. But they must be earned. They are not handed out like diplomas.

“I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion.”  – Henry David Thoreau 

If I were to ever be exiled, I would want it to be to a simple cabin on a lake deep in a pine forest in the north woods. To reach the cabin, I would have to hike down a narrow path for at least a mile, maybe more. The cabin, just a stone’s throw from a lake, would have one room with a stone fireplace and a root cellar underneath the floor. My furniture would be simple- a small bed, a table for meals, and two chairs, one for me and the other for the occasional visitor. A dry sink and small counter would provide ample space to prepare simple meals. A well with a hand pump would provide ample water.  My bookshelf would contain works by Thoreau, Emerson, Leopold, Olson, various field guides, and other classics. Light to read by in the dark hours at the end of the day would come from a kerosene lamp and the evening fire. 

Outside, a small front porch with a homemade bench would provide a nice resting place from which to watch the rain fall and the sun set. Tied up at the lake, my canoe would  be ready at a moment’s notice to set sail in search of a spot to land a walleye or northern pike for dinner. A garden would provide a variety of vegetables to help sustain me through the winter. The woodshed would be stacked full of enough dry wood for the cold days ahead. Oh, and don’t forget the privy.

I would love being there, late on a winter evening, kindling a fresh fire in the hearth, and feeling the warmth begin to fill the cabin. A pot would hang over the fire to warm a little stew and another pot for my tea. The sound of the wind howling in the pines and the cry of a wolf would punctuate the silence. Pulling a wool blanket around my shoulders I would recline in front of the fire. Soon sleep would overtake me and I would doze off into the winter night, in no hurry for the morning.

I have learned that one’s true self is not easy to attain. To find oneself you must cast aside greed, covetousness, material desire, jealousy, anger, and malice. We must then believe on our own and follow our own path. All we think and do must come from our own heart and soul and not from another. This takes strength of character, commitment to principle, and faith in ourselves. To fail in this endeavor is to give ourselves up to the winds of society and our self is cast adrift in the sea. 

Perhaps this is just an academic exercise but the more I build this cabin in my mind the more exile doesn’t sound too bad. Until then, I’m off to the woods. I have some business to conduct with solitude.

“And after he had dismissed the crowds, He (Jesus) went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone…” – Matthew 14:23

“The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog.” – Mark Twain

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.” – Henry David Thoreau 

What does it mean to live a simple life? Is that even possible these days? Some call it living off the grid. Then you are labeled a recluse, a hermit, or just plain crazy. I often think if I were king, it would be of a deserted island and the only subject I would govern would be me.

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” – Oscar Wilde

With the explosion of electronic gadgets and social media in my lifetime, I often think of the simple life my grandfather lived. He was a simple man in his wants and needs but not in his character. In many ways, he lived Thoreau’s advice to, “Simplify. Simplify”. He was born when the horse and buggy was the primary mode of transportation and lived long enough to see man land on the moon. But he never had a computer, cell phone, smart watch, or even an electronic calculator. His “technology” was a Zenith colored television, Arvin transistor radio, and rotary dial telephone. He didn’t have a refrigerator, it was an ice box. He drove the same 1971 Chevy Impala until he died. He grew tomatoes in his backyard with soil sweetened by the cow manure from my uncle’s farm. 

His Social media was an evening of bid euchre with his friends and a visit with his farmer friends on day trips in the country. He had no need or desire to share the details of his life with his “friends”. He simplified his life by simply living simply. He just didn’t see the need to make his life complicated. It can be hard to live such a life in this age of technology but when I want to try to come close, I step outside untethered and take a walk in the woods?

“Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.” – John Muir

Some questions to ponder…

When you leave the house and discover you don’t have your smartphone do you panic?

Do you have nightmares about losing your smartphone?

When your electronic gadgets don’t function just like you expect them to, do you become angry?

Do spam texts and emails tick you off?

Have you ever listened to music on a transistor radio?

Does it annoy you when you are at the store or otherwise out in public and people are having private conversations on their phones, out loud?

Can you imagine a time when there were no smartphones and there were only four channels on the television?

Have you ever used a rotary dial phone?

Have you ever been in a phone booth, and used the phone?

When was the last time you went on a hike in the woods?

If you intentionally left your smartphone at home, would life come to an end?

