1.8.16 Out the door

The range , miniaturized by the broad skies of grandeur.

1.8.16 Piquant beauty

This is quintessential winter- the golden Beech leaves drying in the warm winter sun, the small path made through the beginnings of snowfall , the piquant beauty of the entry to the woods , beckoning.

1.8.16 Everywhere at all

       Kestrel Lane, of course, that tiny dirt path leading to everywhere at all.

 

1.8.16 Last year at this time

 you could see the latest news in wonderment and flash all over the horizon.

1.18.16 The real shit and the real fan

     It's really important to study and learn how to get good at all the secondary reactions, in life, to the primary events. Because they're like tinder that ignites at a moment's notice, messing everything up badly. 
     And when the shit really hits the fan, when it really does, after you already thought it had done so, a whole number of times, and then you get really surprised, kind of like the really BIG WAVE finally comes on the scene, you say to yourself, "Fuck! None of those other waves really were a problem ever. "
     When the real shit hits the real fan, and you need to step up, then all that practicing about how to deal with all those secondary reactions comes home to roost. Serves you beautifully. Ensures that all those big huge all over the walls emotions and fears can get settled as well as possible. So they don't go screw up your health and everything else. Like relationships . Bill paying. Schedules. House cleaning. So everything doesn't go to hell in a handbasket.
     So that you can hunker down. By yourself or with a friend, on the phone. Or a partner or beloved or a good neighbor. You can settle down, and you can hold on, and realize, that for this moment, everything is really all right.

1.8.16 Playing it through

I have an acquaintance, maybe a friend. 

My oldest kid knew her niece, then we all met her sister that my younger kids hung out with. I became friends with her sister . Met her remarkable mother, and became very fond of her mother. Finally, I met her. And a few of her kids too. 
Then I stopped working. We started corresponding. Then we started walking our big muscle dogs together, up in the deep woods, off the long winding hilly roads embedded in the forest. She's a lot younger than me. I'm kind of the age of her prickly older sister, and she's kind of the age of my prickly younger one. It's funny.
And in some ways , her life is just opening up.
As the load of kids grow older, as her long hard won success at graduate school finally pays off.
So we walk. We talk about life. Writing. Neighbors and friends, child raising. Partners. Finances. The mysterious, and then not so mysterious, aspects of life. Thing is, she is always up for it. She is always equal to it. There was no one but her, holding the whole show up, making sure everything works, playing it true all the way through.