Come Around [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Kerri and I walk arm-in-arm. We have since the moment we met, held hands, and skipped out of the airport. While walking in our neighborhood people regularly stop us to say how much they enjoy seeing us walk by. We appreciate their kindness. We do not take for granted the great gift of our second chance in life.

Appreciation takes time. We rarely fast-walk a trail. As a rule, we slow walk so we can see and appreciate what is all around us. Arm-in-arm, we take it in. The color. The smells. The feel. The sounds.The critters. The movement. The changes. We often walk the same trails yet they are never the same.

Filled with so much appreciation for the trees, we can only imagine that the trees feel the same way about us. We believe life is like that. As MoonJuice Hikes likes to say, “What goes around, comes around.”

read Kerri’s blog about THE TREES

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buymeacoffee is a walk of appreciation. nothing more. nothing less.

Hope Is Like That [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

A project has me spending some quality time inside Thornton Wilder’s play, Our Town. Grover’s Corners. Emily, after her death, takes the opportunity to revisit a day in her life. It’s not what she expects. Returning to her grave on the hillside she says of the living to Mother Gibbs, “They don’t understand, do they?”

“No, dear. They don’t understand.”

She learns, as another character in the graveyard, Simon Stimson, says, “Now you know! That’s what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those…of those about you. To spend and waste time as though you had a million years. To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another.”

I thought about Emily and Simon Stimson as we walked with Dogga along my favorite stretch of the DesPlaines River Trail. It’s an eight mile out-and-back section. Deer. Heron. Sandhill cranes. Hawks. It passes through meadow and grove, the river snaking close and moving away.

The day was brisk and clear. When we came to the small land bridge, Dogga’s delight filled me with delight. We always stop at the bridge to look for turtles and frogs. This late in the year it is unlikely to find them but we stop anyway. Hope is like that.

And, just for a moment, I stepped out of my cloud of ignorance. Kerri, holding Dogga’s leash, peering with great expectation into the trickling stream. “Do you see anything?” she asked. So overwhelmed at the beauty of it all, I could say nothing.

Had I been able to speak I would have said, “I can see everything.”

For a fleeting moment…

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE CREEK

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buymeacoffee is a moment in time begging you not to miss it. that’s all. that’s enough.

Catch-Up [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

It just took me awhile to catch-up. At least that’s what I tell myself. I’ve always had friends and acquaintances who kept herb gardens. They grew herbs in the yard, on roof tops, and in windowsills. They took great delight telling me the rosemary was from their garden or the delicious pesto was made from the basil growing in the pot “just over there.” I was too much a wanderer to commit to anything that needed soil and attention. It was enough for me to rub the leaves between my fingers, appreciate and breathe in the fresh smells of other people’s herbs.

Of course, now, that I have put down roots of my own I am more capable of tending things with roots. I have joined the ranks of herb growers. I have found the deep delight of making a meal delicious with something just clipped from the garden. Tomato soup with basil. Rosemary on potatoes. Chopped parsley with almost anything.

To be honest, Kerri is the primary herb farmer in our house. I carry pots, heft bags of potting soil. I am support services for the herb garden. I double as the substitute plant waterer when she is otherwise engaged. My role is to admire. To appreciate.

It’s a good role because I receive all the benefits of the garden. I even share the credit for the successful harvest. I carry the herb knowledge we’ve acquired. Yet, I rarely worry about the garden. I rarely think about how to improve it. As support services, my role is less about the health and well-being of the herb and more about the health and well-being of the herb farmer. I attend to the tender.

I suppose that is all of our roles in one way or another: attend to the people who attend to us. But, as I wrote at the beginning of this post, I am a slow study. It took me awhile to catch-up. I’m like a good soup. I needed to simmer for a very long time. Oh, yes. I also needed some fresh basil. Grown from the pot just over there. At least, that is what I tell myself.

read Kerri’s blogpost about HERBS

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buymeacoffee is an herb garden where you can attend to the artists who attend to their imperative (and yours) so both can create more beauty and prosper

Color It Red [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Red is the color of anger. Unless it’s not. It’s also the color of Santa suits and fire trucks. It’s the color of embarrassed cheeks, burning bushes and carpet pathways for the glitterati when bubbling with the anticipation of receiving an award. Red is associated with the base chakra. It’s the lowest vibrating color-energy on the spectrum. It’s easy to see. Male cardinals want their perspective mates to see red.

