What's good for the gander ....

gan·der n
1. an adult male goose
2. an offensive term used about or to somebody who is thought to be unserious and frivolous
3. a look or glance at somebody or something (informal)

Interesting definitions. Surprising to me that the word “gander” in addition to the commonly known “male goose” can be an offensive term. “Unserious.” “Frivolous.” Hmmm? I know I’ve locked onto these terms in the past when I’ve considered Richard’s love of poultry from a detached and judgmental position. Well, most of that has gone to the birds, especially of late. The latest development? During my trip back north from a week stay in New York, Richard informed me that he’d found a gander for sale for $45 just across the Rhode Island line in Massachusetts which just happened to be – miracle of miracles! – to be on my route home since I had just been visiting a friend south of Providence. Richard asked me if I would be so kind to stop by, buy him, box him up, and bring him home. Now I may have given an informal look or glance at this idea, but quickly tabled it for the greater cause of health care reform at our household and said a resounding YES to the Public Option of more poultry at our home. After all, Richard does have a legitimate business interest in this. He wants to get as many Pilgrim goose eggs laid as possible and ship them off to interested buyers around the country. And since we have 2 geese of laying age AND since each one of them could produce 30-40 eggs each in the goose laying period from late February through April AND since many major hatcheries have discontinued Pilgrim geese this year, this could be a profitable enterprise. And we could get a few more goslings ourselves. Not a bad proposition; they’re adorable.

So I drove my Subaru Outback Massachusetts way and visited the Berman’s who very kindly gave me a tour of their compound, a glorious and warm menagerie of goats and chickens and geese and dogs and cats. Lovely, lovely. It took me a little while to choose from the male geese, Schmul being the pappy of the other 3 and the larger, obviously. He was dominant and squawky, but I was able to pick him up a couple times and coo in his ear, ducking swipes he made at my nose. And oh what a fine and proud fellow he was. And a protective and fine father I was assured. After about 45 minutes of back and forth, my decision was made, and a box was made up for Schmul with hay and holes a plenty. The packing process went with ease and the box was put into the back for the 3 plus hour drive. Along the way, I would coo to him, give assurances and love. He did well. He even gave a nice hearty and brassy honk at the gas station I stopped at along the way, a fine trumpet to the air.

We arrived home before nightfall, and Richard came out of our house, all smiles, eager as a kid on Christmas morning. We carried the box up to the pen to introduce Schmul to the girls. It was cold, about 14 degrees or less. Chilly. But they warmed pretty quickly to one another, the girls a little stand-offish and proper at first and then Ginger started flirting with a little nibble on Schmul’s tail feathers. Since then Ginger has gone to following him everywhere, granted “everywhere” is a fairly small area, but still it’s pretty sweet. Love is in the air.

I’m sorry this installment is brief, but there are pictures. I’m also writing this from afar, Richard and I are in Tempe through the 27th and our dear neighbor Royce is taking care of our flock in our absence. As always when I’m away, Vermont is in my heart. I'm so glad and grateful that we live there, so grateful for all our friends, and grateful for all the ganders in our life, especially the frivolous and unserious ones that turn into hidden riches, their own version of the goose that lay the golden egg.

Happy Holidays!!

We’re also in the midst of a renaming quandary. I love Schuml, but Richard wants to carry on the “Gilligan’s Island” theme. We may have to go with Professor Schmul. Not bad.

