Odds

I'm out for a 3.5 mile run on a long stretch of road where you usually run on the side of the road. Up ahead in the distance I see a car coming. Behind me, also in the distance, I hear another car coming.

What are the odds that both cars will meet at exactly the same spot that I am at -with me still running forward?

You'd be surprised that the odds are actually pretty good and it usually happens at least once every time I am on this route. Fortunately no one goes too fast and I am usually able to move to the side on the shoulder.

Why don't I have those odds when I buy a lottery ticket?

Morning

Morning......the stillness.....the mist in the valley hanging in the air......the drops of dew from the leaves make a sound like a gentle rain........the sun peaks over the mountain, a back light to the night clouds........


even the sounds of quiet are muffled and soft......the grass makes a sound as it straightens and shifts.....the rabbits nibble in the grass, their gentle chewing seen but not heard......the spirit is rising.......joining night with day......the peacefulness of sleep becomes the gentleness of wake.



It is morning and it is good!

People seem to complain a lot. It is so easy to overhear folks in the store or workers chatting with each other or even people sitting in a restaurant and often they are complaining. The talk seems to be much about something someone else did or didn't do or if it was done wasn't done in the way the person wanted it done or would have done it themselves. Or its one person complaining about work and their job: how rotten it is and how the boss doesn't listen or care. On and on and on it goes and the other person often tries to one up with the tales of their own. Life must really suck.

Of course the other person is always wrong government or some business is doing something to them. There must be this vast conspiracy because this person seems to experience this slight everywhere. It is always a major inconvenience or a perceived slight or the other person is a complete jerk.

Of course some degree of complaining is warranted and there are incompetent people out there in the wrong jobs who could care less about you or anything they are doing and there are legitimate things going on that are not all positive. I can also assure you if you monitored my speak for a while you would find me periodically in complaint mode.

But I can take this only so much from others and from me. As I get older and perhaps wiser and more tolerant my threshold is getting shorter, especially from me. While I have had challenges and adversity at points in my life and some serious stuff to overcome, I do in many ways consider myself very blessed and I try to remember that when I start to down the complaint road.

It takes perhaps a little more energy to try to be positive or to find something positive about something or someone or to just brush off these "inconveniences" or interrupt the complaint mode and put it aside. It just takes more practice.

Yesterday I learned something about someone I used to work with, someone I hired and trained and worked closely with for a few years up until a couple of years ago. A friendly, gentle, bright, hard working guy a few years older than me and with whom for more times than not, I enjoyed working with.

He got up yesterday morning; he probably showered and shaved and packed up his lunch and read the paper over breakfast. Maybe put out the trash and recycling. He perhaps stopped for a coffee on the way to work or filled up his car with gas for the commute and for plans he had after work. He went into work and probably once he got there visited with folks and settled into his office for work.

A few hours later he stumbled out of his office asking for help and died of a heart attack.............

So what was it I had to complain about?

Reality check!

Meet Paul

For Father's day I received a somewhat unusual and wonderful gift from my kids. It's a beta fish that I have named "Paul". I find that it's not only me but the entire family that have become attached. No there is nothing symbolic about the name. It is something that came to me with unusual clarity and certainty. So perhaps he was a Paul in a previous life.

Paul was originally given for me to take to work for company and to keep me amused. He started off on the kitchen table and needed to "stay around" a few days to make sure that he was ok and for our resident fish expert to keep an eye on the transition. Then Paul seemed like he might be developing dropsy, which kept him around a while longer. It ended up being that Day was just over feeding and the "swelling" was undigested food. So I curbed it a little and it all became fine.

Days turned into weeks and weeks into a month and everyone has come to accept that Paul will probably be a permanent resident of the kitchen table, moved seasonally to make room for the advent wreath or other special things, but then return.

Its fun to see that we all check in with Paul, though I am the feeded and bowl cleaner. He is company when we eat our individual breakfasts and lunch and there for the family dinner. He's even been intrduced to visiting friends as. "and this is my Dad's fish Paul".

The lighter side of life has to make you smile..............

One thing there has not been an absence of this summer, at least in these parts, is rain. Just about every weekend and days in between there seems to be a storm and not much time for things to dry out before it starts up again. The backyard is very green but has little time to dry out between mowings. Not that I particularly love mowing but I know how difficult it is when it gets long, especially on the edges of the leech field where it naturally grows fast.



On a night like tonight the storms come in waves with rain so heavy you can't see out the windows. At least it isn't a Tanglewood night. All those people on the vast lawns ready to enjoy a concert and the skies open up and the lightning cracks across the sky. I have been to concerts there when they actually had to take a break because the sound of the rain on the roof was so loud that it was drowning out the orchestra and the lightening has people scurrying for cover. Tonight would have been one of those nights.



The configurations of the mountains and valleys can make these storms even stranger. It could be a downpour here with blazing lightning, yet across town or a few towns away it is completely dry with just some lightning in the distant sky.


So this will be one of those summers remembered as not being much of summer, at least from the weather perspective. Not much heat and lots of rain. Some of the flowers have had just about enough. The petunias never having enough time to dry out are looking brown and withered. The basil in the pot is holding its own but not growing much beyond replacing to few pieces picked off. The front side of the house, continually in need of painting from the southern exposure, stares at me in need as I come and go and I stare back and shrug, take a number and give me several days of dry. Meanwhile I'll tackle a project I don't dread as much.

But other than this unusual weather its a typical Berkshire summer. The tourists are around, though I don't notice them much in my travels. The kids are busy and we are shuttling them between jobs and friends. As usual it seems amazing that August is upon us and fall not far behind. The thoughts of pellets for the stove and readying for winter already in the plans and on the lists. Its a little more scattered than usual and thus we more scattered and thus me doing less writing or being about in places that inspire ideas and pictures. It is also a time of transition in our family and we are all acutely aware of that. So enjoy what we can and when we can for you never know when the next downpour will occur. Wait here it is!

The Dancing Balloons

A few days ago I was leaving work, the usual jockeying and pushing to get on the highway and then quickly move over to the far lane I needed to be in for a cut off. Its always a challenge and I often am cursing some car under my breath because I can't get in.

