Heart-centered Holidays

           As the days of December darken into winter, holidays ignite magic into our hearts, creating light to find our way.  Be it Christmas, the Solstice festivals, Hanukah or Kwanzaa, the time is of celebration and gratitude for all the gifts material and metaphysical that we have received.

            Tinsel and glitter, red cheeks and candles, song and festivities create sparkling energy.  We eat too many cookies, dance with our friends and carol to our neighbors.  We give gifts and acknowledge the love for those around us.

            December, unfortunately, is also a time of great stress.  As if to counter the darkness, we can be caught in a frenzy of materialism that attacks with pepper spray in a Walmart to get the best deal.  Strained and compulsive, while our children are all safe with visions of sugarplums in their heads, we scurry about frantically, shopping late every night and maxing out credit cards instead.

            To balance the frantic motion, I  offer a teleseminar conference this Wednesday December 14th and Thursday the 15th focused on creating a heart-centered holiday.  Through interviews with authors and coaches, we look at the little rituals and celebrations that hold the spirit strong and remind us of the deeper importance of the time.

            You can register for the program here and receive a collection of short stories about transformations of lives that can happen in an instant. Each writer will also offer a bonus gift particular to their interest at the end of their interview.

            In true alignment with heart and soul, writing is a transformative process.  When troubled by doubt and uncertainty, in the act of scribbling in a journal or creating a novel, answers once looming vaguely transparent in the distant mist, come more clearly into focus. We are all writers in our own ways and these conversations will encourage listeners to find your own style for a deeper understanding of what connects you to the rest of the world.

            In addition to fireside chats of stories and spiritual affirmations, this webinar through your computer or phone, also celebrates the release of my transformational book “Zen & the Art of the Midlife Crisis”, a memoir about the process of recognizing and shedding the parts of life that are not working to follow a path more centered from heart and living with purpose.  By looking deeply at choices and influences of the past, I am better able to steer my life into the future and encourage readers to make similar choices.

            Registering for the Heart-centered Holidays Teleseminar right here and now is at absolutely no cost and ensures two peaceful evenings of insight and affirmation that the world is indeed full of love, compassion, serenity and support.

            Please join us in celebration of all that glitters and is truly gold.

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Spring Sprung

Another season of Skatter Monkey frolics has come to a close and I must celebrate my son's leaving for college.



For the first Saturday in months, I am not rushing to the Mountain at the break of dawn, nor casting myself in exhaustion on the couch at the end of the day. With the time to choose comes sunshine and warmer weather, perfect for a leisurely walk to contemplate horizons before and behind.

Several weeks have passed between essays lately; the pattern seems to have settled in to fits and spurts, words tossed down to articulate a particular window here and there, while a skyscraper of thought and action looms without description.

A biographer fully absorbed in his subject must get overwhelmed by the tiny details that move, sway and dissuade someone towards their ultimate accomplishments. So much more so the autobiographer who has the deeper details, but the clouded vision that inevitably distorts it. For myself, the mere peon with little facts actually accomplished to invite documentation, but plenty of joy, misery and opinion to express, I dance around the details willy nilly and imagine fancifully that somewhere in this mass of words blogged (sometimes ad nauseum as a sister described it), there are little glimmers that illuminate for others a tiny window into their own tall building.

Change of season is always a time of transition. The parents of my monkeys with rolling eyes express no time to rest before soccer and baseball seasons get going and the house at the Cape needs dusting. Others I know simply carry on with their deliveries, just happy to wear shorts instead of face masks.

In Vermont, after months of holding your body tight against the cold, I like to think we have earned our spring. Taking young African refugees to play soccer indoors one winter when it was minus twenty outside, I found no words to reassure their shivering smiles that life would get better, but we certainly danced when that first ball sailed into the high corner of a full-sized net. When I lived in a climate where you had to think if we were headed towards Christmas or away, I felt no where near this kind of ebullience to unzip my jacket.

Little things.

In the light of Japanese devastation and bombs dropping on Libya, my problems seem so small indeed. Someone close has just been diagnosed with cancer and no matter how good the prognosis and fiercely determined he is to fight, my heart aches for the battle he must face. My own surgery looms and takes a toll on my optimism, but all-in-all, life is sweet. The sun is shining. Crocuses are poking out of the rubble that winter has left. The air is bright with promise.

Japan’s disaster has re-enforced the knowledge that it could all change in an instant. The heart-wrenching images of husbands searching then grieving for their wives swept away makes one reach out and pull close those important in our lives. The heroic stories of strangers helping strangers make every down-turned eye on a morning’s walk an opportunity to say hello.

