waddayear

Today I am grateful for the mountains, for when the trail levels out and lets you take a good breath, for people I can trust, and time to appreciate that.

I am grateful that I can still accept a challenge but have enough sense to know when to back down.

I am grateful for my shoes, my poles, my tent. Dry socks, hot chocolate, and time. 

Sweet time with these guys.

There were people running that trail but hiking sections 3, 4, and 5 of the Pinhoti was all I could manage. Thanks to a very special guide I have been able to hike the first five sections this year. I start crying when I think about how to describe it.

Thank you, 2018.

Bring it, 2019.

Happy New Year, man.

including Johnny Depp

"Do I want to speak of the miracle of our Lord's divine transformation? Not really. No. I don't want to talk about his divinity. I'd rather talk about his humanity. I mean, you know, how he lived his life here on earth. His kindness. His tolerance. Listen. Here's what I think. I think we can't go around measuring our goodness by what we don't do, by what we deny ourselves, what we resist, and who we exclude. I think we've got to measure goodness by what we embrace, what we create, and who we include."

Pere Henri in Chocolat by Joanne Harris

Today I am grateful to be included.

also,

he recommended this guy.

to name one of seven puppies

Puppies for Breakfast I think to title it, the story of two girls playing in an ocean of puppies before they even ate their waffles. She tells me, "No. People may think you're actually eating puppies for breakfast."

"What?"

"Call it Puppy Love."

"But don't you think Puppy Love has been used a lot. There's a reason, I know. It's good. It's solid. It's understandable, relatable. But puppies for breakfast is what those girls were doing."

We decide on Puppy Talk, and I smile as I go through photos of that morning.

If we had called it puppies for breakfast we would have had to see her being chased, attacked, the sun making the frost glisten. The contrast. She had a favorite puppy. She knows her by her hernia. And that puppy is hers.

Hers should be that puppy's name.


Today I am grateful to have puppies for breakfast.

that same bird

People just give him stuff everywhere he goes. We sat at a free table yesterday. Then he led me on a tour, and I forgot my camera 'cause sometimes you can and sometimes you have to.

His room I didn't think to measure because I was so distracted by the history of centuries of how we began to record and listen to music and what an obsession, what a focus this young man has. So I have to clean out his car and put up my tent and take a photo and marinate the candied fruit to go in a cake I don't know how to make, but it does come with directions.


He said, "You need to come over. You don't have a life."

Then leads me into a home with people and dogs and cats and so many stories and so much history and it's a museum in the woods and he is it's curator.



Today I am grateful for our local curator. What a kid.

this guy's birthday

I must make him a lemon pie and what do you get a man who has everything?

He says, "I don't know about that car."

"That car is just fine."

He grins. "You look like a 15 year old boy in it."

We said a couple of things after that.



Today I am grateful to know how to make the lemon pie he loves and I hope to make a fruitcake just the same. And get a car cleaned out.


He put some bling on it, but she gave it to me.

And Santa. and the kids. It's a beautiful time of year.

feeling, general

Today I am grateful for women, men, children, trails, books, teachers, mothers, fathers, homes. Fish, dogs, deer, turkeys, cats, armadillos and possums even. Electricity, running water, a creek, fertile ground, a guy who planned it out like this.

Wednesday's project: crazy invite to the photography club

When you don't take the shot, there's a shot you see. When you're not distracted by the lens or the photo you just took, you look out and see them. The shot we missed was from the courthouse down main, backed up off the street as close to a wide angle as you can with a 70-200mm lens. The wide angle would be just too wide for this.

His new camera was delivered, but the lens won't be here till Wednesday.
Then he'll take a long break with his camera and that lens.
To be a kid at Christmas, people.


Today I am grateful for the potential of a new project.

49,000 photos deleted this past week

I am grateful for those photos that photographer took, the next four days of intense work, hot water, soap, a toothbrush. I have to get my head together and donate.

Make a list.

toothbrush
soap
a throw
baby dolls


She said that the nursing home needs some stuff.


Call her back. Go by and see her. Get the list. Write down what she dictates to you.



Today I am grateful that she has a list.

