Blow, blow though winter wind . . .

There are days when I close my eyes. Close my eyes and just sit. Tired. No sighing, no thinking, no trying, no formulating, no strategizing, no analyzing. No worrying, no fretting, no stressing. No wondering, no planning, no designing, no yearning. No wishing, no questioning, no waiting.

Just listening.

Listening to winds blow all around me. Cold wet wind lashing at my back and face. Quiet and empty is the land around me. Loud and aggressive is the wind. It is steady. It bites, cutting thru my layers, my sweatshirt, my tee shirts and my undershirt.

It howls - it moans, on and on it comes. I am so remote on this beautiful lonely ridge. Far away from everyone. I can look out and see two valleys. I can look out and see patches of orcahard and of grazing land.

I can hear the wind. My steady companion on this ride. Flinging sand in my face and dust in my mouth. Cold and relentless it makes me - it will fail - I will conquer this ridge. I will ride till I can ride no more. When I can ride no more I will walk, slowly - purposefully into the wind.

I will not be turned back. Today - today I will climb, downshifting, grunting - ever on - ever up.

I will ride.

I will not turn back.

A ruddy drop of manly blood, The surging sea outweighs

A few years I found Emerson's essay on friendship. I liked it so much I printed it out. I marked it up. I read it over and over - it got highlighted and underlined. Folded and stuffed in my camera bag. I did not agree with all of what he had to say - but he made me think. And I really enjoyed all that I thought about - I will not quote him here - I'll leave that for you. Blogs are so rarely actually read. More often they are perused.

I printed it out again tonight.

I need to dust

Riding to Men's Group

Tomorrow is new.

Today is almost done.

I am tired.


So much to say.




Read a good book - read old letters - listen to people - listen to their hearts, they open up when you do.


Go to bed early. Rise with the dawn. Breath air you have never breathed before. Take the beauty you see with you. Store it away for when all beauty is dark. Grace grows in the winter.

Spring is here.

He has dealt bountifully with me

A Sunday night in Yakima, a windy Sunday night - I can tear traffic thru my open window. I hear leaves and dead grape vines rustle and move in the brisk spring night. My shades clang against the window frame, echoing thru my open apartment.

I'm alone in this city - alone with my thoughts. I lie on the floor and write. Write to think - to process - to flush out these thoughts, these feelings.

I lie on my stomach, my notebook inches from my face. It's pages buffeted by the winds in the night.

All of this helps - this "writing" - the erasing, the rewording, the reading out loud- over and over and over and over again - it must sound. It must sound right. I wish you could hear it spoken aloud. I wish you could hear what is says - what it does not say. What it cannot tell.

Words fail.

They will only bring you so far - they may lead you astray - they may misguide you.


No - No I see I am mistaken - I, my words, fail. I cannot not express fully what I am trying to say. I am inadequate.

and yet - and yet life goes on...

~ ~ ~
How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever?
How long will You hide Your face from me?

How long shall I take counsel in my soul,
Having sorrow in my heart all the day?
~ ~ ~

"How long" is the cry of the Psalmist

I AM sufficient. Rest in Me.

~ ~ ~
When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,

I was brutish and ignorant;
I was like a beast toward you.

Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.

Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
~ ~ ~


~ ~ ~
But I have trusted in Your lovingkindness;
My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.

I will sing to the LORD,
Because He has dealt bountifully with me.
~ ~ ~

The psalmist's question goes unanswered - and he is not left questioning.

excerpts from Psalms 13 and Psalms 73

An attempt at poetry

No good story comes to an end. No good story ever fully finishes. There is always a lingering note that fades away. There is always some "ever after" Think of your best and favorite tales - they don't just end. The worlds and and the people in them live on, living lives deeper and fuller than any story could ever tell. You don't know their stories fully but you know that there are be more stories. And it's this knowing, this persistence in a good story which tempers the melancholy sadness created when an author parts from the tale - this will be all that I know, but there is more to be known. There is more story.

I think this is partly why death is hard. It's the end of a story. I have friends, friends I'll never see again - and they are alive - they have stories, their stories are not done. And so I do not morn stories which I have not heard but may hear, its the stories that can be no more which are hard. They are hard because you enjoy them and would go on enjoying them. You listen so as not to forget what you enjoyed in them only to find that you miss them all the more - and now you want to stop listening so that you will stop missing only to find that you don't want to start forgetting - and this is why you don't like it when stories end. Cause that is all that you are left with - stories.

And you can not tell the storyteller how much you've enjoyed their stories, they are gone, new storytellers come and go - stories are shared, and somehow - somehow - well I've not yet got the somehow figured out.

I want to hear all the stories. All the stories I have heard - I want to hear them again, play them over and over. Write new ones. Write them in laughter and tears, and smiles and aches.

I was once asked if offered the best pizza in the world would I eat it? I did not then - I do not know now. To eat the best pizza the world could ever offer would be wonderful - but then could i enjoy any other pizza? would all other pizza's turn to ashes in my mouth?

As I type this another questions forms in my mind - Would I sit and listen to the best story in the world? The best story that would ever be told. It's odd because I have no reservations, no doubts - YES. Tell me the story to end all story's. Tell me the tale that completes them all. Why is there a difference in my heart? Do I care more for pizza and less for story?

Or do I merely enjoy pizza - and love story? I think it is this - that pizza can only ever bring me enjoyment - momentary enjoyment. I have to eat it to enjoy it. I do not love pizza - there is not enough to it to love - it's memory does not sustain me in any way - it has no repeat value.

Where as life, people, love, family, friends - story's. These things do. And listening the best story would not rob all lesser stories of their merit - no in fact in the light of the best story all story's are improved and can be enjoyed to their full worth. The memory of things past, even if they are never to be again makes stories worth the pains present in their endings. I'd rather have all stories end, then to have never heard anything. I'll not count any as lost.


A few mornings ago I could be found upstairs laying on my floor writing. An open Hymnal beside to me - I spend a good portion of my days up before 5, since moving to Yakima, there are several birds nesting the grapevines which cling to side of my apartment and we often greet day together. In fact I'm usually up before they are as I have not slept thru the night since I moved here - but I get to bed early these days so I'm getting plenty sleep. It's funny - when I first started taking pictures I was so, so, so wary of posting them - I liked them but what if nobody else like them. Now I post the ones I like and don't worry so much what the world thinks. Well I feel the same way now with my little attempt at poetry - and I should not even really call it mine. I stole bits from the hymnal, I stole bits from Homer - I stole bits from Song of Songs, but I put them together so I guess I'm responsible for it - however it turns out.

"Standing in the glow of this rosy fingered dawn;
I hear all nature singing Your nobler, sweeter song.
Arise my soul arise, and greet the glories of this day;
It's joys are just beginning, the King is on His way.