Life is also short.

Right in front of us are things we take for granted. More importantly, beside us are people who give us love and make us mad, but who are still beside us hand-in-hand. Acknowledgement and appreciation go a long, long way. In my life, there are too many to name here, but face-to-face, voice-to-voice, text-to-text, I am trying to be better about letting them know how much they mean to me and how much I care.

Sometimes love is pain. We question if we get enough back for what we give. Because life is so busy and our dreams are so strong, we can miss out. The little flower in our footpath gets crushed before we ever knew it was there.

On this sweet morning (day, evening, night), I invite us all to look around.

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Homeward Bound

With my son and two Oregon daughters, we set out on our last morning to compact as many of the varied landscapes and cultures of this large state as we could into a few hours. The day was gray and mild, but our spirits could not be dampened and the views were enhanced by the rapid hide and seek of sunshine and mists.

The first stop was Multnomah Falls, tourist destination of busloads and perfect post cards at the gift shop. It is the most spectacular sight along the way, cascading straight downwards, with access so easy we could walk and talk, waking up to the beauty around and in each of us.

So suddenly as we were in deep forests and plummeting crags of cliffs along the wide Columbia River, the trees dried up and disappeared and the steep walls of the Gorge were bare and shapely, imposing. My son’s camera clicked incessantly and his utterances awed by this landscape completely unimaginable to the Easterner.

We drove an hour east into the high country, canyons opening north and South away from the River. Just to say he set foot in the state, we crossed over to Washington and drove up the side of a mountain to a plateau, getting out at a monument imitating Stonehenge to walk some more and drink in the air, the apple orchards and river stretched out below us, giant wind turbines on the ridges above.

Back in Oregon, we drove south from the river base at 1000 feet to the plateau at 5000’ where the land rolls on forever, like a quilt on a bed, barren of trees but rich in wheat and alfalfa, miles between farms. Scrubs and tumbleweed, then dipping into a deep canyon. No cars, no people, few beef cattle, broken and rotting barns abandoned, tiny windmill pumps in the middle of nowhere, spinning in the dry wind. Miles and miles of fence that finally gave the context to my son of the joke about the Vermont farmer who listens to the Oregonian describe the several days it takes to circumnavigate his property, and the uncomprehending Vermonter answers that he once had a truck as slow as that.

A little sign was the only warning for our descent off the plateau four short miles down into the Deschutes River Valley. Two small lanes bending around outcrops and no guard rail over the 1000 foot precipice, we wound our way down, exclaiming around the dramatic turns and drop, and relieved to reach the bottom where we found Native American fishing platforms hanging over the rushing river.

Now moving westward again, the scrub grew into scraggly trees and on into straight, regally red Ponderosa pines, nearing the Cascades and the more fertile wetlands that grew out of the volcanic ash. We climbed higher once again into the massive mountains and deep forests, tribal lands, up onto the side of Mt. Hood, temperature dropping as we gained altitude, rose above the tree line, overcast skies beginning to spit.

Timberline Lodge had been a special place for my Oregon family, the magnificent structure built by the CCC of Roosevelt’s New Deal, a work of art that had hosted birthday and anniversary dinners for us, housed us while I wrote an article for Skiing magazine. In the Day Lodge, there were chairs with each of our names, and a photographic mural with our pictures. My daughters had learned to ski here.

The meal we had on this waning afternoon, including my son, was punctuation that a new chapter had begun in our lives, one of openness, joy, celebration and sharing; a father with his children, confident in our love and so very proud of the paths we are each currently on.

As I fly away today, fondling the piece of Italian marble picked up off the driveway/studio of the first and dearest friend I met arriving in Oregon so very long ago, the links with past, present and future seem so profound, yet difficult to articulate. I tried to come with heart wide open for adventure and insight, but without preconception or expectations. My work feels so poised on the verge of ecstatic satisfaction, opportunities abundant and exhilarating, yet so much of the stories and vistas here focused on an obscure and distant past: a fire and the death of an artist I had only known for six months.

Yet this intensive look at the past is really no surprise to me, who had glossed over the emotional losses of those events, being so swept up in the immediate repercussions of suddenly having a ready-made family to care for. This new energy of mine, so closely resembling the dreams and aspirations of the young naïve kid who first wandered onto the side of Neahkahnie Mountain, to release the constraints properly and move forward once more, this journey backwards had to be completed. Matured by these many years of hardships and ecstasies, sobered by the lessons of being side-tracked and distracted, it seems vital to sort through and discover what is worth keeping and what should be left behind.