Young Woman You Amaze Me at Berry's in Magee

There was that drive to see that girl, oops excuse me, college graduate teacher and her mom and her husband and dad and brother and sister in law and grandpa and cousin and friends.

And the food.
And you know what?

This has to be the reason I walk.

I walk for a woman who wears a hat to dinner, who makes me laugh every time I see a picture of her, a kid with whom I share Cool Hand Luke stories and who makes my car's voice come from the steering wheel, and people are everywhere I look and listen. Photographs can be treasures. What an awesome place this is.

What a gift are people.

I am grateful for teachers and women and men and a dinner of a buffet which will make you sit till it settles. She graduated college but I told her that I'm just glad she found us another reason to come here.

16 minutes, 7 seconds to spare

Close the door. Lock it.
Press play.
And close your eyes.
Or clean house.
Or work like a fein.
Or whatever it is you like.

who you know, what you know

He says, "It's not what you know. It's who you know." And yes, he understands that I don't agree but I especially understand that I have very little I can teach him. I don't even know if my truth should be his. He's right. I wouldn't be where I am today without the people in my life.



Today I am grateful for a kid who has been kind enough to slow down for a moment and teach me.
The irony is that when I feel angry, insecure, disappointed, or like I need a drink, it's not because of who I know. It's because of how little I've learned with all the advantages I've had. It's because I should be better than I am.

'tis the season

for yellow elephants with stars in their ears and children who finally find where they belong and matching pajamas and so much food it's guilt.


Today I am grateful for a wake-up call, a chic who wanted to make the drive, kids who are the light of their grandparents' eyes, and a place where we all feel like we belong.

10 mile hike

saxophones, drums, keyboards, synthesizers? I'm not sure.
I just know he plays a passport in it. Red Bull Studios.



great music.



there's this moment when the day is ruined because a life is lost and it's not. Hers isn't. The impact she had will remain because she was so special to so many people. She was too good for the space I've created here, and I hope her mama knows how every last one of us is on bended knee.

I gotta jump to some good. I got to find it out there so it will be there when you look up.


The kid says he knows what's best for him and how am I to argue with that.
And yes. He's right.



Today I am grateful for the great music but the even better life of a girls women men sons brothers everyone. there's so many of us. I just want everybody to be okay and I gotta trust you are and will be even when that's not true sometimes.

quote you always remember

The harsh way I speak is of a rig hand, a laborer, a fell off the rig and was back the next hitch.
Logging was his industry, work was his faith, and sometimes when I speak you can hear him.


and I do kinda like that about me.



Today I am grateful for one of the men who taught me how to speak,
though it may not always be right and sometimes it feels filled with anger,
I think I understand that more now.

There's not enough time to do everything.



Today I am also grateful for that one wall calendar which read, "Stop acting like your Atlas carrying the world on your shoulders. It will go on with or without you."

keep it simple next year

Isn't this around the time we say what was so great about the year and plan on the next and pick out the top ten of however we're counting the best?


The best movie for me came this past month.




Today I am grateful for great movies.

cold and rainy

Today I am grateful for a warm house, plenty of blankets, and plans to see family.

hobo list

Timing, weight, temperature, layers, the very fabric of as survivalist as I want to be.
But it is a fun problem to have because it's math, lists, vocabulary, language, science, hypothesis.

It is never, ever sweet potatoes in any form or fashion, but it may contain a moment when you stand, raise your trekking poles into the air, and declare with as big as you have remaining in as finally as anyone has ever said, "yes."



There is this tuna in this silver pouch and I hope that as a population the fish is okay because in one moment in the upcoming moments I will with my fingers place that most beautiful, lovely, no salt, no pepper, just straight up protein in the most exquisite tongue dance. Best bite of food I've ever eaten came when I truly needed it.




Today I am grateful for that tuna.

physics and marketing

Schrodinger's cat and Schredinger's explanation for those days when you love the internet.

the war continues

He'll call soon. I am supposed to be much more ready than I am
BUT
lower left buttock.


A story obviously got in the way. One I must tell him in a minute.



It's the her story of a long held grudge between two women of separate families.
One a blonde maiden, the other a brunette.
The talented, the less.
Short stop. Left field.
She was faster and always laughing and still today we are children.


