Spring is my favorite season.

The whole idea of rebirth and regeneration, but different makes me happy. I love the change of seasons in New England. They are real and inevitable. The weather this year has been strange. I have thermal whiplash from 20+ degree changes day to day.

Spring persists. It is coming even as I hear of 10 inches of snow falling in the northern plains. Red buds color the canopy of the forest surrounding our house. I take off my glasses and the blur looks like a cloud of life falling down on the trees. It reminds me that change is constant and welcome.

Spring is springing

This morning the sun rose, filtered by scattered clouds. The air was cool and crisp, laden with a slight mist as if the trees had been working out. Light tickled a cluster of buds, the reddish glow giving a backdrop of new growth to an old tree. It reminds me of how tightly coupled I am to this earth and its whims. The thought makes me smile.

I took this shot with my Nikon and loaded it into Photoshop but kept coming back to the original shot with no adjustments. It is exactly as it should be. No image alteration or enhancement needed. I consider it a gift.

Happy Spring!

Run Fee!

After some consideration I have decided it is time to integrate and rejuvenate my blog space. I’m kind of getting into the minimal-is-good mode. Blame it on my new running style.

About 2 years ago I decided to take this blogging thing seriously in support of my writing. For reasons that seemed very correct at the time, I created three different presences. One for my writing, one for running and one for photography and other graphic endeavors. I love running, writing, music, taking pictures and a slew of other things. They all contribute to what makes me whole.

Words on the page

As I published my first book (SYN:FIN) I read a lot about what a blog should do and how you  should approach it as a means to support your enterprise. There were a lot of recommendations on how to use social networking to leverage blogging, tweeting and links to your books. I started following other authors and watching their activity. Being an intelligent ape, I tried to see what they were doing so I could copy it for my own success. To tell you the truth, there is so much going on in the world of social media that I am not sure anyone really has a handle on it. Clearly, there are some very successful people out there (John Locke comes to mind immediately).

But I struggled.  I wanted a purpose to my blog that targeted my writing. My other activities were of interest to me, but would take the light off of writing. That led to my fragmentation strategy. I have written some very good blog posts and shown some beautiful photos. The links are at the top of this page. They will remain there for a while as I reconfigure things.

Running – minimalist style!

About 18 months ago I decided to change my running style from wearing technical shoes to running miminalist.  It took a freaking year to let my legs and body adjust. Of course, I have been running for 40 years, so the muscles did what they needed to do. That conversion was the impetus for my second blog which chronicled that transition.

Life is a work in progress. I’ve learned a lot over the past year or two. And what amazes me is what I learned about running totally informs what I learned about writing. And my job. And my life.

None of us is that simple. So why should I segregate my blogs into separate views of me? I kept struggling with keeping the crossover of my interests from polluting posts in their separate domains. That finally led to me stopping posts for a while so I could understand better what I wanted to communicate to the world.

Then it dawned on me. Those who enjoy my writing will probably like to hear me write about what I am learning about running.  Or be enchanted with the abstract digital images I pull from the world around me.

A view from the porch, Oct 2010

Listen, I have lots of friends who run multiple blogs and do it very well and for good reason. For me, I don’t think it makes sense anymore.

That means you all will get to see other aspects of my life. Hear about how my body responds to the workouts I put it through.

Loud is good!

See the colors and compositions that populate my mind. Let me rant about how my fingers stumble on a fretboard as I try to learn a new fingering. You will get my observations.  If nothing else I am a very observant person. That doesn’t include the piece of trash I left on the counter that I will walk by five or six times and not notice. I am a man, after all. I’m too busy observing to notice shit like that.

I’m pretty excited about taking this new path. I think it will be a fun ride.  I’m glad you are going to join me. Welcome, again!

More than anything I want to hear from you!  I love to read your comments, good, bad or otherwise. Check out the links to the other blogs and get caught up. If that sounds like a homework assignment, it is.

Run Free!  