Then I rounded the bended up ahead it could see several balloons. [small party ones: yellow, orange, red] bouncing along the road at car level. The air currents of the rushing cars caused them to dance and bounce, never hitting ground they flew up and swooped then dropped with each passing car.

I found myself immediately lighten a bit and it made me smile.

Why is this? Was the absolute freedom of flight? Was it the whimsical way these appeared and then disappeared in my rear view mirror? Where did they come from?

I would have wished to have watched them a while longer but very shortly they were right up to me and then quickly passed by, amusing someone else farther back.

Balloons have a way of making people smile. From the smallest child they seem to brighten our moods in ways hard to explain. Thank you balloons!

The Mount

One of many great things that the "Friends" groups of the local libraries do is to provide passes to local museums and cultural sites that can be checked out for the weekend just as you would a library book. For locals this is a great opportunity to see some of the things we pass almost daily without paying the sometimes significant entrance fees.

A few weekends back we visited the Mount which is about 5 minutes from when I live and yes we pass it almost daily.

This is one of the "Berkshire Cottages" designed by and built for Edith Wharton in the early 1900s. She live there for about a dozen years and wrote several of her noted works there.

I been there many years ago when performances of Shakespeare & Company were done in the gardens, but had never seen the grounds in the day light or since they had been restored.

From the road and gates, what you see is the carriage house and caretakers cottage, which years ago I though was the house itself and thought what's the big deal. They are big but not much to talk about.

Inside the gates and past the carriage house is the road down to the house



Meandering along a stream the road winds down coming toward the side of the house. The formal gardens with a fountain, a path lined with trimmed aspens and a sunken garden where a wedding was going on when we arrived.



Of course when you are a local, the day to day dynamics of venues such as this are in the news and part of local talk and sometime they just blend into the background. For years this was a boarding school and then vacant for many years afterward until Shakespeare and Company began renting it for performances and sought to purchase and restore it. The non-profit they formed to pursue and implement the restoration in the end turned on Shakespeare & Company and evicted them so that the house and grounds could be use just as a monument to Edith Wharton.

The restoration has been expensive and they paid a million to purchase Edith Wharton's library from someone in the UK. Last year was almost their last as the $3 million in debt was being called by the bank and threatening foreclosure.

But with some management changes and some donor help and help from the bank that really didn't want to be labeled as foreclosing on a historic landmark that it would have a hard time selling, they seem to be OK for now. Struggling but making it, like many similar places these days.

But on this day this history was just a footnote in the context of enjoying the sights. The restoration is well done and while it still has parts to be done it is interesting and the gardens nice to walk around.

The Power of the spoken word

There were so many wonderful things going on in the Berkshires this holiday weekend. Too many for one person to do but choices for just about everyone. Starting off on the annual Independence Day 5k, I was one of 1100 to race down the Main Streets of Pittsfield. The streets lined with thousands of people waiting for the start of one of the largest 4th of July Parades in the country. There was more than enough encouragement to keep you from slowing down or the dreaded thought, walk for a bit. I made it across the finish line at a little slower than last year but still a decent finish.

Perhaps the most significant event I attended was the annual reading of the Declaration of Independence, at Shakespeare and Company. Several hundred gathered on the sloping lawns in the sun and breezes for festive music and "introduction of the 70 or so signers and of the declaration and state delegates. The whoops came up as the states were announced, with the audience having a definite affinity to NY, NJ and Mass. and with a vocal contingent from Virginia.

Then to main event as one by one the delegates came up to the microphone to read a short section of the declaration. Sometimes a few words or a whole section, it flowed quickly in an even flow. Some readers were clearly actors from the Company and articulated and enunciated their parts with passion. Some were elected representatives, for whom this experience must have had some significance. Some were everyday people.

I have read this document but do admit that I have never taken as much from it as having it read out loud. As the familiar phrases range out there were cheers from the crowd and the final lines repeated a couple of times by all of us.

I have often thought that the spoken word is powerful, so much more to me than the written. Like a story unfolding, the voice of the speaker lifts the words off the written pages and they soar through the air and the feeling the reader conveys brings the meaning behind the words and a depth of thought.

Happy Independence Day

Chickens

For the past several days I have been caring for friends' chickens. I wasn't part of arranging for this but due to scheduling conflicts and the fact that I am the early riser in the family, I was the one who got the task by default.

I have had very little to do with chickens other than cooking and eating, so I had no idea what to expect. I have had experiences with ducks and geese and they are on the ornery side, so my apprehension was up. The job was to check them in the morning, open up their house and let them out into their pen and change the food and water, and of course pick up the eggs. If it had been longer I am sure that it would have involved more cleaning and shoveling but this was only a few days.

I have to admit I started this with a little of an attitude. A little miffed that the job was falling on me when I had nothing to do with volunteering and also the good grief attitude of these stupid creatures that are going to peck me and constantly try to get out of the pen.

We started the task with the nighttime job and the chickens needed to be herded into their house before it could be closed. They were all over the place and would go inside. The next morning I went over shortly after dawn and heard the clucking from inside. I opened the hatch and one by one they marched out and clustered around me. Give me Space!, I was thinking. I opened up the pen and there were no eggs. Oh well, It seemed odd but then what do I know about chickens. So I filled the food and changed the water and went on my way.

The topic of chicken sitting (try saying that several times fast) came up at work. Not an normal topic but I shared it as the reason I couldn't run in the morning and I mentioned that there were no eggs. Someone who knew something about chickens said, "they don't know you, perhaps don't like you and are scared". Huh! Like me? Know me?

So I pondered on this through out the day. When at dusk I arrive to get the chickens ready for the night I started to talk to them and moved in quieter moves and the easily went into the house and I could close it up. The next morning we did the same routine only I'd gotten smarter than the day before and scattered some food in the pen to occupy them while I tidied things up. They clucked and cooed and there was one egg. As I slowed down I found that my attitude changed.

That night I arrived and they were already in their house ready for the night and I just said my hellos and goodbyes and closed up the house. I could see one of them was on the roost and the others were softly clucking on their nests.

