Finding out that Richard Blanco was speaking for free in Durham at the Carolina Theater, I was shocked. Shocked that I was so out of touch with such cultural events that I stumbled across it in the free Durham News that hits my driveway every week. And even more shocked that the theater was packed! […]
What is it about these old Sufi poets that their magic continues even today? A conspiracy between a translator, a bookstore and poetry-loving friends blows a Tuesday evening dinner in Chapel Hill into the spirit realm. Bhavani is a friend who loves and creates poetry, so for her birthday, I went to a bookstore and […]
Scene – After clearing spider webs away, a Human is sitting on a dock looking over a suburban lake, drone of Interstate traffic too far away to intrude. Warmth of the summer’s day is gradually dispersed by a Northerly breeze. Backstory – Two men I have made music with have, or are about to, breathe […]
In the 1960’s, my father would take me to visit his workplace, which, as an air traffic controller at Philadelphia International Airport, was pretty cool to a young kid. In the darkness of the Radar Room, I was fascinated by the blips representing airplanes with many passengers, which were briefly illuminated as the green line […]
I have never felt attracted to political protest. There is some feeling of tilting at windmills – lots of activity for little tangible result. What I came to understand after the Moral Monday protest at the NC Legislature is that, just by showing up, you are sending a message of solidarity with the millions of […]
My 90 year old Dad called this morning, to express his wonderment at getting my FedEx envelope with his card, including copies of my blog post about him as an air traffic controller, and a bunch of jewelry bits that he will enjoy making into bolos. Yes, I had forgotten to send him a card(!), […]
Home is not just a physical place – where you hang your hat or cook a meal. Not just where years of love and relationships have built a place that glows with warmth. A recent experience in an airport showed me that even on a plane full of strangers, I can feel fully at home. […]
After three unrelentingly cold and rainy Spring days in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts, even attending the Adventures in Sound Play workshop with Paul Winter could not shake my gloomy mood. At Kripalu, where this workshop was held, breakfast is held in silence, so on this last morning, my only social contact as I entered […]
A variety of teachers recommend you write or draw every day – Robert Bly, Seth Godin, Betty Edwards. After my recent struggles, which felt like the death of my retail business, I realize how a discipline of just saying what’s on top can help prevent such an extended diversion from my intended path. When Amazon […]
It was August 1992, and my mother was nearing the end of her battle with lung cancer. This was the day my Dad and I got a prescription filled for morphine. There was a hospital bed in the room where she used to sit for hours in her recliner. We took turns sleeping on the […]