I don’t know about you Coach. But I hope that either all of us or none of us are judged by the actions of our weakest moments, but rather by the strength we show when and if we’re ever given a second chance.
No errant spy balloons flying here — U.S.S. in Pursuit (VOLUME UP!)
May 29, 2023 by 11 Comments
Eric Kanigan flying drone. U.S. Sully in hot pursuit. Florence + the Machine on “Dog Days are Over!”
a single sheet of notepaper, on which Charlie had boiled 109 years into an operating code of life
May 29, 2023 by 30 Comments
Among Charlie’s things after he was gone, his family found a single sheet of notepaper, on which Charlie had boiled 109 years into an operating code of life. He filled the sheet front and back in flowing ballpoint pen, writing in definitive commands. Among them:
Think freely. Practice patience. Smile often. Forgive and seek forgiveness.
Feel deeply. Tell loved ones how you feel.
Be soft sometimes. Cry when you need to. Observe miracles.
— David Von Drehle, “My neighbor lived to be 109. This is what I learned from him.” From The Washington Post · May 22, 2023. This essay was adapted from “The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man,” by David Von Drehle
I encourage you to read the entire essay here.
Walking. With The Apparition.
May 28, 2023 by 19 Comments
I was heading back to the car, done for the morning, and there he was. Or was it an Apparition? I’ve never seen him in daylight. I’ve never been within 10 yards of him.
It’s been 1,118 consecutive (sort of, almost, consecutive) days on this morning walk at Cove Island Park. Like in a row.
He’s also a (mostly) daily walker at Cove Island Park. But he’s a real walker. He walks from somewhere deep in the bowels of Stamford, and around Cove Island Park, and back again — has to be a 6-7 mile loop.
And he’s off early. My shot clock starts one hour before sunrise and most days, I pass him in the car, and he’s half-way done.
You can’t miss him. He’s lean, late 60’s, early 70’s. A brisk gait, both arms swinging high. In his right hand, a heavy policeman’s flashlight, its beam slashing the darkness. No earbuds, smartphone, music players. Austere.
He never looks over, always looking straight ahead.
Anybody walking that fast, that heavy, has to be running from demons. (Hmmmmm. Lori Gottlieb: Everyone has demons—big, small, old, new, quiet, loud, whatever.)
And here he was, in daylight, less tall, less dark and Human.
He offers the first words. [Read more…]
And, Take 14…not sure about ugly, but light, oh yes.
May 27, 2023 by 19 Comments
“I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may – light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful.”
— John Constable (1776 – 1837) in “Life and Letters of John Constable” by Charles Robert Leslie (Chapman and Hall, 1896). Quote is found in a letter that Constable wrote to his friend and fellow artist John Fisher in 1821. In the letter, Constable is discussing his views on landscape painting, and he argues that the artist should not be afraid to paint ugly things, because the right use of light, shade, and perspective can make even the most ordinary object beautiful. (Constable Quote via Alive on All Channels)
See more pictures from this morning’s walk of the Cygnet with Mom on FB here.
T.G.I.F.
May 26, 2023 by 7 Comments
And, Take 12…TGIF
May 25, 2023 by 16 Comments
See more pictures from this morning’s walk of the Cygnet with Mom on FB here.
Guess.What.Day.It.Is? (Volume Up)
May 24, 2023 by 14 Comments
Notes:
- Thank you bougiecattle, Johan Graham.
- Background on Caleb/Wednesday/Hump Day Posts and Geico’s original commercial: Let’s Hit it Again.
But I can hopefully give someone who’s had a bad day an hour and a half to go into a different world where bills or illness isn’t the top thing on their brain. That’s the only skill set I really have. So I have to keep trying.
May 23, 2023 by 28 Comments
The worst thing about being famous for Melissa McCarthy is how hard it’s become to follow strangers around a discount store called Big Lots. This is a shop where you can find, for example, patio furniture, a large rack of lamb, sparkly nail varnish and also an Oscar-nominated actress, twice a week, in sunglasses and facemask, staring at strangers. “It’s my therapy, I just find it wonderful.” she says, lightly.