I repeated this each day and they seemed to greet me each morning. Getting the eggs out of the nests no longer required me poking under the sitting chicken as she seemed to know what I was up to and flew out into the pen. Not only did I come to enjoy my short visits with the chickens but the number of eggs increased each day.

These are very basic creatures that need to be fed and given water and be protected from predators and not much more. Of course I know that there is the shoveling and cleaning that I wasn't part of, but that seems pretty typical when you have any animals.

In return for this they gave eggs and had this very relaxing clucking sound that made the beginning and end of the day pleasant. As usual connecting with most anything in nature slows me down and that is usually good and what I need more than I think.

With the friends coming back I have to say I am going to miss not taking care of the chickens. Strangely (or not) I learned something from them.

Morning

One the truly spectacular views in the Berkshires. A camera can't do it justice.



Click on one of these and open it up and you'll get a better sense.



I could just sit and stare for hours.

I was driving the back road to Pittsfield last night and passing the gates and wrought iron fence of Eastover Resort I notice that the black plastic is around the tennis court. For the locals we all fondly refer to this as the coming of summer and the arrival of nudist weekend.


Most of the resort extended far back from the road so there it lots of privacy and the black plastic is really the only indication of what is going on. Finally after 13 years of living here I did some quick research and it is actually the eastern gathering of the naturalist society.

http://www.naturistsociety.com/NEWWebPages/ENG09Page.htm

Unfortunately Eastover is in the process of closing and up for sale. A victim of the economy perhaps and of the cost of maintaining older building and extensive grounds and vying for business from many other more upscale competitors. The buffalo that for decades grazed the vast meadows and coraled area by the road have been sold off as is the huge civil war memorabilia collection that Eastover was famous for in the process of auction.

So we will miss this beacon of summer next year, the black tarps around the tennis court and wonder where they will now go.

I yearn to again feel at peace. I remember that feeling so clearly but it has been such a while. I yearn to not feel that so much is going on that requires my attention that I am skimming on the surface of life and weeks and weeks are passing. I yearn to feel truly well again for it has been such a long stretch without something going on. I yearn to be able to the out in the sun and run for miles, though my conditioning is so far off it would take months to achieve but it would mean that I feel well enough to start.

In my minds eye I can feel the peace....I try to hold on to it....to grasp it.....I embrace it ......and then I usually asleep.

I look up at the sky and to the clouds and think, wow those things are really tall and high up there. The camera makes these look like they are just above the trees. I was driving along yesterday a few hours before a heavy storm and though it was a sunny day there were clouds that were in columns that must have gone up for miles. Miles.... just think of it. Miles to just to get up to them and then miles to the top. How different these are from the wispy clouds we see so frequently, especially in the morning in the valleys. Spacial relationships really are a challenge when you let yourself get lost in the depths of things like clouds. They look so small a solid until you are up in the middle of them. Then they are clearly vapor but go on and on and on.





My daisy patch is expanding and that is good. If I can get them to eventually cover part of the year then that will be even less mowing to do. In our yard we are experiencing a sort of infestation of ticks. Walking out to the far end of the yard to take this picture and I returned to find a deer tick crawling up my leg. My son is up to 16 ticks this season. We have so much wildlife trooping through the wood and into the yard so there are many potential carriers and that isn't even considering deer.

So what to do? The idea of blasting the yard with poison and killing every living thing, seems a little extreme. Plus I like to walk barefoot. There are some organic options but they are very tedious and have to be reapplied. Seems more like fighting the tide. And then there is the chicken option which some friends have used. They seem to have their yard under control, but that seem like too much work and then there are the animals that would love to get a hold of the chickens.

So I guess I'll start by cutting the grass a little shorter and use the organic stuff around the edges and see how that goes. One of the good things about a harsh winter is that many of these bugs get weeded out. But things have been relatively mild for the past few years.

Ah, this challenges of living near the woods. I'll still take it over the city.

At work this morning I ran into a colleague in the bathroom and in one of those 30 second conversations he mentioned, “your big season is starting soon”! I had to pause for a moment before I responded with a nod and sort of a blank ah huh. It was only when in the next sentence that he said "we will be out in your neck of the woods next weekend", that it registered. Tourist season and he is a big Tanglewood fan.

It has been so busy with graduation and end of the year school and work and other activities of life that quite honestly I might totally miss tourist season. There are clearly more people around mostly from the city and some are on the arrogant and demanding side but fortunately they are in the minority I just blow them off. But I guess the busy season has less to do with the tourists as it does with it being summer in this beautiful place.

On the night of a Tanglewood concert I have to remember to hop on the back roads to get home from work or I'll get stuck in the line of cars going basically the same way as me, but we hold the secret of familiarity with where to go and not go and travel the near vacant roads. Then there is remembering that getting to the library in the center of town is difficult on Saturday afternoon because the boutique shoppers are out and especially if there is a crafts fair in the park then parking is sparse. And of course I have two kids who have jobs connected with tourism, so thank you. And there are more cultural offerings if you have the time and money to partake.



But for me the busy season is what this person would call "life" at home. Having a big yard is beautiful except when you have a push mower and it needs mowing every week, avoiding these beautiful daisies that are spreading in the yard.[not complaining, just speaking fact], the house needs painting more often because of the winter winds and weather that rush up the beautiful mountain valley. The deer ticks are out in strong force this year, catching rides on the turkeys and other wild life that are frequently traveling through the yard day and night. The ridge line takes on different look in the morning mists and against the hayfield and wet lands.



Summer in the Berkshires is like summer in so many other places. I guess the difference is that we have some very special "outdoors" and a slightly colder temperature. Sure there is the BSO across town and Shakespeare and Company and other theater productions a couple miles away, but this is also home and as with all folks who live in tourist areas we have every day chores and things to do, just like the folks who come here to enjoy.

How many false starts does it take to make a post? Depends on the moment, depends on the mood, depends on lots of things. I have several posts that started out fine but couldn't fine an end. I kept adding and adding until it became like a blender out of control. Ideas flying everywhere, I mess that was a challenge to figure out where to start to clean it up. So one of the wonderful things about blog-land is the ability to just let a post linger in "draft-status" until the mood comes back or maybe not.