That the Mountain holds a sacred and inspirational energy for me is undeniable, that a wealth of friendships are intact despite so much time is comforting, that I could be so freely and openly with my son and daughters is magnificent, but I do not feel urged to pack up and move out here. Rather, it seems more likely that dreams that regularly assailed me in my sleep over these many years may actually become a lifestyle in reality. Represented in the mode of a construction business which is all I could envision at the time, I dreamt that I settled from coast to coast regularly, a job lining up on one as another finished on the other, calling each place home and joyfully rediscovering the benefits of each periodically.

Lane and Tom’s acre serves as a magnificent retreat, her little T-house, “the Womb” , a place to linger and meditate, a place of rejuvenation as I have used it this week. Perhaps this change of focus from construction to writing and music will allow this, bring an impossible dream into fruition. In the meantime, I fondle my little piece of white marble chipped from one of my artist friend’s evolving sculptures, the jagged edges already smoothing from my finger’s caresses as it hides in my pocket and reminds me of the grounded inspiration I received this week in the Nehalem Valley, my place of peace.

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A Tablet of Marble

The word “crisis” may be a bit of a misnomer as I look back on several years of transitions in my Mid (hopefully) Life, each chapter being critical to the next. This change to a new life has been a long, slow process, racing along day to day at breakneck speed, but taking years to fully mature.

The contradictions are evident when I pause to read pages of entries in my black composition journals. I can ponder the immensity of differences a year has developed in so many ways: from location to occupation to spare timed activities. The scribbles are fraught with angst, paranoia and self-doubt as much as ebullience, braggadocio and lofty predictions (just multiply the substance of this blog by a thousand to get an idea).

For a few days now, my mind has been focused on measurements, calculations and emotional assessments. Using the change of season here and there as metaphor has not satisfied the process, leaving me floating somewhere in transition.

Curiously last night, a pile of boxes still stacked in the corner seemed suddenly conquerable and I could finally attack and sort them, clearing out the imposing disorder to improve my bedroom’s Fung Shui. “Poems” from my childhood, song scraps, and sweet cards from my own children could be scanned and re-stored; other mementos I could ceremoniously toss to the dumpster with only parting regret. Only after the purge, talking to a friend, did I recognize that this week marks exactly a year that I have been living here.

The true beginning of my crisis, I believe—besides an abiding pain and discomfort over work, financial and marital stress—surfaced upon the move of parents to an assisted care facility. Dividing the treasures and the personals, emptying out and giving over the unique family home to a new family was traumatic. The dinning room table, a huge slab of marble as much a symbol of a Camelot as any could be, was cut into five pieces, but mine as a coffee table in my own home holds nowhere near the power of anchoring my soul to place.

Once adrift, at long last, it had become time to grow up and take charge of my life.

My business had to be ended. No matter how well-intended and hard I focused on details, personal distraction and vanishing dollars made for chaotic sites and disastrous results. Although the finished product always looked impressive, not enough clients were fully satisfied and way too many subs and vendors were not getting paid. I could not continue to hurt all those who depended upon me.

My son regularly complains good-naturedly about shifting belongings from house to house every weekend, acknowledging the clear impact my decisions have had on his life. If I apologize, he quickly reminds me he no longer lives behind a closed door, shutting out the angry fights, and can sleep at night, no longer afraid and bewildered that parents who loved each other at times could hurt each other so horribly as well.

As much as I loved writing and music, in comparison to my family, while the focus of raising and supporting them was so intense, I easily and cheerfully abandoned the creativity, hardly even noticing the loss. There was so much gain that culminated in our beautiful little house on Hayward Street, the hard work to support it seemed just the natural price to pay. That the stress was crushing me and actually shredding the very fabric I loved so much seemed just the product of my own faulty frailties which could be easily adjusted and surmounted…if I just worked a little harder.

Once I realized how thick was the brick wall and impenetrable by the same choices and efforts, no matter how determined, when my energy was finally exhausted and none of the usual resources could be rallied, as I finally and fearfully understood in my soul what it means to “let go, let God”, the resistance evaporated. The wall has crumbled of its own accord.

In my I group last night, the question was posed: “if you did not have to work for a living, how would you spend your time?”. Instantly, I could answer “write, play music, ski and play soccer.” And I am doing all of that with my son close beside me.

Sure, I will need some help from my father this month again to pay the rent. He will ask again if any of this is actually making me any money, and for the first time I can honestly answer, “YES!”. For me, the important thing is that I am bringing all of these pieces of my own particular marble table back together again, stronger than ever.

