The gnarly old willow tree in the front field is starting to show its leaves
The most important act of the day is the choice you make to look on the dark side or the bright side. That’s the life-changing thought that occurred to me this morning as I wrote down the usual way-too-long “to do” list. Continue reading
The understanding of who you are is within you.
Trapped inside, often for far too long, that clear vision of one’s true self desperately wants out, so it can be free at last to find its right path to becoming real. But things can get confusing, and we can lose our way.
I am reminded of the bird we saw two summers ago, a frantic little creature that somehow got trapped between two window panes in a second-floor room of this old farmhouse.
The window where the bird was trapped; and one of Wilma Butchart’s creations
We shared that special moment, didn’t we, my love? It told us something very important. We even knew what it was. But by then I suppose the troubles were already insurmountable.
Oh, now that’s a good one, that Daily Prompt, “abandoned.” Good thing I didn’t spot it early this morning; otherwise, I might not have got anything else done except a very long-read indeed on the topic of abandonment. Continue reading
So this is where it ends, in solitude picking up the pieces as best I can, which isn’t very good at this point. I push myself to do something, anything: I do, therefore I am.
self-portrait, flash and mirror. I’m in there somewhere
I go down into the rough, old, stone-foundation basement of this old farm house to do some clean-up. I’m trying to pick up where I left off more than two years ago when we bought this place, before everything, finally, went wrong.
There was a “we” then. Now there’s just a “me.” And that’s not enough anymore. “What dreams may come” indeed. Continue reading
Allow me to be the first person to tell you that spring has officially arrived in Hope Ness and most of the rest of southern Ontario, in the country of Canada, on the planet Earth, in the Milky Way galaxy, one of many galaxies too numerous to count in the still-expanding universe, about which we still know next to nothing.
Let the seed-starting begin
So in the context of that cosmic vastness, what is so remarkable about the first day of spring, that I should proclaim and hereby celebrate its arrival even though it’s technically still two weeks away, as the Sun and the Earth do their annual dance?
It’s remarkable because so far as I know, and you know, and anybody else knows, this little blue-green jewel of a planet is the only place in the universe where this annual miracle of life awakening happens. Oh, yes, certain assumptions have been made. How could we possibly be alone in such a universe? And where are those mysterious radio-like signals, if that’s what they are, coming from? Continue reading
There comes a time in every man’s life when he has to take out the garbage.
I’m pretty sure that applies to women too. “Women are a completely different race,” the memorable Dan told us one evening at a café in downtown Toronto’s old “village” many years ago. My old friend Roger nodded his head right away in laughing, enthusiastic approval, thus further reinforcing Dan’s feeling he was “a very bright boy,” which he was. I also understood at the time it was an ironic comment not intended to be taken literally. Today I’ll just say I’m still only starting to scratch the surface of understanding what it means to be a man; but women remain much more of a mystery, and I won’t presume to speak for them about taking out their garbage, or not. Continue reading
One day many years ago, stuck in Toronto traffic yet again, I began to chew my steering wheel in frustration. I knew then it was time to look for somewhere else to live, and something else to do. Continue reading
Finding Hope Ness 