This book is dedicated to the voices in my head, the most remarkable of my friends.
And to my wife, who lives with us.
— Fredrik Backman, the opening dedication to his new book titled “Anxious People: A Novel” (Atria Books, September 8, 2020)
Notes:
6:39:47 a.m. April 10th. The time stamp on photo.
I recall the moment. The end of my run, I’m rounding the last corner before home, breathing heavily.
Morning sun. A light warm hue painting the tips of trees and bushes. Beautiful.
I slip off my glove, the tip of my index finger is moist, trembling, and sticking to the screen. I wipe it dry and slide the menu bar from Pano, Portrait, Video, Slo-Mo, Portrait, and stop on Photo. Pleased, I pause for a moment longer, admiring the view, so glad I was able to catch the moment.
I walk the rest of the way home, catching my breath.
I’m sitting in the backyard, 30° F, sweat drying, goosebumps form on skin. I shiver. Legs sore, but that good sore after finishing a run.
I open the camera app to check out the photo.
I tap the image, and it pops up. It stutters for a moment, then a series of frames, and it stops. Irritated.
I tap the image again. And there on the top of the image, a “Live” tag. WTF is that?
I tap the image again. It stutters, pans through a series of frames, and then stutters to silence. Jesus. You can’t even get this right.
I grab the phone and slide my index finger along the menu options, and don’t see a “Live” option. Damn it!
Index finger. Dotted line. Bad outcome. Mind draws up the Moment.
35 years later, like yesterday. My hands trembling. The course of Life would change based on the GMAT test results in that ever so thin envelope. Before I tear it open, the tip of my index finger slides along the perforated edge, my skin tingling as it passes each tiny raised dot. I don’t recall who was with me at the time: “How’d you do?” I walked away, needing to be alone, needing to be quiet, needing to be still.
I’ve been dragging that anvil around for 35 years.
I turn back to the photo. Love photos. But it’s clear, cameras, are not my thing.
The photo syncs on iCloud to my laptop. (Magic!)
I convert the Live Photo to a still image. Upload it to the blog post. And pause. Didn’t notice my shadow in the photo until now.
I run my finger around the silhouette. There you are DK.
You caught yourself in the shot.
Your legs look a bit long, but you turned out to be ok.
You are the doubter and the doubt,
worshipping a book you can’t read.
The awful quiet in your heart
is not the peace you were promised,
not the trembling hush before a revelation,
not a prelude to an earthquake,
not God’s silence, but his breathlessness.
~ Traci Brimhall, from “Gnostic Fugue,” from Our Lady of the Ruins
Photo: Noell Oszvald. Post inspired by quote from Mindfulbalance: “In our own lives the voice of God speaks slowly, a syllable at a time. Reaching the peak of years, dispelling some of our intimate illusions and learning how to spell the meaning of life-experiences backwards, some of us discover how the scattered syllables form a single phrase.” ~ Rabbi Joshua Herschel, Between God and Man.
Of course I have sinned….
As a child, I have failed you first by not having the courage to taste of life itself.
Instead, I hid away in books, and then study.
I know now this left me empty and void of the world.
~ Anthony Hopkins as Pope Benedict XVI in The Two Popes (Netflix, 2019)
“If you’re going to make a movie about what’s holy, it had better be outstanding — and this drama rises to the occasion.” ~ Tara McNamara, Common Sense Media
Photo: Bird is a Stilt. Stilt is a common name for several species of birds in the family Recurvirostridae, which also includes those known as avocets. They are found in brackish or saline wetlands in warm or hot climates. They have extremely long legs, hence the group name, and long thin bills (via Your Eyes Blaze Out)
This is the time to be slow…
Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.
~ John O’Donohue, in “To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings”
Notes: Poem via MindfulBalance. Photo: “I am curious” by Olafur Eliasson (via thisisnthappiness)
Threat Update @threat_update Monitoring trends and crunching key metrics to evaluate existential risk. Powered by science. Patents applied for.
Second train of the morning.
Arrive at Grand Central Station.
Traders, Bankers, Morning Hawks gather at the exit.
Car door slides open and the throng spills out.
I pick up the pace. Heart’s pumping. I’m passing Suits. And accelerating.
I Pass Harvard.
I Pass Yale.
I Pass MIT.
I Pass Lori’s Princeton.
I Pass Stanford.
I Pass Prep School boys from Choate, Exeter. Deerfield Academy.
I’m in front now, shoes tapping on the marble floors, Exit 500 feet ahead.
Boy from a 1 room, 3-grade public classroom in Ootischenia. Graduate of Northern Michigan University.
I step through the double doors to exit Grand Central onto Madison.
20° F wind gust roars down 47th street, eyes flood with water.
New York City! The Big Apple. You made it!
Cold bites, tears flow, and flow. And flow.
Cross walk sign turns.
I’m alone.
In front now.
Not done yet.
Not far enough ahead.
Not yet.
Photo: The city never sleeps, Atelier Olschinsky (via this isn’t happiness)
She’s a fellow blogger. She struggles with some ferocious demons. Here’s her story. I urge you to listen to the finish.
“A Reflection: Flickers in the Dark…How do you make a life out of ash? How do you move from the whole of the doily into the thread? For me, it started with flickers of light in my darkness…”
Moved…
Source: Sandy’s Blog @ A Mind Divided: “Flickers in the Dark” Reflection
Take 7.
Yep, 7th attempt to produce something, Anything, Something, Anything, that’s worthy.
I’m walking across Manhattan on 47th street and the weight bears down. Tuesday morning after a long weekend. Shoes feel heavy. Shoulders slouched. A Sherpa hauling a full load.
It’s 9 days and counting. I’ve run out of puppy pictures. I’ve finished Will Schwalbe’s Books for a Living and I’m finished with my quotidian shares of his wisdom.
So, I conduct an autopsy of the prior six attempts on partially completed blog posts:
