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Articles on travel

Chaos Lends Itself to Creativity

A high-speed film, this life that runs through its cues without me. It’s an absence no one but me would realize but its very profound-I just don’t know what to do with my mind, my body-I can’t relax, I can’t feel anything but the disorder of my life. I am an unmade bed that is starting to show signs of wear. 
I drove to work today with an unfamiliar sound and it got through and past the wall of chaos that I have been building-you didn’t know I was a carpenter, hell an architect at that, your wondering what the sound was; rain. It’s amazing how a simple sound can bring you back and give a semblance of peace from chaos. 
I woke up somewhat today-even though the process has left me feeling very much like an unmade bed-I’m barely together-it’s like being really drunk and not being able to see if you’ve put the right shoe on the wrong foot-it’s a loss of composure I guess. I feel like I’m coming back to a program already in process and I’ve missed most of the plot-I have an amazing rush of creative ideas but they are like that feeling when you are really hungry but you can’t decide what you want to eat.
You can read this and see the intermittent clarity or lack completely I guess-I’ve cleaned up my office, I put a small light on, it has a feeling as if someone works here-maybe I’ll introduce myself. I came in wet from outside, remember it’s raining, and than my monitor wasn’t working so I decided to clean my office while not being able to get in touch with anyone to help. I found a monitor and when moving the old monitor out of the way I realized the plug that goes into the back of the monitor was not quite pushed in-so now my monitor is working-Incessant sweating, still wet from outside but now I have a clean and ordered desk-the yin is fighting with the yang and I’m not sure who is winning or even who yin or yang is? So now I’m finding a bit of calm to write-shouldn’t be right now but it’s kind of helpful stopping and writing and I’m feeling a touch of control even by the time I am writing this part of a short story that turned into more paragraphs than it deserved.
Articles on travel

You can’t grow lemons in Texas!
















“You can’t grow lemons in Texas”, that’s what she said about twelve years ago. Now I have a ten year old lemon tree grown from seed-it’s 4 foot tall and has produced one flower-not one lemon. I have brought it in every year and by the time it’s just about had all it can stand of a bathroom with minimal light it gets outside again and does well for a bit. Now its showing signs of wear, its drooping-I’m not sure if I’m holding on to something that would be better off just dying-maybe it’s the only thread to a past that seems to be lingering-no lemons, no lemonade just green leaves that grow, mature and fall to the ground without finding their purpose.

Articles on travel

Lessons from Nature

I walked into my backyard with my camera, intent on finding something to shoot, instead I opted to trade the camera for binoculars as there was nothing dramatic about the light. I have been saying for the last few weeks I need a nature retreat, a place to go to just listen and enjoy nature around me, little did I know it was right outside my backdoor. When you photograph or aim to paint sometimes you miss the obvious, the drama of sound, muted colors and the low-key leading character that trades drama for beauty and simplicity.
As soon as I took my place in the center of my yard, a place that needs to be tended to for winter cleanup, I found that silence that perfect place where we seem to almost not exist, even if for just a moment. I realized how we as the human species could learn much from the simple act of watching and listening to nature. First of all there is no sadness or melancholy in nature-the somber colors of fall are just a process, a time for change. We often make the act and process of death so morbid and depressing and yet in nature it is simple and natural-just another process.
Now that the nests are empty, the birds are scavenging for food, fattening up for the process of a long winter-yes even in Texas. The leaves have all turned either colorful for fall or just simply died off the stems due to a cold snap. I listen to the sound of a storm whispering in the distance, there is a tension in the air, a beautiful simplicity that if you don’t stop, you never notice. Even the birds have given up their colorful summer hues for a winter gray and yet I don’t feel the somber feeling we as people experience-nature never stops, never depresses it just moves to the next process and there is something very comforting about that.
If we could only enjoy the feeling of everyday, be idealistic and colorful for our early life, burst like the early spring blooms and run after our thoughts and ideas with the vigor and colors of spring. In the summer of our lives, build wonderful nests that we fill with our futures, enjoy every bit of raising and freeing our young to carry on what we started however they see fit. And in the autumn of our lives, to fill our books with bright colors and share with our children and their children our many diverse pasts and all the stories and ideas we’ve collected. With the approach of winter if we could replace the black we celebrate with the thought of spring, with the feeling that everything we do is just a process, not a beginning or end. Celebrate our lives and replace the grays and blacks with muted colors with reverence to illustrate the lives we lived.

