In talking with a friend the other day who asked me why I had not been blogging, I realized that it has been at least a couple of months since my last posting. The reasons why I would slack off that much after almost 3 years of being relatively consistent are as many and as varied as the pot holes in our Boone roads after what has been a long, cold, snowy winter.

No, I have not lost interest in expressing myself on the various thoughts that pass through what is left of my ... << MORE >>

Normally, living on top of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina is a pleasant adventure—we get all four seasons, mostly moderate winters, cool summer evenings and impressionist fall foliage. Spring on the other hand is always a little iffy—it sometimes doesn't like to let go of winter and what often happens is you wake up one day and its summer—without a lot of what is supposed to be in between.

Sandi and I sort of "homesteaded" in 1978 and have been here since.

This past fall was one of our very best with Indian summer lasting well into mid-November—some of my best bike rides were in October and November.

However, with all that is fantastic about living along the Appalachian Blue Ridge, there are definitely some occasional drawbacks.

Like this past Christmas weekend.

Our local weather wizard Ray (Rays Weather dot com) forecast freezing rain to begin about 9pm Thursday evening and last into Christmas day with temperatures then rising to about 41 degrees. Icy accumulations were supposed to be in the quarter inch range and we stored up some water and went to bed that evening with not a lot happening weather-wise. Forecasting weather in these hills is often very difficult and we have seen the "storm watch" come and go many times with nary a whimper. So, when bad weather is forecast we take solace in the fact that it often doesn't happen.

Such was not the case this time.

At about 3am we began to hear the snap, crackle and explosive pop of tree limbs breaking off under the weight of the freezing rain which seemed to come pouring all around at an even 32 degrees farenheit. As with strong winds, sleep is almost impossible at that point and after tumbling and turning for a couple of hours, both Sandi and I got up, made coffee, took showers and waited for our daughter Laura to get up for breakfast and Christmas morning.

Branches were breaking and falling out of our trees every few minutes or so and as Sandi and I watched the debris pile up, we wondered how long we had until our electricity went down. We would see a flicker every now and then and I ground a lot of coffee beans during this period, just in case. And I am glad that I did.

At about 9am, the lights flickered one last time and that was it for our power. I went downstairs and got the Aladdin lamps and prepared the Coleman stove and we waited until Laura awoke and had our present opening without electricity.

I did forget to tell you one thing—the previous Thursday and Friday, the high country had been the recipient of 14-20 inches of snow and I had been on a business trip that week leading into the weekend. I was able to fly into Greensboro airport just as the snow began and after visiting my daughter in the hospital in Winston-Salem, got a motel as the roads to my house and beyond had been closed due to heavy snow accumulations. All this to say, my Y2K generator was in the shed (now destroyed) and not where it should have been for it to be super useful when the power went off the following weekend.

Such is life! We had a pleasant Christmas day and got together with our neighbors for dinner they had prepared on their wood stove. Aladdin lamps produce a white light equal to a 60 watt bulb and Sandi and I read for a while after dinner and then went to bed early.

Then next morning, I got up to more broken branches and pulled the generator out of my busted shed and hooked up a couple of extension cords and we were then able to charge our phones. power the fridge and freezer and eventually watch a Netflix video that had come on the 24th. I heated water on the Coleman stove in the basement for coffee and we finally made it into town (the roads were clear except for lots of broken limbs) for more water, gas for the generator and a quick $15 shower at a local hotel.

The electric company told me that it might be Tuesday before we would have power and like it or not, we settled into having a good attitude about the whole thing.

Sunday morning, I got up, started the generator, heated water for coffee and dishes and was prepared to cook scrambled eggs on the Coleman when lo and behold, the lights came on and life slowly returned to what we now call normal. Just in case, we flushed the toilets and proceeded to get the house cleaned up and ready for another day—this day with power.

After breakfast, I fueled up the chainsaw and hit the front and side yards to cut away the tree limbs that littered our landscape.

At one point, the estimate was that 18 thousand people were without power and thanks to Blue Ridge Electric and all the other co-ops helping, that number is significantly smaller today.