There is a saying that still waters run deep and I frequently return to that phrase to understand it and to understand me. Like most people I can be a plate full of contradictions. I can be someone who frets over the simplest of things or apparent slight, who can be luck the character in the Peanut's strip who wears the worry blanket and can lay out every possibility of what can go wrong and remember what did.



Then there is the almost opposite, complete calm and reason. Articulate and measured tones and a total stillness and calm that radiates from within. At times be a most disorganized sort with piles and lists and multiple projects going; but there are the times when my focus is like a laser and it even freaks out my kids when they see this organized driven side.

At this time I am in one of the contradictory states. Exhausted for many reasons and not all that are obvious; pensive about the transitions of time; confused by the lack clarity and inconsistency by others. The calm that I have always relied on is still very much there, anchoring, perhaps holding back, protecting. While on the surface there is this churning - the blender of sorts. Not that messy but weighing just the same.

So that is where this post ends. Very much like life goes on. Some things stay consistent, others drop away. New things and challenges come up, while others seem to resolve themselves over time.

I have been in this sort of funk the past dew days. Too many things going on, too much to be focused on and a push to be focused.

We realize that as our oldest ends high school and moves on to a new wonderful part of his life that we are mourning the loss of connections that we have had with so many wonderful people and kids the past few years. No matter how we try we can not be as part of this next part of his life as we have been. Not in a clinging overprotective parent way but as being so closely connected with the life of someone you really like as a person and his wonderful friends. That makes me sad. Probably not so often expressed from the dad perspective but I expect I am not alone.

So this picture is of these beautiful irises, taken in the dark. For decades these flowers bloomed in my mom's garden and I also realized that today is the day she died.

Beauty surrounded by darkness.

Memorial Day parade in Stockbridge. Starts at on end of Street and ends about a half a mule down the same street. As this area has a regional school district the high school band gets on a bus at 8:30 AM and gets to 4 different town parades of about the same length. By 1:00pm they're done. Definitely small town and one of the charming aspects.

















Mounted on a tree in downtown Stockbridge. I wonder how many people just walk by and never notice it? I sometimes get accused of not paying attention but usually its because I am paying attention to just about everything going on, which can be a little distracting. But I usually don't miss much.






















The view of Monument Mountain from the lawn of Tanglewood (looking south). This past weekend I happened to see this mountain from three different directions. The face of the mountain is white granite which can be seen quite clearly when you are at its base and looking north and at sunrise you can see it looking southeast. One of the prettier views around.

Why is one a flower and the other a weed

I haven't had much time for writing but of course there is always time for contemplation. Between a 90 mile round trip commute to work or the 3 hours it takes to move the push mover around a rather large yard and a few car trips into Boston for meetings, the opportunity is there and it is amazing where the mind will go.

The phrase beauty is in the eye of the beholder is so true with what is around us in nature. What is considered beautiful in the woods is considered a weed when it is found in the yard.For some the perfectly manicured weed free green yard is absolutely beautiful and the only thing that the scatterings of violets and dandelions and wild thyme bring to mind is the need for weedkiller.



While weed killer rarely makes it near our yard, because we are barefoot so much, it doesn't mean that there isn't an occasional lively discussion about loosing total control of the yard. We are talking lawns here, not gardens, as weeding the latter is practical as well as aesthetic.

There are plenty of movie or TV comedy scenes about someone pulling up bunches of flowers when weeding a garden. The confusion reigns, especially before flowers appear and among personal tastes and cultures.


We have had a few "flowers" that are really invasive and even though they are no longer in the garden they are infiltrating the yard and other beds. So have they moved from the flower column to the weed column?

I love the smell of wild thyme as I step over it, I have been mowing around several bunches of wild daisies that have sprouted up around the back yard in sort of a mowing ballet, I gaze at the pretty violets and think, I would leave them alone if it wasn't for the pesky grass that is growing up in the middle and looks shaggy.

So theses are the kinds of ramblings I do when I am mowing the lawn. After it is done the grass is neat, the dandelions cut and from a distance it looks as nice as the neighbor and its done.

A couple of days ago I walked out the end of the driveway to pick up the newspaper and this is the view that greeted me. Just had to go back for the camera.

Balls on the river

A wonderful spring day kayaking on the Housatonic. The sky is blue, the hawks circle in the sky eyeing fish below and occasionally diving for their prey then soaring on a draft and dropping the catch near its nest. Beavers can be seen paddling across then slipping into the brush obviously hiding from me.




Being early spring there is only the slightest amount of green and color, foliage that is. What I did notice on this trip was an abundance of balls. Yes balls!



There were soccer balls and softballs, kick balls with the paint and covering flaking off.



There were tennis balls and softballs that had obviously been floating for a while given that the core had expanded and the cover separated. There were balls that were on the shore and tucked into bushes.



All these balls in just a quarter mile stretch of the river surrounded only by meadows and countryside. Who knows how many lay further in either direction.



As I paddled I tried to think of where they might have come from. There is a playground and a school a couple towns away that is close to the river. That would be several miles up river. These balls have obviously traveled a while. Bobbing with the spring currents and snow melt or washing along with the spring floods; some becoming trapped in bushes and on the side as the water level dropped.



In the bends of the river there was a collection of balls along with all sorts of other trash you can imagine. The same rushing water that carried the balls also brought with it bottles and cans none of which were in a place I could pick up, if I happened to have something to carry them with. Some will wash away with the next big rain and some will settle into the mud and perhaps travel again with the next floods. They aren't much for recycling given the PCBs in the mud.



So it isn't just nature that is interesting to see along the river. The image of these balls playfully bobbing along and thinking of how they might have made their way into the river and journey this far makes me smile.

Good People

I was taking a short run late this afternoon on the Cape Cod bike trail [wow a run without hills] listening to the radio on my MP3 player. As I held the player I looked at my phone number written on a label and thought of Mary, someone I have never met and only talked to on the phone once, but who reassured me of the goodness that is out there in many people we do not know.