I live in a small town in Connecticut that is just a few miles from Sandy Hook and Newtown.     Our school sports teams play in the same league. The devastation of last Friday has touched people I know. The blow that was struck hit very close to home both physically and emotionally. You see, I have a 6 year old daughter, an 8 year old son and an 8 year old grand daughter.

So, just to be clear, this weekend sucked.

Monday morning I awoke and something was different.  I felt the need to normalize; to not let those horrible events control me anymore.

I stepped outside and felt the chill of the New England air in late fall. A gentle mist drizzled, touching my skin like a whisper.  The early light of sunrise was making the mist a slate grey, turning the tall oaks and maples into an etching an artist would be proud to have crafted. Breathing deep, the mustiness of the forest reached inside me and I felt myself touched by the earth. I grinned as my glasses were misted over with rain and the world took on a sparkle. I leaned my head back, closed my eyes and just felt human.

You see, I’ve come to learn what it means to be a New Englander.  We are liberal and conservative at the same time and the dichotomy fits nicely with the environment.  At the worst of times we come together like no community I have ever lived in.  At the best of times we don’t take anything for granted.

The town I live in was founded in 1740. It is about 25 square miles and has 14,000 residents. We have a parade on the 4th of July that is less than half a mile long. It consists  mostly of fire trucks, school’s sports teams and pretty much anyone who wants to walk along. The town lines the streets and cheers for all the participants the way small towns do. It reminds me that freedom isn’t a theatrical production. It is a spirit. I see that spirit down the street in a cemetery where people who fought in the Revolutionary War are buried. We take freedom seriously in New England and understand its cost.

This morning, as I shuffled my little ones off to school, I thought of their teachers and of the colleagues of those teachers in Sandy Hook. The men and women who faced that gunman showed us what being a responsible adult means.  It reminded me of the patriots buried a short distance away. They were ordinary people who put down their lives so we could have these freedoms that are so admired around the world.

They did it without thinking of flags and parades.  Their actions stemmed from them being responsible adults. People who took that charge to protect and uphold freedom to heart by putting their lives on the line to protect our rights and out children.

That freedom is not a gift, it is an obligation for us to act responsibly. Freedom without responsibility is anarchy and anarchy is unacceptable. Nor is freedom an absolute. It is a series of compromises and commitments that we make with each other. Freedom is a road we are carving together. We agree with each other what the guardrails are and we are free to operate within those guardrails. In other words, we expect each other to be responsible adults and do what is right even when the situation is the most dire. Freedom is honed by the way we live day to day.

It really is just that simple.

So, on behalf of 20 little angels and 6 heros, I am going to remind myself every day to be a responsible adult by listening, showing respect and being willing to compromise when it is for all our benefit.  It is the most personal commitment I can offer.

It was 1966 and I was 13 years old sitting in the family room with my family (amazing how well titled the room was) watching the very first episode of Star Trek.  A Thursday night 46 years ago today.  I had always been a sci-fi buff and laced that addiction with comic books. The show was near perfection in my 13 year old mind and it became a staple of our Thursday night viewing.

Those years that Star Trek was in its first run on TV were years that saw my passage from a youth to a young adult.  The year before Star Trek I had watched the Watts riots explode across the same TV in that same room with my family.  I heard Martin Luther King call for peaceful protest while others cried out to burn down their own homes.  That little conflict in Vietnam was taking on more significance and the news at night was beginning to report daily body counts. Soldiers only a few years older than me were being killed in a war that no one seemed clear about while a whole population of Americans were feeling so disenfranchised that they found violence was their only option to gain equality.

It wasn’t all negative.  The Gemini missions were going off with great success and we were on target to put a man on the moon in just  a few years.  (FOR THE RECORD: Neil Armstrong has been a true hero for me ever since he stepped foot on the moon. Thank you, Neil.  May you rest in piece.)  The Monkeys also premiered that year and the Beatles released Revovler.  Music has always been a big part of my memory pattern.  During that time the Smothers Brothers started to morph from folk singing humorists to political satirists.