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Skatter Monkies United!

By twice, I skied more this winter than in the last twenty years combined. Not since a winter in Stowe after college, have my eyes leapt so quickly to the window each morning to see if new snow had fallen overnight; nor has my mind had so many wandering thoughts during the day about conditions up on the Mountain.

After so much time, my body has reabsorbed the breath of a “ski bum”, walking through life, but living to slide, as comfortable in heavy boots and awkward sticks as a ballerina in slippers.

In four short months, I have made more friendships than days skied. Such a wonderful energy lingers around a ski resort. More than just a healthy physical activity, there is a lifestyle embraced, a common passion shared that unites everyone in smiles. No bad moods cloud the sky. No one is a stranger here. It is expected that we will entrust our little skiers to get on the chairlift with whoever happens to be next in line.

Sharing the ecstasy of glorious snow or passing time at tables in the quiet lodge when conditions are poor, those of us instructing have become a team united. From such varied occupations and lifestyles, never even learning too many details about each other, our banter in the locker room is a treasure of contentment and comraderie.

When informed in late November of being assigned a group of four year old “never evers” to teach all winter, I seriously noted my sunken heart and (so focused on learning to trust my intuition) considered going another year without skiing more. Hourly over the next four weekends, as my son and I skied backwards coaxing one or the other tearful, terrified child towards hot chocolate, my patience and sanity were sorely tested.

The first day, when they all went foraging, I was inclined to let them be and head for the parking lot. Putting the pink gloves on the blue child while adjusting three scarves and two helmets yet again, only sheer will power and the fear of a lawsuit restrained me from losing "it" and getting too rough. Plenty of mean words were muttered under breath.

Yet hugs, true heartfelt, warm snuggles, a little head fitting perfectly under my arm, always saved the moment. These little souls who could burst instantly from howls to laughter charmed the frustration right out of me. Their delight and wonder so profound, their pain, frustration and tiredness so close to the surface, their fear and happiness so physically palpable; their gifts were rich.

To work and play so hard with my own son has been a treasure beyond reckoning. The advances in his skills and confidence as a skier, teacher and man have been wonderful to witness. Side by side, we have shared, supported and teased one another. Our friendship has grown so far beyond parent/child duties.

Now the snow melts, temperatures warm. We all move on toward baseball, soccer, biking and swimming. We realign the social sets suspended during these last months in our own hometowns. The world circles back and our fond farewells are already muted by the anticipation of the new season, the smell of charcoal and sparkle of fireflies.

In the meantime, I leave my little Skatter Monkies with this song from their very grateful Skatter Brain.

Skatter Monkies

Skatter Monkies, Skatter Monkies: skiing down the hills
Skatter Monkies, Skatter Monkies, they give us all such a thrill

Mia Pink with brownie crumbs all over her face, never wants to stop, skis like she is in a race;
Bradley leans forward his hands point the way, smile so big and bright it warms the coldest day.

Mia Blue, I’m telling you, knows just where she wants to go, she’ll ski down any trail no matter what the snow;
Smiley Riley seems petrified with tears, ‘til you get up close beside and hear her singing loud and clear.


Good Golly Miss Molly so helpful and kind, at the back of the pack making sure no one’s left behind;
Brook never asks for help, always goes on her own, throws herself down mountains and never breaks a bone


Sabrina serafina as pretty as can be, refused to go up the lift, but really learned to ski;
Owen kept on goin’, never showed his fear, now he’s off to San Diego, we’ll miss him lots next year;

Early one December morn these kids came to me
So wrapped in goggles & helmets, it’s a wonder they could see
They all looked the same to me, I didn’t know their names
I didn’t speak their language, and couldn’t play their games
But they taught me how to laugh again
And see the clear blue sky
To find the good in everyone
And always question why

Skatter Monkies, Skatter Monkies: skiing down the hills

Skatter Monkies, Skatter Monkies, they give us all such a thrill

they give us all such a thrill

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Spring Fling

My face is burned from a weekend of sun on snow, crystalline and corn; the sky brilliant blue. The ground sheds its color of white, dirty with mud, but ripe with life. Bikes and runners clog the pathways. The carwash has a waiting line.

Talk among the locals is of how many gallons of sap are running, sugar shacks smoking with the smell of boiling syrup. From a farmhouse porch under the late afternoon warmth, a small party raises their glass to every car passing by. Spring overpowers winter’s weakening grip.

