Looking together in the same direction.

Looking together in the same direction.
Sea otters hold hands while they sleep so they don't drift apart.

by my favorite poet, Mary Oliver

"Instructions for living a life.

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it."

Mary Oliver


Saturday, December 31, 2022

Every man regards his own life as the New Year's Eve of time. Jean Paul

 

“And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been”


― Rainer Maria Rilke 



As the year comes to an end, I urge you to take care of yourself and avoid accidents because spare parts for models as old as you are no longer in stock. 


I can't believe it's been an entire year since I haven't lost weight or become a better person.


(daily ex. update, 1 mile snowy walk with dog, ytd walk 829.8 miles.  pm tm run 4.5 miles, ytd run 1389.3 miles.

ytd run/walk total=2219.1 miles, goal of 2022 miles in 2022 reached, tomorrow is day 1 of trying for 2023 mi. in 2023)

Happy New Year!



I still don't know what I'm wearing to the living room New Year's Eve. I might not even go.

Friday, December 30, 2022

I read this on FaceBook today:

One of my students tried to explain how "blink" is the plural of "wink," and I can't stop thinking about it.


(daily ex. morning dog walk 1 mile in snow and ice,  pm tm run 3.6 miles)

Thursday, December 29, 2022

Wednesday, December 28, 2022

“Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden.” ― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.2 miles, ytd walk 827.5 miles.  pm tm run 3.2 miles, ytd run 1377.9 miles.  lots of snow predicted for overnight tonight)

What day is it? I need to eat a vegetable!

      It's that time of year, and is so hard getting back to normal routines. 

Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Happy Winter Solstice

 “Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. The perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is the time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.

Once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season in which the world takes on a sparse beauty and even the pavements sparkle. It’s a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order.

Doing those deeply unfashionable things—slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting—is a radical act now, but it is essential. This is a crossroads we all know, a moment when you need to shed a skin. If you do, you’ll expose all those painful nerve endings and feel so raw that you’ll need to take care of yourself for a while. If you don’t, then that skin will harden around you.

It’s one of the most important choices you’ll ever make.”
—Katherine May, in her fantastic book Wintering


(

Monday, December 19, 2022

 When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound...
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief.
I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light.
For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free...
~ Wendell Berry ~


This morning I saw a lone coyote tearing after a running deer in the park. It came upon another walker with a dog and made an abrupt about face. It ran like lightning. It happened so fast, I almost could have imagined it.


(daily ex. update, morning walk with my dog 3.2 miles, pm tm run 3.5 miles)

Sunday, December 18, 2022

Wintry weather is coming

 

It's time to watch this footage of a snowball fight in Lyon, France from 1896.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjToVdbPxbw


(daily ex. update, morning walk 4.8 miles, pm tm run 4.5 miles)

Thursday, December 15, 2022

Wednesday, December 14, 2022

 The fossil is not the animal.

The fossil is not the bones of the animal.

The fossil is the stone's memory of the bones of the animal.

And that's a poetry older than words.



(daily ex. update, morning dog walk 4.1 miles, pm tm  run 3.3 miles)

Tuesday, December 13, 2022

 There’s actually no such thing as an adult.

That word is a placeholder.
We never grow up. We’re not supposed to.
We’re born and that’s it. We get bigger.
We live through great storms.
We get soaked to the bone.
We realize we’re waterproof.
We strive for calm.
We discover what makes us feel good.
We do those things over and over.
We learn what doesn’t feel good.
We avoid those things at all cost.
Sometimes we come together: huge groups in agreement. Sometimes we clap and dance.
Sometimes we look like a migration of birds.
We need to remind ourselves – each other – that we’re mere breaths.
But, and this is important, sometimes we can be magnificent, to one person, even for a short time, like the perfect touch – the first time you see the ocean from the middle.
Like every time you see the low, full moon.
We keep on eating: chewing, pretending we know what’s going on. The secret is that we don’t. We don’t, and don’t, and don’t.
Each day we’re infants: plucking flower petals, full of wonder.
~ Micah Ling ~


(daily ex. update, morning cold dog walk 2.2 miles, ytd walk 796.6 miles. pm tm run 3.1. miles, ytd run 1342.1 miles)

Thursday, December 8, 2022

"I drank to drown my pain, but the damned pain learned how to swim." ~ Frida Kahlo

(daily ex. update,morning dog walk 4.3 miles, ytd walk 778.4 miles. pm tm run 2.2 miles, ytd run 1323.7 miles)

Wednesday, December 7, 2022

Sunday, December 4, 2022

Saturday, December 3, 2022

Thursday, December 1, 2022

You are your own best thing. Toni Morrison

 (daily ex. update, morning dog walk 2.8 miles, ytd walk 750.4 miles.  pm tm run 4.6 miles, ytd run 1295.9 miles)