Life Reflections (Page 2)

Writing daily allows me a framework to categorize what is the most meaningful moment I’ve experienced in the last 24 hours. Some days, I have to dig deep to find the moment, or series of moments. Because of that, I am finding that I’m making different decisions daily than I used to so that I have an opportunity to find more meaning in my life. For me, writing daily and clicking Publish gives me a routine to be accountable to myself to notice my life, share what I learn and hopefully after a year, I’ll have enough daily material to creatively find a way toRead More →

It’s funny how the things we have a lifelong aversion to, return to us as our teacher. This morning, I set out for my 2 mile walk along an Arkansas county highway that is near my late mother’s and stepfather’s home. As I was mid-way into my walk, the early morning humid air carried the scent of ripening muscadines. A muscadine is a wild grape that grows around here, and as a child, I was repulsed by the smell. My mother used to make muscadine jelly, and my job was to go out and pick them before the snakes and birds got them. The smellRead More →

Yesterday, we stopped by the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Reserve on our way to Amarillo, Texas on the first leg of our trip back home. The dunes are massive. They are a living geometry of wind, gravity and time. I felt like I was standing in a sine wave, watching the slowed down effects of how we experience our lives in a purely physical way. With any sine wave, you have peaks and valleys, and the experiences we have in our lives if you were to look at it like a sine wave mirror what I saw out there in the desert. TheRead More →

I’ve had a wonderful week in Colorado, and I’m sad to put it in my rear-view mirror, but it’s time to get back to my life in Virginia. The perspective that different landscapes offer me emotionally is why I travel, and I feel more at home with myself now that I’ve had my fix of big, open country where wild is out your backdoor. I found out more about my own need for being outdoors and near water, and fly fishing will be happening in my near future. Virginia has some great trout fishing waters, and I intend to begin exploring them as soon asRead More →

I prefer to travel where the pavement ends and my phone says, “No Service”. Let me also add, as long as I am in a high clearance 4-Wheel drive vehicle. For the last four years, my step-father and I have headed out West to explore forest service roads that lead to spectacular ruins and scenery. Today, four years ago, my mother died. She loved the West, and we go to remember her and reflect upon her life. We also go to unhook from our normal day to day life, and we philosophically explore what it means to live a good life. Forest service roads areRead More →