This story has been bouncing around in my brain since September. I’ve written briefly about the subject before, but I felt that it deserved an article of its own. At least two reasons contributed to my procrastination: I didn’t really want it to be true, and I really did want you, as you read this, to understand what it means to me.
Read MoreRespite From Reality
In the coming days and weeks, perhaps months, the country we know and love will be in some level of turmoil because of the 2020 election in America. Most of us will have done our duty and voted. As always, since the debacle of Jimmy Carter’s presidency, my vote represents a conservative-based view, derived from love of country and desire for liberty, prosperity, and peace.
Read MoreDanger Around The Bend
Some things are hard to put behind you, put out of your mind, when your mind has stubbornly chosen to hold on to them, for reasons that may frustrate and bewilder you.
This story may be a little difficult for some of you to correlate with your own life experience. Be thankful for that. It is a burden, a heavy burden, to have some ambiguous feeling instructing your thoughts. If your life has included some trauma, you may know exactly what I am talking about. If the trauma was severe enough, and lasted long enough, you may have done what I did for 40 years: deny that the problem even existed, while painstakingly avoiding circumstances that might lead to a triggering event. Try to imagine how those two issues can exist at the same time in the same mind. That was me.
Read MoreYoung Buck and Fawn
On the last day of September 2020, I had a rather good day for photography. It started out as a foggy morning and I took full advantage of that. I enjoy early mornings with mist coming off the beaver ponds and backwaters. If you are following my posts, you have already seen several photographs I took that morning.
Read MoreA Moment in the Shade
I can remember a beautiful morning, walking through the park, birds singing, sun shining. On that day a woman approached me from behind. I heard her and turned, then stepped off the path out of her way. She wore sunglasses, with head down, hat pulled over her forehead, some sort of music blaring into her ears through tiny headphones. She was speed-walking or something like that. She did not acknowledge my presence, just sped past me, as though I was not there.
I stood beside that trail, feeling sorry for her, as she hurried out of sight. On this beautiful morning out in nature, her total focus was on something else. Every single thing that I experienced, things that pleased my eyes, pleased my ears, pleased all my senses … she probably didn’t even notice them. I thought to myself, she could have gotten everything she wanted from that walk on an exercise bike in her home, and would not have had to drive to the park.
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