Red is the color of fall. And orange. And yellow. We walk toward it on the trail. Sometimes it’s too much to comprehend.

Horatio just told me of a trip he took through Canyon de Chelly. Red Rocks. He told me that he always feels that something is “right” when he’s there. Like humans and this big universe belong together. Timeless. Ancient. Mystical. Impermanent. Not separate. Red is the color of belonging.

That’s how I felt standing before this sumac. A staghorn sumac on fire with the season. My only purpose: to appreciate. To witness. Red is the color of awe.

read Kerri’s blogpost about RED SUMAC

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buymeacoffee is…

Watch Them Play [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

I’m not sure if the colors are especially exceptional this year or if I am simply more conscious of them. Either way, every time I step out the door I am gobsmacked by the vibrant hues and color-tones.

An earlier version of me would have been compelled to recreate the color-pop on a canvas. Now I am content to stand still in appreciation. To drink it in. The colors change each day. They change with the light. Grey skies make the color sing. When the sun is low in the sky, the plumes on the grasses are electric.

For fun I downloaded “color tips” from Art2Life. He’s terrific. One of his tips is to make one color the hero of the composition. So, I’ve found myself – in mid-gobsmack – asking “Which color in this autumn symphony is the current hero?” And, to my great delight, there is always a standout, a color hero that commands my eye. And, to my even greater delight, when I return later to the exact location, there is an entirely different hero; the previous hero has no problem moving into a supporting role.

Light flickers. The sun arcs across the sky. The heroes share the stage without an ounce of competition. Theirs is an infinite game. I am so grateful that I am here to watch the colors play.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE GRASSES

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buymeacoffee is a fancy-pants-online “tip jar” where you can support the many colors you experience because of the continued work of the artists that help you see.

Start There [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

The rest of her quote went like this: “And not everyone has had that chance.”

A simple gratitude too often missed.

For years I’ve made it my practice to list my gratitudes at the end of each day. It became my practice because I was – in my original orientation to time on this planet – hyper-focused on what was wrong with me and the world. Obstacle focused. Conflict obsessed. Judgmental of my every move. Refocusing my eye on the abundant generosity of this ride was – at least initially – an act of survival. I’ve come to realize that is was the most self-loving choice I’ve ever made. I’ve found that I am now counting gratitudes in real-time, as they happen.

See the glimmers. Note the kindness. Do not miss the sun on your face. Appreciate the smile. My nightly gratitudes rarely recount monumental happenings. The first sip of coffee. A message from a friend. The Dogga made us laugh. We wrote together. Warm bread and camembert cheese. Kerri held my hand.

I had a full day of life. Let’s start there.

read Kerri’s blogpost about CHANCE

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buymeacoffee is a monetary gratitude offered in support of the continued creation of the artists you value.

Savor The Words [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Her delight in finding the stack of Nancy Drew novels, her girlhood favorites, sparked a question. She asked, “What did you read as a kid?” Instantly, I was a deer in the headlights. I muttered something incomprehensible and changed the subject in order to dodge the question.

It’s not that I didn’t remember. The truth is that I wasn’t a reader until I was in my mid 20’s. It’s as if someone threw a switch and I was instantly transformed from dullard to a voracious reader. I generally have two or three books going at the same time, making up for lost reading time.

A few years ago it occurred to me that I was reading like a starving man at a smorgasbord. I was gobbling words without breathing or tasting. So I decided to try an experiment. Read books like they are poetry. Savor a few pages at a time. Consider for a full day what I have read in my few pages. Re-read it if I am unclear. Re-read it if it is gorgeously written.

My experiment is going well. I’m living in the books rather than blowing through them. I delight in the phrases, the way words are put together to invoke images and sounds and tastes. Sometimes a phrase is so beautifully written it makes my eyes water. I feel as if I’ve pulled off the freeway, stepped out of the car, and am walking through a meadow. I see more. I appreciate more.

I credit the age of information with my new reading practice. I’ve been studying how people engage with their screens, how I have been engaging with my screen. We skim. We jump. We tab hop. There’s so much information demanding our attention, stuffing the nooks and crannies of our minds. Emails, texts, slacks, social streams…

I’m finding my peace, out of the stream and off the info-super-highway, turning paper pages with intention, paying full attention to what is written there, no more than a few pages at a time.

read Kerri’s blog about NANCY DREW

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buymeacoffee is an online fictional book repository where you can lose your ever-loving-mind and fall into strange lands where you find yourself supporting the work of artists you appreciate. Ridiculous!