A month ago, the bitter air thick with snow, my legs just beginning to regain their confidence after so many years of not skiing, I was happy to embrace the life of cold, wind-driven runs and comforting hot-chocolate. Two weeks ago, I wistfully marked the moment when winter accumulated its full depth and sadly began to recede, thinking how sad it was melting so soon.

Today, long before the sleepy brown landscape bursts to green, when there are still markers everywhere to proclaim the dawning of spring, my heart soars.

In Oregon, I remember seasonal changes more subtly: mild transitions that sometimes made it hard to remember if we were heading to or away from Christmas. Summer reached a sweltering moment and winter cooled to a rare snow on the coast, but mostly the seasons swiveled moderately and mildly. Vermont is nothing if not clear in its definition of seasons.

One earns their spring here. The effort it takes day in and day out to scrape off the car, navigate the icy sidewalks, track your mittens and hat, the constant hard work to stay warm makes the bare head and gloveless hands magnificent. The shedding of jackets and baring of shoulders is like the unwrapping of a present: delightful and exquisite.

And like the rebirth of color bursting forth from trees and garden beds, heralding new life, spring revives the hopes and dreams within us that through the long dreary months have seemed to merely survive. Our visions breathe with new life revitalized, our energies richer for the time spent in dormancy, our journeys percolating within.

A year ago, I could barely sleep alone, the rattle of fear so loud that such a strange and unchartered life loomed before me. The dust of my apartment renovation rose thick and swirling to blur the confusion of my transition from one life to another, grounding me to a specific task, even as my heart beat rampantly, conjuring the many possibilities. The disorientation was alarming to me while I boldly boasted of my confidence.

Today, I pause to wonder. Proclaiming last year the need to hear my own voice, what has surfaced are the same sounds evident years ago when I was young and first stepping forward on my path: I ski and play soccer; I write and play music. Although hardly practicing any of these through most of my adult years, sidetracked by relationships and the choices of living, in each today, I feel stronger than ever before. The time away has not squandered these passions, but actually revived them with more powerful and focused expression.

Where I felt forced to abandon these parts of my personality for the higher purpose of making a living and supporting my families, my inner self fell into a sort of sleep, a winterlike somnambulance where the wind howled, avalanches cascaded and devastated, and my soul lived in darkness where evil spirited vices reigned over common sense. Now embracing the activities I love, this week I earned from them the very money I needed to pay my bills for the week. Feeding my soul put enough food on the table, gas in the car, and electricity in the computer to communicate with the world.

The energy of Youth is a sweet and enviable force, so vital and pure, but naive and slippery all the same. Fitful and unfaithful, it is liable to flit and dance about, vulnerable to being consumed in bursts of exploration and lost to wasteful distractions.

Maturity, I have learned, harnesses the emotion and—like water through a dam—energizes the flow, multiplying the power. Wisdom and experience create the ability to appreciate the value of time, understand the importance of integrity, the limitations of life, and the urgency of the moment.

Gifts—no matter how precious—are to be shared. No one of us is better than another. We each are given our lives and allowed to find our ways. Joining hands or standing apart, still we are connected, impacting our small space (our homes, our neighborhoods, our little Earth), sharing ourselves with each other and comforting those around us. Once we recognize the voice within us, we are unable to sit in silence, but sing forth loudly and freely like the birds on a fresh spring morning, or the geese returning home.

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Peace that Passath

In the predawn darkness this morning, I awoke fearful that my creativity and drive depend on stress. The high level of uncertainty and crisis that has pervaded most of my adult life may actually be necessary to motivate me forward: the suffering artiste.

Long recognizing that my struggle with money is at the core of my existence, a reason, perhaps The Reason, to be here, it is frightening to imagine I continually create problems to maintain a stimulating edge. Trouble possibly provides the pressure to really cook.

A week of relative calm coincides with no blog entry nor other session of writing words on a pad or in my journal. As if a comfortable routine breeds stagnation, I rise up in a sweat of horror to think I might need to be so out of balance in order to walk a productive line.

No doubt, my heart beats faster in crisis, my mind leaps forward with creative solutions to ugly problems, bending rules or persevering against all odds. Adrenalin can certainly be addicting.

Still in the dark, my son and I loaded the car for a day of work on the Mountain, and the CD ignited with the new song, reminding me that perhaps the phrases wrapped in melody counted for creativity enough to satisfy my internal demand. Lack of a blog entry beyond that could possibly be forgiven.

We are, typically, our own worst critics, passing negative judgments where others might bestow accolades. In all my years as a contractor, constantly entering strange homes to consider a job, no matter the condition, rarely has the owner not apologized for the mess. For every achievement we attain, we see three ways we could have (should have) done it better.

