tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-367955302024-03-14T08:41:38.678-04:00The Adventures of Tom & AtticusUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1017125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-49237835483650794082018-11-15T20:16:00.000-05:002018-11-15T20:16:18.326-05:00Our Collision With A Bull Moose While Driving Bill, Our VW Beetle Convertible<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Due to errands and too much time on the road throughout Tuesday, we set out toward our final walk of the day around 4:00 pm. Since we no longer walk in Jackson for privacy reasons, we drive to the places we stroll. It had been a stormy day, and the dark clouds were still brooding. Sunset was coming at 4:30 and light was not at its best. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">We were nearing Story Land when I noticed a car pulled off on the right side of the road just ahead of us. It wasn’t a smart place to park; no hazard lights were flashing, no turn signal. Someone was behind the steering wheel. Not knowing what they were doing, or about to do, I gave a wide berth and pulled around it so that I was across the middle of the road. Keeping my eye on the car as we passed, I turned my attention back to the road.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">That’s when the bull moose appeared directly in front of us, his head looming enormously, his antlers fully mature and magnificent. Time stopped. Or at least it slowed. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Don’t ask me why paperwork paralyzes me but life-threatening circumstances don’t faze me. Split seconds appear to stretch into minutes. I cannot always tell you what I’m doing when faced with danger, but at the moment I envision all sorts of things. Conversations take place in my head. Observations are noted.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">We were so close, and the bull moose was right above and in front of our windshield that I felt drawn into his eye.</span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">Did I smile? I think I did. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“Is this how I die? I this how we die? Would Samwise and Emily be better off going with me? Or surviving to live with the people I’ve appointed as their guardians?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">I don’t remember any noise. The radio was on, but the music was not something I paid attention to. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">Now here we were, if it was possible, even closer to the moose; Bill, our little VW Beetle convertible moving at 45 mph.</span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">How stately the moose looked. His massive presence, his long stork legs, the reach of the rack on his head. Majestic. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">I swerved quickly to the right, aware that we did not have much room before we’d hit the trees. It was too late. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">I remember the impact, but not the sound. Perhaps there was not enough room in my thoughts for noise. My head was a busy place. And yet seemingly, eerily calm. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">What I saw was how his body was crumpling toward our windshield, those antlers nearly touching the glass, his eye…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">His eye. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">We were looking at each other.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">And then his body ricocheted off Bill. And we were still moving.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">His shoulder lowered and hit the ground. Then his head bounced on the pavement. That’s when both antlers popped off and bounced behind us. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">The next thing I knew, I was standing outside of Bill and walking to him. He was flat on the road. His enormous antlers ended up about thirty yards behind us. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">He struggled to right his head. Our eyes were married again. My heart was breaking. Shattered and sad for this grand fellow. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">“I’m sorry. So sorry. I didn’t see you.” I could taste my sadness as I spoke them. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">Our eyes were connected. I’ll remember that communion for all my years and into another lifetime if such a thing happens. It’s not unlike the night we slept by the glass door with Aragorn on the other side. Him on our little deck, Samwise and me on the floor. Bear and man's heads separated by the glass, our eyes just a couple of inches away. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">Communion. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">His eyes seemed to be the only thing the moose could move. We were mere feet from each other. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">He grunted. I heard that. Sound was coming back to me now. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">He reached those almost mechanical front legs out. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">“Are they broken?” I asked.</span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">He looked at me again before testing them.</span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">He rocked his body. Once. Twice. Slowly he climbed to his feet. He dropped his head to look at his legs. Then raised it again and looked back at me. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">“I’m sorry,” I repeated. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">He was walking, back the way he came. No limp. Just that impossible long gait all moose have that looks both fragile and powerful at once. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">It was only then that I noticed Emily was standing beside me, watching this enormous soul walking away on his stilts. I picked her up. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">“How did you get out here?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">I opened the door and put her back inside. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">That’s when I finally moved to the front of Bill. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">All that time I hadn’t thought about it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">There’s a small reflector on the front left corner, behind the bumper. It’s about four inches by one inch. It was half in and half out like the door to a secret passageway swung open. With the heel of my hand, I popped it back in place. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">The woman who had been parked in the car was now standing beside me where Emily had been. She too looked at the front of Bill, both of us leaning around to look and see the damage. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">There was none. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">Not a scratch. Other than the reflector, there was no sign of impact. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">A white pick-up truck was coming from the other direction, and he’d seen everything. When he passed us, he quickly pulled a U-turn and pulled behind the woman’s car. I thought, “There’s something that restores my faith in human kindness. He’s pulled over to check on us.”</span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">He hurried toward us. I waved. Called out, “Thank you but we’re amazingly fine. Not even a scratch on the car!”</span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">He looked at me like I was a fool, before quickly picking up the antlers and racing back to his truck, and tossing them into the bed. He moved like a man who’d stolen a wallet. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">He peeled out. Seriously. A grown man. Human nature, indeed. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">The woman was a quiet sort. I could tell. And yet she looked after the white truck driving off hastily. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">“Asshole.” That was it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">She started walking back to her car, stopped and said, “I don’t know why there’s nothing wrong with your car. Why you’re all still alive. Even the moose.”</span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">She drove off, leaving me standing with Bill. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">We drove up the hill in the direction the moose went. The windows were down, and Emily and Samwise were scouting for him with me. We never found him. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">We drove to the woods and walked, and I thought of how those antlers popped off the great bull moose’s head. I felt terrible about that, even though they would have fallen in the forest over the next month or two.</span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">It wasn’t until the following day I began to absorb everything. I wrote to a friend, “One inch. A split second. The tiniest difference. Things would have been disastrous.” </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">It’s taken me some time to put down my thoughts, and I will tell you now what stays with me and always will. His eye. Calm and large looking into my eyes, before the impact, then when he was on the ground, and finally while standing. </span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com56tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-626719692166519522018-07-10T10:06:00.001-04:002018-07-10T10:06:14.750-04:00A Confession<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc5ohk4qiL0V-nA-twCSUHbdpYFslmrpFVT3k1AWd3cw4Yti5z_LAaT3q-VUrSHInlG0LTEGSOfyMCCH1abx6nLPKBH9t8AyLZbJLCHkKNPaOLlbZx4Xad4TnR2R9PxsGIlmSUFg/s1600/fullsizeoutput_4651.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc5ohk4qiL0V-nA-twCSUHbdpYFslmrpFVT3k1AWd3cw4Yti5z_LAaT3q-VUrSHInlG0LTEGSOfyMCCH1abx6nLPKBH9t8AyLZbJLCHkKNPaOLlbZx4Xad4TnR2R9PxsGIlmSUFg/s400/fullsizeoutput_4651.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There are days I converse with clouds.<br /></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">There are days I converse with clouds. This morning found me in deep conversation with these soaring souls flying over Mount Tremont.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">“I blame it on Emily,” I told them.</span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Like all good interrogators, they looked at me without a word. Perhaps a trace of condescension in their eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">“Seriously. It’s not something I usually do.”</span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Did they shift to accusatory looks?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">“Before she came around it only happened once. And I was young then. Young and in love and raging with hormones.”</span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">Don’t you hate the silent treatment? When you’re guilty, it compels you to babble on.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“It took thirty years for it to happen a second time. That first time was at midnight in Lake Cochituate. Heather and I couldn’t sleep. So we drove down to the lake and jumped in.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Silence.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“Fine. We didn’t just jump in if you must know. We jumped in with nothing but the pink of our bottoms on. Stark naked. God that was fun!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">The clouds seemed critical, but I was on a roll, and confession came easily.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“The second time was down in Key West this winter. We went for a late-night walk, and the air was sultry and sweet. A gentle wind stirred memories of days gone by. The hushed ebb and flow of lazy waves were like whispers of seduction.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";">A few of the clouds were now listening raptly.</span><span style="font-family: "MS Mincho";"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“And there the three of us were, hidden from the road by a dense lengthy and towering hedge. There was no one around. Samwise was wading in the Atlantic, Emily splashed in, and I thought…well, I thought, ‘What the hell?’ so off came the clothes and in I went. Sam stood guard – did I ever tell you he’s a good guard dog? – while Emily and I swam in circles as free and unencumbered as the day we were born. It was glorious—even if it was against the law.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Did one of the clouds snigger?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">You know that feeling when you are in close quarters with someone, and they are not carrying on their end of the conversation? Uncomfortable, right? So what do you do? You talk twice as much, and sometimes hurriedly because it’s so awkward your tongue feels like a runaway locomotive.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Those massive clouds leaned over me as I stood in that field of yellow and green. I could almost feel their breath on me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“The other day it was hot. Scorching really. We were out walking and made our way down to the river. Gosh, it felt good to wade in the Saco. Those river stones shimmering under the clear water like magic. Emily was splashing around—having a ball. Even Samwise left his feet and moved smoothly across to the other side.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“I looked around. Should I?"<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">By now the clouds were pressing around us, leaning in as if fearful of missing a single word.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“Yes. Yes! I know, it was broad daylight. Middle of the afternoon. But I couldn’t help it. We walked further downstream, half in the river and half along the bleached stones. When we reached a bend we’d been at a few days earlier, the place where the tree is laying across the water, almost touching it, even though it’s very much alive still…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“I realized no one would be coming from downstream and the foliage of that tree partially blocked anyone seeing us. The water was still here. It was deeper. Samwise studied me because he sensed something different about to happen. Emily watched Samwise’s reaction but also kept her eyes on me. I took my hat off, placed my Fitbit, keys, and glasses in it and hung it from a small branch. Next came my shirt. Finally, off came my shorts. I hung each neatly on a branch. I thought Samwise was going to faint. Like Atticus before him, he’s all about dignity. But that little otter Emily saw me walking into the water naked and she came splashing to meet me like she was late for a party, full of glee and happiness bubbles.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“When I took the plunge – oh, God – did that feel amazing! Next thing I know Emily and I are treading water. Samwise then left the constant reassurance of the shore and swam out to meet us. Together we frolicked. We frolicked and smiled and blew bubbles and snorted.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“For once Samwise acted his age. Emily…well I think she was about to burst with happiness. And me…?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“Hey, don’t look at me like that. Yeah, I’m talking to you, the third cloud from the right! The judgmental one.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“I didn’t hurt anyone and it was glorious! How often does a fifty-seven-year-old get to feel like a five-year-old, especially in these troubled times?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">A few of the clouds nodded in agreement. Others followed. Then came a landslide of approval. Even the tight-lipped one in the back giggled.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“See, that’s what I’m talking about. We had a ball. And yes, I still do blame it on Emily. Atticus loved mountains so we climbed thousands of them. Samwise looks skyward, so we drive with the top down even on some winter days. Emily finds joy in most anything, but nothing tickles her like swimming.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“If I’m guilty of anything, it’s of making this little dog happy and – fine, making myself happy, too!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "American Typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">As we all laughed together, the clouds and me, and even Samwise (now relieved) and Emily, I struck a serious tone. “You know, everything changed two years ago. There’s no going back. Ever. Why should I wait to feel happy, especially when it is right in front of me?” </span><span style="color: #44546a; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com37tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-84367242190176746902018-07-08T11:16:00.002-04:002018-07-08T18:34:31.735-04:00A Vacation Letter from Tom (& Samwise & Emily)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOzJtajvs3HV0XYE4GcBigt6YZDqzJWoJzr0bkpWBLFnQMf9oCV5gD8kx-S1EAVkb9zwY1cGwQXUrABVpyD6ZHfekR3YWGXgjrlLGkPVqDezgEBINshqc3WdMzgVlv_ahJ4WaVIA/s1600/UzXWaWUARRa0zcTW7ZwfKg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOzJtajvs3HV0XYE4GcBigt6YZDqzJWoJzr0bkpWBLFnQMf9oCV5gD8kx-S1EAVkb9zwY1cGwQXUrABVpyD6ZHfekR3YWGXgjrlLGkPVqDezgEBINshqc3WdMzgVlv_ahJ4WaVIA/s400/UzXWaWUARRa0zcTW7ZwfKg.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>(Dreaming of our upcoming travels this week.)</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: "american typewriter";">Years ago, when I was still small and splashing around in the streams and rivers of the White Mountains with my older brothers and sisters, my father would sit at a picnic table half watching us, half putting pen to a yellow pad of paper. Too young to care and too intoxicated by the cooling water and the river play, none of us ever<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: "american typewriter";">asked him what he was writing. </span><span style="color: white; font-family: "ms mincho";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: "american typewriter";">Jack Ryan was of the generation that still penned letters. He was prolific, and each dispatch Contained several pages, filled with his distinctive leaning script of ink on paper. It took decades to realize that is what he was doing on those lazy summer afternoons along </span><span style="color: white; font-family: "american typewriter";">various White Mountain waterways.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="color: white; font-family: "american typewriter";">I did not appreciate the art of correspondence until a few years ago. </span><br />
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<span style="color: white; font-family: "american typewriter";">These days, after an early morning </span>walk<span style="color: white; font-family: "american typewriter";"> with Samwise and Emily, I begin the rest of my day by writing letters to friends and occasionally family—mostly my brother Eddie, now that Marijane is gone.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: "american typewriter";">Letters are to me similar to the gifts of books. If I am close to someone, if I care about them, I write to them. But much like books—which I love giving as presents—the moment they stop being appreciated, I move on. No hard feelings. The friendship typically survives, but letters and books stop arriving in mailboxes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: "american typewriter";">My letters are a part of myself, given to someone who matters. There is an intimacy to them.</span><span style="color: white; font-family: "ms mincho";"> Genuine affection.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: "american typewriter";">The moment letters, cards or notes (or books) are taken for granted, is the moment I stop. Fortunately, I am close to many who never fail to appreciate them. And I do not expect all of them to mail things back to me. Letter writing is my thing, after all. Some respond with a text or email or phone call. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: "american typewriter";">It has become essential for me. Not only as a distinctive way to reach out but plenty of what went into my book “Will’s Red Coat” came from something I’d written to a friend. My letters are seeds planted at this old wooden desk that lead to grander things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: "american typewriter";">I know many people who miss receiving mail. Some of my friends can’t remember the last time they opened a letter other than those from me. They wax nostalgic about the days when the mailman/mailwoman arrived carrying greetings from kindred souls, news from home or from the front, or feverish professions of love. </span><span style="color: white; font-family: "ms mincho";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: white;">With this in mind we’re doing something different for the next several days at </span><a href="http://stullscountrystore.com/new-products/" target="_blank"><span style="color: orange;">Atticus & Will’s Emporium</span></a><span style="color: white;">.</span><span style="color: white; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguV1QDQyO43laFwp923rvCtNi1bNiJfPR0FHQTUPn_DbRRvY6I-FBA0kOecbbuvn-oTHqPCn1vpbk_q4zH8QnpxtxYeCsFRHksgMO3LwVBAdlopVpP8Bjsba4k34DZpPaTHfXSVQ/s1600/fullsizeoutput_45cb.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1077" data-original-width="1600" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguV1QDQyO43laFwp923rvCtNi1bNiJfPR0FHQTUPn_DbRRvY6I-FBA0kOecbbuvn-oTHqPCn1vpbk_q4zH8QnpxtxYeCsFRHksgMO3LwVBAdlopVpP8Bjsba4k34DZpPaTHfXSVQ/s400/fullsizeoutput_45cb.jpeg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #f3f3f3; font-size: x-small;"><i>(One of the best parts of summer in the Mount Washington Valley is a visit with<br />Betsi Edge at Weston's Farm Stand. Here's Betsi with her new Will Wisdom shirt.)</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: "american typewriter";">Samwise, Emily, and I are headed off on a mini adventure. Three days and two nights out of town. I’ll return to Jackson to type up our trip and anyone who orders anything from Atticus & Will’s Emporium online between now until Thursday at midnight will receive a typed letter about our summer retreat. I’m not sure of the length, but it will be more than two or three pages.</span><span style="color: white; font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="color: white; font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: "american typewriter";">It’s a fun little promotion; one we thought some of you might appreciate, especially if you were already planning to buy a mug, cap or shirt. <i>And wait until you see the stamps that adorn the envelope!<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: "american typewriter";">Anyone spending more than $80.00 on an order also receives a personalized handwritten letter from me along with the typed letter. (No guarantee on the length of the handwritten letter, but it will be an actual letter not a postcard.)<br /><br />*This promotion runs on all orders between July 8, 2018, and midnight July 12, 2018.</span><span style="color: white;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: white; font-family: "american typewriter";"><br /></span> <span style="color: white; font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: white;">To place your order at </span><a href="http://stullscountrystore.com/new-products/" target="_blank"><span style="color: orange;"><b>Atticus & Will's Emporium click here</b></span></a><span style="color: white;">.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>(Samwise and Emily visiting with my brother Eddie, <br />who is wearing his new Atticus three-toed paw print hat.)</i></td></tr>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-4493864870988172582018-06-19T09:38:00.002-04:002018-06-19T09:38:24.967-04:00On Giving & Receiving Books<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The subject of giving books as gifts has come up lately in conversations with some friends. Although my faults are too numerous to count, it has been pointed out that I "give good book." Since most who are reading this post enjoy books, I'm sharing part of a letter to a friend that includes this subject. (You'll probably have to click on the photos to expand them so that you can read the words.)</span><br />