_________________________

“People who know contentment can live in the dirt and still be happy, while people who don’t know contentment can live in paradise and still complain” – Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) 

Our Gregorian Life

“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. It’s thin current slides away, but eternity remains.” – Henry David Thoreau 

We are slaves to the Gregorian calendar; introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII. Perhaps since 1582, we have gone to work, celebrated birthdays, taken our holidays, lived by the seven day week, and started the New Year every January 1st. We know the length of every month, what comes after Monday, and we have a leap year when it tells us. It segments time and as it marches on it follows the same pattern-2024, 2025, January, February, March, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and on and on. Every minute of every day is counted as if it is a balance sheet or profit and loss statement. Our cell phones, email, social media,and electronic gadgetry adorn our bodies and souls like chains, binding us to our calendar lives. The latest and greatest technology only serves to throw us deeper into the Gregorian abyss. Slowly but surely, we lose our connection to the rhythms of nature.

“Adopt the pace of nature. Her secret is patience.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Instead of counting 12 months, 365 days, 8,760 hours, 525,600 minutes, or 31,536,000 seconds, we should pay more attention to nature’s calendar-the cycle of birth, growth, decline, and then rebirth. These cycles continue on, as they have for eons, oblivious to the Gregorian calendar. The plants know when to emerge in spring, the trees to bud, the birds to nest, the mammals to den up, the flowers to bloom, the leaves to fall, the wind to blow, the snow to fall, and the rain to come and go.

We march through life in a parallel system, one defined by man and the other by nature. More often than not, we want nature to adhere to our concept of time. Try as we might, we will not be successful. Nature marches to the beat of its own drum. Perhaps we will never be able to live fully to nature’s time until we throw away the calendar. In the interim, the more we pay attention to “natural time” the better connected we will be to the earth. Perhaps the Native Americans figured this out long before our ancestors stepped foot on this ground.

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” – Lao Tzu

Time moves at a different pace when we use natural time. It compels us to slow down and become more observant of the subtle changes in our surroundings. I notice when the cardinals begin their annual mating call, when the ruby-throated hummingbirds arrive in spring, or when the dogwoods and redbuds bloom. Regardless of how successful I am at adhering to natural time, there is one moment in time when I will have no choice but to follow nature’s calendar…and the organizer of this meeting isn’t in the habit of sending out meeting notices. 

“Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.” Nathaniel Hawthorne

“There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.” – George Santayana

Imperfection (n): a fault or weakness, or incompleteness in a person, object, or system.

Imperfection is often my demon. I have struggled with it all my adult life. I want perfection in what I do, to settle for less is to surrender. Light switches need to be aligned perfectly, rug tassels just right (I got rid of rugs with tassels), the floors must be spotless, no weeds in the garden, plants growing perfectly, perfect order, perfect process, no stains on my shirt, and no break from routine, no mistakes…period. Sadly, it can and does lead to my anxiety. How can I learn to embrace imperfection?

My Mom lived with the mantra, “A place for everything and everything in its place.” My disdain for imperfection comes in part from my German heritage.

There’s an old saying that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. If this is true, then it would posit that the longest distance between two points is a crooked line. If that is the case, I think I’ll take the crooked path-I’ll see a lot more that way.

Ease up on the throttle and apply the breaks to the speed of life. There is more to it than careening down the road hell bent on reaching your next destination faster than the next person. Stop your race car, get out, plant your feet firmly on the ground, breathe deep, smell the fresh air, taste the wind, hold a leaf in the palm of your hand, listen to the bird’s sing, and watch the clouds float by. Let all the others in a rush pass on by. Your destination will still be there tomorrow but the moment will not.

“What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?” – Ursula Le Guin

Sometimes, I feel like I have failed at this thing called life. Two failed marriages under my belt. It often feels like I have never been really good at anything. Oh, I have had my successes but it is often difficult to look back and say I was really good at this or that. Perhaps I am a perfectly flawed human being and my imperfection is what I have been good at?

Be a youthful adventurer; a conqueror of mystical kingdoms. Tilt at windmills and slay those dragons of adulthood; recapture the childlike wonder that adulthood abandoned. Open your heart and mind up to being a child again. Oh, the things you will discover when you do. 