Coaxing Recalcitrant Geese To And From Their Coop

Last night I was shepherding the geese back up to their coop and something happened that has never happened before. Snow covering the ground is a new experience for them, and they had been out in it all day, sticking mostly to the backyard, our covered porch, and around about the chicken coop where they got their exercise harassing the various breeds of poultry that would come out for a brief stretch. Now as the light in the sky dimmed – 4:30 pm, still amazing to me - they pretty much knew it was time to head up hill to their lodgings. They have given me a little trouble in the past, acting like kids that don’t want to go in yet, complaining for a little more time to stay outside and play. This was different. Maybe it was the white of the landscape that had erased all trace of familiarity. Maybe it was the slog of trudging through snow where once there had been firm, shallow earth and grass. Maybe it was an instinctive maternal energy, I don’t know, but after a mild resistance to going uphill, they both stopped and sat down on the snowy ground as if they were on a nest. I urged them on once, cooing encouragement, and they walked a few more steps, only to stop and nestle down again. And it wasn’t a stubborn defiant act; it was restful, calm, “this is where I belong and it is good.” They looked so sweet and content. But the fact remained that they had to get to their coop and they weren’t budging. And so, expecting them to scatter, I reached over to cradle them both in my arms and carry them AND THEY LET ME!! If you have been reading this blog you’ll know how rare verging on impossible this is. Though they’re devoted to and firmly imprinted on both Richard and me and follow us in a quick waddle or arm flapping flurry wherever we go outside, when we do turn directly to them for a bit of affection, a hug or a nuzzle, they scurry dash away, as if we’re trying to look up their skirts or something. Not this time. I bent down and reached around them both and lifted them off the ground. There was a brief flapping of webbed feet straining for earthy purchase in the air, but it was gone almost immediately. They relaxed. I congratulated them on their behavior and enjoyed the cuddle of goose down all the way to their open door. A quick dispatch through the door, a rustle, a quick trip to the galvanized feed pail to fill up their food tray, a water bucket check to be sure that it hadn’t iced over during the day, and then a slow shut of the door, wishing them both a good night. Once the door was shut, I stood there waiting to hear them cluck talk to one another in muffled tones and then the watery sploosh of them submerging their heads in the water bucket before taking a silent drink. It’s the sound of all’s well with the world to me.

Right now, both Richard and I are nestled inside, hunkered down for the 4 to 9 inch snow that’s forecast for today, the eastern version of the storm that’s been working its way across the country. The Vermont edition of said storm looks quite fetching so far. The chickens are staying in today. I went up around 8 to let the geese out, late for us, and Ginger came to the door, immediately assessed the situation and the countryside and with an “Are you kidding?” attitude, retreated back into the house. Mary Ann, who’s become the more adventurous of the 2, came to the door next and almost jumped down, her head down in intense concentration gauging the jump, her right foot doing test waves in the air. But it was not to be. Ginger’s constant chattering in the background may have worn her down for she too stepped away from the door. Plan 2 needed to go into effect. What is Plan 2 you ask? I have no idea. Actually, it would be Plan 3 for Plan 2 would be to just keep them in their house all day, a Plan we discovered Royce had opted for a couple of the days we had been gone recently.

Plan 3! Open their back pen. First step, continue covering the fenced in area adjacent to the coop so there’s a little protection and they can come out and slowly get used to the new climate with a sense of extended shelter. I went down to the now snow covered pile of old barn wood we’d taken off before putting the new pine siding up and placed it over the back entrance and then stooped hobbit-like and walked in the fenced in area underneath the sheltering boards and opened the back door which then turns into a comfortable ramp for them to use. I had to scrape a path through the wood shavings at the door, shavings that cushion the bottom of their coop, a bottom frequently in need of refluffing with a rake. You can figure out why it’s in need of constant refluffing. I was no sooner out of the pen then they both ventured out, curious, seemingly quite comfortable, exploring and poking through the fallen brown leaves and cornstalks on the ground, grateful for an outdoor stretch. I tossed in a bunch of lettuce and cabbage leaves Richard got yesterday from a feed store, compost in place of the grass they usually forage for all day. They liked that. They didn’t much care for the dried timothy grass I tossed in as well. It’s supposed to be good for them, but we may have to soak it before they find it palatable. All in all, though, Plan 3 seems to be working. The only thing we’re wary about are predators. A weasel could easily get in the back pen. We’re banking that it may be a little too early in the season for predators and that geese are much larger than chickens, possibly better able to defend themselves, but what do we know, this is our first winter wintering our poultry; we’ll learn through experience. We’re monitoring the coop from our back kitchen window to make sure they’re fine. So far, so good.