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;">It should be noted that unless I know a person wants one of my books, I don't ever give them as gifts. It always feels a bit presumptuous to me to do otherwise. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-62254432618685919612018-04-20T09:52:00.000-04:002018-04-20T09:58:42.880-04:00Introducing Atticus & Will's Emporium!<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">This is a fun day for us!</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">Several years ago, when our friends Bryan and Suzanne Flagg created a side business making t-shirts and coffee mugs, I teamed up with them to bring Atticus and Will products to our readers. It was a sporadic venture. Now and then we’d come up with a new design, announce it on our Facebook page and our friends were flooded with so many orders and nearly put them out of business. </span><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span></div>
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After Bryan and Suzanne moved on from making t-shirts and coffee mugs, the demand for Atticus and Will gear remained. However, no matter how hard I looked, I could not find an online store that offered the quality of the mugs and t-shirts we first sold. On top of that, Bryan and Suzanne offered personalized care that is rare to find in contemporary times. <span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span></div>
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Now, all these years later, I’m proud to announce a partnership with Stull’s Country Store in Andyville, Kentucky. </div>
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Marlinda and Kim have breathed new life into the little country store in the middle of nowhere. It’s become such a destination, Samwise and I stopped there for a “Will’s Red Coat” book event last summer on our way home from distant travels. It remains one of my favorite events over the past seven years.<span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span></div>
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Today we are proud to announce the birth of Atticus & Will’s Emporium, an online store offering some of our old favorite products along with a few new ones. This will be a constant online presence, and new items will be added from time to time. <span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span></div>
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Now you’ll have to bear with us in the beginning stages since this is new to us and we have no idea how much product will be needed. So today we begin with a soft opening for the next two weeks. Once you head to Atticus and Will’s Emporium, you will see what we are offering, and you’ll notice a “Click Here for Ordering Info” button. When you hit it you’ll see the following:<span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span></div>
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“We would like for you to take a look at the Emporium and tell us what you think and if you would be interested in ordered something when we go live. If so, please email us the items (sizes, colors, quantity, etc.) at stullscountrystore@bbtel.com so we can get an idea of what our inventory our first order may look like!”<span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "ms mincho";">(A note: the t-shirts are the same excellent quality we used before. Those who already own them can attest to how comfortable they are. Also, make sure you click on the t-shirt photos to see the back of them as well.)</span></div>
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This will give Stull’s an understanding of how many of each product they need to stock in the beginning while at the same time taking your first orders. Because this venture is new, we’re taking baby steps that will grow into a smooth operation. <span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; text-align: justify;">In the past, a portion of the profits was donated to worthwhile organizations. That will remain the case going forward. However, we won’t be limiting it just to animal rescue. Donations will be considered to other non-profits that help land and environmental issues or those that help people in need as well. </span><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "ms mincho"; text-align: justify;"> </span><br />
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;">This is a long time coming, but it’s been worth the wait to find another partnership I trusted. I believe you’ll love dealing with Stull’s Country Store and their old-fashioned ways as much as I do. </span></div>
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<a href="http://stullscountrystore.com/new-products/" target="_blank"><span style="color: orange;">Clicking here will bring you to Atticus and Will’s Emporium</span></a><span style="color: #eeeeee;">!</span><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span></div>
</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-71974321780555507482018-04-03T11:01:00.002-04:002018-04-03T14:26:53.526-04:00Leaning Into a New Season<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">April on the Will Moses calendar.</td></tr>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">One of my favorite possessions is the calendar above my desk, illustrated by Will Moses. The scenes depict villages both rustic and charmed. They are images you can fall into through a daydream. April shows Butterfly Meadow. A spring scene glows in pastels, with people in the doorways of their cottages and barns. The grass is pale green, the trees only beginning to leaf out. Quilts are being aired on the clothesline, and children are at play in the fields, chasing butterflies. Cows and horses meander through the print as it fades into the distance with quaint houses leading to a nubble of a hill set against a flotilla of cotton ball clouds in a baby blue sky. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />Each day I visit the places Will Moses creates. I imagine the lives of the townsfolks and animals. I think about the shutters and the shingles of the picturesque homes. He captures the seasons well and invites us into another time. It is folksy and laidback, not a hint of volatility. Although the artist lives in New York, not too far from the Vermont border, the thing that comes to mind is the motto adopted by the Maine Office of Tourism, “The way life should be.”</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> <br /> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />Although the calendar does not match up to what I currently see outside my window, and butterflies are closer to two months away here in the mountains of New Hampshire, this morning’s walk through the woods was a similar visit to a world most will never see again, just because they no longer look for it. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />Ice is fading from Evermore Pond. Less than half is covered by a paper-thin counterpane. The fields are even more uncovered, with last year’s life soggy and still sleeping. The nights still get cold, the days have yet to get warm. Daily, the thermometer stretches toward fifty as the sun luxuriates early in the afternoon sky. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />Although the trails are a combination of mud and pockmarked snow and ice, groundlings scurry about the woodland. Samwise and Emily playfully give chase. The rule is they are allowed that much, but not to kill. So far we have not had to worry about that. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />Overhead we first heard the riveting of a pileated woodpecker tapping out its territory. Then we saw his dramatic beating flight and both my young friends looked skyward when <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNVGPmo1xuA" target="_blank">he cried out in song</a>. Blue jays screeched to their neighbors, but even their cacophony is music to me. Chickadees flitted, coming close enough to touch. They captured Emily’s manic attention, and her head turned almost mechanically to every movement. Back in the trees surrounding the mushy field, crows called to one another. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />When a half-dozen Canada geese sang in approach to Evermore Pond, Samwise and Emily hurried along the path and stood on the water’s edge to see the uniform splash landing. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">By the time I caught up with them, the geese were equally curious about Samwise and Emily. Instead of paddling away, they drew closer. Samwise sat, as is his nature, but Emily has a way to go when it comes to just watching. It wasn’t thirty seconds before she bounded off along the pond’s edge looking for a stick to play with.</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />Where we are today is very different from a year ago. Back then it was only Samwise and me. “Will’s Red Coat” was nearing its launch in hardcover. Three weeks of busy touring was to be followed by two months on the road seeing the country. Of course, Emily would arrive in our home in late October, and in January we headed south for half of the winter. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />That was a lot of traveling for a fellow who had never taken a road trip before. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />Even though I long to see the bison again, and visit the places we missed out on, there are different goals for this year. Two books are underway: another memoir and my first novel. Lately, I’ve been enjoying the task of making up names of characters and places. The town I’m creating is not all that different from what one would find in a Will Moses painting.</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />While mostly staying put, we’ll get away to Stowe at least twice this year. I look forward to introducing Emily to the places Atticus, and I trekked throughout the years and showed to Samwise as well. They do land management well in Stowe, and there are numerous areas to let my friends run free. I’ve have come to think that while North Conway is an excellent place, Stowe is pretty close to perfection.</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"><br />As Emily matures, I notice how much growth comes from osmosis. We don’t do much training. Nothing formal really. By being around Samwise and me throughout the day, she is developing and coming to terms with rights and wrongs. It may not always seem it during the more trying moments of puppyhood, yet I remind myself that this is only her six month with us. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />She realizes that no one is going to rob her of her willfulness, but at the same time, there’s no need to exercise it as often as she does. Throughout the day she reminds that what she wants most is what we all long for – to belong. Occasionally, though, she needs a nudge to help her get to that point. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />As I write this, Samwise is at his post in the bedroom, sitting up watching the birds and groundlings in the backyard from the foot of the bed. He is a keen observer. Emily is under my desk, sleeping with her head atop my foot while her front paws wrapped around my leg. I stir slightly before standing up, to give her warning. We seem to have perfected this part of it so that she does not get stepped on. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />She still hesitates each time we get into the car. I was warned about this, and I’m not sure why she takes her time, but it may have something to do with her breaking her leg as a youngster in her foster family’s van. The story is that she made to leap out of the front seat and the little boy grabbed her leg to stop her. She jumped, and the leg snapped. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />The break healed nicely, as you can tell by the way she races through forest and field. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />However, having her take her time while getting into the car on her own while off leash (which is most the time) is accounted for. We manage. If she wants to take thirty seconds to a minute deciding on when to hop into Bill, I’m okay with that. It merely reinforces the message to Emily to be herself. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />Like Samwise did at her age, she reminds me when she wants me to stop writing to give her attention. He would nudge me with his nose, letting me know he wanted me to lay with him. Emily, meanwhile, is a bit more in my face. She stands on her hind legs with her front paws on my shoulder and looks into my eyes. It’s usually enough to hoist her up and sit her on my lap for a few minutes, but occasionally she wants more so I carry her to the bedroom where we all hang together, book out, but bodies touching. Their breathing slows, eyes grow heavy, and snores rise. It is quality time not only for togetherness but for my craft. For if a writer has homework, it’s reading, always reading. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />As I tidy this up, we’re getting ready to head to the post office and mail this morning’s notes and letters written to friends and acquaintances. One is to a delightful senior woman in Tucson, Arizona. I met Rose Duracka last year when she was volunteering at a gift store in Yellowstone. We chatted warmly for so long that I returned the next day and gave her a copy of “Following Atticus.” She’d written a letter that I’ve only now responded to, and I’m sending her a copy of “Will’s Red Coat” as well. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />Before heading out, I still need to cut up the potatoes, carrots, onion, and garlic, add some broth, Italian seasoning, fennel, and caraway seeds as I dump it all into Instant Pot. When we return from our errands, it will be to a welcoming hug of a scent.</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />Slowly, as winter leans into spring here, we change with the passing months. Whether it’s in our search for heartening adventures, a new town to call home, in stories written, or maturity and understanding gained, onward, we move, by all means. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-91582441974488674402018-03-23T15:48:00.001-04:002018-03-24T06:03:10.708-04:00Before You Normalize It, Put Yourself In My Shoes<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">It’s called stalking, even if you think it isn’t. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">I’ve been sitting on something for a while, as my friends know. It’s been an issue since the publication of Following Atticus in 2011, but it’s become more of one this past year. It has led me to understand that it’s time I prepare to move on from this town I’ve called home for the past nine years. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Last October, on a delightful afternoon, just before Emily arrived in our lives, Samwise and I were walking along a cross-country ski trail that gets little to no use outside of winter. It’s one of the reasons we frequent it and other trails like it. I adore being alone in the woods with my thoughts, but if you’ve read anything I’ve written you know this. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">That particular walk turned out to be different, however, when Samwise howled out in alarm that a couple was approaching us from the opposite direction. We exchanged greetings, then more warm words. There was talk of the weather and foliage, talk of Samwise, and of the area. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">The couple was from Switzerland and had been visiting the White Mountains over the last few years, always in the autumn. I suggested some hiking trails they might like. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">We were chatting for more than twenty minutes before the woman paused and gave me a quizzical look. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“Are you Tom Ryan?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“Yes.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">With a burst of excitement, she grabbed her husband by the arm. “Oh my gosh! Oh gosh!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">She’d read Following Atticus in German and liked it so much she read it again in Italian. She bought many copies for friends. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">They did not know about “Will’s Red Coat” but told me they’d pick it up at White Birch Books the next day. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">A</span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">s we parted, each of us felt richer for having this encounter. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Over the past seven years, I have run into people visiting the White Mountains from New Zealand, Germany, Australia, Italy, England, Scotland, and numerous states. They came here after reading “Following Atticus.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">It’s one of the highest compliments I’ve received. It means something to me to share my feelings for this area and to have it move readers to the point of wanting to see it for themselves. There have been countless almost-magical interactions with folks in this manner, and they all have one thing in common. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">None of them came here seeking me out. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">They came to see the mountains and perhaps thought it would be nice if they ran into us, but it was not part of their plans. They did not go out of their way to find us.</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">This organic kind of meeting is the best kind. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Alas, there is another side to interacting with readers that has never felt comfortable. It’s one of the reasons we have not walked in Jackson for the last few years and drive anywhere from 32 to 70 miles a day to take our walks where we can enjoy solitude. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">On one of the last days Atticus and I walked in Jackson, we were stopped eleven times on a mile and a half loop. People wanted photos. They wanted to hang out. They felt we were friends. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Although this is a compliment to my writing, it isn’t my style. And it’s not in my comfort zone.</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">It does, however, come with the territory. I understand that. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">However, for a person who mostly stays to himself, it can be daunting.</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">During the last days of my Aunt Marijane’s life, she was in hospice. My cell coverage in the house was not very clear, so I talked with her as I walked with Atti. Two couples saw us and pulled over while I was saying what would turn out to be my last words with Marijane. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">The tourists were extremely excited about getting a group photo. I explained to them that I was on the phone. They said they'd wait. I politely told them it was an important call and I would be on it for a while and went to walk way. They asked a third time. Once again I let them know it was not a good time.</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">I was stunned by their vitriol and the four-letter words. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">That’s when I understood then it was time to take most of our walks elsewhere. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">I treat our strolls as I used to handle our hikes. I have three destinations in mind. If one is crowded, we go to another. If the second is also busy, it’s off to a third location. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">I do not have a problem with any of this. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">But one thing I’ll never get used to is having people stalking us. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Last year, on several occasions, folks noted Bill parked outside of our home and pulled over to take photos and/or videos of us in the backyard.</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">I felt exposed. I felt tracked. It seemed like so many people who had read so much of what I’d written hadn’t taken it to heart.</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">For years, readers have waited for us to pull up at the Jackson post office and when we have, they’ve descended upon us.</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">It’s always awkward when this occurs because it catches me off guard. I don’t think of myself as anyone special. I like our quiet lives, its gentle ways, and the rhythm that comes with it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">In the first chapter of Will’s Red Coat I confessed to being an introvert. A sudden in-your-face greeting from an excitable reader is always a shock, unless it takes place at a book event. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Last year, while leaving a store’s parking lot, a woman rushed up to see Samwise. When I explained we were on our way to a meeting and had to go she swore at me. Later that night she posted nasty comments on our Facebook page. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">I can list too many examples of this type, but none of it is out of the ordinary. “It is”, as Bill Belichick states, “what it is.” </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">However, over the past year things have changed in a dramatic manner. But the trouble started before then.</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">I trace it back to the first Atticus M. Finch Walk for the Animals in September of 2016. I was moved by the number of people who showed up from around the country for the event and the subsequent book signing that followed. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Rachael Kleidon, our friend, and vet walked with us that day. We had not seen each other in months since she had her baby Silvia. What a joy it was to spend time with them both. And how important it was for Rachael to be there to honor the late Atticus. She had gone out of her way to make time to be with us that day.</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">As the walk was coming to an end, Rachael and I were talking when we were interrupted by one of my readers, who had come from several hours away. Both Rachael and I were taken aback, but it did not matter to this woman. She had questions for Rachael about her dog, and it was clear that my time with the good doctor was over. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">I would later learn that Rachael was stuck there with little Sylvia for an incredible length of time answering questions about a dog who was in another state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Throughout the next hours, while I was signing books outside of White Birch Books, I saw this same woman, constantly within feet of us. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">My poor brother Eddie was at his first event for "Following Atticus" and the same woman glommed onto him. It was a big deal for him to be there since he was heroic in stepping into a public situation while suffering from PTSD from his time in the service. He'd overcome much to be there for us that day. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">For two hours, she shadowed him and even when he excused himself to walk to his car she followed. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">We would later joke about how trapped he felt. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Fast forward to last May and an event in Vermont for “Will’s Red Coat.” It was when I next saw this same woman. She’d driven several hours to be there. After the talk, she waited in line, and when I signed her books she wanted to talk endlessly, and I gently reminded her that others we were waiting. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">This is not unusual, and I do my best to give as much time as possible to those in the greeting line. But this interaction was reminiscent of the previous September. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">After everyone else had left, I looked up and waiting by the door was the same woman. For the first time ever I asked a store manager to walk me out to my car and explained why.</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Fast forward to this past September. Samwise and I pulled up to the post office, as we do every day, and shockingly the same woman was standing there waiting for… I won’t pretend to know. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">But I recognized her immediately and instead of stopping to get my mail, I pulled in and then turned right around again and left. I have no doubt she saw us. Over the following days, I saw her standing in front of the post office repeatedly. Each time I pulled out without getting my mail. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Shortly after, I was informed by stores that I frequent, that this woman, had now moved to the Mount Washington Valley. Each of them gave me warnings. Other businesses I don’t frequent reached out to let me know she asked if we ever came there.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">On the day of last September’s Atticus M. Finch Memorial Walk for the Animals, there she was again. A friend who works in a bakery warned me that the woman had moved to Jackson, not too far from our home. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Shit. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">My brother Eddie made the trek to North Conway again, which is still a big deal for him. Once again he wanted to be there to honor Atticus. He and I walked together. The entire time this woman hovered near. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Alas, Eddie and I became separated, and I would later learn that she attached herself to him for the remainder of the walk. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">He and I had made plans to get away to Thorne Pond for some privacy after the memorial walk, but by the time it was over he decided he’d had enough and he could not get away from the event and the stifling woman soon enough. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Unfortunately, he drove home, and we never did get to take our quiet walk together. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">I would later learn that Eddie lost his phone that day in his hurry to escape. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">I apologized for what he had to endure, and he was kind about it all. But still, I knew my life had entered into a strange place where I was no longer the only one inconvenienced.</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">As autumn came, I received regular reports from my friends at the different shops I’ve often written about that she often lingered there and asked about us. Then it became just lingering. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">I’d continue to see her at the post office, sometimes see her driving into a business we had just pulled into, always was updated by how often she was in the various shops. She even began volunteering at an organization we raise money for. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">I told a state trooper that I do not feel in danger and she has never entered our yard, but how I now feel the need to look around before I get out of my car. Not a day goes by where I am not aware of her presence. Alas, there is nothing the authorities can do. It’s not like she’s in my face, but knowing she has pretty much insinuated herself into my life in the area has been stressful. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">She’s one of the reasons we went away for close to two months this winter. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Physically, I continue to make peace with my kidneys, heart, blood clots, and assorted health issues. I’m bloated and overweight. I have no illusion that I’m a good catch or even the object of someone’s fantasies. And yet how strange it is to have a person impact our lives as she does. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">As friends and I talk about her impact, they realize I’ve stopped coming into their stores as I used to. Some have attempted to laugh it off, but until someone haunts your life like this one never knows what it feels like. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">I understand I am an ambassador of sorts for this region. We lead a quiet but attractive life. It’s terrific that people want to come here to see what it is like for themselves. It’s grand that some have even moved here. But there’s a difference between moving to the mountains or to the Mount Washington Valley as compared to moving right down the street in our little town an adopting much of my lifestyle. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Today, I informed friends that over the next year I will be looking to move from this part of the mountains. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">That day may have come sooner or later, but because of one specific person the time has come to start planning. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">I cannot tell you what is in this person’s head. But I can tell you that from the people who stalk us that I’ve conversed with, they feel bad that I have to put up with it, but always they think I’m talking about others when I address stalkers. It seems most stalkers do not realize what they are doing. Perhaps she doesn’t. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">She is considered a pleasant enough person, I guess. Awkward and tone deaf, but not dangerous. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">As I was telling a shop owner about this today he confessed to not opening his store on time one recently when he saw her in the parking lot. Instead, he waited until she left. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Years ago, when Atticus and I took a week each winter in Provincetown, I noted on our Facebook page that the poet Mary Oliver lived there at the time. “I wouldn’t mind running into her by chance on the beach,” I wrote.</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">I was surprised by the number of people who suggested I look up the poet’s address and just knock on her door. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Just because a person writes books we read, it does not give us a right to intrude upon them. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Earlier today Eddie summed it up well. "She may not be breaking any law but what an intrusion on your life!"<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">I write this in hopes that people will understand that I am mostly a private person. It’s the reason I got rid of ATTI 48 license plate. I didn't enjoy exiting the woods only to have folks waiting for us. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">It’s the reason we drive as many miles as we do each day to go for ordinary walks. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">What I wish for everyone is that they can find some of the peace we have worked hard to attain. But I hope in so doing that ours is also respected. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Thank you for reading. </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "ms mincho"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "american typewriter"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com77tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-30663870109753531432018-03-19T15:28:00.002-04:002018-03-19T15:42:33.258-04:00Appalachian Trail Name: Atticus<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqx1mjHvPV7-KjFn2G_ib19PmBdx8zEUjJeVsX3MmNIx3I0Y-dZqjz10r4Xe3Q7FqBG9lud67OiRtdD67ekbGc3AL0MQV25s5wgGbX7RWBdkrIAklLhzf3qgw1bBk-aKgjZjmcDw/s1600/Mary+Oliver+The+Poem+I+Wanted+To+Write.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1554" data-original-width="1268" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqx1mjHvPV7-KjFn2G_ib19PmBdx8zEUjJeVsX3MmNIx3I0Y-dZqjz10r4Xe3Q7FqBG9lud67OiRtdD67ekbGc3AL0MQV25s5wgGbX7RWBdkrIAklLhzf3qgw1bBk-aKgjZjmcDw/s320/Mary+Oliver+The+Poem+I+Wanted+To+Write.jpg" width="260" /></a><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Years ago, when Atticus and I were hiking several times a week, I gave some thought to hiking the Appalachian Trail with him. I was excited by the endurance challenge of through-hiking the entire 2,100-plus miles in one attempt. I've always been fascinated by the A.T., even before we started hiking. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">Reality set in, though, and I decided against it. Atticus could hike in the snow, but he didn't like hiking in the rain. Because it rains so often on the A.T. during the months we'd be hiking, I decided it would not be fair to him. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">Although I've not regretted the decision, through-hiking the A.T. is something that still holds an abundance of romance for me.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">This spring, however, there will be an Atticus on the trail, and the thought has me smiling while considering it. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">The following email came in this weekend, and I'm sharing it with permission. Here's wishing Jerry Wheeler success during his attempt. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Hi Tom, </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #f6b26b;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">I met you at the </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Wills-Red-Coat-Story-Chose/dp/0062444999/ref=pd_sbs_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0062444999&pd_rd_r=YKAGHEC1HAEWZERB4582&pd_rd_w=BTGpL&pd_rd_wg=MlH58&psc=1&refRID=YKAGHEC1HAEWZERB4582" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Will's Red Coat</span></a><span style="color: #f6b26b;"> event at Hub City Bookstore and Press. Thank you again for coming to South Carolina. As I told you I am hiking the Appalachian Trail beginning on April 30 due in a great part to your vivid descriptions of the White Mountains and the adventures you and Atticus shared. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Your books have changed my life in a positive and uplifting manner, and I want to honor you and Atticus. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Because your books and one little dog inspired me to do my "soul work" as Atticus did after his eye surgery, I have taken the trail name "Atticus." With your permission, of course. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Warmest regards, </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Jerry Wheeler</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">
</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-19266133622028828342017-12-28T20:37:00.003-05:002017-12-28T20:39:52.387-05:00Ten Years On: "Following Atticus" Debuts in Japan<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyQu0R2zmEtO2w2_xuyMydPtx8ZUhNqu6HZEY60yyeiaJtWnjWRR11btcd6_xEVbW_XdIJViRvqaXKLVVCsv2zoUSxyV0EaTsneKqFUNY0cES9Rqnv5W2SiOyuj77qkA8Yhyphenhyphena1Dw/s1600/fullsizeoutput_3c5c.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyQu0R2zmEtO2w2_xuyMydPtx8ZUhNqu6HZEY60yyeiaJtWnjWRR11btcd6_xEVbW_XdIJViRvqaXKLVVCsv2zoUSxyV0EaTsneKqFUNY0cES9Rqnv5W2SiOyuj77qkA8Yhyphenhyphena1Dw/s400/fullsizeoutput_3c5c.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Japanese version of "Following Atticus."</td></tr>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Today, in subzero temperatures, I was drawn back to ten years ago. It was the year when Atticus and I set out to summit each of the 48 4,000-foot-peaks in the White Mountains twice in a single calendar winter. It had been accomplished before, but only once. The storied Cath Goodwin, longtime White Mountain legend had succeeded. But that was it. As far anyone knows, no one else had even attempted it. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">What made me think little Atticus and I could accomplish such a feat?</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> <br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Truthfully, I had no idea whether we could or not. The previous winter, we fell short of my goal of hiking each of the 48 in winter. At the time, I believe only 14 known people had ever accomplished a single round in winter. We fell short by two hikes.</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> <br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">But there we were on the night of the winter solstice entering the unknown and preparing to push beyond what either one of us had ever been. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> <br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">It’s almost comical when I look back at it now. I was fighting Lyme disease, weighing 260 lbs., obviously not in shape, and Atticus weighed only about 25 lbs. He was not your typical winter hiking dog. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Recently, while driving across the Kancamagus highway, I took note of the new snow piled up along the side of the road, the various trailheads Atticus and I parked at that winter a decade ago, and at my young passengers in the car. There was little Emily, with me for only a month and aged seven months, and Samwise, aged two years. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> <br />
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">The juxtaposition of fragrant memories; my current life where heart, kidney, and other ailments keep me from hiking up; and the company of young Samwise and Emily washed over me. Suddenly, I could not see, and I had to pull into the parking lot of the Oliverian Brook trailhead. As I let Samwise and Emily scamper out into the snow and the first yards of the trail, I could have sworn I’d seen a little black and white dog there with me again. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">In December of 2007, when we’d only been hiking for a year and a half, there was hardly a trek we started in winter when I was not draped in fear. It didn’t help that many of those longer hikes over several peaks at a time began in the bone-chilling pre-dawn hours. We often ended our longer hikes after the sun went down as well. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Fear. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> <br />
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">It gnawed at me. The cold and darkness were forbidding. I felt isolated and alone. The idea of hiking 14 or 18 or 27 miles through deep snow and across the dangerous ice, through winds biting and cruel, far away from anyone else, rattled me.</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">So why did we do it? </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Robert Frost wrote in a letter, “A poem…begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion finds the thought and the thought finds the words.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Not a lot made sense that winter. Our audacity was nourished by our friendship, and the idea that we would be safe was connected to the understanding that I would keep Atticus safe. There was a wordless communication between us and a sacred trust. Sure, we’d face uncomfortable situations and endure the unimaginable, but we were in it together.</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> <br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">As for that fear each time I entered the woods? It was indeed a lump in my throat.</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">For ninety days we pushed ourselves beyond the limits sets for us by others, and those I also put on myself. That winter adventure was itself a poem for us, a dance between souls connected by all that mattered in life.</span><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";">