Several months ago I was using my mp3 in the car, as the radio had died. I was rushing from work to get to a meeting on a volunteer committee a church and tossed the player in my pocket as I juggled papers and cell phone and calendar and keys and as usual I was late.

On my way home I realized I couldn't find my MP3. It wasn't in my pocket or in the car, it was no where to be found. I was bummed as without this my daily commute was now without music or radio. I had turned my phone off for the meeting but when I turned it on there was a message from home. Someone had just called and said that she Had found something personal [wouldn't say what] and asked if she could identify it. My wife had forgotten that I was in town for a meeting and could not figure out what it could be but took the person's name and number down. Of course when I heard the message I knew immediately what it was and knew it was the sticker on the side that gave her the number to call though I was suddenly suspicious if why she didn't just say what it was. What was the deal.

The next morning I called Mary and told her I understood she may have found my mp3 and described it in every detail. She confirmed she had found it where I thought I had lost it and apologized for being so cryptic. She explained that she thought it was a phone or pda with personal information and wasn't sure if the label was my phone number or one I had just written that was someone else and didn't want to give it away without being sure. I was suspecting something sinister and she was watching out form me, someone she didn't even know. I arranged for my wife to pick it up from her later that day. She didn't want any reward she just wanted to make sure it got back to the right person. There are so many very decent people out there just doing the right thing the kind thing and it is just the way they are.

We are bombarded in the news by all that is wrong and all the dishonest and unscruplulos people there are out there and then there is my story of Mary to remind that it are the many many people who don't make the news who are the people that have the most impact.

Running again!!!

On this wonderful spring day I took off for a 2 mile run [walking up the hills at the suggestion of the PT] and made the entire route with no heel pain. YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

The hour of stretching in the morning and the gel heels and the periodic stretching when I slowed to walk the hill must have done the trick. First time over 4 months I can say that. I am psyched!!!



Happy Easter to all! The rabbit is loading his eggs with treats for the annual hunt and getting ready to start the baked french toast for tomorrow breakfast.

Also near the end of the college selection.

Life is good

I am wiped

Thanks for checking in. Yes this April fools spoof is fun and usually catches some off guard and always makes the local papers. Good advertising.

Yes the camera is back or at least its replacement is. I must have dropped my backpack with the other one in because it stopped taking pictures and the little screen has this wavy pink. So back to ebay. I just don't have time to learn it.

Finding the time and focus for writing has been very tough of late. Spring is always an accelerated volunteering schedule with school and this year greater than past and there is all the college stuff I am writing about and then a cold hits and work seems like building track ahead of a speeding locomotive......I am wiped

The season around easter is actually one which I look forward to all year around. I have had some meditative rituals that seem to recharge the soul. This year my head is too much of a blur and the schedule too tight that making room for them seems to just make things worse. Squeezing in hour long PT vists for this injured heel seems to swallow the spare time in the day.

So I seem to be just complaining. Yea probably or just giving perspective here and as much rationalizing to me as to why I feel wiped, why the cold hit me the way it did and why I am exhausted.

Vacation in a couple of weeks but so far the family has been traveling in so many directions, we haven't settled on a plan.

The roller coaster continues. This time its a slow upward grade with full force winds. But the top will come soon and then the coasting ride. Looking forward to that.

April Fool's Spoof

One of the signs of spring in the Berkshires and especially on April 1st is the annual spoof of Red Lion Inn. The Red Lion is an institution, and has been for many year, in Stockbridge on Main Street.

Driving past at 7:00 in the morning for a school drop off is this huge banner reading Welcome AIG Executive Retreat. There is the the usual double take until it click what the date is. I remember the first year we were doing the school run, there was another banner announcing that the inn was being converted to condos. I have to admit that it suckered me in good.

Taking life too seriously

I used to have a boss who would use the line "what will it matter in a million years". This use to drive me crazy as it usually was when I was working on a problem or issue than involved real people and real time and it seemed to mock that importance.

What I continue to learn, though much slower than I should be, much later than I wish is to let somethings go. As someone who's mind works in a way that thousands of variables and solutions and possibilities can be generated to address a problem, I am one of those people you want to have around to figure out how that square peg can be made to work with that round hole.

This same talent can be an albatross when it comes to the possibilities of what can go wrong personally and when many things come at once me and when I am tired. That triple combination is not good. While I am what most folks would consider a true optimist, when I am in this state, in very short order I can give a list of all the things I should have done differently to achieve a different outcome [even if I hadn't a clue of that option before] or a list of the negative possibilities and how they could play out. This then comes with a flurry and state of worry. I once saw a cartoon with a character donning his worry blanket and sitting in the corner. I can often visualize that blanket.

Sounds strangely contradictory of an optimist? Not really because I usually work it through and if I can separate enough I often will come up with very creative options. But to do this I need to get to a point of letting some things go. To put them down, let them rest, let me rest and get a different and better perspective. I am getting better at letting things go sooner than I use to but still have some work to do with shedding the "worry blanket". Not to the point of the quote I started out with but to be better at putting some issues aside and let actual time and occurances catch up with my imaginagtion.

I am wearing my worry blanket partially these days. Like many folks the background noise of the economy and the constant strains of "be happy you have a job", I can easily get caught up in other people's angst. Then then there is the college story with my oldest. The acceptances are coming in [a remarkable achievement given that these are very tough schools with highly competitive programs] but then there is how to pay for it. The waiting for the aid packages, the figuring out if there is more help out there and how to access it and the scholarship applications that want serious and invasive information from parents and all want it the same time. My analytical mind with the worry blanket say, if you hadn't done xyz 20 years ago, you would be in a different position now. Perhaps yes and then perhaps something else would have happened in between. But does it really matter. Life is, life happens. If we all had a vision of even a year I would have totally sold out of the stock market at its top and at each top. Then I could be giving out scholarships.

My objective is to shed the worry blanket. As the weather warms I should be able to ease back into running, which will be good and healthy. But that aside, I pledge to myself to try to restrict my creativity to the positive and not turn the canons inward. I am also trying to let go what I can and let the rest be for a while. A week from now things may be very different. My goal is to get a little better at letting time solve some of the worries that my processing over and over can't and doesn't help.