But back then (she says not thirty-eight years ago)
But don't trust her (she stole my glove and threw it over the fence)
And though I didn't vow on that day to pay her back thirty-eight years later,
It is funny to now watch and be a part of a vendetta which has lasted because we call it a friendship.



I told her that the daughters must pay for the sins of their mothers in a not so accurately quoted religious way, and she laughs the same laugh she did as a kid. And then I laugh because she's got a great laugh. The kind of person you're always trying to tell a joke to. You know.


Anyway. This is one I will tell the girls and watch them as I try to twist and twirl the words.


The talented now has a talented daughter and I am the proud but temporary owner of my brother's child who is the only one faster on a team of gifted young women. This here is a setup for the perfect revenge and for two years we have openly discussed the moment when my niece will run with the might of many horses and within a blur of what was that snatch the glove from the opposing woman's child.

We envisioned it, and the morale of this story may be that we should stick to the plan because a deviation of me taking the place of my niece against the second fastest horse on the team did not work out so well. Unless, of course, you consider the laughter and me taking a face plant into the grass. You should never allow anyone to video the moments immediately after you say the words, "No. I got this, Jess."

And she smiled.
And Hannah pushed record.

And I told my kid that the video is his Christmas present.
And he laughed until he cried as I told him the story tonight.

Because I tiptoed up to that young woman with the confidence of when I was ten years old and thirty eight years later that can get funny. I don't know if she heard or smelled me but she did jump when she turned around and we faced off like two old west gun slingers. Her with that glove. Me wanting it figuring I'd throw it to Jess once I got my hand on it. And I really thought I could until the slow motion moments after she disappeared in a flash to her left and I bent then pushed off from my same until that side's buttock area happened in a way I can't quite explain or even still understand other than my left lower extremity was no longer of any use to me.

The people watching said I rolled and I must have because I was covered in grass and tears from laughing. Hannah said that to someone who had not understood what was happening, it surely looked like I had been shot. And yes, life is fantastic but once again we have another episode of me getting too old to act like that.

But I still will.
Because one of the things I am most grateful for is his, hers, theirs, yours, and yes my own laughter.


The thirty-eight year war continues. There are no treaties.

no more trivia night

This is not where I want to be. Here in a booth on Trivia Night with a strained muscle in my ass from the gymnastics I tried earlier today. This bar, the other one, the coffee, the cake, the beer with the bite until about three sips in. This is not where I want to be.

So why am I here?

I say it's because of her. What would she do if I said no? Sometimes I try, but arguing is our thing and she likes wings.

So I guess this place is okay. Our Wednesday afternoon thing, but don't we need to be hiking and trying out foods for a five-day, eighty mile, fifteen thousand calories, and a cold you may not understand scenario?

She could do that one afternoon a week and weekends and I am grateful she's going to a cardiologist today. I am also grateful to know that she is mentally ill. Her heart is just fine.

late gratitude

I am grateful for a late night and a late start, plans for a late afternoon hike, and the kindness granted someone who just needed to be a little late this morning.

book? this.

We who are
your closest friends
feel the time
has come to tell you
that every Thursday
we have been meeting,
as a group,
to devise ways
to keep you
in perpetual uncertainty
frustration
discontent and
torture
by neither loving you
as much as you want
nor cutting you adrift.
Your analyst is
in on it,
plus your boyfriend
and your ex-husband;
and we have pledged
to disappoint you
as long as you need us.
In announcing our association
we realize we have
placed in your hands
a possible antidote
against uncertainty
indeed against ourselves.
But since our Thursday nights
have brought us
to a community
of purpose
rare in itself
with you as
the natural center,
we feel hopeful you
will continue to make unreasonable
demands for affection
if not as a consequence
of your disastrous personality
then for the good of the collective.
Author Phillip Lopate
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. pp 11-12

Today I am grateful for poets and writers and yeah.

capturing music

Como Sessions with Woodstomp

Today I am grateful to have the time, knowledge, access, equipment, and the determination to put out a video for these guys. We're going to go ahead and get over that it will never be good enough but maybe better than we've done before.

We'll see.

Here they are.