It was an adventure and we made it through—and I might add with mostly good attitudes. I thought we had lots of damage but have heard of much more. It will take weeks to move all the debris out and I still have half a tree on part of my roof. I don't think it did a lot of damage because there was still 12 inches of snow to break the fall. Maybe I will be able to get my son in law to come over latter today and we can cut it up and get it off the roof without doing any damage to to roof. I have taken lots of good pictures for the insurance and hopefully that won't be a problem.

All in all, we are fortunate—we made it through and are ready for the next round of snow tonight and later in the week.

It has been an interesting ride and I am going to rest for awhile before doing any more.

      

Late November
and the crows are being noisy
as they fly from tree to barren tree
in groups of two or three
making their Caw / Caw / Caw sounds
to no one in particular

In my neighborhood - it is otherwise quiet
with everyone warm indoors
waiting for dinner to be served.

I smoke a Mote Cristo and
feel the weather turn quickly
from a long Indian summer to
the first days of wintery gloom.

The clouds overhead are heavy and gray—
with small patches of blue scattered in between.

My creativity has been lost for months in a blur of busyness—yet
I feel a thread of sentences forming on top of
my consciousness as I search for a pen and some
white paper to jot down these errant impressions.

It feels good—but I am afraid this burst of energy is brief.

I've spent the morning catching up—cleaning the dirty bird-feeders
in hopes of bringing them back to feed.
They are fun to watch but require lots of dedication and money—the late
summer left  them plenty to nibble.

Everything else around me is either dull green or shades of rusty iron.

A certain peace surrounds me in this moment of reflection— the crows
are still talking and dancing from bare limb to bare limb.

      

In contemplating my most recent post, I am acutely aware of the fact that any conversation based on creativity can take us on many different paths—some direct and to the point—others crooked and winding and through the woods we go.

For instance, to create or be creative doesn't have to be something we do but can rather be something we are or strive to be.

Some people never produce anything that can be listened to or hung on the wall, but use their creativity to problem solve at their job or avocation.

I am reminded of the book "Practicing the Presence of God" by Brother Andrew. In it he talks about his connection with God and the fact that he felt closer (read "more alive") to God in the kitchen peeling potatoes than in his 8 by 10 room on his knees during the required daily devotional times at his monastery. Herein lies the rub: perhaps living out our faith in a moment by moment scenario is the most creative we can ever be. To be fully aware of the moment we are in and choosing to live in that supernatural realm with God, our lives a sacrifice to Him and to all those around us, is perhaps the greatest dance that will ever be seen on the earth.

And really, isn't this what we have always aspired to—something that transcends our very flesh and blood, seventy years on this earth, mortality. At least for those of us who have chosen the Christian path to walk.

In the recent Marhta Graham dance company performance I alluded to already, a single female dancer performed one of Martha's early dance/theatre pieces from the late thirty's. It was called Lamentation and the featured dancer was alone on the stage, sitting on a plain wooden bench, covered from head to toes in an elastic, tube like, body stocking. All we could see was the painted white face of the dancer and her feet and partially her toes and hands. Then, to the sounds of some minimalistic piano playing, the dancer moved to and fro within the stocking creating a sense of a caterpillar trying to figure out what he/she was doing inside of the cocoon.

Watching this "dance" take place gave me the feeling of being pushed and pulled through a life we barely understand. I also got the picture of a person trying to figure a way out of this mortal coil and all the bizarre movements we make throughout our lives in trying to figure things out. A picture was also painted for me mentally of a culture trying to move from primitive to modern—the birthing, in labor-like jerks and convolutions giving me a picture of us collectively straining to make something better of ourselves.

Having said all that, I must admit that I have never felt like I have lived up to my potential, Christian or otherwise. I still get angry at times and live a somewhat semi-disciplined life that always seems to be reaching for something just beyond my grasp. Living a life at its creative best is almost like never using a credit card and getting into a debt that has to be paid off in monthly increments. I can see the wisdom in not buying something before I can afford it, but the pull of the world to purchase is a very strong pull indeed. And in working to pay off the debt, we become a slave to a system that only seems to reward those who follow the rules, pay their bills on time and we end up losing the energy to be creative.