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</span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">It’s funny, while Atticus knew his limitations, he never showed the fear I felt. No matter how frigid it became. No matter how unrelenting the wind. Not even in blizzard conditions when we were surprised on a trek across the Pemigewasset Wilderness. Not when we were so tired we could have fallen asleep wherever we sat down and never woken up again in the cold.</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> <br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">There were many nights we were out on the trails alone, the only light coming from the heavens above and the beam from my headlamp. In my unease, I’d ask myself, <i>Why are we doing this</i>? Goodness knows I longed for home and friends and hot tea and a good book so often it ached. And yet we continued. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> <br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">This all returns to me today because the Japanese version of <i>Following Atticus</i> showed up in my mailbox. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> <br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">I last held my friend in my arms a year and a half ago as he took his final breaths in a rain so gentle it felt like the surrounding pine trees were weeping. Still, Atticus visits me without warning and I know that winter will be one of the highlights of my life. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">It lies at the heart of Following Atticus, and that little dog with the big soul, that little Buddha, is still touching people with his authentic and unfettered life. Our story has now been published here in the U.S., of course, and in Canada, the U.K., Italy, Germany, Hungary, and Japan. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">As I type this, it is currently -3 degrees. Samwise is in the bedroom, his head on the pillow where dreams and memories come to me. Emily is under my desk, resting innocently on top of my slipper. It is a comfort to listen to Mozart while the wind rattles the windows of </span></span><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">our warm home as I tap-tap-tap on the keyboard.</span><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">The other day a person who does not know me, other than through my writing, sent me a Christmas card. She wrote: “I know how much you must miss Atticus?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">When I get comments like this, I understand that my acceptance of death is a bit different than most other folks. Talking about one I loved can bring up emotions that spill out of my heart, but otherwise, I’m okay with death. I made friends with her long ago and find kinship in something attributed to Marcus Aurelius long ago: “Death smiles at us all; all we can do is smile back.”</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">This week I had some clenching chest pain. It is something I never worried about in the past, but in my new reality, I have to pay attention to it. After it passed, I talked to a friend about it, and she asked if I was afraid.</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> <br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">“No. I’m ready. Whenever she’s ready to dance, I’ll go.”</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> <br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Of course, I have no desire to die right yet, but when that moment comes, I’ll smile warmly and take her hand as we enter another unknown path for a new adventure. </span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> <br />
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</span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">But until then there is so much to do that I don’t have time to miss Atticus. Life is a verb. Each day I open my eyes. Each day life and lessons come at me. Samwise and Emily keep me on my toes. We live in the now. (Yes, occasionally there are those visits to yesterdays I had cherished, but I wouldn’t wish away what I now have for anything.) <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> <br />
</span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">I’m moved by Atticus. Moved by Will and by Max and inspired to continue growing. I cherish what we shared and what we taught each other. But how can I miss Atticus when he is a part of me?</span><span style="font-family: "ms mincho";"> </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">On days like this, when faced with a version of our story that is now being read in a different part of the world, I feel it all the more. </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7LVY88QtJwPCj34BpakZPpZ4vxpSDakJZeXuPJaR6S1HZmwK8rcIXEQBCQ7eoggwoTtQwzLLsKXYoajPLtK_NzNxtBaBaGUzbKZuOIo77a-7JmTebJJcGw96-XOtpvzzrq-NZiQ/s1600/fullsizeoutput_3c5a.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7LVY88QtJwPCj34BpakZPpZ4vxpSDakJZeXuPJaR6S1HZmwK8rcIXEQBCQ7eoggwoTtQwzLLsKXYoajPLtK_NzNxtBaBaGUzbKZuOIo77a-7JmTebJJcGw96-XOtpvzzrq-NZiQ/s400/fullsizeoutput_3c5a.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-79881434121616424432017-11-27T19:27:00.002-05:002017-11-27T19:30:39.895-05:00The Fifth Week<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">It feels good to end our third walk of the day just after dusk, wrapped in a heavy sweater against the cold as the sun sinks behind the mountains and all fades from silver and black to black and gray, and ultimately to inevitable night. As the shadows grew, winds whipped across the meadow and swayed the treetops. Occasionally an aged trunk groaned when asked to bend in ways it can no longer go.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“Go with it, my old friend,” I wish. For we had lost too many trees in these woods from the flood a month ago. “Bend,” I whisper, “and live in your bending.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Between the sideways flying snow and the raucous chorus from the wind through the trees, Emily cocks her head in an almost mechanical curiosity. She is mesmerized by the snowflakes coming at her and their harmless kisses, and the way her ears catch the flow of air moving across the barren November land. She looks to me as if for explanation and I speak in a language she can understand by tilting my face into those flying bits of white. I laugh and sometimes sing aloud, which she takes for a good sign.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then she spins and dances and takes off after Samwise, who is busy making his inspection of the land he knows like a close friend.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Eventually, this evening, I had to turn my headlamp on to make my way across sheets of ice covered by a thin white coating. I moved to the grass next to the path, but in this cold corner of the eleventh month, even the earth is hard. Above, the wind continues to sing, and I look up at the clouds flying across the waxing gibbous moon and imagine them to be witches on brooms. Enchantment abounds, even in the cold tip of my nose. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">It’s dark early this time of year. All the better for time spent in the kitchen when we get home. I made a shepherd’s pie earlier using lentils instead of beef and sweet potatoes instead of white. The comforting smells are familiar and reminiscent of my childhood. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Once again, Emily, who is getting used to all her senses, stopped just inside the door and lifted her nose.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“Not for you, little one.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Samwise is already sitting by their bowls waiting for their dinner. When she sees this, Emily joins him. Excitement bubbles up like carbonation, but she’s learning patience. This is one of her most difficult tasks to undertake. She wolfs down her food when I tell her it’s okay to eat and when finished she looks to Samwise’s dish. Before she lived here, he’d sometimes leave some food for later, but he knows not to do this now since it won’t be there when he returns for it. I’m sure the slow and methodical way in which he eats infuriates her.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">In the first week, I had to sit with them so that she didn’t try to steal his food. He’s so polite; he let her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In her fifth week, she’s better, and so is he. Reluctantly, he set up his boundaries. He’s taken to heart all his lessons about “being gentle, ” and it shows when it comes to sharing attention and food with her. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Emily is a fast learner and watches both of us to figure out what is expected. I’m happy to report that she already understands the words “Be gentle, please.” I notice it most after their last trip out into the night before we go to bed. Samwise sit’s proudly on top of the bed and delicately takes his treat from between my fingers. She watches from the floor and follows suit.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">I fancy this effort on her part. One so young trying so hard to fit in, to do right, to be gentle as she’s asked. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Five weeks. Is that all?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Time spills together. Weeks and months and years. I look at the photos and drawings of Will and Atticus hanging on the walls to the red coat above my desk, and I see this two-year-old and this puppy who is only seven-months-old. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Different ages, different lives, and yet all of it stitched together with golden thread like a quilt with each patch a different scene. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">We’ve been enjoying our time away from the online world. We’ve visited a few friends, one who is dying; gone for long walks; read poetry and prose; written letters and holiday cards; stocked the kitchen shelves for winter, and I’ve even decorated a little this Christmas season.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Carols fill our home. The notes and melodies nudge me until memories come and go. I think back to my mother I cannot remember but all the decorations she left behind for us, and to my early Christmases when I was just as filled with wonderment as Emily is now. Sometimes I see myself in her eyes, and this fifty-six-year-old man becomes a boy again.</span></span><!--EndFragment-->
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-43567489898182228852017-09-06T12:01:00.000-04:002017-09-06T12:02:08.695-04:00Best Friends Magazine Reviews Will's Red Coat<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Click to enlarge.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisSXuzI4aWSd3CGj9Qr4egKLQOniOVYXtfbZn6If8eCHoZxe7N1f693ks45Ih-6DfyCFutiNMAhNPh6n3ItfzIlvk4bUH6fX7NhoRYHUmwK6LrdD6r4ts8EWeM9b4IcxVFwuBW3w/s1600/fullsizeoutput_389d.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="684" data-original-width="1520" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisSXuzI4aWSd3CGj9Qr4egKLQOniOVYXtfbZn6If8eCHoZxe7N1f693ks45Ih-6DfyCFutiNMAhNPh6n3ItfzIlvk4bUH6fX7NhoRYHUmwK6LrdD6r4ts8EWeM9b4IcxVFwuBW3w/s400/fullsizeoutput_389d.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-70334361280327681272017-08-10T16:05:00.003-04:002017-08-10T16:06:42.240-04:00From Our Time on the Trails this Morning<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">I don’t spend much time in the
past. I don’t wallow in sadness, spend prolonged periods mourning or wishing
things were different. On occasion, though, I find myself thinking of those who
have left this life. It’s only natural. Memories float to me like the
fragrances of wild flowers or the smell of late afternoon shade on a hot summer
day. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Lately, I’ve been thinking about
my Aunt Marijane, who I wrote about in “</span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Wills-Red-Coat-Story-Chose/dp/0062444980/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0062444980&pd_rd_r=TNK2VPWS2661T22YW414&pd_rd_w=MWSuR&pd_rd_wg=0HNGR&psc=1&refRID=TNK2VPWS2661T22YW414" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: red;">Will’s Red Coat</span></b></a><span style="color: #eeeeee;">.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">She comes to mind when I’m
ruminating on something, not so much trying to figure things out, but merely
digesting a turn of events, a new horizon, or a moving experience. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">We both had the gift of gab and
could talk for hours several times a week, but we also knew the importance of
listening to each other. It's is one of the reasons our love and friendship
flourished as it did during the time we had together. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">What I miss about her is the way
she listened. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Just listened. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">She didn’t feel the need to
offer an answer. She didn’t make suggestions. She was present, offering herself
completely to me. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">That measure of selflessness is
equal parts wisdom and heart. People who want to know what you are feeling and
thinking, instead of telling you what you are feeling or thinking, or should
be.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Too many listen merely to respond.
Like conversation is a tennis match and you’ve served, and they must return
volley. But what a gift it is to just acknowledge someone, to offer yourself
without judgment, without ego, without the need to be clever.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">As we walk in the woods each
morning, and then again each evening, my feet move thoughtfully, like the
prayers I’m uttering. That’s where my answers lay in wait. In silence, through
walking meditation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">One of the attributes about
having a quiet partner to share nature with is an animal's ability to be quiet.
There is communion between us as we share a trail but still space for our
independent thoughts. In the forest, reflections come and go, and before long
we’re merely out there together striding in the natural world while filling our
souls. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Lately, I’ve noticed how Samwise
has matured over the past year. This morning it was evident as we were striding
along an earthen path and came around a bend only to stand face-to-face with a
doe and her fawn. They tensed and readied to leap and bound off. Before they
did, however, I crouched down slowly next to Samwise, who was fully alert, and
I whispered, “Let them be, please. Let’s just watch, okay?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">No leash. No collar. No need for
a hand or a firm voice to restrain him. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">He sat next to me; his body was
as ready to spring as theirs were. Yet he stayed still, as did they. When he
relaxed, so did they. Instead of bolting, they lingered before peacefully
meandering on. The fawn, trailing behind her mother, looked back at us curiously
as they moved through the undergrowth. The mother seemed to know we were not a
threat.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">These moments of growth serve as
graduation days for Samwise, notches on the wall where I can see how far he’s
come.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Were Marijane still alive and I
told her about this she would offer no explanations or reasons or answers as to
why things occurred as they did in the woods by the stream early in this
morning. She would have taken it in, and we’d talk about it. What’s there to
say, after all? An experience was offered and she received it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">When people ask me what changes
I’ve noted about myself since returning from our trip, I tell them I’m quieter,
more peaceful than I already was. Delving deeper, “I don’t feel the need for
answers as much. I was already feeling that way before the trip but that sense
of experiencing life without having to define it is more prevalent now.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">After Thoreau had died, Emerson
memorialized him. In an essay he wrote: “He resumed his endless walks and
miscellaneous studies, making every day some new acquaintance with Nature,
though as yet never speaking of zoology or botany, since, though very studious
of natural facts, he was incurious of technical and textual science.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">I can relate to Henry in that
way. The science of being isn’t that important to me. I’d rather just be. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">In the forest, along paths that
wind through communities of trees in all stages of life, death, and rebirth I
feel the same way. Science is necessary, but I leave the need to know such
things to others for that’s not why I come to the woods. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Marijane hiked right up until
the last decade of her life. She was fond of sharing trails with those she
loved, but mostly she went into the desert with only a four-legged companion.
Sometimes I see her walking that way. Sometimes I talk to her, and I know what
she’d say in response to my observations. Her voice rings clear. When we sign
off, she joyously offers the same closing she did in life, “Walk in beauty,
Tommy.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">I do my best. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">A loving friend often asks me
the best part of my day. I fear I bore her because my answers rarely change.
It’s typically about our time in the forest, away from the busy world where we
are embraced by the natural world.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Last week I climbed my first
mountain in quite a while. It was clear that I am still rehabbing, still
gaining strength because it wiped me out. It’s the up and down that messes with
my blood pressure and my heart. The dizziness stirs, and I pay attention to it.
After a break, it relaxes its spell and Samwise and I continue. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Still, even knowing that
climbing up is still difficult for me, I am enthralled with the forests and the
streams that nourish them. Slowly I gather strength. A few months ago I
couldn’t walk three miles. Now we log between six and seven a day. At the beginning
of spring, I could not have crouched down as I did this morning near the doe
and her fawn without getting dizzy. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Just as Samwise matures, my
balance and my cardiovascular system improve. Parts of me died last year, and
as in the trees that keep us company, there is regeneration within as there is
without. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">I don’t enjoy every step, as a
well-wisher suggested the other day. Hiking is hard. But I do appreciate the
earned ache in my hips, the way my heart beats at a healthy cadence, and how
good it feels when I lay down each night with a book on my chest and a cool
late summer breeze caressing me from the window above our bed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">The other day, for this first
time in years, I bought some new hiking equipment – a backpack. That is a
victory itself. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">As I told Marijane the other
day, “I’m in the game again.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: auto; text-align: start; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">In this contented monk-like
existence, I feel abundantly alive. In spite of all I survived, I often think
of Tennyson’s words at the end of <i>Ulysses</i>: “To strive, to seek, to find, and
not to yield.”</span><span style="color: black; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-71701591186230367712017-07-22T18:04:00.003-04:002017-07-22T18:07:55.252-04:00The Upcoming Chapters<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: 'Diaria Light Pro', sans-serif;">
<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">We are home, and it feels…</span><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">It feels…</span><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">It’s interesting. </span><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">It’s as if I’ve had a tune-up. I have a set of goals staring at me from the corner of my old desk. They each feel like invitations to go another adventure. </span><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">For now, I won’t go into them. Suffice it to say that I'm overjoyed to be</span> </span>back on the trails we love, swimming and wading in the rivers and streams, and putting in more mileage than we have in the past year. </span><span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "american typewriter";"><o:p style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;"></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: 'Diaria Light Pro', sans-serif;">