It is in love that we hold truths

“It is in love that we embrace and hold the truth of disclosure, and it is there that true connection can be made”.

I wish this was something original to me but I am paraphrasing comments by a friend, Jill.

The general idea of “acknowledging and speaking of the truth” is not unique and I think have written about before, but the way she said this was a bit different. When someone discloses a fear such as the potential of loosing a job, or the breakup of a relationship or they speak if their pain from a loss of some type whether it be the loss of a loved one or of a job or expressing fear over a diagnosis or condition, it is often more comfortable for us to try to comfort and rationalize rather than acknowledge the truth that is being spoken. To say that it won’t be as bad as they are worried about or it won’t happen to them or saying that it could be worse or completely denying that it is true may make us think we are comforting but it isn't acknowledging and accepting the truth that is being disclosed. Jill spoke about an alcoholic finally disclosing his condition only you hear, oh you don’t drink that much or the person afraid of loosing a job, your to good of a worker for that to happen to you.

Sometimes the best response is to say “yes I hear you”, "that must be scary", "yes the way you are feeling is right" and acknowledging sometimes that life and life situations suck and life can be frightening.

I am getting much much better at this. While I try to be supportive and comforting to people I have learned to recognize a line that has been crossed and then will often speak from the perspective of acknowledgment of embracing and agreeing to hold what has been disclosed to me as truth. Not necessarily my truth but the person sharing.

When I do this the response is interesting. To the person disclosing, there is now a different connection. They can see that I acknowledge and validate their truth and we can move forward on a different level. From an observer, the response can be, “I was thinking the same thing but afraid to say it”. Some times you just say what is obvious and trust.

At work when I am working with a staff person on a problem this often entails listening closely and inquiring about body language that doesn't fit the words or lack of words and repeating what I am hearing the other person say. It is amazing what comes out and most of the time this accomplishes what is necessary.

So my blog challenge for me and for all is to be tuned in enough to recognize when someone has truly made a disclosure that is important to them and is significant to them and to make a point of acknowledging and embracing it and if appropriate, give them a hug.

The new “Ahh” / Umm

Several years ago I belonged to a Toastmasters group, which for those who don’t know is a group of people coming together every few weeks to assist and support each other in the craft of public speaking. It also served to help desensitize being in uncomfortable settings. I was in a job search to become an executive director of a non-profit organization and while I had done some speaking and presentations, I was on the shy side and needed a boost in that area.

I belonged for about a year and had to drop out when the demands of my new job (as executive director and CEO of a good sized non profit), and the commute and new kids left little time.

At each meeting people delivered speeches or presentations that they had prepared and the group critiqued and gave suggestions feedback about what went very well and on how the speech or delivery could be improved. While I am still very much on the shy side (to the surprise of some people who have heard me speak publicly or work with me professionally), belonging to this group was a great experience that has paid off significantly over the years.

A position designated for each meeting was the “ah counter”. Someone designated to listen carefully with pen in hand and track the number of times “Ah” or “Um” were used during the speech. The objective was to train you to either take a legitimate pause or work on transitions in the speech so that you weren’t relying on these common devices, as they take away from the message you are delivering.

Though years have gone by this exercise of having someone count my “ah”s and “um”s and me bring the counter a few times, this lesson has stayed with me and I am very conscious of using these transition crutches and also notice it when others speak. I am sure I still use them occasionally but significantly less than if I wasn’t attuned.

You now are perhaps asking, what is the new “ahh” that I have titled this? It is the word “so”.

Now that I have pointed it out pay attention to the number of times that people will use this word as sort of a hanger at the end of the sentence until they think of what else they want to say. Sometimes the word is appropriate but sometimes it just verbally hangs there in space at the end of a sentence or becomes the lead off of the sentence when it doesn’t need to be or the sentence is solid enough to stand by itself.

So……….[gotcha] a personal goal of mine is to reduce my own use of this word as a transition or hanger and intro and to let what I have to say either stand on its own or end on its own. Before editing this I found that I used this a couple more times, not counting the one in this paragraph, and either deleted them or rephrased until it sounded better to me. Want to join my cause? We can be known as “so" counters.

As I sit here the wind howls; the clouds race across the sky like skaters on a pond; the big pine trees make a rushing noise. The moon has been bright in the sky but tonight it competes with the clouds being pushed around by the winds.

The position of our house is at the edge of valley, the ridge line I often write about. The wind travels up and down this valley as it is a natural trough to follow. The edge is mostly flat and sloping gradually down towards the river valley below, miles and miles of open pasture land the the flat terrain of the river for miles more. On the other side of the valley the ridge line is mostly bare of leaves giving little resistance to the wind. Tonight it has also brought squalls of snow moving almost side to side and swirling around the trees and lamp post and rocks and polishing the icy coating that is left on the yard from the melt of the day.

I have come to love the sound of the wind in the night as they travel past. Sounding slightly hollow as it loops around the house. I can tell what windows aren't fully latched by the sound of the wind as it whistle a special pitch. The back yard is lined with thick pines so while it rushes in, it has to find another way out, usually up and over the tops of the trees

In the summer the soothing constant breeze. In the winter it has a bite but year round it seems to have personality. In my minds eye it is much like a mammoth ghost. Dashing to and fro, swirling around houses and getting lost in the thick pine trees but them popping out again further down. Flying above the valley up along the river to Mount Greylock in the far north, joining its fellow winds and the racing back down to the south. In the morning it is all clear. The leftovers of falling branches and twigs mark that it was here but the wind is usually long gone to other parts.

Beneath my occasional cynicism and getting trapped in the past, I am a relatively optimistic person. While it may sometimes me a while, I usually try to find the good in most experiences or look for the "lesson" when thing go wrong or are unpleasant. Naive? Perhaps a little sometimes, but is being hopeful always naive?

I am a realist that still thinks of possibilities. There may be only one winner of a lottery ticket, why couldn't it be me as well as someone else. Tenacity has always been a strength and there are always multiple ways to an end.