Not just anyone. She doesn’t want to follow just anyone, she likes to follow, for example, the guy wearing all purple, or with his beard tucked into his belt, or the woman in headphones, singing. “I guess it’s because,” she thinks, “everything we’re sold is about perfection – are you making your own organic baby food? Are you milling your own gluten-free flour? So, I have a true love and obsession for someone who’s just like – this is me.” She grins. “Yes, I get a true rush of joy when I can tell someone’s living just as they want. Somebody who’s, like, really rocking their life, I want to be in their glow for a few minutes. It recharges my batteries.” In another life, would McCarthy be one of those people, roller-skating around a discount store, singing? Would she be beard guy? “I think…” she leans in, “I am one of those people. I am beard guy.” […]
And while McCarthy is known for her charm and good-natured jollity, it’s this kind of thing that brings out the rage in her. “I hate any kind of injustice. And people attacking someone for just trying to be who they truly are. What does it matter to them? Do no harm, be kind – if everyone just followed those two rules, we’d be fine. Not,” as she’s seeing in America right now, “‘you can’t read this book’, ‘You can’t talk about certain histories.’ I don’t have any patience for all that.” When she touches on her angers, she gives a glimpse of the tenacity and grit that doesn’t so much lurk behind her cheery optimism as prop it up and push it forward. “Can you imagine if everybody was just kind for one week? The difference would be so unbelievable I don’t even know how it would feel. And the weird thing is, it’s just… not that hard to do?” […]
“There’s a rhythm or a flow, where my mouth precedes my brain in some form?” It’s not only joyful, she says, “It’s really cathartic….“I can be much better off in life. I spend a lot of my work day just… shredding people, so I’m not screaming at someone at a stoplight because they didn’t go the second it turned green. I can wait a minute. I’m fine. […]
“Comedy allows you to sit next to somebody whose ideas don’t match up. And maybe you come out a little closer. I think that’s what I’m supposed to be doing, in this world.” She thinks. “I can’t do a lot of useful things. I don’t know how to clean up the oceans, or stop our violent tendencies. But I can hopefully give someone who’s had a bad day an hour and a half to go into a different world where bills or illness isn’t the top thing on their brain. That’s the only skill set I really have. So I have to keep trying.” [..]
She has this theory, she says. If two people are standing on opposite street corners, “and one person is screaming hate, just terrible things, while the other person is saying, ‘You’re doing a great job. Keep it up! You’re a good parent!’ everyone’s going to look at the hate screamer, right?” She sighs, it’s what we do, human heads are easily turned. “Partly because, it’s hard to scream compliments. Niceness – it’s not as noticeable. So when I see people out there with microphones literally screaming terrible things, I always want to get like, a slightly bigger microphone.”
This impulse is a trait that she shares with the characters she plays, a compulsion to question the modern world and a bawdy confidence, which inevitably makes everything better. “Actually,” she adds, quite serious now, “I would not mind spending a day on the street corner just randomly complimenting people, really loudly. ‘You have terrific pants on,’ or ‘I love your fringe!’” She thinks for a second. “I’m going to have to do it, aren’t I?” I’m pretty sure, I tell her, she already is.
— Eva Wiseman, excerpts from “Interviewing Melissa McCarthy: ‘I spend a lot of my work shredding people‘” (The Guardian, May 21, 2023)
Monday Morning Wake-Up Call (Volume Up)
May 22, 2023 by 17 Comments
Cygnet Wakes. Video (Volume Up) from this morning’s walk at Cove Island Park. Other photos on FB here.
And, Take 10…Sunday Morning
May 21, 2023 by 10 Comments
Wally’s Great Adventures (70)
May 20, 2023 by 39 Comments
hello friends, wally here. i’m sorry for being away so long. my friend ray from nashville sent me an email and he said it looked like dad dumped me, and that he’s fallen in love with something called a cigaret, or signet or some stoopid white fluffy thing. i thought about that and it all made sense and would explain why i kept asking dad to borrow his laptop and he wouldn’t let me. he must have been sending love notes to his cigaret. and, oh, just when you think it couldn’t get worse, mom dropped me off at the vet, who shaved my paw, stuck me with a needle, and then everything went blurry and I was out. when i got up, i looked down and i was missi’g my ballies! and it hurt so much down there. i was so shocked to see they were missing that I must have passed out again. when i got up, mom and dad were waiting but dad said he couldn’t bear to look. i asked him how did he think i felt, and he just shuddered. then we came home and mom said that i had to wear a plastic lampshade on my head. and i had to agree with dad, i looked like a circus monkey and dad refused to let me wear a lamp on my head. vet also said that i couldn’t jump and run too much for two weeks, TWO WEEKS! dad said no almost-show-quality dog of his would be off the grid for 2 weeks and interrupt training…but for a few days i’m resting, taking short walks with mom and going on car rides with dad. so that’s it for now. Wally.