<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;"><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Our kitchen has welcomed us home, as has my writing desk. Oh, to sit here is a joy itself. There wasn’t much writing done these last three months save for a few letters and cards to friends. But the written word beckons me. </span><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><span style="color: #eeeeee;">There are two projects I’m currently working on. Both are in the beginning stages. My first novel, and another memoir, a bit different than the last two. </span><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><span style="color: #eeeeee;">An excitement greets me that is fresh and tantalizing when I pick up a pen or sit down at the keyboard to let the words flow. It’s different than it used to be. Writing “Following Atticus” showed me I was a storyteller. “</span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Wills-Red-Coat-Story-Chose/dp/0062444980/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0062444980&pd_rd_r=3JWMTJRWYKYR45HDPDH7&pd_rd_w=AD9BX&pd_rd_wg=05K2O&psc=1&refRID=3JWMTJRWYKYR45HDPDH7" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Will’s Red Coat</span></a><span style="color: #eeeeee;">,” helped along by maturity, experience, and my health issues, showed me I was an author. </span><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><span style="color: #eeeeee;">In “W.R.C.” I took more chances, felt freer, and bolder because…</span><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Because . . . Let’s face it, when you dance with death, it loosens things up. It didn’t change me as much as it reminded me of what I wanted to accomplish. </span><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><span style="color: #eeeeee;">“Will’s Red Coat” prepared me for what comes next in my writing career. It let me know I can handle a novel, that the books will come more freely now. Although I will always love “Following Atticus,” Will’s book may never be replaced as my favorite no matter how many books I author. It’s not so much the story, it’s the writing and where it came from. It’s a new level. </span><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><span style="color: #eeeeee;">As my friend, Paula pointed out, “There’s more of you in there. I really got to know you.” </span><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Thinking about what comes next now has the butterflies in my gut swirling about. After “Will’s Red Coat” I fully believe there are no limitations to my writing. While I grew through my various sicknesses last spring, I’ve grown even more since then. That adds to the tools I can call on. </span><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><span style="color: #eeeeee;">As for Samwise, he’s also grown a great deal. The book tour and the road trip were intense lessons for him. (One day I may tell you about the time he and a bison touched noses.) To see him extend himself into the world, to know his limitations and what to take chances on is a joy to behold.</span><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><span style="color: #eeeeee;">The other day, when a friend asked me if we would ever go out west again, I was honest in saying that I’m not sure. Doctors tell me I’m doing well, considering all that has happened, but the odds are against me living a long life. </span><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><span style="color: #eeeeee;">As one doctor put it, “The best way to describe it to you, Tom, is that there was a dumpster fire inside of you.”</span><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Some things cannot be replaced. </span><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><span style="color: #eeeeee;">I have no plans on dying anytime soon, but it’s a reality I need to confront that I may not live into old age. All the more reason to write as much as I can, while I can. </span><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Before closing to go for an evening walk, I would like to tell those of you who came out to the book events just how much that meant to me. Seeing you face-to-face, hearing your stories, telling me how Will and Atticus touched your lives was a gift beyond any I have ever received. To hear you talk of your struggles with cancer, heart attacks, domestic violence, career changes, divorce, confronting your fears, and overcoming mental and physical challenges is the best medicine for me. That along with your comments about “Will’s Red Coat.”</span><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Facebook tells me we have more than 245,000 followers on our page. As of tonight, there are only 112 reviews on Amazon and 253 on Goodreads.com. But gosh, they are magnificent! </span><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><span style="color: #eeeeee;">Thank you. Thank you! Thank you to everyone who has given a bit of themselves through their words in leaving a note about the story.<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit;"><o:p style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;"></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "american typewriter";">To see how “Will’s Red Coat” has moved those of you who have written reviews blows both my editor and me away. <br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" />It’s incredible. <br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" />By reading Will’s story, you’ve helped to keep his legacy alive. As I’ve said more than once, what was special about Will, what was relatable about him, is that he is every one of us who has ever been broken and had to choose a new direction. Like the subtitle says, he “chose to live again,” just as many of us have done. <br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" />Onward, by all means. </span> </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-32110091174558520662017-07-16T18:03:00.001-04:002017-07-16T18:04:58.475-04:00All Roads Lead Home<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: 'diaria light pro', sans-serif;">
<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">I don’t own a television any longer. A few years back I knew of a single mother whose kids wanted a large flat screen TV but couldn’t afford one, so I gave her mine. <br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" />I have not missed having one. <br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" />We have been on the road for the eleven of the past twelve weeks, mostly staying in hotel rooms. I’ve yet to turn a television on. Tonight, though, will be a rare treat. The Red Sox and Yankees are on ESPN. It’s a fitting way to get us ready for the last three days of driving back to New England. <br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" />I’ve changed the route we were going to take. We’ll still walk into our home on Wednesday, feeling comfortable in a place that has been whistling to us since we’ve left the bison behind.<br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" />Today, I told a dear friend that heading home feels a bit like getting ready for the first day of school. I always loved that feeling: the blank notebook pages and the buzz of the promise of what was to be. <br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" />Back in Jackson, we’ll get back into our routine, but things will also be a little different. I look forward to sitting at my desk, writing as I digest recent experiences. I crave spending time in my kitchen and cooking meals from scratch once again. And yes, I look forward to the familiar trails that await our happy feet. But home is now different for us, just as we are different. <br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" />I have some ideas of changes to make, pictures to hang, items to dispose of. The desire to become more of a minimalist (although not a full one) tugs at me these days.</span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">“Do I need all these coffee mugs?” <br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" />“What are all these pots and pans for?<br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" />“How many shirts does a guy need?”<br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" />I have no doubt we’ll be ditching about a third of what I own. <br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" />This afternoon, we put an end to our time in Kentucky in a manner befitting our trek. We made our way through the fields and quiet roads of the hotels and restaurants that clutter these acres right off the freeway. Then we discovered a vacant lot, which led to a field of high grass. There was a faint path through it, and we could not help but follow along. Eventually, it took us to a stream shaded by overhanging trees and perfect for wading in on a hot and humid Kentucky day. <br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" />Samwise brought me a stick, and I tossed it upstream. He waded after it, snared it in his teeth, and returned it to me. Again and again, we played out the cycle. It was delicious wading in that fresh, clean water. <br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" />After a spell, I sat on a stone, my legs still in the water, while Samwise dried himself on the nearby grass, coming over from time to time to take a drink. <br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" />How perfect is this, I thought. These simplest of pockets are what has defined our travels. Always in search of the quiet trail or path, sometimes the one that could barely be followed. Often finding our way through the back of highway rest areas through a hole in the fence, or a forgotten opening that led to a field or a neglected road or, in some cases if we were lucky, a forest path. <br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" />These past two months have never been about many destinations. They've been about making up our minds as we drove down the road. Following wind and whim. I see it as a metaphor for the world, for life itself. I rarely care for the answers. What excites me is curiosity and discovery. The mysterious is what lifts my heart and tells me to take note.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "american typewriter";">My favorite people are the ones who are never afraid to say “I don’t know.” Sometimes they say nothing at all. Or they understand I want to figure things out as I go. I’ve never been </span>into<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "american typewriter";"> the folks with all the answers and suggestions. After all, I want a life that works for me, and what works for me is not following the crowd. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">I remember an evening at Jackson Hole a couple of weeks back. I posted where we were, and I was flooded with suggestions on what to do, where to eat, what to see, where to go. One snag of advice echoed by several was a certain point along the road where the river bends and reflects the Tetons in the background at sunrise.</span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">I already knew we were not going to stop there because it wouldn’t have been much fun for Samwise to sit right along the road waiting for the sun to show up. But as we approached the area, there were at least fifty people there, cameras and tripods set up to capture the way the rising sun hit the jagged peaks. </span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">Then another turn off that we were told about was upon us. We drove by that one as well. <br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" />Finally, I found a place where people don’t travel very often. I could tell by the conditions and the lack of signs. Bill got us to where we needed to be, and then we left him behind and walked along the river’s edge, not always seeing a path and therefore having to create our own. I sang out loud to give the grizzlies and moose some warning we were in the area. (If my voice didn’t scare them away, nothing would.)<br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" />Onward we walked, hopping logs, finding a path, seeing no one. Ultimately, though, we ended up in a crowded field, but what I loved about it was that everyone there was a wildflower. Among the yellows, purples, and pinks we played and luxuriated in this quiet and remote place. A sprinkling of bison was off in the distance. In another direction, a lone moose waded. Birds sang as the sun rose. And there was Samwise and I so far away from Jackson but feeling right at home.<br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" />Today’s late afternoon walk to the stream was a lot like that glorious morning in the Tetons. Simple gifts, solitude, quiet for giving thanks and saying prayers, and a place to play in with Samwise. <br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" />Our trip has been about seeing much of the country outside of New Hampshire, but not always the most popular ones. I've sought out places of freedom where we could both enjoy ourselves. It has been a ball. But all roads lead back home because home is wherever we are. <br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" />For nearly three months we have been away from our little hobbit hole and yet there was not a stitch of loneliness the entire time. I like that. It bodes well for the future, and it defines our current state. <br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" />I know we are both ready for whatever comes because all that is guaranteed is the unknown. I figure we’ve learned to embrace that.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-38546980554399931832017-06-30T23:39:00.003-04:002017-06-30T23:53:15.035-04:00Our Big Trip, Six Weeks In<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsr0ceJQ-rUEDAA_SkFSmWYw_uppz0wu28QVP4eHWxodb4uvDGUFIew8d3WTG4o7OFAAbZaqK0W48i5qpG2znFH2ldDJgOI3ndf56vZUG1tcQzWf56q2mUjAIAdCbBz7Hobmj7pg/s1600/FullSizeRender.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsr0ceJQ-rUEDAA_SkFSmWYw_uppz0wu28QVP4eHWxodb4uvDGUFIew8d3WTG4o7OFAAbZaqK0W48i5qpG2znFH2ldDJgOI3ndf56vZUG1tcQzWf56q2mUjAIAdCbBz7Hobmj7pg/s400/FullSizeRender.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'american typewriter';">I have lost track of time. However, studying the calendar and adding up the days tells me we are now on Day 42. The original plan was 60 days, and I think we’ll come close to meeting that mark. We’re not quite at the three-quarter mark and yet time is running out on us. We need to be in La Grange, Illinois for a book event on July 13 and Andyville, Kentucky on July 15. I’m looking forward to both those events, but I also realize they’ll serve as a reality check that the daydreaming part of this odyssey will be over.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">This has me doing something I haven’t done much of. I need to plan our days out carefully between now and Chicago to maximize what I want to see and do in the west. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"> <br />This evening, Samwise and I took a leisurely walk, then drove through the temperate air over to Whitefish, a few towns away, to visit their remarkable dog park. He is a social animal, more so than I am, and I see to his needs. I find plenty to talk about with those I meet, but I can also last days without conversation, especially when I am at home. <br />
<br />We met a genial fellow there who is originally from New Hampshire but has lived out here for more than a decade. Turns out he’s on the dog park committee and was justifiably proud that the New York Times listed their park as one of the ten best in the country recently. As Samwise played with his dogs we talked about New Hampshire and, before we left, I gave him copies of Following Atticus and Will’s Red Coat. <br />
<br />I don’t do that often, but it seemed the right fit and, he was quite pleased. <br />
<br />As we drove back to our hotel, the top down on Bill, Jackson Browne playing, and the golden light bathing us, I thought of something a friend recently asked. <br />
<br />“How are you going to handle returning home after seeing what you’ve seen while on the road?”<br />
<br />I replay that question in my head often because I like the answer. <br />
<br />“We live in New Hampshire, which has its own charms.”<br />
<br />Home is home. <br />
<br />I can imagine there will be a transition, to being still again, but we’ll be returning home just before August, the beginning of my favorite four months of the year in Jackson. There will be photographs and memories to think catalog. I have writing to catch up on. I like the routine of our simple life, as you can tell by reading about it in “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Wills-Red-Coat-Story-Chose/dp/0062444980/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0062444980&pd_rd_r=93SRF6EX5JKFWX6SJY3M&pd_rd_w=31Rqi&pd_rd_wg=cqAaO&psc=1&refRID=93SRF6EX5JKFWX6SJY3M" target="_blank"><span style="color: orange;">Will’s Red Coat</span></a>.” <br />
<br />Before we go home, however, there is still much to see, not to mention figuring out the way back to Jackson from Andyville when we do finally leave Kentucky. It will be a sweet route and one that is tempered in a gentler kind of beauty to the land. Already I’m considering a couple of days in a cottage or cabin if we can find one near the Finger Lakes in New York. A night in Cooperstown is also a possibility, and that always is a thrill for me. <br />
<br />Yesterday, we saw a deer, some long horn sheep, and several bison. The wonder of it all is still with me. We’ll be seeing more in the upcoming week, and hopefully some grizzly and moose, too. <br />
<br />I swear, watching that buffalo approach us yesterday was a thrill. I was ready to put Bill in gear in a hurry if need be, but the gigantic fellow’s tail was swishing back and forth casually. He appeared to be more curious that anything else as he approached, and then passed right behind us. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmAXeseG7O-bSy3ll1qM8Aa0tyi_QEpcETDNqNl1iYu-DYxhpc8n35_1jzHAONqsTatMsL-o-EvRlFDod6oSobBrVnqqdTGmScYbfTyUmDphQOj9GjGVwpdXApIUCqcfwb0i2eRA/s1600/FullSizeRender.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1394" data-original-width="1394" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmAXeseG7O-bSy3ll1qM8Aa0tyi_QEpcETDNqNl1iYu-DYxhpc8n35_1jzHAONqsTatMsL-o-EvRlFDod6oSobBrVnqqdTGmScYbfTyUmDphQOj9GjGVwpdXApIUCqcfwb0i2eRA/s400/FullSizeRender.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";"><br />Samwise has matured throughout the trip, even from that moment when he saw his that elk at the Grand Canyon and was excited by the idea of playing with it. With all the animals he’s seen since, he’s taken them in stride and remained a still and studious observer. I’m proud of him. <br />
<br />Even at the dog park, while he was racing and romping with others, whenever I called him to me he was attentive as he pulled himself away from the pack. <br />
<br />I look forward to seeing how this translates to the trails back home. Before, not only was his body too immature to hike, his mind was as well. He’s ready now, though. It appears I may be, too. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5oz34as-YHctSfqIR1NCcjAzvwyXoQqRimQ0tY7cChI3_DBEEdPDWZWsyM-ZF1ZG3B-_6jQZBnmJC9xT8RMp9yCYsGA_IfZXEPJBruqMsVmf4_coLbGkNMZRglAaJanvBZ1jwcg/s1600/FullSizeRender.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5oz34as-YHctSfqIR1NCcjAzvwyXoQqRimQ0tY7cChI3_DBEEdPDWZWsyM-ZF1ZG3B-_6jQZBnmJC9xT8RMp9yCYsGA_IfZXEPJBruqMsVmf4_coLbGkNMZRglAaJanvBZ1jwcg/s400/FullSizeRender.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Teaching Samwise to approach quietly so we can watch the ducks and heron. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">Over the next several days we’ll be back to rising before the sun to have the parks to ourselves, not to mention the best lighting for photographs. It feels weird to have the alarm go off at four in the morning while we are away from home, but when we get to linger in the solitude of places that will be crowded a few hours later, it’s well worth it. <br />
<br />As I sit here writing tonight, I realize that the full scope of this adventure will not hit me until long after we are home. However, I still make it a point to give thanks and take quiet moments to reflect on our good fortune, especially compared to where we each were just over a year ago. </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-91279999109062106622017-04-11T11:20:00.004-04:002017-04-11T11:21:05.503-04:00The Will's Red Coat Book Tour<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6w5yXryIBI2DekneFsx3zB5b7vAQ-4cH0f3QsPPTLPot-yjS9UI80sdtV_8N8ClSzF1PMnkZ7Wqk1vD9McWBNNsco8r0VDMQ5dfsDjyTNdQSP7KSrTAnRjLK4ge_ikB1_dPD_Hg/s1600/WILL%2527S+RED+COAT+Tour+Card.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6w5yXryIBI2DekneFsx3zB5b7vAQ-4cH0f3QsPPTLPot-yjS9UI80sdtV_8N8ClSzF1PMnkZ7Wqk1vD9McWBNNsco8r0VDMQ5dfsDjyTNdQSP7KSrTAnRjLK4ge_ikB1_dPD_Hg/s400/WILL%2527S+RED+COAT+Tour+Card.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-69907217596943151562017-02-13T19:33:00.001-05:002017-02-13T19:45:09.028-05:00The Hospital Dream<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Something a little more personal tonight. Some thoughts about what went into writing Will's Red Coat and how we got where we are today.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In my sleep, I often return to a night from last April.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The dream comes for me now and then, and I am transported. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In my dream, I am sleeping. Sleeping so deeply it feels like I am floating in a pool of death, black and still. Everything is calm. Then something changes and I'm propelled out of the depths, and I wake up not knowing where I am. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Again, this all takes place in my dream. And while I am still sleeping, I feel like I am opening my eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Where am I?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There is something on my face. I feel like I cannot breathe. I panic and try to pull it off. A nurse appears and takes hold of my hands.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Tom, it's okay."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Her voice is kindness itself. It is understanding.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I search her face. I have never seen her before. She can tell I am confused.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"You are okay. You have been under for hours."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I try to talk, but there is something over my mouth. I want to breathe. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Again, she holds my hands. "You have to leave it on. You cannot breathe without it."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Where am I?" Although it doesn't come out like that. It comes out like a moan. The angel nurse understands, though.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"You were moved to ICU."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"I thought I was dead."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">After three tries by me, she understands.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"We won't let that happen, but for a little while, we thought you were, too. Something tells me you won't let that happen either, Tom."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That's when I wake up. Always at the same point.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I often find myself back in that dream, in that bright room.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I remember a little more of it each time. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I was fighting for breath and rushed from dialysis when I passed, I'm told. I was out for a very long time, some of it induced by the doctors. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I don't know why I go back there. When I do, I travel across fields of emotions. There are tears and smiles. There is acceptance.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When I learned I had a monstrous breathing machine on to help me; I asked the nurse for my phone. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"You can't call anyone right now, Tom. You need to keep the mask on. It is how you are breathing."