Off to other writing now, just wanted to keep checking in. It’s pretty gorgeous here. I would say about 3 to 4 inches on the ground so far. Not much snow falling at the moment, just a lot of blowing about. It’s good. It’s all good.

Have a great day.

First Snow

This is a picture of Richard and me from last year, oh say around February, when the snow had been hanging around for 3 months in fairly prodigious amounts. Not the record breaking of the year before that, but still impressive. I love this picture, the way the reds in my jacket and Richard's hat and the coop in the background break up the white, white, white of the world around us. I love the joy that comes out of the picture, the joy of being outdoors, alive, with Richard. And there is an exhilaration about being out in the snow here, I don't know what it is, it's gooney sometimes, but it brings a smile to my face. There's a white washed feeling to it, a cleansing, a wipe the slate clean, starting over, let's see what's up next lift to it all.

First snow. There had been a dusting of snow in October that had worried us into "oh no, is it starting already?!!" thoughts, but they had passed and the snow melted away into a sunny and glorious November. I'm not going to count that October fake out as a "real" first snow. Today feels like an official beginning to winter, though it doesn't "officially" begin for a couple of weeks yet. Richard and I had spent a soggy rain to sludge to snow weekend in New York City seeing friends and shows and wondering what was going on weather-wise back up north. Driving back today, with Richard reading out loud to me most of the way from Kenneth Turan's terrific new book about Joe Papp "Free for All," we watched as the accumulation steadily increased from patchy to full cover, until by the time we reached our exit it felt as if we were returning to a completely different country from the one we'd left only 3 short days before. Winter togs had been donned. White is in and it's going to be staying for a while. Maybe for months. And for today, that's just fine. It's new, it's fresh. No gnashing of teeth, no rending of clothes. Well, maybe some periodic gnashing, but no rending. I need those clothes. It's cold now.

We got home just before dark. Royce, our next door neighbor who watches over our birds and cats when we're gone, had put the birds up, so I had missed seeing our goose girl's reaction to the whitening of their world. They hadn't been thrilled by the October dusting, in fact, they'd tried to fly over it. I went up to their house where they were craning into their little side window to look out. They always look like little kids when they do that, looking out of the window for Santa Claus. They tapped on the panes of glass with their beaks as I got closer. They're adorable. (As I'm writing this, Richard has been talking to me about breeding them in the late winter/early spring. We've recently found out that Pilgrim geese are on the endangered list AND lay only once a year, but during that period each female lays up to 40 EGGS A PIECE!! Richard wants to sell the eggs. I think it could work. A Pilgrim goose egg-shipping enterprise, right here, right now.)

Up by the goose house, looking out at our place in the fading light, felt so good. It made me feel as if I were inside one of those perfect Christmas snow globes that someone had just gently shaken. It felt so good to be home, so good to be here, alive, near Richard. He was in the chicken coop at the time, gathering eggs, and scraping up (!!!) Well, you get the picture. At least he kept that kind of activity inside the coop so as not to sully the white perfection of my snow globe, glad to be home, picture.

We're in the kitchen now closing in on bedtime. The fire in the wood stove has embered out, the Christmas music from the living room stereo has faded away, and my eyelids are headed for sleepy time village. It's nice and cozy and the flannel sheets will feel just fine on the eve of this first snow. I welcome it in. Another season shift. So here's to flannel and fleece and scarves and gloves and all nature of wraps and sweaters. Here's to Christmas carols and hot cider and hot mulled wine and warm fires and candlelight and star light and Orion in the sky and the moon in all its faces and silhouettes of tall pines against the indigo skies and birds at the feeder and foot prints in the snow, here's to quiet and bird call and hibernating in all its forms, here's to sleep and dreams and slowing down and taking stock and warm nights reading books and planting seeds of new thoughts and new projects and the hatching of new ideas. Here's to our first snow, blanketing the good earth, covering the mulched, newly planted trees, covering the garden and the pond and the hill, flocking the pines and spruce and firs, giving a little taste of wonder, a dusting of magic, an uplift to our world.