See The Unseen [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

20’s collections are surprising and always thought-provoking. For instance, he has a rich collection of images from the world that he calls “It’s good enough.” Jobs done poorly. The least amount of effort necessary to address a big job. Solutions that merely shift the problem. Beneath his series is a potent observation: this is what the world looks like when no one cares. Good enough. He is an artist of subtle yet powerful statements.

Another series that always makes me laugh is his “found faces” series. Electric outlets, manhole covers, utility plates, door knobs, that, once seen, gaze back at the viewer and can never be unseen. Now, it’s become a group sport. Kerri will stop suddenly, saying, “Oh! A face for 20’s series!” She adds to his collection. He adds to her collections.

It’s what artists are supposed to do for each other and the world. Open each others eyes to the whimsy and worth that surrounds us. To make the unseen seen, the familiar new.

Recently, at a coffeehouse near Madison, I heard the scuffle. Kerri and 20 both saw the face in the door and leapt to capture it. “Did you see it, too?” they simultaneously chimed, snapping away, bobbing around each other to capture the found face.

They are like siblings, a brother and sister competing to get the first photo. Laughing and jabbing ribs. My job is to sit back and appreciate the beauty of being surrounded by so many artists’ eyes – wide open and helping each other – and me – see and fully experience this surprising and mysterious world.

read Kerri’s blogpost about FOUND FACES

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Lay On Your Side [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

“We are fragile creatures, and it is from this weakness, not despite it, that we discover the possibility of true joy.” ~ Desmond Tutu, The Book of Joy

The heart-leaf lay on its side. Light peaked through its cracking surface. I was afraid to touch it lest it crumble in my fingers.

Only a few short months ago it was vibrant green, connected, durable. It’s destiny was -and is – as certain as mine. My surface is beginning to crack. Only a short time ago I felt myself vibrant. I thought of myself as indestructible. I am, and always have been, on my way to brittle.

It is this very fact that reminds me to slow down, to turn and feel the sun on my face. It is my limited time on earth that prompts me to lay on my side on warm grass so I might see the full beauty of the delicate tilted heart. To feel the warm hand that squeezes mine.

read Kerri’s blogpost about HEART

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Exercise Your Glimmer Eyes [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

They are easy to miss. Glimmers. They appear and disappear so fast. The first sip of coffee in the morning. The hint of fall on the cool breeze. Dogga snuggles in for a pet.

At a dinner party with friends, Kerri and I caught each others eye. It’s good to be alive. Together. With these treasured friends. A tiny smile of a shared recognition.

We made Joan’s tomato soup recipe. Even before we tasted it, the soup wrapped us like a warm comforting blanket.

We set our chairs to catch the waning sun. Also, to see the hummingbird feeder. “I love them!” she exclaimed as the first tiny iridescent bird buzzed in for a drink.

We cursed Jay when we opened the party-size bag of Cape Cod chips. We cursed Frank for saying that Apothic was a very drinkable wine. “Now we can’t help ourselves!” we giggled, having fully divested ourselves of responsibility, diving headlong into our guilty pleasures.

After an exhausting day, we climb into bed with newly washed sheets. “Oh, god!” I sigh.

They are easy to miss. Glimmers. They appear and disappear so fast. They are abundant, like stars in the night. Too many to count. Perhaps that is why they are so easily overlooked.

It’s an odd quirk of human nature to focus almost entirely on the low hanging clouds, to ball our fists and curse our misfortune. Yet, with the smallest bit of intention, focusing on the glimmers is infinitely doable. It’s like a muscle. The more you exercise your glimmer-eyes, the easier it is to see the sparkles. Even through the clouds.

The unique sound of her fingers tap-tapping on the keys. The comfy anticipation of our morning ritual: sharing what we’ve just written.

[I LOVE this piece, Good Moments. If you never have, give it a listen. It will give you a sweet lift]

good moments/ this part of the journey © 1998 kerri sherwood

Kerri’ albums are available on iTunes or streaming on Pandora and iHeart Radio

read Kerri’s blogpost about GLIMMERS

what you can do: share it. like it. support it. comment on it. any and all are greatly appreciated.

buymeacoffee is an online “tip jar” so you might support the continued work of the artists you value.