I have probably lost you at this point. What I am trying to convey is a thought—no, a state of being—wherein we always think the best of one another—where we exercise patience, and approach every situation that life brings to us with wisdom and humility—where we lend and never borrow and no matter what happens we can say like the apostle Paul, "I have learned to be content in all things".

This is not better living through chemistry or some sort of hyped up transcendental meditation or prosperity doctrine thing I am talking about. This is about a life that we learn to live in the center of a very creative father who only has plans to prosper us and not leave us as orphans.

Even though I haven't made it yet, I still believe that this creative state of being is possible—a place where if our cake doesn't take, we eat pudding we have made instead. The glass is always half-full instead of the other way around.

      

It is interesting to note those times in our lives when we are full of creative ideas and yet have no earthly idea of how to express any of them—or even being aware of what is floating around inside and yet knowing that it to will be forgotten as easily as an early morning dream.

One thing that this social networking thing has going for it is the proliferation of information of all kinds up to and including books people are reading and music they are listening to.

I was checking out my Facebook home page a month or so ago and saw the name Imogene Heap mentioned in one or two posts. With my interest peaked I logged into my I tunes account and sampled her music and was so taken by her creative freshness (at least to me), I purchased my first album online. (Ellipse)

This was a major step for me: I am decidedly a hands on type of guy—I love to wander bookstores and the thought of a physical CD of music to open and touch is still my preference. It's a social thing and what causes us/me to get out of our/my shells and participate in a real—not an imagined, virtual—life.

However I digress. Last night Sandi and I went to a dance performance featuring Martha Graham's company. It was kind of a retrospective show and not one of the best I have seen but never-the-less set my mind to thinking about all the creativity that is loosed on the earth at this present time.

Martha (if I may be so familiar) was an individual who pushed dance into a creative, emotive, theatre-like dimension in the early 20th century and whose path, once opened, was copied somewhat by most of the dance company's that were to follow. And in this creative stew she wasn't always embraced by the powers that be—anyone who dares to challenge or change the status quo has this hurdle to leap.

As I was driving home from work tonight I had this thought: In the beginning, God "created" the earth. In this instance, the Hebrew word "create" means to: to shape, or to fashion. Based on James 1:17 (Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights...) I believe that God gave Martha Graham the creative ideas (gifts) that she then turned into dance theatre and the rest, as they say, is history. Whether she was aware of this supernatural transaction, I have no idea—it works in spite of what we know or believe—somewhat like gravity itself.

Expressing ourselves creatively, then, gives God a glory and a substance in the earth and in our lives that He alone deserves.

Yet I am most aware of the fact that the busyness of life often steals our creative expression and we find ourselves passed out in front of the latest episode of Monk or NCIS—wanting to redeem the time but somehow powerless to the grinding effect each day has hidden underneath its' surface.

I am thrilled to find those people who have pressed through and found that place of freedom and release: Robert Burridge, Abigail Washburn, Sarah Jarosz, Mary Oliver, The Weepies, etc.

A common denominator among many of the artists that I gravitate towards is their acknowledgement of spiritual, godly things but also an awareness of the fact that as humans, we have a hard time making God our all in all—our beginning and our end. In other words, while we are looking to be fulfilled in the Creator, we are still earth bound and checking some things out. And in this attempt comes our music, our dance, our art and our poetry. The artistic urge seems to come from us not being completely comfortable in our skins and is formed/birthed in our desire to understand our purpose in the overall scheme of things.

So—maybe I have said a lot or a little—I have tried to express a thought that seems to keep forming in my mind.

And that too is a ride for another day.

      

It was one year ago today that my wife Sandi and I traveled into lower Manhattan via subway from Newark, New Jersey, where we were staying in a very nice Best Western Hotel. We had arrived the day before on the Amtrak train from Raleigh, North Carolina—we were well rested and more than ready to hit the city streets and have a wonderful few days of vacation adventure.

It was 9/11 and seven years after the twin towers had been attacked. The mood in Manhattan was a little less hectic than normal or so it seemed as we made our ...<< MORE >>

When I began writing about my adventures and mental musings two and a half years ago, "Looking for the Long Ride" was really the only name that fit where I was at as a person or where I felt I fit in the overall scheme of things. Life to me at that point was more of a long wave type of thing—catch it way back and ride for awhile until you hit the beach.