One of my favorite words is from the Yiddish, “luftmensch”, meaning an impractical person whose head is in the clouds, and detached from practical matters like earning a living. Shouldn’t we all have a little bit of luftmensch in us? A practical life can be a dull one.

Is there beauty in imperfection?

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” – Henry David Thoreau

My Granddaughter Eloise Michelle DeLap. She remains in the NICU at Riley Hospital in Indianapolis. I held her for an hour and a half before I had to give up for her bath. BTW, she has blue eyes. She is still on a feeding tube but is breathing on her own right now. I am a lucky man, as imperfect as I am.

“Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf and take an insect view of her plain.” – Henry David Thoreau

Nature is more than grand vistas, vast seas, towering mountain ranges, and cascading waterfalls, although I love them all. It is also a solitary beech tree, a white-tailed deer bounding through the woods, spring wildflowers emerging after a winter of dormancy, a butterfly fluttering from flower to flower, an ant colony marching to and fro, a chickadee flitting about in the understory, and a small, ephemeral stream playing its soft spring music in the woods.

Before they became grand and majestic, the sweeping vistas, mountains, seas, and waterfalls started out as atoms and molecules. So one tiny thing, invisible to the human eye, combines with another and is able to do amazing things. 

So nature is made up of small things, not just the grand and majestic. Knowing an ant’s place and purpose in the web of life is no less important than understanding the tectonic forces that created the Rocky Mountains. Without the small, there would be no large.

“I believe a blade of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars” – Walt Whitman

Below are a few thoughts about nature…

“Nature is full of genius, full of divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes it’s fashioning hand.” – Henry David Thoreau

After the sun goes down, say around midnight or later, if you’re still up, grab a flashlight and head into the middle of your backyard or other open area. Sit down, turn off your flashlight, and listen. The noise of man should have died down a little as nature begins to own the night. As the darkness makes your hearing more acute, concentrate on the natural sounds. You are likely hearing the same sounds that humans have heard for generations. Revel in the fact that you can still hear these sounds but also ponder that, even at midnight, you can’t totally escape man made noise.

“To the Eyes of a Miser, a Guinea is far more beautiful than the Sun, & a bag worn with the use of Money has more beautiful proportions than a Vine filled with Grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the Eyes of others only a Green thing which stands in the way. Some see in Nature all Ridicule & Deformity…& some scarce see nature at all. But to the Eyes of the Man of Imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.” – William Blake

I especially enjoy a morning snow; the heavier the better. Morning snows are fresher, just as the morning is a fresh start to each day. As it falls, it begins to cover up the earth’s blemishes and everything takes on a fresh appearance. A hush falls over the land as man made sounds are muffled. A walk outside reveals the tracks of animals, large and small. I follow their trails to and fro through the fresh snow. The sound of my footsteps breaks the silence and I feel just a tinge of disappointment that I have spoiled the virgin snow. Soon enough, Homo sapiens awaken and begin going about their incessant business; the quiet ends and the blemishes return.

“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion, it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the world, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Although I am at best a layman when it comes to scientific pursuits, science has been of immense help  to me in understanding nature a little more holistically. I have dabbled in a bit of geology, botany, zoology, entomology, ornithology to, as the saying goes, know just enough to be dangerous. However, I have not allowed myself to become so immersed in the science of things that I fail to see and feel the spiritual aspects of nature. She is a lot more than numbers, formulas, and hypotheses. Being a layman isn’t all that bad.

A small insect was crawling across my kitchen counter. I captured it in my hand and rather than kill it, I carried it to the door, and set it free. I didn’t feel that I had any business being a god. 

“After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on-have finally found that none of these satisfy, or permanently wear-what remains? Nature remains.” – Walt Whitman

Random Thoughts – Two

The pic above is Mom and Me (in one of my Crazy moments). Taken at  Boothbay Harbor, Maine in the early 1980s. I was so not German at that moment. Sister Alice took the picture.

“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.” – Buddha

All my changes, good and bad, are tied to this place on the map where I now spend my days. Sunshine, shadows, rain, snow, winds, thunder, lightning, life, and death. They have all happened here. Someday, my story will end and maybe I will be given a place on some dusty shelf in a celestial library. Until then, I will think about today.