Coming off a Cleanse

Richard and I are in Indiana visiting my sister for Thanksgiving, connecting with our Midwestern roots (I’m a born and bred Hoosier and Richard grew up in Illinois) while feeling the New England tug on our hearts. Vermont travels with us wherever we go with thoughts of the hills, the pond, our chickens, cats, and geese. Oh God, we’re hobby farmers.

We just came off a 9-day cleanse, something we had been talking about doing off and on over the past few months and suddenly, without much forethought, we saw an opportunity to squeeze it in right before the “season of gluttony” officially begins. I’m being a bit harsh and judgmental there for Thanksgiving is my favorite of all holidays, Richard’s too. This year we’re spending it around family, a rare occurence for both of us. I have a feeling that goes against the norm for most Americans, but for me it has fit well with the nomadic lifestyle of an actor where each year I get to gather a family of friends around me with whom I choose to share this day of gratitude. That said, it’s good coming at the holiday in a different way this year. We’re enjoying it. After a day of travel, we’re at my sister’s house by ourselves today, making the very beginning motions of preparation for Thursday. It’s laid back and meshes perfectly with the grey November day outside.

But back to the 9-day cleanse. For the most part it was a breeze, save for the first 2 days when withdrawl short circuit jolts your system, not only the literal withdrawl from things like sugar and caffeine, but withdrawl from ritualizing everything to do with food, from having your day built around the preparation and eating of meals, from the world itself. Then you settle in to the world of cleanse and everything looks and feels different, slightly heightened, a bit dreamlike and woozy, and you feel more yourself, let loose from the roller coaster spell of sugar and caffeine highs and lows replaced by a steady and sure energy. And a voice inside whispers “Oh, so this is how I’m supposed to be eating; oh, these are the portions I’m truly hungry for; oh, this is the weight I should be; oh, this is the way my face, skin, eyes should look; etc, etc, etc.” You feel HEALTHY, resilient, spry, renewed, reborn, grateful. Seeing your face emerge out of baby fat, watching your belt hitch in another notch, space appearing in pant’s waistlines. This isa good thing. Good cleanse, nice cleanse. Thanks you, cleanse.

And then the cleanse ends.

And you return to the world, the world of eating. And it feels as if you’ve been gone a looooonnnnnnng time. Culture shock. “Now how do I do this again? How do I keep what I have and incorporate food back in? “ For instance, coffee. I love coffee (I think). I know it’s a bit of an addiction, I know it can get out of hand, but ooooooh I love it. And yes, I could easily replace the word “love” in that last sentence with the words, “crave,” “jones,” “itch for,” “could kill for,” etc , but …. well, no buts, there you have it. During the cleanse, after the first 2 days of withdrawl, Richard and I were quite content drinking non-caffeinated tea, surprisingly so. It was warming, satisfying and delicious, especially with a spoon full of New Hampshire maple syrup to sweeten it. Yum. So yesterday was the first cup o joe for a while. And it was good. Just one tall cup midday instead of what had been the norm before the cleanse – a goodly amount on rising and another pick me up around 4. This morning though, I mildly resented the cup of coffee I had. It was tasty, yes, hit the spot, good to the last drop and all that, but I didn’t like what it did to me. It jacked me up, made me slightly edgy and irritable, and I knew the energy wasn’t me, not the pure me I’d spent some good quality time with over the past few days. And I have a feeling I’m on the edge of border crossing. Now is my time to either stay in that country of me or go back into the country of coffee where I’m slightly, ever so slightly an automaton, slightly, ever so slightly at the mercy and whim of a stimulant, as if I’m lacking something in myself to stimulate me, as if I NEED it. A cleansing thought. No resolution yet. I’ll keep you updated.