But as we rolled down the road, the mellow tune embracing my ear with pride and satisfaction, we enjoyed a dim to bright sunrise over purple snow-covered mountains. Cold mist hovered over the frozen rivers. Frost clung to trees. Smoke curled from chimneys cozy with warmth, and the world seemed right.

My group at ski school has settled into eight four year olds just learning to turn and very distractable, contrary and lively. They all want to hold my hand, and they are equally in love with my son who does a wonderful job as teacher and entertainer.

Such a treat it is to work side by side! I can focus on the one who in this 15 minutes has reverted to helplessness, counting on him to herd the others up and down, or to the potty, in all good humor and patience.

Afterwards, we rode to the top of the mountain, bitter wind blowing and ice on the trail, but enough snow to make the bumps very skiable. Three runs we took on one of the toughest diamonds. In one fell swoop, my son really mastered the steep and treacherous, skiing the slope aggressively and confidently, making his father so proud.

Side by side or one after the other, I had no worry for his safety, but just thrilled to the turns or laughed heartily when one of us plunged and fell. My own legs recaptured the flow and twist, the airborne dance of so long ago now refined by my instructor’s style. A sweet hour we skied as if there were none before or after this, just happy to be alive as the mountain tops were lit in golden sunset.

On the way home, a magnificent moon, full, huge, bright, and orange, rose over those same purple mountains still covered with snow. All was right with our world, father and son united and bonded, all problems shrouded by the peace of heavenly satisfaction, a moment so clean, clear and undramatic, but so perfectly wonderous to write about.

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Giving Thanks

So focused on where we want to go, it can be easy to forget where we have been, and how far we have come.

This holiday for me, crosses all lines of religion, ethnicity, and economics to be truly American. Only on this day do the roads empty, most stores close, and everyone has a common purpose, celebrated in one basic form. “Over the river and through the woods”, we go to celebrate the loved ones, the rock solid foundations in our lives. Priceless moments of conversations light and deep are cooked over the hard work of preparing the food, smells that linger a lifetime. Since living in town, I have enjoyed a walk outdoors at dusk, breathing in the silence of everyone feasting, gathered across the country in families together.

This year, my family is broken and my younger kids will be with their mother. My own sisters and parents are scattered. My friends all rightfully have plans of their own. A co-worker graciously invited me to join his family for a day of feast and football, but I have declined. Not to be pitied, or feeling depressed, for the first time in my life, I am thankful to be alone.

Fortunately, I am in no way truly alone. If I could get there, my children and sister in Oregon would share food and celebration with great spirit. In Pennsylvania, I have a father and sisters who would watch the Eagles with me in the same combination of hope and dread that plagues their loyal fans of 50 years.

And I have a mother whose eyes, as bright and blue as ever, might show the tiniest flicker of recognition at the sound of the voice she raised.

In this year of turmoil and change, one friendship has deepened into brotherhood, a man so there for me, and I for him, I joked yesterday that a day without at least a phone call causes withdrawal symptoms. Other friendships have blossomed or wilted according to the natural choices of sides. Some very old friendships have been re-ignited, and some great new friends welcome and support my current journey.

One year ago, I said I needed to hear my own voice. In the wreckage of homelife, work, and all that was not working, I was trying so hard to fix it all so fast, I could no longer tell what was truly my own, or just words I thought I was supposed to say. A second divorce, just like a bankruptcy, were options outside the strong family values I have known, but the din was overwhelming and could have led to a very real and awful silence.

So for better or worse, I am thankful today to be alone, to write and sing and do my work as best I can to put humble bread upon my table. I laugh, I can make others laugh. I cry, and am beginning to understand that it is not my job to keep others from crying. My inappropriate compulsive behaviors have vanished. There are those who congratulate me and others who admonish, but I am doing my best to hear those outside judgments as just votes of confidence, allowing my voice to be altered perhaps, but in no way diminished.

In this same circumstance twenty years ago, with the same guitar, piano, and dreams of writing novels, I felt half-complete. For life to be right as I knew and wanted it, all was second best until I had a mate with whom it could be shared. Having met a wonderful woman, I was determined to make our union work, no matter what. These many years, full of joys and pain, have provided lessons I needed to learn, as great and as hard as they have been. I have few regrets.

Today, I am liking the voice I hear. Always in need of refinement, still, it carries itself well, sings a song, alone or in a crowd, to make my mother proud.

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Peace in Rest

Last night I rested.