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter- it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” – Mark Twain 

“There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I have struggled with depression all of my adult life. But I think it is also a catalyst for my creativity. As much as I want it to go away I also don’t want it to leave. It is like a tightrope walk along the abyss between melancholy and cheer, but I’m no Walenda. 

Whatever happened to my innocence? When did I become tainted by the world?

Called Dad today from the pay phone outside the King Copper Motel in Copper Harbor, Michigan to wish him a Happy Father’s Day. The ferry leaves for Isle Royale in the morning. In my youth, I wanted to be the opposite of him, but now I want to be just like him. – Journal, June 18, 2000

“Some will rob you with a six gun, and some will rob you with a fountain pen.” – Woody Guthrie

“Know thyself? If I knew myself, I’d run away.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Before finding fault or blaming others for my problems, I first look in the mirror. Most often, the cause and solution are staring back at me.

“No man ever steps in the same river twice for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.” – Heraclitus 

Only after the last tree has been cut down. Only after the last river has been poisoned. Only after the last fish has been caught. Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten. – Cree Indian Prophesy

Writing is the Latin of our times. The modern language of the people is video and sound.” – Lawrence Lessig

Life has no meaning a priori…it’s up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose.” – Jean-Paul Sartre

I have never been too much into idols. I suppose if asked I would say my parents and Grampa. No sports superstars, movie actors, and certainly no politicians. My idols have always been close to home.

What a glorious world we live in! Every day is a gift, an opportunity to discover the undiscovered, to listen to the unheard, to give to the ungiving, to touch the untouched, to share of the fruits we have been given.  What will I do with the fruits of my life…will I share their sweetness or will they spoil in the bowl? 

When the Last Whale Dies

We walk along the path together.

I stop to follow a caterpillar and watch the ants march.

You laugh at my fascination with things so small.

I watch the birds dance in the trees and I call them by name.

You laugh at what you believe is their insignificance.

I stop to watch a fox hunting in the distance,

Again, you laugh.

Will you laugh when the last whale dies?

Snake Doctor – dragonflies and damselflies (refers to a folk belief that these insects follow snakes around and stitch up injuries they may sustain).

People want power over something or somebody. This is a seemingly insatiable desire. It could be control over the day, a loved one, a child, a coworker, the moment, the week, or, in some cases, the world. This is futile because there are simply too many moving parts for a person to control all the levers and buttons to satisfy the selfish whims and desires of the human ego. It is quite enough to control oneself and that can be a handful. 

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” – Seneca

Dad – You were a terrible driver-

But a great father.

You were always there when I needed you

Mom- your star still shines bright.

Lonely nights.

But I know you are in the River of Heaven

Dad was a civil engineer; Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy- Rolla, class of 1952. He was a structural engineer by education but gravitated towards water and sewer infrastructure design during his long career. He helped establish an engineering consulting firm in 1953 that was in business for fifty years before he sold it and retired. When I think about part of his legacy, he helped establish funding and engineering solutions to provide water to rural citizens in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. He was a humble man who didn’t blow his own horn but yet what he accomplished speaks for itself. Inside, though there was the gregarious Irishman who would easily sidle up to the bar next to you and share a drink. He knew no stranger.

Mom was German…100% or was that 2,000%? You can believe there was an order in our house. A place for everything and everything in its place. If you got a toy out you put it away when you were done and nothing else came out until the floor was spotless. Coats were hung up, clean clothes put away, and dirty clothes placed in their appropriate baskets in the laundry room. Darks, lights, and whites, each in their place. Order, order, order. Dinner was served promptly at 6:00 and bedtime was at 10:00. I once got in an after-school fight with a neighborhood boy. I was wearing my clean Cub Scout uniform and ended up with ample grass stains on both knees of my blue scout pants to show for it. She was not happy. I was out of order and received a hearty paddling for my misdeed.

The order became painfully obvious after Mom passed and Dad was left alone in the house. Can you say train wreck and disorder?  I can imagine Mom doing a double flip and two or three rolls in her grave at the sight. I have quite a bit of that German in me but also a healthy dose of Dad’s Irish ancestry. I like order, but a shot of whisky isn’t something to turn your nose up at.

I continue to celebrate both of my parents even though they left this earthly life quite some time ago. Their spirits continue to color my world and guide me from beyond.