Other cleansing thoughts? Well, it was uncanny how many parallel cleansing activities cropped up during this past week, activities like finishing incomplete chores and jobs around the house and homestead, ridding files of old papers, talking about old issues that may still be barnacleing on to our spirit whether they regarded issues between ourselves or friends and family. Very cleansing. After all these are the days to slow down, to hunker down, hibernate. When I was growing up or in times past, there was an acceleration around this holiday time of year, a beginning of a frantic, obligatory rush, breathless pace, back and forth, “only 30 shopping days left!” scream of activity that I think goes against the grain of what is naturally supposed to be happening this time of year. It feels so right in Vermont, close to the cycles of nature, to take your clues and cues by just looking outside. Energy is being pulled in, green is gone until next spring, time to cut back, mulch, cover up, wrap up, conserve, wrap up, warmth is within not out. This is the time for some quiet time, for some contemplation, to lay seeds for next year, to plant ideas. To cleanse.

Or not.

One more cleansing thought. Our pond is back brimful and sloshing over the spillway down a channel to our neighbor’s pond a quarter mile away. It’s miraculous how quickly it filled back up after the end of our excavation work 3 short weeks ago. The water is clear and pure and the geese are having a ball swimming in it each day, a last burst of freedom before the temperatures freeze it over. How wonderful. And the reflection of the tall trees and sky on its surface makes you feel as if you have double the blessings. Two skies for one, one below and one above; sometimes it’s hard to tell which is which, especially in pictures. That’s how I feel living in Vermont much of the time. Wondering what’s real, what’s not. Feeling this steady, sure, easy and natural happiness. A newness. A buoyancy. A withdrawl from the world to discover my true energy. That’s call for true Thanksgiving.

And that said, I have to end this installment with one of my favorite last lines of any movie. It’s “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” and in the final scene the title character, a young girl, newly graduated from high school, stands on her rooftop in turn of the last century Brooklyn with her younger brother, played by a tough young actor resembling Leo Gorcey of the Bowery Boys. She is rhapsodizing about life and love and marveling at how everything is turning out well and she turns to her brother and says “I love you” to which he replies: “Ahh, cut the mush.”

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Morning Amblings

Wood fire stove, warm, cats lounging, inside looking out to brown, beige, fir and spruce-greened countryside and woods. A chickadee’s munching on a suet cake outside the window on the bird feeder we just put out. Sofia is avidly watching the munching progress from her perch on the back of our green easy chair, a chair whose nether regions have easily (relentlessly) been frayed into a cat scratch post. Our pond has its first full skin of ice today which has baffled the geese. “What gives? What happened to the cool, liquidy, splattery stuff we like to bathe and flap frolic in?” I’m inside for the day, writing, breaking up the writing every once and a while for a short walk about outside. The cold weather makes me smile inside and out, it awakens something tickly, don’t know what, don’t care. Similar weather growing up in Indiana made me feel bleak. There was a sameness to it. What’s the difference here? Maybe the spruce and fir, the break-up of the brown and beige. Also, the hilly countryside, our rise up back. Maybe a different time in life, appreciating it all more, the moment, the seasons in this ‘50’s season of my life. Whatever, that smile wells up from deep within me and I so appreciate it. Gladsome tidings.

Opposites and contraditctions, I’m attracted to that. Cold without, warm within. Growing older, feeling younger. Writing about depression and suicide, having a greater zest for life. (That may come from the act of writing itself. If I don’t have a creative outlet of some sort, it’s as if a valve has been shut, a flow interrupted, an essential connection severed, oxygen taken out of my blood, breath held.) I marvel at life. It is marvelous.