I find people wearing who are constantly negative,who always find the tear in the silver lining or see that one cloud in the sky as the rain shower headed directly for them. While I will try to turn them around to see the brighter more positive side of things, I have to admit that there are times that I just tune them out.

I find kids by nature to be a pretty hopeful and optimistic crowd. I get concerned when I have heard my own kids express dismay about how missed up things are and about their unspoken concerns about their futures and the life and world they will face as adult. As parents we try to keep our kids looking at the possibilities of life and not get stuck behind the idea of limitations as insurmountable, for obstacles will present themselves soon enough.

A couple of weeks ago during the inauguration my seventeen year old reminded me that for almost half his life George W. Bush has been president and the political environment that surrounded Bush has been just about all that he remembers from his adolescent years. Hearing this and yes appreciating how enormously significant eight years is in the life of someone young, I had a totally new appreciation for the excitement and hope that had sprung alive with our new president. No wonder there is more cynicism when that is what you hear day in and day out from your leaders.

I remember talking with my youngest (15) during the primaries and asking her opinion of whether it would be more significant to have a first woman president or a first African-American president. She said that she had though about that for a while and she thought that while both were very significant, it would be a much greater stretch for this country to accept an African-American than a woman as president. Interesting I thought, and true in many ways and how wonderfully interesting and so significant it was that we were even having this discussion.

Even during dark times the flame of hope if still there, waiting for the fuel and gentle breeze to rekindle its flame until it burns brightly again.

Adjustng

So where have I been? The blog sits waiting for attention. Waiting for a picture or two. Life has kind of just taken on a running of day into day.

I am adjusting. Adjusting to not being able to get Internet access accept when everyone is asleep and then feeling tired and unmotivated.

Adjusting to switching from my neat little car with cruise control, sunroof and great sound to the 10 year old "other car" in an attempt to not kill the good car with my 500 mile a week commute. The silver car, as we call it, is basic transportation. The radio and CD no longer work so sound comes from hooking the mp3 player through a little device in the cassette player for radio and tunes and hooking up a portable CD player to listen to books. With each bump of the road (10 year old shocks) the CD skips and pauses and I juggle the thing to find a place where it won't bounce. Wires coming from the cassette and charger, needing to remember to turn off the mp3 and charge it. It is so much more complicated and complex. But I will adjust.

Adjusting to having 5 new staff people just outside my office (having just relocated them from another office). Learning the dynamics of this group, helping them fit in with the larger group, trying to find the balance between them being very rigid and linear, me being not linear at all and very flexible but not wanting to be vulnerable of being taken advantage of or set up. I supervise the manager of this group but what I am finding and had heard is that when the staff don't like what their manager has told them or want to bend the rules a bit more than appropriate, they go over the manager's head and have in the past sometimes gotten their way. So I am having to be much more in coaching mode with the supervisor and in boss mode with this group as I don't look favorably on people who shop around to get what they want. We are all adjusting.

Adjusting to doing more volunteer work that is so much like "work" and doing it only because the program gives my kids and kids like them something they love doing but it requires parent leaders behind the scenes. Don't we all do that?

Adjusting to giving up some other volunteer work that I really like (most of the time) because it takes up more time and I am starting to feel fried.

Adjusting to not being able to run, now because of all the snow in the road and on sidewalks. Adjusting to the need to really find what is missing.

Adjusting to wanting to change or undo some things that it is just too late to do.

So I feel like I am adjusting a lot. I am by no means rare. I just happen to have a blog to write about it.

Rationalizing loss

The are so many ways that we try to make sense of loss, try to rationalize it, try to minimize it in ways that can become so very logical as to become cold and void of sensitivity and of the magnitude of legitimate feeling.

These are a few comments that I have heard from well meaning people trying to help:

To someone who has just lost a job…….well at least you are young and have your health or its probably the best and something will come along.

To someone who has suffered an injury……well it could be worse.

To an aging person who is suffering physical aliments…..well at least your mind is well and it could be worse or like ".....".

To the parent who has lost a child….well at least you have the two others. (yes I actually heard someone tell my parents this one)

To a family who has lost everything in a natural disaster……at least no one was killed.

To the child or spouse of a deceased person…..well now they are at peace or to a child who has lost their last parent……well at least now you don’t have to worry about them anymore.

In response to someone suffering a permanent injury following an accident….at least you are alive.

To someone who has broken up a relationship…..well it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.


All of these comments and responses to someone’s loss are very accurate even if some are totally crass and insensitive and believe me I have heard them all and not made any of these up.

In trying to make people feel better about their loss we sometimes don’t allow them to grieve what they have really lost; to allow them to go for a time to that painful and uncomfortable place to feel bad without restraint and process what has occurred.

In my way of thinking it is completely ok to be grateful that something is not worse or could have been worse while at the very same time truly and deeply mourn the loss that has occurred and of something that will never return.

Yes of course it could always be worse and on some totally rational level we know that and though that clarity of perspective is not easy and can take quite a while to get to. Though in the same way it could have also been better not to have happened at all. It is ok to grieve that loss for what it is independently of any qualifications.

The loss is bad enough without needing to feel guilty for the pain we feel and express. In our discomfort with the uncomfortable we sometimes want to lessen it when sometimes the best thing to do is to just let it be and let it work itself through.

"It seems to be snowing a lot". I made that comment to my wife this morning to which she responded, "it really hasn't, its just seems to be bothering you more this year."

So I went back a year ago on this blog and sure enough there was lots of snow and it had been colder but there was also a January thaw about this time. I guess it is bothering me because as it seems to be snowing each weekend or a couple times a week I inevitably have to go somewhere, whether it be to drop off or pick up a kid or just to go to work.

Last weekend I got stuck trying to go up over the mountain to West Stockbidge, a two lane winding road going for about 3.5 miles then down the ridge along the other side, with a ravine on one side and ditch on the other, and 3/4 of the way up to the top, the tires just start to spin and slide. All the coaxing and rocking is getting me is sliding closer and closer to either the ditch or the ravine, neither of which is a good option. So as the snow continues to fall steadily I back down almost 3 miles of road trying not to skid, having to move out of the way as the trucks and heavier vehicles want to pass me to get on their way. May of them nicely stopping to ask if I am ok. Turning around is not an option as the only driveways are those going down the ravine to summer homes.