I saw my blog hits were way below even my usual modest number, and recognizing it coincides directly to the regularity of postings, I knew an entry was overdue. The pressure mounted to prove how well I could perform against a deadline, but struggling on the first paragraph, I dropped my pen and rested.

In the process of revitalizing my 20 old songs, I have purchased this wonderful combination of hardware and software that lets me record them in the comfort of my own home. Surrounded by my books on shelves, boxes still to be unpacked, unmade bed and dirty dishes, I can lay down multi-guitars, play piano, and sing background vocals to myself (Broken Mirrors). This process has been consumming hours of my time, a way to hear ideas and variations until I find real musicians to spice it up.

I looked at all that inviting possibility, but left the songs quiet, and rested instead.

Short story plots, query letters, and revised essays need to be written, packaged and mailed out. My new partnership in medical writing must be further explored. The books on the table beckon to be opened.

But last night I rested.

Around my half-renovated apartment, so much needs to be completed. A sketch is required in preparation of tiling the shower this weekend. The kitchen counter is still plywood, drawers must be built and walls painted. Recycled bindings must be mounted to other skis because the snow is falling and Sugarbush opens tomorrow.

Is it any wonder, with all the excitement abounding, I could not choose except to uncharacteristically shove it all aside, relax and rest?

This week, winter takes its first real bite on our fingers and toes. The slight breeze turns mild temperatures bitter for those of us bundled and working outside. I spent the day braced against the cold, calculating rafter lengths and angles mathematically with frozen-slogged mind, and called directions with stiff cheeks slurring words.

Today will be the same, so last night I rested.

Out for music and friendship most nights lately, last night I knew I had to settle in. What lovely peace was felt with ornately soft jazz cooking on the stereo as I melted cheese and tuna on the stove. Forcing myself simply to sit at the table, a place setting for one, I listened, ate, pondered, and…rested.

Having done so last night, a better entry for the blog is written this morning.

Rest well, when you have the chance; the sunlight will always return.

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Slippery Slopes

Even as I express concern over taking on too many activities, a casual conversation has quickly evolved into a serious winter commitment.

These many changes this year, have brought into question the most basic foundations of relationships, home, hometowns, and even careers. The business of carpentry has not served me well, making me wonder if I should even continue to hammer at the trade.

My son and I were discussing career alternatives one evening recently in regard to both our lives. The focus was on teaching high school, both of us particularly interested in English, but he suddenly quipped that I should be a ski instructor.

At his age, living in the Philadelphia suburbs (a “flatlander”, they call us in Vermont), I yearned to live a life on snow. I was skiing enough to love the lifestyle more than any girl, and imagined skiing adventures much more clearly than any concept of marriage.

My first job was in a ski shop. My third was washing dishes at dawn and dusk so I could ski in daylight. Anyone who knew me well was surprised that I had not only settled for love over skiing, but actually married a woman who had no interest at all to slide down mountains in the cold.

My sister and her husband have long advocated that I teach skiing as the most joyful combination of my skills and talents. They saw the light in my eyes, the bounce in my turns, the utter delight I exuded when playing with their kids and mine on Oregon slopes.

Back then, I even combined the sport with my dreams of writing by publishing articles in Skiing Magazine. Travelling the Northwest, enjoying fresh powder and awesome lodging, all expenses paid, seemed a life too good to be true...and so it faded.

When my son suggested I instruct this winter, I faltered. In these last few years, we have had some exhilarating days on snow, just 30 minutes from home to a wonderland that, in my stressed and impoverished circumstances, seemed more than I could afford, but was worth every effort to create and cherish such grins on our faces.

Just a quick call to a friend was all it took to get us both jobs at Sugarbush. I suppose the New England Puritan ethic must have a stronger grip on me than I imagine as I contemplate a winter of dancing on moguls and slicing powder tails on pristine mornings; how else do I explain the fear that enshrouds this vision?

I worry about the gas and long hour of commute each way, the cost of boots and skis (even recycled). Already concerned over a plate too full of activities, I have commited to every Saturday and Sunday coaching a group of rambunctious pre-teens who might easily run this old man ragged. And deepest in my bones, it is just plain hard for me to imagine we could be on this Earth to have so much fun.

But half the weekends I get to romp with my son, sharing tunes on his IPod and tales of splendid bumps and crashes. We will spend time together that will count for so much to me once he has gone to college and on to a life of his own. With my new schedule of independence, I am blessed to be able to provide this opportunity for us to play.

And to get paid for it all as well! Yo-da-lay-hee-hoo!

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Stuff In the Corners

My apartment—like the rest of my life—is so full of clutter and half-packed boxes, it reminds me of the game where one piece must be moved to the open space to make room to move towards another.