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"I don't want to call anyone."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I had to repeat it so she could understand me. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Then why do you want your phone?"<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"I want you to take my picture so I can send it to my friends, so they can see I am okay... and handsome as ever. They worry about me."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">She laughed, and I smiled and gave her the thumbs up, but you can't tell from the photo she took.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I don't know why my dreams take me back to this night, but it happens about once a month. They don't frighten me. It's just the opposite. I find a curious comfort when I return. The quiet. The starkness with all that flooding light as I emerge from the depths. There is an understanding that I am alive when maybe I shouldn't be.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I think perhaps I return to that place when asleep because there is no way to comprehend it all when I am awake. In slumber, I can float through it all and pick up a lost piece here and there. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I know there are no answers, although some pretend to know what they cannot possibly. It is all part of a mystery.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">The other night, after I finished reading the opening of </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Wills-Red-Coat-Story-Chose/dp/0062444980/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0062444980&pd_rd_r=ZR4QZA4V4GW2RYQ7HCZZ&pd_rd_w=A775D&pd_rd_wg=2nGEE&psc=1&refRID=ZR4QZA4V4GW2RYQ7HCZZ" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">Will's Red Coat</span></a><span style="color: #eeeeee;">, I pointed out that I wrote it as two different people. The first draft before my extended hospital stay; the second draft much later, when I could finally think straight again. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When considering that strange night when I woke up, and they were emptying my lungs of fluid that was drowning me with a needle longer than any I had ever seen, it felt like I owned all I had ever known but was also starting from an entirely new place.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I would leave the hospital a month after that night and Atticus would leave me twelve days after my return. That's when the dream, or memory, came most often. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When I think of everything that has changed since that May Day when Will arrived, all that living, all that work, the struggle, the growth and joy and surrender, and then the parting, and my almost leaving, followed by Atti's leaving, I realize I'm changed from who I was before it all.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There is much that went into writing Will's Red Coat. There was the old me and the renewed me. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the moments before we go on stage or in front of a crowded bookstore during each event of our upcoming tour, I will revisit all of this. I'll carry it with me when I stand before everyone. I will think of dear Will, resolute Atticus, and that night I go back to. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I am a charmed man to have experienced so much. I feel wealthy to be able to carry it with me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the next few days, our tour will be announced, and it will become even more real. After each event, after all that excitement, when we get back to our hotel room, and I turn out the light, I get the feeling I will say my prayers, and when they are sent off, I'll whisper to Atticus and Will, we did well tonight, my friends. We did well. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I look forward to seeing many of you out on tour during the few weeks we are on the road. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Onward, by all means.</span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-36715955179099492552017-02-09T09:21:00.004-05:002017-02-09T09:21:43.523-05:00A Letter About Will's Red Coat<div style="font-family: Helvetica;">
<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">In the next week or so, advance reader’s copies of “Will’s Red Coat” will be making their way across the country to media outlets and bookstores to give them a preview of what is to come. (A.R.C.s are a paperback version of the book that is 98% done. It is used as a marketing tool.) </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">In the past a member of our publishing team would write a letter to accompany the A.R.C. However, this time I was asked to write it. I thought I’d share it here with all of you this morning.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSuP3SvsoGRgYckEqkpWBdyHvRTQ6tOLX1-xb8iaTJYgmo8P2CBFxNoa6WdeXmZFyRsDAsIRd9fn0q4uEAM0789ko6K0aD847WnkbC7HJWQOp4kEDllwd5HbM1dhxrSjiiYDoJfA/s1600/DSC05370.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSuP3SvsoGRgYckEqkpWBdyHvRTQ6tOLX1-xb8iaTJYgmo8P2CBFxNoa6WdeXmZFyRsDAsIRd9fn0q4uEAM0789ko6K0aD847WnkbC7HJWQOp4kEDllwd5HbM1dhxrSjiiYDoJfA/s400/DSC05370.JPG" width="266" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter; font-size: 14px;">Dear Reader,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter; font-size: 14px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter; font-size: 14px;">Just outside, a soft December snow falls. Evergreens, birches, and maples are coated in white. Even the lone old black ash tree that has been dying for years is made to look young again. Such is the magic of transformation through Nature. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter; font-size: 14px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter; font-size: 14px;">I no longer look at our backyard the way I used to before Will came along. He changed the way I see the simplest things, reminding me that they are often miraculous themselves. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter; font-size: 14px;">You see, Atticus and I always had the grandeur of the mountaintops, climbing close to three thousand of them in a decade. But Will helped me to recognize the extraordinary in what we often take for granted. The optimistic yellow of dandelions in the spring, the nostalgic smell of summer shade, the crunch of fallen leaves during autumn in New England, and the purity of icicles in the winter. They were all gifts that helped a fifteen-year-old deaf dog who struggled to walk and see—who had lost everything, including his home, trust, and hope—to regain himself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter; font-size: 14px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter; font-size: 14px;">I brought Will here to give him a place to die with dignity. Those early days were rough for all of us, but on his way to dying, he did something no one expected. He chose to live again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter; font-size: 14px;">What was to be a brief two- or three-month stay grew into two and a half years of wonder. When the time finally came to say goodbye to Will, I was surprised by how right it all felt. Instead of grief I had nothing but reverence for a friend, who in the end, got it right. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter; font-size: 14px;">Will left behind a legacy where hundreds of thousands of his fans were touched by one bright soul. None of those more than me. Each day when I look up above my desk and see his red coat hanging there, I smile and think that Will, who was once an afterthought discarded in a kill shelter, was transformed into something extraordinary by Nature, and by love, faith, and friendship.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter; font-size: 14px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter; font-size: 14px;">On the night before he died in my arms, I knelt next to Will and told him I would tell his story. I’m honored to have kept that promise. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter; font-size: 14px;">Onward, by all means,<br />Tom Ryan</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: American Typewriter; font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: #eeeeee;">You can pre-order </span><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062444981/wills-red-coat#" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: red;">Will's Red Coat</span></b></a><span style="color: #eeeeee;"> any number of ways. It will be available wherever fine books are sold. But you can also pre-order a personalized copy of it from my local bookstore, </span><b><a href="http://www.whitebirchbooks.com/a-message-from-tom-ryan.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;">White Birch Books</span></a></b><span style="color: #eeeeee;">.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdfNnej_jHM23cmfMM4xDbyOHnv7oA20zGUF-n1vH0OW-MLLZbvzIOXY_1K-j3O9J5aRjDMqRJL3C9-09g7zA0oIsJVSCCt5UBa_Iku-Os6kIjF8ay8TqxbwyvqhKylo_UMrnFnQ/s1600/8110LMpk2dL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdfNnej_jHM23cmfMM4xDbyOHnv7oA20zGUF-n1vH0OW-MLLZbvzIOXY_1K-j3O9J5aRjDMqRJL3C9-09g7zA0oIsJVSCCt5UBa_Iku-Os6kIjF8ay8TqxbwyvqhKylo_UMrnFnQ/s400/8110LMpk2dL.jpg" width="263" /></a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-28445489988627426032017-01-05T15:48:00.002-05:002017-01-05T15:48:36.507-05:00Stars Aligning<div class="" style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">
<span style="color: #eeeeee;">Oh, how the winter night calls to us. Yes, there may be less light these January days than we’d like, but in the darkness, the stars shine brightly. For me, it has always been a metaphor for my faith. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;">The other night Samwise and I were in the forest, having timed our walk so that we were there in the darkness. It’s part of his training, and part of my joy. Slowly I have been introducing my young companion to various aspects of the natural world he’ll deal with when he’s ready to hike without limitation. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;">A couple of weeks ago during a talk I gave at the Currier Museum of Arts in Manchester as part of their celebration of the White Mountain artists of the 1800s, I was asked why I was limiting Samwise’s time on the trails. The first answer is a simple one, something I fear is being lost as hikers become more aggressive with their pursuit of hiking goals. A dog’s body needs to mature. He’s just turned a year old, and I won’t feel comfortable getting him out on a mountain and on a trail longer than five miles until he’s eighteen months old. His joints and his bones need the time. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;">However, there is another issue. It’s the mental aspect of hiking. Samwise is still a pup, gregarious and joyous with boundless energy. But he doesn’t know yet what he doesn’t know. He needs to be aware of his limitations. His first experience with ice was comical, but it was carefully monitored so that he didn’t fall through it into deep water. He’s still learning about wildlife and he’s so friendly I'm concerned about his encounters with those who might not take so kindly to his enthusiasm. Especially moose and porcupines. He’s also still learning to be a good citizen, to fit in appropriately with people and understand that it is not okay to jump up on folks when he meets them. Or to understand that not all people like dogs. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;">I fully respect all of this, and I want him to be a bit more seasoned before he heads up into the mountains of New Hampshire. But that still leaves us plenty of gentle hiking throughout the region. A favorite locale has become Thorne Pond. I’ve written about its lyric setting before, but it is a perfect training ground for him to learn to sit, stay, observe, and be polite. </span></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">
<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><br class="" /></span></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">
<span style="color: #eeeeee;">Fortunately for me, he’s the smartest four-footed fellow I’ve lived with. He picks up on things quickly. He’s obsessively observant. He’s learned to sit and watch the locals like the lone otter and the lone heron as they live their lives around the pond. He’s done well with bears encountered along the trail, and although he sorely tempted, he restrained himself from running with a fox. (Frankly, I’m not sure the fox would know what to make of my smiling friend as he tried to lick him to death.)</span></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">
<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><br class="" /></span></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">
<span style="color: #eeeeee;">More than any other dog I’ve been acquainted with, he loves to look up. At night, I’ll wake in bed seeing him next to me sitting and looking out the window. In the middle of the evening, he’s drawn to the moon and the stars. When we are in the car and moving down the road, when a bird flies overhead, he watches until it leaves his sight. Recently, when I bought a convertible and while visiting friends on an unseasonably warm Christmas Eve down in Newburyport, I took the top down. He was mesmerized by the lights downtown, and the stars when we reached the countryside. </span></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">
<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><br class="" /></span></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">
<span style="color: #eeeeee;">When we were in the woods the others night, I let him run as he’s wont to do, but I kept recalling him to my side. When we entered the meadow, I stopped in my tracks at the vision of Mars, the moon, and Venus lined up perfectly in a small area. I called Samwise back and asked him to sit with me. As I knelt, he sat. That’s when he looked up and saw the three celestial bodies together. He didn’t move, other than to keep his head craned upward in wonder. I felt his body's weight against mine, felt his warmth and his calm. </span></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">
<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><br class="" /></span></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">
<span style="color: #eeeeee;">The past year has been one of intense experiences for me. My near death, Atticus’s unexpected death, Samwise’s unexpected arrival, my long recovery, finishing the final draft of my latest book. But at that starry moment, all time and past and future disappeared. I felt my place in the universe with pure understanding. As Emerson would say in his Transcendental way, or Muir in his kinship of the wild, Samwise and I were with our peers out in that snowy field, with stars so brilliant, so bewildering, and humbling, I couldn’t help but feel I was part of all we saw. And that little line that divides man and beast vanished and what we shared was the sacrament of communion. </span></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">
<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><br class="" /></span></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">
<span style="color: #eeeeee;">Nature has a way of bringing us home. If we pay attention to her ways, if we have reverence for her, and gratitude, the song that emanates in her heart, plays in ours. Every vibration is there for us. Every quaver, every octave, and note. No matter what life throws at us – the good, the bad, the day-to-day – we are always part of the grand scheme of things. All we need do is recognize it. </span></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">
<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><br class="" /></span></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">
<span style="color: #eeeeee;">That night, with Samwise by my side, both of us intoxicated the heavenly firmament, I recited some simple words from that old New Hampshire farmer, Robert Frost. Perhaps his shortest poem, “A Question.”</span></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">
<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><br class="" /></span></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">
<span style="color: #eeeeee;">“A voice said, Look me in the stars</span></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">
<span style="color: #eeeeee;">And tell me truly, men of earth,</span></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">
<span style="color: #eeeeee;">If all the soul-and-body scars</span></div>
<div class="" style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">
<span style="color: #eeeeee;">Were not too much to pay for birth.”</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-1402015729778185392016-12-28T11:24:00.000-05:002016-12-28T11:24:06.538-05:00ATTI - 48<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">I
am a strange bird in that I toe the line between pragmatism and romanticism.
This occurred to me last night as I looked back on what transpired at our town
clerk’s office in the morning. Karen Burton, I must say, is the kind of clerk
every small town should have. She runs everything cleanly and with a smile.
And, if you are friendly, as we are, she gives grand hugs at just the right
time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">I
registered our new car with her by filling out the forms and writing two checks
– one to the State of New Hampshire; the other to the Town of Jackson. Then she
brought forth a set of new license plates.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">That’s
when I paused. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">It
hit me that I wouldn’t be carrying my old license plate with me and I thought
about another vanity plate which would update the latest chapter in my life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">Stumbling
for a bit, I decided to go with the anonymous numbers she handed me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">“Anonymous
is good,” I told myself. “Yes, that’s the way to go.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">I
thought about the times over the past nine years since we moved to New
Hampshire where we’d be parked at a trailhead while hiking or merely walking in
the woods and Atticus and I would return to our car to find people waiting for
us. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">The
license plate gave us away. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">ATTI-48.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjidTspxq8jbJcBE2j2_620wmMu118qeuNOA7Z40OFMJ3lnHTeGR1HeRvJ93S-r2-IjDknbFLXhRXWFqmWeCCa3p1M1hKGJTmGZfMzwlYmmNEYS0ULxGTM_n6F6MRwE_BjSg-9thg/s1600/FullSizeRender.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjidTspxq8jbJcBE2j2_620wmMu118qeuNOA7Z40OFMJ3lnHTeGR1HeRvJ93S-r2-IjDknbFLXhRXWFqmWeCCa3p1M1hKGJTmGZfMzwlYmmNEYS0ULxGTM_n6F6MRwE_BjSg-9thg/s400/FullSizeRender.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">It
seemed harmless enough when we moved north from Newburyport, and it summed up
our lives nicely enough. We were haunting the forty-eight four-thousand-footers
religiously. But when I ordered them we were known only to the hiking
community.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">Times
have changed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">Whenever
Atticus and I shared the woods together, it was mostly just Nature and us. The
soft sighing of the breeze through the trees, or the bellowing of winds above
treeline. The murmur of streams, the rush of rivers. The challenge of a steep,
rocky trail where every footstep was managed carefully, the comforting flat
path through a flat forest. No matter what we faced, it was Atticus and me –
and the elements. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">So
peaceful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">Although
it was kind of people to sit by our car and wait for us to say hello, after
miles in the forest my introverted self takes over. For however long we were in
the woods introspection and reflection took over and to be jarred back to
having to be “on stage” once back at the car always felt awkward to me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">Saying
goodbye to the Atti-48 plates was the right thing to do. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">Still,
as the day wore on and night fell, and stars took flight, I thought of what
those old license plates mean to me. Atticus never had a collar (until the very
end when he was deaf), and he never had tags. There was nothing left behind for
me to memorialize since, like me, he wasn’t into things as much as experiences.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">However,
as I sit here looking at Will’s red coat hanging on the hook above my desk, it
now feels comfortable to have ATTI-48 right next to it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">As
for the other plate (for there are two of them), it’s going to a very special
place and the only other person I’d want to have it. It will soon be taking up
residence in Steve Smith’s store, The Mountain Wanderer. Steve was our first
friend up here, and his books fed our curiosity as two unlikely hikers took to
these enchanted mountains. His guide books led us to where we needed to go. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">His
store is located along the Kancamagus Highway in Lincoln, and it is a gathering
place for hikers looking for maps, books, advice, and conversation. It is the
heart and soul of our hiking community, and its humble ways stand in stark
contrast to the solipsistic hiking sites that now are filled with selfies
instead of photos of mountains. Steve, and The Mountain Wanderer harken back to
what is most important: the mountains, their lore, and their history.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">I
like knowing that Steve will have ATTI-48 with some of his other memorabilia.
