This song just seems to have a lot of joy in it. And optimism.

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"if I walk your way I will keep my head we will feel our way through the dark"

Outside the sliding glass door, a tuft of grass crowded up against the wooden deck sways in the breeze like feathery Muppet hair. I’ve studied the thorn-spiked stems of a stand of sticks growing along another edge of the deck, wondering what the plant will look like when it greens out ( Read more... )

Outside the R.C., someone had built a tiny snowman, perhaps eight inches tall, and set him in the snow on top of a flat-topped evergreen shrub. He surprised me with his presence and, I admit, his cuteness.

From the movie The Bucket List:

The Ancient Egyptians believed that when you arrive at the gates of heaven you are asked two questions and your answer to these questions determines whether you are admitted.

1. Have you found Joy in your life?

2. Has your life brought Joy to others?

I am once again playing the role of Santa Claus on WESB this year. It brought me a lot of joy last year, despite the hectic time of the semester and everything going on with grad school, so when they asked if I would do it again this year, I was glad to accept the gig. I was worried, though, because I have to be out of town for a week in early ( Read more... )

On the way to work this morning, I passed through my first snow flurry of the season.

Today was our first foggy morning since the leaves peaked, with temps in low forties after some heavy rain last night. The road was still wet as I set out over the bridge and down across the bottomlands that lead out of town. Out of the fog, the naked trees crowded in on the road like the forgotten skeletons of starved colossi.

One of my favorite memories of Jackson comes from when he was three or four. We were visiting the FDR Memorial in D.C. one evening, and at the very end of the memorial is a wall that lists FDR's famous "Four Freedoms": Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from fear, freedom from want ( Read more... )

The photo on my computer desktop is a shot of the sunrise on July 4, 2010, that I took at Quoddy Head State Park at the eastern tip of Maine. Normally, it's lost behind the clutter of documents on my desktop, but I rebooted today, and as the computer started back up, the desktop photo appeared without anything clutter overlaying it ( Read more... )

I watched a blue jay flit around the Bullock Farm clearing on my way out of Chancellorsville this morning. When I got to the Shrine, several other jays were X-ing across the road while others flew parallel to it, racing my car.