This blog's title actually came from a moment in time during the late sixties as I hitch-hiked through western Europe. Frustrated by people who would stop and ...<< MORE >>

Many of my most treasured memories from childhood revolve around summer vacations with my grandparents who lived in Terre Haute, Indiana, about 400 miles away from our home in Port Huron, Michigan. My dad's parents lived in our hometown and we would visit them on a more or less weekly basis, but my mother's parents lived in the far away (for the late 50"s and early 60"s) Indiana.

I remember the long rides on the two lane roads in the old "51 Studebaker or late-model, Buick V8 my dad owned at the time. This was before Ipods, in-car DVD systems and all the other entertainment features kids have available today. We counted state license plates, made words out of road signs and sang songs or read comic books to pass the time on a long ride. I vaguely remember my hand and arm playing airplane out the open window and the Burma Shave signs that had cropped up all over the two-laned landscape of those days.

These memories were brought back to me in an rather round about way last week as I listened to a Levon Helm song entitled, "The Mountain" off his 2007 "Dirt Farmer" album. The first verse goes like this:

I was born on this mountain a long, long time ago
Before they knocked down the timber and a strip-mined all the coal
When you rose up in a mornin' before it was daylight
To go down in that dark hole and come a back up at night

Helm was one of the members of "The Band" back in the day and has continued his plaintive, Americana-focused, story-telling since that group dissolved in the late 90's.

In the late 50's and early 60"s I often spent a couple of weeks by myself during summer vacations with my collective grandparents in Terre Haute, Indiana or briefly in Vandalia, Illinois. My mother's dad Harry, worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad and my natural grandmother Mary, (divorced and remarried) worked for the Packard Shirt Co. Harry was in charge of a line and signal group and Mary sewed collars on fancy shirts for a living. When she remarried it was to a coal-miner named Harvey Smith and the house I remember staying in the most was really a trailer that got so hot in the summer the Wonder Bread almost turned to dough in the cabinet above the sink.

What partial memory the Levon Helm song stirred in me was my grandmother Mary driving late at night to pick my grandfather up from work in a coal mine several miles north of Terre Haute proper. I would be in the back seat asleep and would awaken to the sight of grandpa Harvey coming out of the mine with his white owl eyes, light hat propped on his head and nickel plated round lunch bucket swinging at his side. Everything but the area around his eyes was coal black and the smell that he brought into the car was something that had attached to him a mile or two underground. Musky and mysterious is all that I can recall at this moment.

He was a real gentleman and as I remember, loved listening to the radio and loved my grandma. In later years they would move almost a half a block away to a real house by a church and I don't think it was as hot during my summertime stays. Most of my recollection is fairly fuzzy from that time but it seems that coal-miners worked long hours and he wasn't around as much as my other grandfather who lived in an upscale suburban subdivision on the other side of town.

Suffice it to say, Harvey died several years later from what we now know was "black lung". After his death, my grandmother visited us in Port Huron several times before finally moving in and taking care of us kids while my mother went back to work. She never remarried and the special bond that we had from those early years was never broken and never quite understood by me or my siblings. During my many rebellious phases, she would quietly remind me of my responsibilities and I would kick and scream and finally end up doing the "right" thing after I couldn't tell her to go away anymore.

There's a lot more I could write about those times and how special I felt in the midst of really being somewhat left alone and on my own. It is what it is as the saying goes. It was an interesting ride for that time and the memory of it certainly took me on a ride today—hope you enjoyed hanging on.

 

      

As i stomped my way through the briars and undergrowth today in order to get to the black raspberries beside the old homeplace, i wondered if they were glad to see me. I didn't feel Euell Gibbons spirit or anything like that but the sense that I had was that these plants do their best every year to produce good fruit and many times it withers on the cane because no one takes the time to search them out. There they sit in the full sun waiting for some fearless pioneer to pass by and take an interest in them. One almost has to wonder where are the deer or the bear who are constantly on the prowl for a free meal.