The carpet and freshly sanded floors are covered over with boxes piled up, needing to be condensed and stored away for another decade. Each time reopened, a precious story falls out, a trinket outlived, finally to be tossed on, replaced by some new momento with a more powerful luster.

Since the walls of shelves are mine alone, this time several objects long stored away make it back to the light of day. Additionally, there is the added wealth of treasures from my mother’s collection, a bronze purse and sacred (to her) shards of glass.

With little rhymes and lots of reasons, these objects resonate with symbolism for an era, holding their places of honor to remind me of the boy I was and the man I wanted to be. My heart fills when my eyes land on the St Bernard’s brandy cask (she actually wore it at ski lodges), the boomerang (that took 45 years to circle back), the antique carpenter’s plane (that formed the logo for my new business), or my daughters’ artwork. No amount of dust obscures the force of energy these pieces inspire.

Outside, the ghost of the cannon still hovers, marking a place of grief and hurt for all that has been lost in these two years between packing up my parent’s lifelong home and my own of Marriage and Family. Come spring, this spot will be a garden, a shrine seeded with memories and bursting forth in colors of renewal.

Beyond this little oasis slowly transforming from cave to vibrant home, the details shift the open space elusively just beyond my sight. Boxes full and partial still are sorted and ferried from our house to my house, hers, the dump or recycling center. Tasks of complicated paperwork and a simple punchlist distract my attention from the limitless future to be created.

With each box condensed and stored, each task checked off, more light floods into the corners of my heart, even as the leaves burst and drop, and the sun races towards its darkening solstice and the long winter ahead. Music is always at my fingertips now my piano fills half the living room, my guitars hang on the wall within easy reach. A new network of friends are face-to-face, or just a finger-tip away through Emails, entering my home to keep me company.

And at any moment, a glance to the corner shelf, like donning a favorite jacket, slathers that exuberant teen-age boys grin with a St Bernard’s kiss, giant paws on the shoulders, or awes the young dad with his child’s wondering eyes and proud excitement, unquestioning trust.

Zenlike, we are only in the One moment, the Now, but it is colored—like the leaves on this brilliant Vermont crisp morning—with so very much more.

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Harvest

Fall is really the start of the New Year.



Whether in class or not, most lives revolve around the school calendar, settling back into ritual and routine as the new academic year begins. Clearly the students are waiting for the bus each morning, or the roads are full of parents car-pooling, mug in hand, heading to work after. But businesses change, as well, with bargain specials and cut rate clearances, sales increased or decreased because people become bound to their homes, school and routines.

As naturally as the leaves turning and air grown crisper, the football season begins. Building projects that had meandered through conception in spring and the design phase in summer are rushed into production to be finished by Thanksgiving. There is an urgency to firewood deliveries, and the chimney sweeps work overtime. Squirrels gather their nuts.

New to the complicated dynamics of sharing a child, the summer was an introductory lesson with a lot of improvisation, based largely around sleeping one full week at each place and alternating homes for dinner. Summer could be loose and plans changed, the schedule interrupted by travels and camps.

Now, for the sake of my son’s best efforts to focus on schoolwork and sanity (to lead as normal a life as possible), we have graduated to a system of alternating weeks with only one dinner with the off-parent. Weekends end the week for the parent-in-charge who can enjoy lounging (while my son sleeps in) and developing naturally and normally a Saturday all day into a Sunday. The “hand-off” occurs near the evening with enough time for dinner and to settle back into the other home for the week to come.

Last night was our first of many, and the sweet domestic feel of it made my heart glow. Books and new binders (and the trash of their wrappings) spread around him, my son did his homework, calling out an occasional question. I made a real dinner (as opposed to pizza in the middle of a construction site), and later cleaned it up, cleaned up, in fact, the entire apartment. Classical music mellowed the mood.

This set the scene for the year ahead, and it is definitely one with which I can live. So much turmoil has been the tone of our home to date—not just the renovation of the place, but the reconstruction of our lives. The year that began with uncertainty, disruption and tension evolved into a summer of sporadic and spontaneous adventures.

We ate our pizzas in front of movies on the laptop, lived with dust, and experimented with furniture found in garages and the recycle store. It all had an air of impermanence and improvisation, as if any day we would go back to our home on Hayward Street and the family we used to be would be again.

Now the air has changed, the sun sets sooner each evening. We settle into the routine like survivors on an island, determined to make the best of it. A new winter approaches and we are readying our supplies.

And this morning, there are lunches to be made before heading off to school and work.

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