I got this feeling, a fleeting feeling that all would be okay and that was just a moment in nature, a time that I actually took a deep breath and listened to what nature teaches us every day and it was beautiful as it was comforting.
Articles on travel

The Exceptional Life

I haven’t written in a while, not for lack of want but for the fact that I have a writer’s block that won’t quit, I got nothing! I watched a rerun of Sunday Morning today and I was inspired.
How does one live an exceptional life is my question? My first thought would be traveling the world, seeing, experiencing but there is another aspect of the exceptional life. The story that captured my attention on Sunday Morning today was a story about a woman who asked an angelic nurse to raise her child if she died of the cancer she was being treated for. From an initial glance it would seem irresponsible and desperate to allow a stranger, however kind, to raise your son in  your absence but a mothers’ intuition and a chance meeting with an incredible nurse had become a God moment, a miracle.
Not only did the nurse agree to take the son but she and her amazing family agreed to adopt both mother and son for her possible end of life. It is amazing to watch the family take her and her son into their home-this to me is what giving and being charitable strives to be. It’s one thing, donating some money you can rationalize not needing but to change your life and your families life for the sake of another that is exceptional. I can only imagine the rewards that the family must reap from this amazing act of love.

This was not a chance meeting, to me this was a miracle. I always say the most amazing things come from the most tragic experiences this is the irony of tragedy and if you wait and watch and strive to be exceptional perhaps one of those miracles will make your life exceptional!

Today article on subject

Sunday Morning

Articles on travel

Seeking Social- stopping by Starbucks

Seeking Social – I went to Starbucks the other day. I am the one that always complains about how unsocial a coffee shop can be, still I’m the first to run in and run out without spending any time visiting. In my limited defense I do try to start conversation with those waiting for our morning ambrosia. I am quite impressed how quickly people that seem uninterested in speaking become very friendly and interested in sharing-community rests just beneath our thin veneer of habit and busy routine-I think we are all secretly longing for it.
It’s funny, the better they make options for us to be more social and connected the less social and connected we’ve become. I was and still am disgusted with the ideas that have recently been advertised to help our busy lives-don’t bother going into the gas station-just pay at the pump and be on your way, don’t go to the movie store, just pay for movies on line or at a box-I realize and miss the shrinking feeling of community that seems to be the evolution of the American society.
I’ve had the pleasure to walk through Dallas and I compare it to the suburbs as the last bit of youth and excitement before we retire to our quiet suburban lifestyle. People are still as social as they can be, they don’t have houses hanging over their heads or families to keep them busy-I’m talking about a younger area in Dallas-New York is perhaps a different story. I drive through the suburbs and somehow, especially in the older neighborhoods there is a feeling as if you are driving through a ghost town-I’m waiting for the day that the cardboard images fall down and realize we are all absent from our homes and families and this suburban lifestyle is just a mirage. Luckily for us we have sports and church activities that bring us together and you notice there is a remnant of community-again being completely honest I don’t get involved even if I long to-this isolation is perhaps a commonality we all share.
So how do we break this cycle? My first attempt and not a consistent one as of yet but here it goes-back to Starbucks. I decided I would sit outside and drink my coffee and maybe write in my journal, I was careful to find a chair that wasn’t connected to a group of people-I was looking to be alone after all. I hate to say it but again, it’s just a bad habit we have learned over the years. So to break my habit I reluctantly engaged another patron who chose a chair that was not connected to my table and since they were eating a snack I invited them to use the table I was sitting at. What followed was the conversation with a future filmmaker, I shared my experiences, he shared his and when we left we were both somehow better off for the experience.

I connected two pieces of fabric that would perhaps improve my future ability to bring people together. I am just as bad as everyone else trying desperately not to be social and yet feeling very distinctly the feeling of being separated from others I have an idea for Starbucks-start a game, a collective game where we all  participate if we want-perhaps it wouldn’t work and I would learn that we go to these coffee shops to be alone and dig ourselves into our communities on our large obstructive laptop screens but maybe we as a community are more open to being together than we even know-old habits are hard to break but I’m trying-one conversation at a time.
Articles on travel

The Cage of Entitlement and Those Who Guard the Gate

A sense of entitlement has never done anything for anyone,  it has never brought a person from poverty to anything more than the servitude of being a victim. No more nor less than the so called leveling the playing field has ever brought anyone up-all it can accomplish is making everyone the same-at the lowest common denominator. The leaders who sell this as their agenda need the poor and stricken to stay right where they are or they have no mission, no greater good they aim to accomplish, if people in that situation could only see clearly the fact that poverty is never solved and those same leaders keep stirring the pot-keeping victims where they are and serving their own agendas and filling their own pockets. I would love to ask those so called leaders caring for the  people to build churches or schools, or go and feed the hungry out of their own pockets-its always seems the ones that do the most are the quiet ones that are too busy giving to be preaching about giving.
Articles on travel

Muir Woods: Why I’m glad working out finally became a habit.