This morning I woke with Richard early and meditated, stoked the fire, fixed coffee, fed the cats, saw him off and then went up to the goose house to set them free from their coop, had our back and forth wing-flapping dash “hello!” to the day. They accompany me about the property as I wander up the hill and then over to the pond to see its fill progress. Yesterday – or it might have been the day before – I saw an old board washed up near shore and remembered a piece I had begun the week before. Here it is in its unfinished state:

“There’s a board floating on our pond, a board we neglected to pick up from the bottom as we were cleaning out debris during our recent excavation. Every morning it’s in a different place. At first I was disgruntled by the sight of it, peeved, then I felt mocked – all signs of an evolved, unreactionary, at one with the universe state on those particular days. Now (at least for today) I’m seeing it as a floating meditation, something very eastern; I think I should write a haiku or 3 for it. I shall.

Board floating calmly
Nothing else for you to do
Just bored with nature.

Floating like “Wilson”
Dreaming of the open seas
And skinny Tom Hanks.


A lone floating board
Weathered by water and storm
Do you yearn for shore?

I could never float
Never got the hang of it.
I preferred submerged.

Under the surface
That suited me much better
Trying to sprout gills

Looking up at sky
And the underside of boards
Goose butts go by too


Floating on top’s fine
‘midst the reflection of trees
Dream from where you came.”

Thanks for taking a morning amble with me. Have a good day.

I've been remiss, but ...

Okay, here's the deal. I wake up in the morning to the glory of this place - the stark, chill, bracing beauty of it all - and in the midst of the daily letting loose of the geese and our flapping runs back and forth across the hill or the strides up the hill for a view of the browns and beiges of the landscape or a jaunt over to the pond (many times with the quietly observing geese) to see the progress of the fill or the slight shell of ice that's formed during the night or the breathing in of the air and feeling so alive, in those moments I'm all ready to skedaddle across the road and sit and ratatat off a fine installment on my blog. BUT I have prioritized. There's another writing project I too easily can put onto a back burner that's demanding to be put front burner full flame. And so, I blink my eye and it's 9 pm (which in Vermont feels like 1 am) and I'm wiped and have no juices. I've stories to tell and shall, but for tonight I shall simply share a few photos of Richard's chickens, our enlarging and expanding pond, and a fresh moose print in the new soil alongside our pond which recently had been silt at the bottom of it.

PS If you squint while looking at the pond picture, on the left, about midway up the picture in the pond, you can see about 4 feet of our newly put in white standpipe periscoping up. That pipe is now an inch away from being submerged. The spring waters flow on.

Time Change

Time change

We gained an hour yesterday, a little Halloween gift from the ghosts and goblins, a touch of magic in the air. Presto chango, here’s a little more light in the morning. It’ll help you feel like a touch of spring ahead with this falling behind. The catch is now it’s getting dark at 4! Ah well. So time is a little off in the household. Sofia’s meowing away in the early am. (Though I don’t think it’s the time change with her; I think it’s mice getting in somewhere that she wants to terrorize and feast upon.) Richard’s finding it hard to sleep, was up and at ‘em at 4 this morning. I followed shortly thereafter, wide awake at 4:30, so I got up, meditated and breakfasted with him, and saw him off to his job. Around 7:30 I took a walk and it was magnificent out. Clear, fresh, new. The time change looked very good on things. No feeling of death and decay despite the denuded trees. They looked very natural, very like themselves. And oh their silhouettes looked so sharp and bold against the Diebenkorn blue in the sky. And the eastern larches on top of our hill shimmered gold in the sunlight. Man. It’s still a miracle to me that they lose their needles. A deciduous needle-bearer. Magical.

Time change.