It was also the year that my dad accepted a job transfer. In the summer of 1967 we moved from Bethlehem, PA to Phoenix, AZ.  That was also the year that I went from junior high to high school.  Arizona, back then, was a totally different world than it is now.   Smaller, friendly, clear blue skies, cool nights even in the summer, and open desert surrounding the city.  I remember the first dust storm we experienced during the August monsoons.  The mile high wall of dust would approach like something out of a Dune movie and engulf you in a dark, dust followed by a downpour of rain that smelled of must and earth. It was a feeling that made you sense just what you were in the world.

As the second season of Star Trek got ready to unfold in our new family room I was treated to Jimi Hendrix and Sgt. Peppers. It is funny that during that summer the Monkeys went on tour and their first concert was in Phoenix.  It was before we had relocated. Their opening act was Jimi Hendrix.  The audience of teenie boppers did not like Jimi’s style, but the Monkeys sat in the front row in awe.  That started my musical journey. The fresh discovery of what music can really do.  This was my music, not my parents.

I was in transition that year as well.  Physically as well as mentally. So much of what I am today started to coalesce that year.  I joined the wrestling team and went from a slightly pudgy kid to a hard body.  The workouts included running and off season I kept up the running.  Running has been a part of my life ever since and I attribute so much of my energy and youthfulness to that sport.

It was also the year that I started to develop my own political and social opinions. In my classes there were hippies (the first generation, not a cliche) and cowboys.  There was a diversity of belief and opinion, yet we all lived inside the same campus and tolerated and talked with each other. I learned tolerance and acceptance at the hands of my parents and friends. I learned that beliefs are just that – something you believe. They are different from scientific facts, but no less important for us.  We were clear back then that the constitution allowed for civil protest and the vocalization of dissent.  The church was where we went to hone our beliefs.  The government is where we went to have the civil boundaries defined. They were different and separate.

The whole time that my personality was swishing and swirling into what it would become, Star Trek was playing in the background. I never missed the show and that included the re-runs during the off season.  It was more than an escape.  The Monkeys were pure escape and diversion. Star Trek got me thinking. I didn’t always agree with theme, but I always thought about it and the shows lingered in my head long after they were over. It was a show about tolerance and listening.  And humor. It knew when to not take itself too seriously. I think more than anything, I liked that about the show.  When you keep yourself grounded you have a greater chance of accepting others for what they are.

It was in 1970 that I made a road trip that, to this day, is one of the most significant events of my life.  Along with two friends, Jim and Don, I went to LA for a week during the summer.  We each had $100 in our pockets and the blessings of our parents. We drove over in a VW beetle listening to Santana, George Harrison and Creedence – on eight track.  We had no plan, but followed our instincts along the Huntington and Laguna beaches. Motels were plentiful and we dined on fast food.  I’m still amazed at all we did, which included a Lakers game (Chamberlin kicked ass with a triple double), Disneyland and a jaunt down to San Diego to the UCSD campus. On the way back home at the end of the week the engine on the bug froze up.  We hitchhiked into El Centro.  Our first ride was in the back of a ranchers pickup with some other long haired hitchhikers.  He dropped us off about three miles shy of the destination, got out and shook hands with each of us.  There was a convenience store there and the clerk, a woman in her mid-thirties, got on a CB and asked if anyone could give us a ride.  In a matter of minutes a black man heading into town opened his doors for us. We road in his decked our red car with dingle balls hanging from the rear view mirror to El Centro where he dropped us off at a motel.  We got a room and the next morning Jim’s dad met us and towed the bug back to Phoenix. I still had money left.

I could not imagine that series of events happening today. Yes, there was a lot of passion in the late 60′s. People were in active disagreement and political debates were changing the country.  But, there was an underlying acceptance of differences.

Listen, I don’t miss a lot of things from those days and I have grown so much since then and continue to do so. I do miss that time when someone would put out a hand to help you regardless of whether you were liberal or conservative, black or white, young or old.  No. It was not nirvana or some paradise.  There were a lot of pricks and assholes, but kids weren’t shooting each other in schools, either.  It was the same life we have now, but with a different sense of tolerance and willingness to allow someone to have a different opinion.

Plus, we had Tribbles!