I visited Muir Woods National Monument this past week and got to take advantage of the benefits of being a regular at fitness connection. I’ve never had a problem joining a gym but going regularly always seemed beyond me. I learned recently to look at it differently-if you don’t make good life decisions all the freedom you look forward to in your later life will be compromised by a lack of energy and arthritic pain. This realization made going to a gym a necessity instead of a pipe dream. I am looking forward to years of travel and adventure and I don’t want to miss a mountain or scenic view because my knees are bad or I just don’t have the energy.

I will admit being a bit winded but I believe it had more to do with altitude than lack of strength or stamina. I felt fortunate that I had started getting in better shape when I did because if I hadn’t been working out I think it might have made the hike much shorter. We often take the ability to walk where ever we want for granted, I once slipped a disk and was almost bed ridden for a month and when I did walk I walked like the hunchback. After this incident I never took the mere act of walking for granted again and being able to hike up the side of a mountain drove that message home.
Muir woods is amazing, I’ve heard about it from others and it is as big and grand as they’ve described it. My son and I had been to Big Basin State Park, Californias’ oldest state park, where we walked three miles but the walk was on relatively flat ground and not much uphill terrain. We took the ocean view trail in Muir and never actually saw the ocean, the trail meanders around a mountain with some areas pretty steep for the novice hiker dealing with altitude-there were many older and younger than I standing panting along the trail “enjoying the view.” 
It’s wonderful how friendly everyone is on a trail, I think we are all happy to be in nature and the endorphins are at work giving us the natural high. Everyone greets you, everyone smiles and you all share the exhaustion as well as the awe of an ancient forest.

Now, when I think of not going to the gym I remind myself of what we lose in the future when we make bad decisions today. I want the freedom to travel and not only see things from the
highway but to walk, hike and explore. No one can make these decisions but us and the final results of our decisions are never more evident than when we finally have the freedom to travel and get out there-the last thing we want is our bodies to finally not be willing or able to comply. So work out, eat well and get out there and explore-it’s up to you.

Articles on travel

Can penance ever make up for lapses in integrity?

I am in a strange place to write about integrity and penance after watching a piece
about Pete Rose on Sunday Morning. In this time of America it is okay to have a lack of integrity as long as you show them and act as if you are sorry, it can’t be quiet, it can’t be among the people you’ve hurt, it needs to be loud and everyone needs to know you are headed to rehab because you are so remorseful for whatever you do.
I just watched hypocrisy at its’ best-one of the best hitters, Pete Rose is banned from baseball, and for good reason betting on baseball and his team. So what’s the problem, his legacy would be much different and quite more lenient if he would have publicly done what so many other fallen sports figures do-cry and show remorse-just act like your sorry.
I was impressed with the fact that his fans still love him, regardless of the establishment that turned its’ back because a lack of appeasement, instead he signs his autographs with I’m sorry I bet on baseball, quiet and with dignity trumps the announcement of how sorry you are and how you are headed for some sort of rehab to deal with your overly acted out regret.

Of course, the best thing to do is to maintain integrity and don’t do the offense that gets you in trouble but there is a better way to deal with the aftermath. I like to think the public knows when its being lied to and when the remorse is genuine but It just seems we love the martyr who throws themselves down on the sword in penance-my advice just be real and he who is without sin feel free to cast the first stone.
Articles on travel

An Afternoon with the Ancients




















Weight
I spent the afternoon with the ancients
Tall dark shadows on a primeval landscape.
Could have collapsed on the path
But let’s call it the awe and beauty of nature
It overwhelmed me
But this is why I changed my life
The simplest thing, fitness
So the mountain ahead might become the friend
And never the adversary
That the feeling of freedom might one day
Be savored more sweetly
How sad the legs that can not take the weight
Of ones own leisure
So unfortunate the weight of ones body
when it’s the burden on the soul
Light
The paintbrush lights the way
glimmers of light in an ancient forest
deep dark paths mark the journeys of centuries
shadows deep and hallowed, keep us calm
and contained, a silence
even among the crowds of faces all in awe
and the light, a brilliant light
touches greens and amber all along the path
I am lost in the intricacies of leaves
the maize of cryptic branches
God, the amazing artist
touches the canvas with colors
and I give up all my brushes
a photograph is barely a snippet
of the wonder
Muir agrees, there is nothing more
I can bring to this place
exquisite light through
ancient trees.


Conversation
I cherish our conversation
as the forest listens intently
there is laughter like music
a stellar jay in forest undergrowth
mocks us
but we insist
even as my oxygen level wanes
I’ll never complain
we walk through shadows
and glimmer in rich spectacles of light
I can barely capture this moment
my photos seem like snapshots
to the spectacle of one short afternoon
an amazing moment of sharing words
all the conversations with you