Making Peace with the Limits

In my dream Ken Wapnick was surrounded by students, caught my eye and tilted his head towards a distant mountain as if saying, just climb that, it's enough, don’t worry who is your teacher and who is not.

Popcorn with soy sauce, cumin, red pepper and garlic.

How we walk as we age, slower and stiffer, but not unhappier.

My last pickup was sky blue, Jake and I rode in it all the time around southern Vermont, I had it detailed once and the guy said, "why you doing this to your truck, your dog's got it just the way he likes it."

Snow melts in mid-winter rain and the rocks I call Buddha appear and I genuflect passing because it is Buddha. 

Evergreens leaning in stiff winds.

Making peace with the limits of travel, sitting in the bedroom at night watching moonlight glide across the walls and floor.

Jesus clarifying.

Willow trees in a past life. Silver minnows darting through the cool brook rippling moonlight.

How hard it is to write while listening to music unless voices are present to mute it, provide alternative rhythms and wordiness.

What we hope happens, what happens.

Pausing in the library to gaze at a watercolor of cherry blossoms, the artist somehow conveying something angry and beautiful both, which mystifies and pleases me, which also mystifies and pleases me.

Imagine oneness, model it, we are social animals, there's a reason we know how to speak and how to listen to stories.

Honesty aligns us with Creation in ways that promote coherence, is really all I mean by happiness.

Practicing gratitude at 3 a.m. in bed, laying quietly between my wife and my wife's cats, now and then the faint sound of eighteen-wheelers leaning on the brakes as they glide down route nine south.

Discerning between "connection" and "join," helpfully.

The weather on the day that Emily Dickinson wrote about her life as a loaded gun.

How easy it was baking bread with her, as if my whole life had been angling for just that form of love. 

There is no center, let that distraction go.