I've been stuck on this road before, years back coming home from Albany in another blizzard and I slid off the road and passers by pushed me back on. Its the easiest and quickest way to the other side but totally unpredictable in the winter.

So an hour later and with a very sore and stiff neck from turning it to see, I make it down to the bottom where I can finally turn around nerves somewhat shot. And then I head down a different way to a drive around this mountain to get to the town.

Then this weekend, and of course it snows and of course there is a required kid drop off for a school project, and this time I get stuck again and have to back down a very long driveway. And there was another snow storm on the way. So the nighttime pick up is tried with another car and its not so bad, though totally dark snow covered roads still is not fun when you've been stuck already that day and there is no cell service between the hills.

So what is the difference? My new tires that I have at least always thought of as new, well as I check the receipt they are actually 2 years old with 60,000 miles on them a 60,000 mile warranty. So that is why they worked last winter and the winter before and why with 30,000 more miles on them I am slipping around.

So I guess I have another project to put on the list, new tire. It seems a shame because there still is good tread just not enough for winter driving around here.

Such is life in the Berkshires.

A New Year

A wish for a happy, healthy, prosperous, and peaceful …..2009 for all who venture here.

For the past week or so I have been on slow speed. Rushing from an intense time at work into the relatively unstructured time off that I take between Christmas and New Years. This sends me slightly into not necessarily a free-fall but like a kite without a tail: wobbling around in the wind currents trying to find bearings and doing enough to stay up in the air. Isn’t that what vacations are about, regaining one’s bearings, trying to recharge? When thrown in with end of the year holidays that wobble can get a little too wobbly and I a little too introspective.

Traditionally as the calendar flips we tend to look back and to assess the year that has past. Was it good, was it bad, and are we glad it is over?

There was a lot of negative going on this year that seemed to weigh heavy. I’ve attended more funerals last year than I can remember in a single year, and I am not at an age where my peers are naturally dying off. The economy and the uncertainty that it has brought and the continuing conflicts around the world cast a heavy shadow far across the landscape, at least in my mind and world.

But even with these I would not necessarily call this a bad year for there have also been many good things that have gone on this year. My family is well and have been all year and we treasure the time that we spend with each other; the kids are both having a great year at school and having new experiences that I wouldn’t have dreamed of experiencing at their age; the excitement (and parent apprehension) of college shopping for my oldest (wow have things changed); meeting new people and having new experiences; while my work is stressful it is ever expanding and I have to keep reminding myself that this is good.

We have a tradition in our family, started several years ago when my wife read about it somewhere. Throughout the year we record on small pieces of paper good things that happen to one of us. Anyone can put one in and it can be something significant or as simple as a sleepover with a friend or the stub from a movie or play or concert. We collect these in a Mason jar and as the year progresses it fills up. Then on either New Years Eve or New Years Day the family gathers around the table and we pass the jar around, each of us pulling out a slip of paper and reading it out loud. We then transpose the list for posterity sake. It’s a fun tradition and also fun to look back at the list years later.

I don’t do resolutions. I do set goals but they are not necessarily based on the calendar year. Last year I set a goal to start to run, do a 5k under 30 minutes and a 10k under an hour and in the process get back in shape and loose some extra weight. I am pleased that I met these goals and it is only an injury that has sidelined me from running and I am anxious to get back and truly miss the feeling of going out for a 6 mile run.

Another goal was to work on writing and that is where this blog came from. I am one of many who became inspired by the writings of Sharyn on the Caleb blog and decided to give it a try.

Through this venture I have met some very nice people, not really met physically but in the virtual world. I have learned much more about the technology and about writing. I have really got to like having a camera around to snap things up when I see them, even if it was only me who thought the pictures were good. (But then I didn’t care if they were a slight bit fuzzy). I have learned that my writing in the beginning was more thoughtful and deep rooted and came from topics stored up and that my writings in the fall were more forced because they were forced as I was working to develop some discipline. In some cases didn’t write here or elsewhere because the writing was stuck and it didn’t seem to matter. I learned that this deep writing is something I want to get back to.

I learned that as I wrote as I thought out loud and wrote when my moods were not good, that there were people who very nicely became concerned and tried to help and this surprised me and caught me off guard, even thought this is a very public place to air your thoughts. [I have a wonderfully supportive wife and kids and a few wonderful friends but I am no longer use to that response from people I don’t know well and initially kind of suspicious (absolutely nothing personal–out there). Where the hell did that come from? Why do I go there rather than accept the genuineness of good people? I do know where much of it came from; the brutality of corporate employment/ unemployment [yes non profits can be brutal] has left me with bruises that have been difficult to heal and definitely more cautious.]

I learned that some people picked up on the writings that I did on other blogs and launched writing of their own off these thoughts and that was wild and exciting to see and read. I assumed when I wrote here and on other blogs that there was this tiny audience and that what I wrote was as much for me as the other person so when I heard from people I didn’t know who were comforted by my words or thought they were good, I was and am blown away.

Someone else reading this might again say, poor guy that he minimizes this so much, but that is not really where I am at.

As I said early on in the year, writing in this way is something new to me and I am not use to getting feedback in that way. Professionally I need to write letters, proposals and do technical writing and the best feedback you can get is that you have been successful in carefully choosing your words or that there was nothing wrong with it or that it was successful in conveying what you want to do or get. Not getting negative feedback in that sense is very positive in a backwards way.

So this has also been a good growth experience for me as has been the running and all of the other positive things that have happened. In that sense and in many other ways it has been a good year.

I am learning ever so slowly that adversity and challenges to me are not necessarily negative and the future not automatically something to be wary of. I am continuing to see the lessons in things that have not gone well and to put those lessons in perspective. This is good and a goal that I will continue to pursue and as well as to continue to work to again to be okay letting my guard down to let others in.