You barely notice time changing here. That’s the appeal. Eastern standard, daylight savings are meaningless terms. We’re on nature’s clock here, we turn it over to her. I like that. And without any television, with just periodic check-ins to podcasts to see what repetitive sturm-und-drang the world is frothing up for its addictive amusement, it helps us keep a distance from manmade definitions of both time and change. I’ve always felt a little apart from the regular pace, a “regular” life. Maybe that’s why I chose an artist’s life (or it chose me, who knows). At different stages of my life so far, I’ve enjoyed the nomadic aspect of it, home being the job itself and wherever that took me. I’ve also enjoyed the artist’s schedule that really isn’t a regular 9-5, you have a rehearsal schedule and then it shifts to a performance schedule. And that schedule is completely different if I’m doing something on stage, on television, or on film. Everything’s always changing. And then there’s the stepping into the specific schedule or 9-5 of my character. I get to taste someone else’s life for a period of time and then shuck it. Thanks for the visit, thanks for the change, been great getting to know you, and know me a little bit more in the process, and so, so long, I’m off to the next time change. An additional plus is if I’m doing a character from another time in history, I get to indulge my desire to time travel, an itch I’ve had since I was a kid. Glory, glory, hallelujah. (Funny how that phrase just came up because I’ve frequently been drawn to the American Civil War.)

Time change.

I love the seasons marking the change of time, the circular, comforting change, to be expected. I love how the skies change. Now Orion’s coming back at night like a welcome old friend returning to celebrate the holidays. My birthday’s coming up. There’s another time change. On December 2nd I’ll be 55. Unbelievable. Aging, such a weird thing. I don’t think there’s a lot of vanity attached to it, no regrets, or nostalgic longing for days gone by, an aching for youth. But I did share a belief I have with a friend the other day, a magical belief - somewhat embarrassing to admit, but it’s there nonetheless - that aging, when it comes up in my mom, or my Aunt Sis, and other relatives or friends of my mom and dad’s generation, is something that they can cast off like a common cold and after the cold disappears they will get young again, that aging is really reversible. A magical setting the clocks back. Presto chango. (I can picture my mom reading this section right now and saying: “It’s only a number. I’m going to be around for a long time.” And I’m sure she will be. She seems to defy time and aging.)

Time change.

The same friend with whom I shared my magical aging belief the other day has been and continues to be a stalwart midwife in a creative becoming of mine and in rereading my piece-in-progress he noticed that an additional theme woven into it turns out to be that of aging. No accident there, no matter how unintended. Aging. I think I like how time is changing me. I don’t know if I give it a hell of a lot of attention except at moments like this when I’m specifically reflecting on it. Inside – and I know I’m not alone in this – most days I feel younger, more buoyant, more youthful as time goes on, while outside, well whenever I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror, I’m just thrown. The reflection back does not jibe with how I feel inside. ‘So this is what the world sees,” I think. And now that I think about, this inside/outside didn’t jibe when I was literally literally “youthful.” My youth may have looked young from the outside, but inside I felt so old and jaded and “know it all”, heavy with important, meaningful thoughts. How funny that time has brought a presto chango in me that what was on the inside in youth is now on the outside of the 54 year old me and what was on the outside is in. Magic.

Time change.

There’s a numerological belief I don’t quite get, but that I find intriguing, namely that there’s some alignment we’re in now that is almost identical to that at the time of the American revolution and that this period of turmoil and shifting ground and crumbling foundations is to be expected and will continue for the next 15 years. It feels right. It certainly explains a lot – Tea Partiers, Glenn Beck being compelled to rewrite Thomas Paine’s works, any side to any argument being so “up in arms”, charging that the other side is being disloyal, being un-American. I think it invites one to not expect or force quick fixes on anything, it urges one to ride it out, to be compassionate maybe, kind possibly, patient, to remember to laugh, keep a sense of humour. What appeals to me most is the idea that time changes and then again it doesn’t. People in different times, under different circumstances are forever springing ahead and falling behind. There’s a timelessness about it. So why not enjoy the rollercoaster ride. Or find a still center. Or maybe a little bit of back and forth between both of those things.

Time.
Change.
Time to change.