Being creative like Kate Watters is creative causes me to see one of those fierce short swirls down a desert canyon, the kind of wind that causes sand, willow leaves and bird song to brush against your deepest thoughts. The image occurs to me as I wait in her studio while she finishes a detail at a computer for the Grand Canyon Trust where she is the...
Read MoreThe warming center; You will want one someday
One hopes not to have bad things happen, but bad things do eventually and that’s when you’re lucky if you “live in a good place to have bad things happen.” My path to and from Maine takes me through my sister’s house in northwestern Connecticut. There I have plucked eggs from under the chickens, tapped maple trees to boil sap to syrup, pressed apples for...
Read MoreOn building a box; My fall in Maine
The AAA TripTik said it is 2,737 miles from Flagstaff to my house in Maine, which is close to true in my truck even with getting lost outside Indianapolis. Now here I am, and today I’m building a box to dampen the noise of the sump pump in the basement. I don’t like launching off the bed when the pump kicks in at odd moments: mid good dream at 3 a.m., for...
Read MoreMy sitting practice; Coffee in the Bird Cafe
As I steered toward being first in line at Macys one morning en route to the fire tower, I made a good stop at a Beaver Street yard sale: I scored three snap-button cowboy shirts, a serviceable fanny pack, and a $3 wooden chair from IKEA. That chair has made me the monk of impulsive outdoor meditating. Meditation practice courses through my life as...
Read MoreFlights of fancy; In town and out
Laced into Flagstaff neighborhoods, cinched into local lore, if you’ve lived here long enough you know local old timers who offer a feast of stories. I lived awhile on Dale Street across from the late Mrs. Black, the Boston-educated cowboy-savoring widow of Sheriff Black. If I saw the pink smear of her favorite dress catching sun in a window, I’d stop by...
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