Wishing or Needing?

Hello from Millworks Coffee Shop, I am in the Quad Cities on the Iowa/Illinois border both to visit family for Thanksgiving as well as complete a major piece of collecting and managing what has been a fragmented first year of retirement. A moment in a coffee shop brings back so many memories from writing aContinue reading “Wishing or Needing?”

And So It Goes

Hello from another day of grading and coffee shops (not completely, but I will explain), It is another weekend, and for the moment it seems more like a September afternoon (though now overcast) than almost Halloween. I looked at my hometown in Iowa, and I spoke to Max up in Houghton, and both places wereContinue reading “And So It Goes”

The Gift: Writing and Feeling

Good afternoon, It’s a typical middle to late Pennsylvania fall day; the morning revealed a variety of window scrapping options, depending on altitude of your location. It’s amazing how a few hundred feet, or even less, affects what kind of precipitation occurs. I remember living in Laurium , MI, 11 miles north of Houghton, whichContinue reading “The Gift: Writing and Feeling”

Measured in Love

Good Sunday late morning/early afternoon, One of the most difficult things in life is being able to love another person, consistently, persistently, and certainly completely. I am not sure I realized early in life that it would be so difficult, but at this point, as someone retired as well as someone single for a significantContinue reading “Measured in Love”

Seasons and Siblings

Hello from a low-key Friday afternoon The metaphor of seasons is well-known, and its use across the genres of art is extensive. Immediately, Vivaldi’s classic Four Seasons, comes to mind, or another Italian, artist, Giuseppe Arcimbold painted four paintings on the seasons given to HRE Maximillian II. Scottish poet, James Thomson composed poems on tueContinue reading “Seasons and Siblings”

Understanding Life

Hello on another day of significance, It’s an Election Day and as always the attempted reading of the tea leaves is on full boil. Additionally, there is an irony that the early morning news feeds all raced to be the first to report the passing of former Vice President/Secretary of Defense/White House Chief of StaffContinue reading “Understanding Life”

Every Silence Screams Volumes

Hello on a rainy and somewhat foreboding fall day, During the night I heard the rain steadily pelt my window, sounding more like sleet, something yet to come (perhaps sooner than I desire) as we move into November. As I sit in Starbucks in the library doing work, or attempting, I am struggling with formulasContinue reading “Every Silence Screams Volumes”

A Sacred Form of Strength

Hello from a rather sparse space, Sometimes we find ourselves in situations unexpected, and the reasons are general more than some simple cause/effect sort of dialectic. And as importantly, or maybe more so, it is the consequence of a basic character trait, and even a perceived strength, but something that has been demonstrated or practicedContinue reading “A Sacred Form of Strength”

Understanding a Vow

Hello from the corner of La Malbec, Time continues to march on, and often seemingly more quickly than expected. Over the past few years, and even more recently, attempting to fathom what it means to be a faithful person has become increasingly difficult. Why? While there are a multitude of reasons, the shift in publicContinue reading “Understanding a Vow”

Vertical or Horizontal? Perhaps a look at numbers might reveal something

Hello from the Campus Starbucks, Familiarity can be a double-edged sword, most certainly, but sitting back in Starbucks at the Andruss Library is a good thing. The rearrangement of the traffic flow as well as the tables makes getting some work done much more arduous, but thank goodness for a charged phone. The memories ofContinue reading “Vertical or Horizontal? Perhaps a look at numbers might reveal something”