And, Take 9…
May 20, 2023 by 19 Comments
And, Take 8…
May 19, 2023 by 9 Comments
Lightly Child, Lightly.
May 18, 2023 by 13 Comments
I like to follow the path that nature gives me. Much of what happens in life is not in my power; most events are the outcome of stuff that happened thousands of years ago and will have outcomes of their own in years to come. I adapt and enjoy and refuse to fight the things that can’t be fought, I let go of the questions that cannot be answered and instead I push at doors that fall open to my touch and ignore the ones that resist too much. I have worked hard, tried hard, learned that life has flow and that resisting it brings problems. I’ve known people who fight too hard for what they want—fighting and wanting become a way of life and they never stop and never get happy. I ride streams that are going my way, share moments with people who are friendly, stroke relaxed dogs and approachable cats, cut the grass when the sun shines, shelter when it rains, and so on. Instead of standing in the ocean and feeling its swell pushing at me, trying to resist its push and then staggering and falling, I like to lift my feet just a little and be lifted. Bobbing effortlessly along like a leaf in a rill, turning this way and that to look at the world as it passes—enjoying the ride. That doesn’t mean simply accepting the ways of people. Injustice, cruelty and greed must be addressed, but I try to do it with love, with understanding and compassion. Not to confront, but to gently open a better, kinder desire-path for the stream to flow into because it’s easier. Some people, of course, are beyond the ability to change and so must be resisted. It’s not all plain sailing.
I wasn’t always a follower of the path. I wanted to be a writer and I tried so hard, entering, applying, but the doors remained so tightly closed that my knuckles bled from knocking. Then I gave up fighting and fell in love again with life, wrote the poetry of my days and the things that woke me in the early hours, demanding to be held in the mind for a moment and be seen. Now I don’t care about ‘being’ anything, I like writing for fun. Desire got in the way and slowed me down. I do what the moment tells me to do, instinctively. Of course I make plans of a vague, uncertain kind but I’m not overly attached to them.
— Marc Hamer, Spring Rain: A Life Lived in Gardens (Greystone Books, April 4, 2023)
Notes:
- Background on Marc Hammer: “Hobo who learned to be happy: A homeless man who found true peace as a gardener has written an inspirational memoir.” The Daily Mail by Christopher Hart. January 14, 2021.
- Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.
Guess.What.Day.It.Is?
May 17, 2023 by 27 Comments
Notes:
- Thank you Horty for sharing a photo from a friend who is visiting Egypt!
- Background on Caleb/Wednesday/Hump Day Posts and Geico’s original commercial: Let’s Hit it Again.
And, Take 7…
May 16, 2023 by 6 Comments
Monday Morning Wake Up Call
May 15, 2023 by 15 Comments
I lived when simply waiting was a large part of ordinary life: when we waited, gathered around a crackling radio, to hear the infinitely far-away voice of the king of England… I live now when we fuss if our computer can’t bring us everything we want instantly. We deny time.
We don’t want to do anything with it, we want to erase it, deny that it passes. What is time in cyberspace? And if you deny time you deny space. After all, it’s a continuum—which separates us.
So we talk on a cell phone to people in Indiana while jogging on the beach without seeing the beach, and gather on social media into huge separation-denying disembodied groups while ignoring the people around us.
I find this virtual existence weird, and as a way of life, absurd. This could be because I am eighty-four years old. It could also be because it is weird, an absurd way to live.”
— Ursula K. LeGuin, Interview by Heather Davis. “Stories from wide open, wild country: An Interview with Ursula K. Le Guin” Hobo Magazine 16: 130-131. (2014)
Notes:
- Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels
- Portrait: The New Yorker by Dana Gluckstein
Take 6…
May 13, 2023 by 13 Comments
Live & Learn 