I can almost hear each berry say "thank you"..."thank you"..."thank you" each time I release one of its fruits and the tight little branch it is attached to snaps back back and forth before finally coming to rest as my hand reaches through to another single berry or better yet a cluster of ripe goodness.

I remember one time years ago Sandi and I walked past a house that had just been torn down in order to make way for a new highway. In the front of the house there had been a glorious dry-stacked stone wall that had been almost totally covered by years of neglect. Sandi was into stone walls and I was into helping her do her thing and we came back with a truck and began to load what was left of those stones for transport back to our house and another rock walkway, patio or assemblage. It was almost as if it was our duty to the person who had diligently found and placed those rocks years before, to gather them up and reuse them—to continue the tradition that had begun in some field twenty or thirty years before our little afternoon walk.

The idea of letting that anxious bulldozer plow them under as if they were somehow deserving of that fate was much too much to contemplate. We would save those flat worn stones and incorporate them into our living space and enjoy them for as long as we could before we to, go the way of all flesh.

It seems like only the right way to think—we have to preserve what is good and fitting of our heritage or it will be lost forever. Not that we cling to things out of some desperate motive to prolong our days or give meaning to our time here on earth—but that we enter into the stream of history that flows past us sometimes like a torrent and other times is like looking at a landscape that hasn't had rain in a while and all we see are the gaping cracks like veins running through our lives.

That such randomness can hold so much mystery amazes me. That a thirty minute piece of time picking berries can hold such interest and be filled with such poetry is a constant joy.

As the words and music inside our heads complete the soundtrack of our lives, let us rejoice in the peace that passes all understanding. That's a good ride any day.

      

I was just about to get some ice cream out of the freezer when Sandi called me on my cellphone from the supermarket. Jessika, our oldest daughter, had been in a bad accident and had been taken to the trauma ward at the local hospital in Cary, North Carolina where she lives. It was our son, Joseph calling Sandi, and he didn't have any more information for us but was heading over to the hospital and would call us as soon as he found out anything. As I struggled with my feelings about how hurt my daughter might be, I do remember taking time to pray for her and wondering why this had happened.

There was a brief moment when I felt guilty about even enjoying the rest of what was becoming a beautiful evening in the mountains. I guess that is where the ice cream came in. Would God hear my prayer if I did something enjoyable when Jessika could be in bad shape because of the accident. Within the context of all that was going through my mind at the time, I had a sense that she was going to be alright and that we would be getting a good report from my son—yet, at the same time I fully felt the soberness of the moment  and the hard reality that her ultimate condition was not in my hands but God's.

Anyway, an hour or so later, I was talking with my daughter, who though banged up a bruised pretty severely, was being released to go home. This after CAT Scans and x-rays and so forth to eliminate any broken bones or internal injuries.

All this happened on June 20th. We had already scheduled a trip to visit the kids for the following weekend and so kept in touch with Jessika throughout the week to see if she was feeling up to us coming. By mid-week the trip was a go and we looked forward to having the whole family together on Saturday evening. Lydia, second to the youngest, was also planning on being in Cary that weekend as well.

All in all, we had a wonderful time with our family and consider ourselves fortunate that we still have Jessika with us. Several thoughts came to mind during this whole process which in turn led to me writing this.

First of all my son and daughter live within a mile or two of each other and Joseph took really good care of letting us know about Jessika and keeping us informed as well as running errands for her, etc. That type of stuff really makes a parent happy—you can't manufacture closeness or caring and our kids have really come a long way in that respect.

Also, our family just seems to flow pretty well with one another when we are together. I am sure that would be tested if it was twenty-four-seven for an extended period of time—but overall, for a long weekend, we enjoy one another's company. They tell us they get together every couple of weeks for a collective dinner or cookout as well.

If you had to write a script for life, this is the type of scene an author would no doubt include. What we do today builds memories for tomorrow. Then there come days when those self-same memories help us navigate through life's sometimes choppy waters.

Family is important and Sandi and I look forward to our trips to see the kids. We are fortunate they are only 3-4 hours away. There is always a trip to Barnes and Noble and a few Starbuck's stops along the way to break things up and make the trips there and back more interesting. Or at least that is the way the ride seems to be—and for that I am grateful.