And he tells me people will enjoy seeing it in the window and fans of Atticus
will smile knowing it is there. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">As
I wrote to a friend last night, I’m at a very tender place these days, halfway
between Christmas and New Year’s Day. I stand on the threshold of an exciting
new year where our second book will be published, and a third one will be
written. I don’t linger too long with nostalgia, but occasionally it catches up
to me and whispers in my ear, it’s gentle lips brushing against my cheek. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">It’s
been quite the year and switching that license plate out and replacing it with
something completely different is just one more step away from a past that was
fertile and unforgettable. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
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<style>
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mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
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<span style="font-family: 'American Typewriter';">And
yes, I understand a 2017 black on black VW convertible will stand out in a
region known for “hiking vehicles,” but at least it won’t be quite the
advertisement our old vanity plates were. But as I write this I cannot help but
think of it as another page being turned. A page from a very extraordinary
story in my life.<span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-8851411350413824432016-11-10T10:32:00.002-05:002016-11-10T10:43:52.687-05:00The Lessons of Miss November<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPZlfZkhgYGzQTNAuU74lkDvvJFiNlkqjWwF8h2Hn_Yv4i2CfpAFw3bVCch5wp_taLh2cHkU2-y3l_QFPAKheQir_AyPtUsO7i7RRTuzHMnqL6ts0RFku8jjo99OuxEGZl_aGiAA/s1600/FullSizeRender.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPZlfZkhgYGzQTNAuU74lkDvvJFiNlkqjWwF8h2Hn_Yv4i2CfpAFw3bVCch5wp_taLh2cHkU2-y3l_QFPAKheQir_AyPtUsO7i7RRTuzHMnqL6ts0RFku8jjo99OuxEGZl_aGiAA/s400/FullSizeRender.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">It helps not to have a television, or to visit big box stores or the outlet chains. Without those, a natural rhythm unfolds. The world slows down. I can feel it exhale and inhale. Holidays remain holidays, celebratory resting points throughout the course of a year, and not something highlighted in a mailed circular or a trite phrase in a Hallmark Card. Here in the mountains, where nature infuses our lungs with kiss after soft kiss of her ever-changing breath, the bare essentials thrive without distraction. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">Thanksgiving is upon us. The focus used to be on an abundant turkey dinner that pulled a flotilla of pies behind it, and bookshelves decorated by the wax fruit of my family’s cornucopia, and the decorative pilgrim and turkey candles (that were never lit). These years, however, for me it’s about how the forest has slipped out of her clothes and stands naked. Those of us who truly love her, love her most now - without the make-up, the coiffed hair, smoky eye shadow, painted lips, or fancy clothes. Miss November has arrived unabashedly and lives out loud. Her verse is as simple as "take me as I am." </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">This morning, Samwise, who has grown over the past six months into the body he will have for at least a dozen years to come, trotted ahead of me on the trail. Where the path turned along the river’s edge, he stopped and sat down, his head tilted to the side, his ears focusing like radar dishes. There are moments I see a calm in is eyes, that belies his youth, but it is often overtaken by the wonder of things he’s meeting for the first time. </span><span style="font-family: "american typewriter";">He is a most curious fellow. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">What caught his attention this morning was a hum, and a soft vibrancy, the symphony of the leaves of the young beech trees that have decided to winter in the mountains. While most of the forest is somewhere between silver and gray, the beech leaves have just turned bronze. They are beginning to dry, and curl at the edges. Eventually the sun will bleach them and they’ll become ghosts in the sylvan landscape until they fall in the spring. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">What Samwise heard was the tapping of hundreds of invisible feet - dance steps. This is a trait of the mysterious beech. The forest air can seem as still as January ice, but a single beech leaf can catch a melody, a whisper, and start fluttering. A couple of months from now, when the wind barrels through the forest and the leaves are drier, they rattle with a frequency that calls you closer. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">This morning, hundreds of beech leaves were quivering and Samwise heard them. He moved closer, sat down again, and touched his nose to one of them. It so surprised him that he looked up at me. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">Old Celtic legend has it that when you see a cyclone of leaves spinning up from the ground that the little people are at play, or war. This is the time of year when I channel the poet William Butler Yeats. I fancied that the way the leaves were moving this morning was a sign that the wee folk were trying to get our attention. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">They had certainly captured Samwise’s. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">What he didn’t notice was the red squirrel sitting on a branch five feet above his head watching him. I smiled when he looked in my direction, and sat down next to Samwise, whose fascination with the vibrating leaves continued, and even though it was cold we stayed for the show. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">When we eventually moved on, another turn in the trail brought us to a construction site. We looked up at a massive pileated woodpecker who was drilling in an old maple. Rat-a-rat-a-whap! His head both manic and controlled. His industriousness in digging for his food was almost violent. I watched Samise's move his head slightly back and forth, back and forth, as if under the bird's spell. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">Call me a fool (although I feel anything but foolish) because I greet these trees and these souls in the forest, and I’ve urged Samwise to sit and study them instead of giving chase. My homily to him is a common theme: “This is their home, and we are visitors. Please be gentle.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">He is responding well. He'll sit for an hour watching the beavers, the lone slippery otter in the nearby pond, and the heron which turns from statue-still to a pterodactyl in flight. He studies things differently than Atticus used to. There is more of a spring in his gaze, a clever joy, whereas Atti was the essence of Zen. Atticus was so still, both in body and soul, that wild things approached him. Samwise has learned to be polite. He’s respectful, but cannot imagine anything wild, be it flora or fauna who does not want to get to know him. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">I reassure him that in being still, he’ll become approachable, and life won’t flutter away like an excited butterfly. It is a joy watching him take to these lessons while he gets to know Miss November in her undeniable grace. There’s nothing about her that is not right in front of us. She is the natural world’s antidote for all things Kardashian, vain, and vapid. November has a depth that mesmerizes. It is the reality we need in a world taken over by the fiction and drama of reality television. What you see is what you get, which is always more than enough in the natural world. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">Meanwhile, the <i>unnatural</i> world careens at us like Christmas decorations that appear before Halloween, and chaos and anger spout and vent themselves in politics. While our nation gives birth to a new and strange era, where violence of thought, word, and deed are not only acceptable, they are now also rewarded, I find myself needing these lessons I’m sharing with Samwise just as much as he does. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">I am aware that the only way I can approach the sharp edges is by softening my own. I cannot change what comes at me, only my response to it. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">Each month, a new teacher steps forward. Each season brings new lessons. We stretch and we grow. Soon, with each year, the friendship of two souls will be set in something more lasting than stone, something everlasting. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">For now, though, I’ll let November take us by hand and by paw to lead us to an enchantment that has been choked in the civilized world. </span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-60041871513169991902016-10-20T09:16:00.000-04:002016-10-20T09:16:34.954-04:00Morning Reflections<div style="font-family: Helvetica; letter-spacing: -0.23999999463558197px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">It's not that early, but the stars and planets are still out. Slowly they turn and shimmer in the predawn sky outside my bedroom window as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XISBJ-MJ0HI&feature=share" target="_blank">I listen to music</a> and write letters. I'm not sure there are many better ways to start a day than with music, and maybe writing to those I love. (Well, I also find my religion when baking muffins, but not now, not while I'm being good and living mostly on whole foods as my insides catch up with my outside.)</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">I'm not sure what I was thinking back in May when I returned home from the hospital. I guess everything back then was about the necessities. How was I going to stand up? How was Atticus doing? When was I going to make it through a day without falling? I certainly didn't think this far ahead, and I never knew how long the trail would be to finding some physical semblance of myself. Because of that, I worked on my body, but more on my soul. I paid attention to the nuances of how I was feeling, and always . . . Always saying prayers of gratitude. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">I think that's how I survived, even when Atticus didn't. I prayed not in the hopes that something would come into my life but instead for what I was grateful for. No matter how small. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">"Thank you, God, for allowing me to wash the dishes without getting dizzy."</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">"Thank you for letting me hurt, because when I'm hurting at least I know I'm alive."</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">"Thank you for Cassie, my editor, who understands that when we talk on the phone about "<a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062444981/wills-red-coat" target="_blank">Will's Red Coat</a>" that I break down once in a while for no apparent reason and sob until I cannot breathe."</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">"Thank you for David and Lisa for allowing me to use the downstairs so that I don't have to go to a rehab facility."</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">"Thank you for my friends who are always within reach, whether it's Carrie and Gray taking me to the store, or Virginia to a doctor's appointment, or Roy for so much, or everyone else who is kind to me."</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">Then, when Atticus died, I still prayed, even through my grief. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">"Thank you for giving me a love that was something worth filling a book with."</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">"Thank you for allowing me to breathe today, to laugh, to cry, to remember. Thank you for letting me live, although I'm not sure why you did."</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">"Thank you for allowing me to start anew, but with everything I know now."</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">Hell, I even prayed thanks for having almost died numerous times because I knew that even in my weakness it made me stronger, and contributed to my story. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">There was much to be grateful for. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">Six months ago today I couldn't ride in a wheelchair from my hospital room to dialysis because I'd fall out of it whenever I fainted. They'd have to wheel me down a few floors in my bed or send a technician to my room for four hours of kidney cleaning on the days that were the worst. Six days a week I went through the drain of dialysis, and they were preparing me for a lifetime of treatments. The doctors would come by and try to smile and fail miserably, but I didn't. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">Six months ago, I couldn't lay flat in my hospital bed because I couldn't breathe and my lungs were drowning. I had to take oxygen through a hose. I could barely stand, and that was only with the help of a couple of nurses and a walker. Even then, when I couldn't read, or watch television because I couldn't concentrate, I'd look out the window, and I'd pray. Sometimes it was just two words, "Thank you."</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">One of my many nurses said to me, "Why are you so happy every day?"</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">"I have a lot to be happy about." </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">When I wasn't praying, I replayed memories over and over. Always of mountain hikes with Atticus. On the worst of days, when the pain was the deepest, I'd think of our most arduous trips - those marathon treks through weather that turned bad, or up the steepest trails in the Whites at twenty-five below zero, silently pushing step after step with Atti. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">Yesterday, a chilling breeze came up when we were at Thorne Pond. I wasn't dressed for it. It ripped through my clothing and I shivered. Then I remembered all of those days in winter when it was just he and me and we'd emerge above treeline to dangerous winds and frostbite conditions. I'd feel the brutal cold and I'd will myself to be warm. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">It's now the middle of October, and the sun is rising, and the sky is a slate gray. Samwise is eleven months old and being patient about going outside. The same crows that called to Atticus and me, and then Atticus, Will, and me, now call from the black ash tree outside our window for us to come out. I remind myself that I have to dig out my gloves and soon I'll have to start wearing my hiking shoes instead of my Keens. Is my phone charged so that I can take photos on our walk? What am I supposed to pick up at the grocery store?</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">Life is different these days. I have always lived in miracles, but the difference is today, while I still say my prayers of gratitude in a most basic manner, my heart is fuller than it's ever been. Life is more complete. I'm aware of all that has been taken from me, but more so of what I have gained. I have come to understand you have to lose almost everything to realize how much you have. Life, like the seasons, renews itself...and so have I.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">I thank the Universe for friendship, love, and new adventures. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">What will the world show me today? I ask this knowing that I will be ready for whatever it is. </span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com46tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-57166941939636274192016-09-28T09:32:00.000-04:002016-09-28T14:43:15.083-04:00The Experience of Being Alive<div style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Helvetica;">
<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">Dearest friend,</span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">Today is the darkest of days for my friend Virginia and her partner Brenda. They are preparing to say goodbye to their beloved Kiko, a four-legged soul with the best black and white markings I’ve ever seen. She is gentle and kind and lives in their hearts. And, by chance, if it is not today, it will be soon. This morning, they are emptying themselves out in grief. </span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">Alas, there is no escaping death, or what it leaves behind. If we are lucky, we know what it is like to suffer this deepest of losses, because it means we have loved completely and surrendered our hard selves to another. If we are the dying, we should all be so fortunate to have been loved and to leave behind broken hearts left clinging to memories. </span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">I have offered Virginia a few words this morning, but nothing suffices. You know this from the grief you’ve experienced and how it changed your life. </span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">I will forever remember coming home for the first time without Atticus. I screamed at God through tears knowing that I too was so close to death, “Why not take me while you are at it, you bastard?” Yes, there were a few more cuss words in there as well, but I never worry about it. As I’ve told some of my rigid and respectable Christian friends, I am not respectable and have no desire to be. Mine is a less formal and more relaxed relationship with God. What’s a few cross words between friends?</span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">Virginia and Brenda know they are making all the right decisions. How? Because it hurts so much. They are placing Kiko’s peace above theirs. </span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important; box-sizing: border-box;">I would like to be able to tell them that all will okay over time. Their scars will heal, and they’ll move forward. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. I have seen too many that can not let go of their sorrow, and they cease to live. When one they love dies, so do they. They continue to breathe, but that’s about it. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">I met someone a few years ago who told me that a beloved four-legged friend had died seven years earlier, and she still hadn’t found a reason to smile. Oh, my. What to say to such a person? I chose not to say anything and instead I just nodded and went on my way. </span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">We often forget the contract we have with life. We seem to think things don’t have a cost, and that there is no expiration date. But birth, life, and death are all part of the same contract. How we deal with it all goes a long way toward our quality of life. </span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">At my lowest depths in May, I couldn’t imagine how life could possibly go on. I worried about my heart, which had been so diseased and barely functioned. I thought about how the stress would shut down my kidneys, again, or how that massive blood clot that was in me would come loose and block an artery. As I lay grieving in the days to come, nothing anyone said offered me hope. They were kind, but this was an intimate dance I was in. At night, I’d choke on my despair and wake up gasping, swallowing a lung full of air to try to keep from dying there and then. </span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">That’s when it hit me. That’s when I knew I wanted to live. I was worried about my heart. I was fighting to breathe. If I were really ready for death, I wouldn’t be grieving so much. Instead, I would have given up. I wouldn’t have cared…about anything. </span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">The other day, a friend asked me, “How did you do it? How did you get beyond all you went through in that intense period of sickness and heartache?”</span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">“I took a breath. Then I took another. I’d remind myself to get out of bed. I told myself I was alive for a reason. I thought of Atticus and believed that the last thing he’d want is for me to suffer in life. In a way, he was my inspiration to keep going."</span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">My conversations with God continued. Some were heated. Some were kind. There were tears, and laughter, and swearing. But it was all good in the end. I asked about the purpose of life, and thought time and again of Joseph Campbell’s belief that we’re not looking for the meaning of life, but the experience of living. The good, the bad, the hard, the immensity, the emptiness of it all. That’s when I began to smile. I was alive. Completely alive. I wasn’t thriving, but I figured, there’s a reason for this, so I went on.</span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">I was compassionate to those who had suffered loss, and wanted to huddle together and commiserate with me, telling me “I know how you feel?" In the end, though, they didn’t. What they knew was how they felt. So I went on my private journey, took nourishment from friends, and believed that I was not so important that everything should stop because of my weak and broken heart. </span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";"><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important; box-sizing: border-box;">"Thank you, God, for this morning. What strange form of teaching do you have for me today?” I’d ask.