There and Back Again

Pondering: “I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter.” (Walt Disney)
Today, I celebrate another birthday. Another year older. Another step farther from the carefree days of my youth. Another mile deeper into maze of life. John Mayer, in [...]

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Pondering: One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
I never did quite understand why my sister Myra loves the song Wild Horses so much until I listened to it [...]

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Pondering: Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity. (Frank Leahy)
Memes like this is always a good motivator to update one’s blog. For this one, the instruction says, “Type what comes to your mind FIRST whenever you hear these 50 words. Don’t think and don’t go back and change. Doesn’t matter how random [...]

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I went to see Coldplay at Shoreline Amphitheater tonight. Had a marvelous time with my sisters Merced and Myra, and my office mate Chet. It was hectic getting to the venue but we made it nonetheless and all is well that ends well. The air was crisp and warm, the mood was [...]

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Pondering: I think miracles exist in part as gifts and in part as clues that there is something beyond the flat world we see. (Peggy Noonan)
Everything I have seen during this trip reminds me of how small I am in the grand scheme of things. The vast ocean, the endless snow-capped mountains, the age-old [...]

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Pondering: When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator. (Mohandas Gandhi)
Today didn’t start out right at all.
It started last night, really when we got news that there had been a landslide early in the day and so therefore [...]

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Pondering: To be happy, we must be true to nature and carry our age along with us. (William Hazlitt)
Day 2 of our cruise. I woke up early, around 430 p.m. to find two things that brought a smile to my face: first, the vessel was slowly approaching the port of Ketchikan, in the southeastern [...]

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Pondering: Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains. (Diane Ackerman)
For the first time in my adult life, I had a massage. Not a back rub or the occasional neck massage my sister gives me [...]

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Pondering: A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. (Robert Frost)
It has been ages since I’ve written anything.  This is worrying because it’s either I haven’t had the time, in a long time to write, and/or nothing’s happened to me in a long time that’s worth [...]

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Pondering: Beauty and sadness always go together.Nature thought beauty too rich to go forth upon the earth without a meet alloy. (George MacDonald)
Some pictures or images invoke a feeling of sadness and happiness. These ones I found while perusing Google Images brings a melancholy for moments that happened before my time.

The Kennedys

Charlie Chaplin

The Beatles

Brian [...]

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