Imagining a Permanent Advent

Hello from the couch, I am back in Bloomsburg, and along with visiting relatives back in the Midwest, I got one piece of the nomadic past year back in my semi-permanent space. I think the next piece will be to load up bus components in Tennessee and get them back here also. I also managedContinue reading “Imagining a Permanent Advent”

The Consequence of Location

Hello from yet another coffee shop, now in Marathon WI, I was back in Iowa for the Thanksgiving holiday, though at the other side of our state. While it is a growing metropolis of sorts (pushing 400,000), it is still Iowa. Between there and Iowa City, the home of the University of Iowa, there areContinue reading “The Consequence of Location”

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?”

Life in Every Breath

Hello at the end of the week, It is difficult to believe we are almost into the year holiday season. This coming week I will fly back to Iowa to spend Thanksgiving with family. Certainly, holidays are a different time for each of us; they bring back memories, which for some are blessed and bringContinue reading “Life in Every Breath”

Why am I Fascinated?

Hello from Main Street, I am back in the only official town in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the place where I first moved in the late summer of 2009. It is a typical Main Street of small town Americana, and like many small towns, it has experienced the growing pains of a changing culture, theContinue reading “Why am I Fascinated?”

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”

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”

Struggling with my Scars

Hello from the hotel, I am continually amazed by the way our lives seem to be in an ending tension of sorts, the sort of push and pull between things that seem diametrically opposed. We are, on occasion, profoundly short-sighted while simultaneously planning things long-term. We are ostensibly pleased with our daily existence while worryingContinue reading “Struggling with my Scars”

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”