The Life of Brian (In the Now)

"The only way to have a friend, is to be one." ------ Ralph Waldo Emerson So much has changed. So many things seem to have not changed at all. When you live halfway around the world from where you grew up and went to school, it's hard to tell. My friends here haven't seen me [...]

"This is the world we live in And these are the hands we're given Use them and let's start trying To make it a place worth living in" ------ Peter Gabriel Leaving downtown Rio, Wisconsin, half a block from the intersection of High street and Well street... I'm walking back to Mom's house. I'm returning [...]

Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing. ------ Georgia O’Keeffe Me: "What do you think makes someone an artist Mom?" Mom: "You can't call yourself an artist unless you get paid to do it." Me: "Am I an artist? I don't make [...]

I know there is strength in the differences between us. I know there is comfort where we overlap. ------- Ani DiFranco "You got tomatoes yet Barb?" "Not yet, they're all still green." "Yea... you n everyone else eh?" "Yep." A not at all uncomfortable silence follows as my mother fails to find a suitable subgect [...]

"My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it." ------ Mark Twain Right now, in this moment... I write from my mothers kitchen. Mom is out in the garden right now. I am EXACTLY where I most want to be. I pause now... breathe. Doing my best to [...]

The best of old friends, with more to come. Lorn and I will soon be hanging out with another. -------------------- One week now into this my EPIC summer journey of 2018 and it is oh so very clear how much different it is. Like last year, these my Epic journeys are exactly that. Journey. Unlike [...]

"You don't have to have anything in common with people you've known since you were five. With old friends, you've got your whole life in common" ------ Lyle Lovett Ok so I haven't known Lorn since I was five but when recounting and reminiscing on our rabscalliant adventures of nearly forty years ago, it feels [...]

"But why had he always felt so strongly the magnetic pull of home, why had he thought so much about it and remembered it with such blazing accuracy, if it did not matter, and if this little town, and the immortal hills around it, was not the only home he had on earth? He did [...]

Holding onto that disconcerting feeling of living with dissonance. "The Other" is all. The alien among us... Inside the outside. All this and more...