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">Faith plays a part in my journey. The sun will come up again, even on rainy days, and, as Robert Frost reminded us when he wrote that he could sum up all he’s learned about life and in three words, “It goes on.” Mine did. Without much direction. I couldn’t write. I couldn’t walk very far. I definitely couldn’t hike. I didn’t have the concentration to read. </span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">But still, I tried. Each day, I tried a little more. </span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">Then, when I worked so hard to rescue myself and felt human again, along came Samwise. People like the narrative of “Who rescued who?” This weekend, a reverend heard me speak of the loss of Atticus and the arrival of Samwise and said to me with doe eyes, “Who rescued who?” I wanted to say, “I fucking rescued myself,” and that’s why Samwise came into my life. Because I chose to live again. But instead, I said, “Go F.Y. and that tired cliche.” I smiled when I said it, and she smiled in return as I reached to her and said, “Matters of the heart are too important for Hallmark catch phrases, no matter how well intended they are.” And we left each other in good spirits. </span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">Lastly, my story of loss has another part to it. </span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">A broken man chose to live again. Chose to rescue himself. Then he chose to love again, and Samwise came for that reason. </span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";"><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">But something else occurred to me. Deep down I knew there was something else to be learned and experienced. Atticus’s departure left a lot of room within me to fill, after all. </span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">I told my friends I was enjoying my monastic life. Some walking, writing, reading, teaching Samwise the lessons he’d need to understand, and continuing with my own lessons. I was healing, and reaching a contented place. </span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";"><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important; box-sizing: border-box;">When many suggested setting me up with someone for a date, I had no desire. It’s been three and a half years, and once you go through a relationship with someone with the traits of histrionic personality disorder, you tend to want to avoid that kind of toxicity ever again. You want to play it safe and not chance revisiting the madness. This was only reaffirmed when I became friends with two others who had dealt with various forms of narcissism and studies show that many of us who survive narcissists, never get involved with anyone again. I held no grudges against the woman I had been with; she couldn’t help being what she was. I was angry with myself for being fooled so completely, when what I thought was a most remarkable woman turned out to be the most regrettable decision of my life. So, yes, being alone was okay with me. I have Samwise and nature and good books and music and nurturing foods, and my health is returning. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">But God had other plans. They included you, dearest. Who knew that such loss and emptiness was preparing me to be filled with a new wonder? New loves a new chapter and experiences.</span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";"><br style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important; box-sizing: border-box;">You seemed to come out of nowhere, and yet it feels like we’ve always known each other. Neither of us has any idea where this journey will lead as we move forward. Life offers no guarantee other than the invitation to participate. But right now, just as Samwise trusted that life had brought him to where he belongs, I too believe that I’m right where I’m supposed to be, just as I’ve always been. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">When I told my friend Jan about the news of us, she was jubilant for me, even though she is going through her own loss. She understands about the fallout from narcissism, and how many just try to get by without taking a chance again. But she is thrilled for me, and for us. For while you and I had pretty darn good lives to begin with, we’ve both decided to dance again. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important;">I have learned that the best way to get over loss is to surrender to it. Wallow in despair. Cry your guts out, ask all the unanswerable questions you can, and then you rescue yourself, and when you do that, you begin to live fully again, and accept the gifts that life is offering you. But it only happens if we choose to move forward, choose to move onward, by all means.</span><span style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important; box-sizing: border-box;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">As I told you last night, one of my close friends who had also suffered in a narcissistic relationship has been paying attention to what we’re going through. When a man reached out to her, where at first she thought of all the reasons not to respond and from what I know ignored him, now she has decided to jump into the pool again and give life with others another try. It would seem that the decision to live again is contagious. As is love. </span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: inherit; background-image: inherit; background-size: inherit; color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important; box-sizing: border-box;">I will now say goodbye, and look forward to whatever song plays for us to dance to. The beat of life and hearts go on, from sorrow to song, we are all we choose to be. Thank you for being uniquely you. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">Now, you’ll excuse me. The rain has stopped, and the birds are singing, and Samwise and I are going for a walk. As we move through the forest, I’ll be saying my prayer while conversing with God, "<span style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important; box-sizing: border-box;">Thank you for this morning. What strange form of teaching do you have for me today?”</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important; box-sizing: border-box;"><br /></span></span> <span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";"><span style="background-attachment: inherit !important; background-clip: inherit !important; background-image: inherit !important; background-origin: inherit !important; background-size: inherit !important; box-sizing: border-box;">From my heart to yours,</span></span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com40tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-65319713076684439642016-09-23T11:00:00.002-04:002016-09-23T11:00:21.974-04:00Dear Atticus<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVDqHcHKg2Ns2qJhiyY1tJxzG0BDCSV3UtjvYydHQBv4pIOXRQacSp3WR6AgrRlb3utjlwHJFDwEU_4B0aNhvcYW_giMAS2YOOzvATtYhCRmWzKe6QSFozWsaaLe-DgGzXswc4PQ/s1600/DSC03259.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVDqHcHKg2Ns2qJhiyY1tJxzG0BDCSV3UtjvYydHQBv4pIOXRQacSp3WR6AgrRlb3utjlwHJFDwEU_4B0aNhvcYW_giMAS2YOOzvATtYhCRmWzKe6QSFozWsaaLe-DgGzXswc4PQ/s400/DSC03259.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">Dear Friend,</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">All those years. The miles. Thousands of mountains. As I sit writing to you, they all run together, and then like a slide show on shuffle, mountaintops and memories come into focus before yielding to the next one. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">It's our favorite time of the year. The sugar maples along the Ellis and Wildcat rivers are beginning to flame red. The wildflowers in the meadows are yellowing, and death becomes hope in the form of seeds. The mountainsides fade and are a lighter shade of green. Occasionally, while Samwise and I walk the paths you and I used to walk, I'll spy a single red maple leaf on the earthen floor. I can't help but stop at each one. I stoop down as to not to disturb it, and then, with some, I feel compelled to pick them up and study them. Not as a scientist would, but as a lover. I take in the lines and the grades of colors, feel the texture of the skin, notice the stem, and when I bring it near, I smell a thousand autumns against my cheek and under my nose. I am touched by the season.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">I often think of you and wish the days could have gone on and on. But that's not life, and that is why we cherish it when we can. So while I'm here, and you are there, please know many remember you. Your good deeds for others, your kindness with other animals, your enduring patience with Will, your prowess on the mountains, your summit sitting, and how we were one instead of two. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">Tomorrow, many will remember you as we walk in your memory in North Conway during the Atticus M. Finch Memorial Walk for the Animals. It benefits the Conway Area Humane Society. While I've rarely been one to put words in your mouth, I imagine you'd approve. Although you would have hated the actual walk. You see, leashes are required, and I know from the very beginning you hated them. Ironically, that's why we moved to Jackson because you could be leash free here. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">When they can catch a glimpse of me, the locals are kind in remembering you. They too have memories of a little dog who did grand things. And still, tourists pour into Jackson from all over the country, and all over the world, wanting to see Atticus's White Mountains. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">The doctors continue to be surprised by my recovery. One tells me he is always surprised because he expected me to be in a wheelchair for a very long time. So when I walk into his office and give him a bear hug, he laughs, and sometimes he wipes a tear out of the corner of his eye. Many of them have now read about you and wish they had met you. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">Down in Providence earlier this week, many of the booksellers who came to know you on tour stopped by our table to offer their condolences. They proudly told me again and again that you will always grace their bookshelves. That's one of the things that makes me smile the most. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">You came into my life, and all I wanted to do was not screw you up. I longed to let you be an individual, not defined by breed or size or species. No stereotypes. I wished to give you a good life. You took it from there, from the first time I held you as an eight week old puppy on the way home from the airport, to fourteen years to the very weekend you arrived, when I held you for the last time under the pine trees in that soft rain. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">Your legacy is that you were your own dog. You had a sense of self. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">Currently, young Samwise Atticus Passaconaway is finding his way in the world. He's very different from you. You both have me in common, along with a keen intelligence, a love of the wild, and your gentleness with other non-human animals. He sits and watches the beavers and the cormorants. He likes to spy on the otters when they play, and he is fascinated by ducklings and their incessant chatter. Once, I saw him touch noses with a chipmunk. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">While he's seen bears at the pond, not a bear has entered our yard since you've been gone. That's a first. There was always a parade of them through the years making their way up from the river, across the lawn, on their way to the restaurants and inns of Jackson Village. Butkus, Walter, Passaconaway, State of Maine, the Jackson Five, the second Jackson Five, and of course our beloved Aragorn, who used to sit in the yard with us watching the blue jays and the butterflies. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">I find it fitting that when you left, so did they. I always said you drew animals to us, and now I know for sure that you did. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">Well, friend, I must go now, and take Samwise out for a walk. Around town, he's on a leash, but in the forest he's as naked as you were, romping along the trails half puppy, half stately mountain dog. He's learning. His is a soul on fire with joy, and he carries your name with him on his way to defining himself.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: American Typewriter;">NOTE: If anyone would like to contribute to any of the members of Team Atticus for tomorrow's walk, you simply have to click on the following link: <a href="https://www.firstgiving.com/team/327369" rel="nofollow" style="cursor: pointer;">https://www.firstgiving.com/team/327369</a>.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36795530.post-35254561175305254632016-09-08T10:28:00.000-04:002016-09-08T11:01:23.802-04:00Part of his Education<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKajKDj_Av0fFHlDMskJ9VYf_HkYOG8E5zJ9NVmvreFfU0I5u_0lzko8KscJ9LpMFikO1GHjar_igXWSkmDulMscBAkLske685XCfieMcu94t2BlfAmURQkhbCiRnL8oVOy2CB4w/s1600/FullSizeRender.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="363" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKajKDj_Av0fFHlDMskJ9VYf_HkYOG8E5zJ9NVmvreFfU0I5u_0lzko8KscJ9LpMFikO1GHjar_igXWSkmDulMscBAkLske685XCfieMcu94t2BlfAmURQkhbCiRnL8oVOy2CB4w/s400/FullSizeRender.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">As the sun was setting, I looked to my left. Seated next to me was Samwise. He was alert but calm, and watching a simple scene play out in front of us. A mother duck and her four ducklings were just below us in the water, quack-quack-quacking away. He had noticed them before I did since he was walking in front of me. He stopped where he was, looked from the ducks to me, and back to the ducks. Finally, he sat, and I sat with him. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">For fifteen minutes we watched them circle in the water, never getting too far from us, always turning back to face us, their constant chatter was busy amusement. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">I repeated my mantra to Samwise, the one I always use around others if I’m not sure how he will act, “Gentle, Samwise. Always be gentle, please.” However, he didn’t need those words, for he wasn’t bothering anyone. He was sitting and watching them, curiosity percolated in his rising and falling ears.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">During our fifteen minutes, the last five under the softest rain shower, he only looked at me two or three times. Mostly he kept is eyes on the young family, and listened to their incessant noise. Occasionally he lifted his gaze to Mount Pickering and Mount Stanton, whose green coats are showing the faintest of a yellow tinge. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">It’s been three months since Samwise arrived, and I couldn’t be happier for him, or us. He’s fit in nicely, is a darn good roommate who respects my things (other than a couple of instances, which we used as teaching moments), and I enjoy watching him grow toward adulthood. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">We forgo many of the terms of endearment society uses when describing non-human animals, mainly because they don’t fit us. And when people try to put the “daddy” label on me, or the “son” label on him, we sneak away as soon as possible. I like that he’s fast maturing toward equality in our relationship. One day he won’t have to be guided regarding what is acceptable and not, and what is respectful toward others, or safe for him. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">The only familial term I use, and I notice that I’ve said it a few times over the last couple of weeks as he ages, is a word I used last night. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">“What say, brother? We ready to go now?”</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">It’s a term I used with Atticus, and later Will. With Atticus, the mountains brought out that kinship in us. All those trails. All those peaks. All those hours through sun and snow and warmth and cold. With Will, as he let his temper evaporate and he accepted his new chapter in life, I was honored to feel a brotherhood with him, realizing that he was making a similar journey like the one I had already made. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">I find it is a word that bonds, and it comes naturally. I don’t want him to be above me, or below me. I don’t deify animals, and I don’t look down on them. Instead, I prefer to look them at them eye-to-eye. But that’s just my choice. Rumor has it that a noted author is writing about book about the words we use when dealing with other species. I hear her argument is that words mean something, and can help or hurt. Language can be a bridge that bonds us or one that is burned. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">As society changes and now refers to our four-legged friends and relations in terms that make me uncomfortable, I find that I adhere to a bond that is centuries old. Most of the learning and togetherness is forged through the osmosis of being with one another hour after hour, day after day. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">I’m not a fan of words that separate. Samwise doesn’t have a “forever home,” he has a home. Just like I do. And while he was a “rescue,” he isn’t now. As the world continues to change, the way society looks at non-human animals, I find comfort in being on the edge, further and further away, towards a life I find to be comfortable. It is one of those examples of how being an introvert helps. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">While it works, for us, I realize it doesn’t work for everyone, and that’s fine with me. I’m not trying to change the world, just live happily and peaceably in my corner of it.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">I often find social media ironic for me. Part of me embraces it, while I also keep a leery eye on it. It is a contradiction that one who likes to spend so much time out of the public eye posts as much as I do. And soon, our lifestyles will face a dramatic temporary change. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">In less than two weeks, Samwise will make his first trip to a big city. I’m honored that the New England Independent Booksellers Association has invited us to be at their annual fall meeting. We’ll encounter many of the bookstore owners I’ve already met when touring with Atticus for “Following Atticus.” I look at some of them as warm acquaintances, and laughter will rise from our conversation. Atticus handled all those kinds of get-togethers with aplomb. Each event has been a celebration of sorts, and I love them, but after they are done, I seek out the quiet and feel the need to regenerate. I’m not the social butterfly I used to try to convince myself I was. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">I like people, but as my friend Martha says, sometimes she gets “peopled out.” I can relate. Some of us are made for crowds. Others are wallflowers. And then there're people like me, who at an event feels very much at ease and self-assured, but once it is over, I like shrinking off into solitude. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">A few days after the NEIBA function, we’ll participate in the Atticus M. Finch Memorial Walk for Animals. It is the first kind of walk I’ve ever participated in. Leashes are required, and I’ve never been a fan of them, preferring to place my four-legged friends in environments where they can be free. Unlike Atticus, Samwise has no aversion to a harness or lead. He’ll do well, I’m sure, in the big city, and then on the walk a few days later. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">But oh, I’m sure I will be touched by the nostalgia of Atticus walking through various cities by my side, or just in front of me, as naked as can be, while civilized folks on cell phones and drinking high-priced lattes stared at him as if he was a savage beast just out of the jungle. The last time we were at NEIBA, Atti and I went for a walk through the city in the early morning. When we came to a Starbucks, he sat outside by the door as I ordered our drinks. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">A crowd gathered around him. Camera phones out. Some were panicked that he was lost stray without a collar. As people approached him, he ignored them. When I came out, he left the circle that had formed around him. I didn’t have to say a word. He just fell into step with me, and we walked along the busy sidewalks without explanation. When we came to a little park, we sat next to each other on a bench, by a statue with a hundred of pigeons on it and around it. I put out his cup of water for him and drank my tea. The noise of the beginning of the workday faded away, as did the excitement of the night before when we met with all those wonderful booksellers. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">So Samwise is in for a bit of a culture shock. From watching beavers and ducks and bear and herons, he will be in a ballroom with many people who are glad to meet him. A few days later, we’ll stroll with Dr. Rachael Kleidon on a walk named after my dearly departed friend, my brother, as I came to know him. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">After the walk, it will be a quarter of a mile down the road to White Birch Books for an hour of meet and greet. It’s an unusual event for us, one where other well-behaved dogs are invited to. When I knew we were doing the walk, I called Laura Cummings at White Birch and said, “What the hell, since we’re being public that day, we may as well be public for an hour at the bookstore and sign some copies for those who want them. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">It will be fun. But by that afternoon, after we take our nap together, Samwise and I will once again find a lonesome patch of land where the only watchful eyes will be those of the trees and the wild things which live there. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">It is part of growing together, getting Samwise ready for the spring book tour and the long road trip that will follow. From the silence of the forest to the buzz of society - it’s all part of this life we live, and it’s all part of his education. Although he’ll be excitable at first, I look forward to the way he’ll eventually grow calm when we meet crowds. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: "american typewriter";">We grow together, towards a brotherhood that feels right, onward, we move, by all means. </span></div>
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