12/25/2023 Christmas Like most people, my wife and I have spent much of our 32-year marriage too busy to notice time slip away. One clear morning, we woke up as sixty-year-olds, with used-to-be kids living much as we had when…
The next hill
December 4, 2023 When I go hiking or just a walk around the neighborhood, I rarely think about traversing the hill at the end. There is nothing to gain by ruminating about how it will be painful and prolonged. Instead,…
Defining love
November 12, 2023 Children are born with intact awareness and understanding of love’s miracle of simplicity. It is only society’s enculturation that needlessly complicates a comprehension of perhaps life’s most fundamental truth—just as essential to evolving beyond western culture’s spiritual…
Roll out
October 20, 2023 Why roll a book out at a restaurant? Why not a bookstore, or library, or any place where there was not an existential threat of BBQ sauce saturation? Those who know me are deeply aware of my…
Rainbow
October 16, 2023 I first saw this rainbow on my way home from the boat. What struck me as curious was the apparent grace with which it altered its fundamental radiant message. First seeing it framing a wooded area, the…
Life changing
October 12, 2017 Six short years ago, Greg and I were partaking in some “shark repellent,” the night before we departed on a plane to make the 18-hour boat ride to Guadeloupe Island, Mexico to cage dive with Great White…
Life’s eternal bargain
My first indication of a visiting vessel was the coffee-grinder-like sound of a bow thruster. My passengers—a former Recon Marine father and his 37-year-old son—helped the newcomers tie up, and before long, the steady beat of conversation drifted through my boat’s…
A misplaced power
May 11, 2023 Leaving the grocery store today, I saw a homeless man standing on the corner, holding a cardboard sign stating he was a Vietnam veteran. Pulling up to the stop sign, several well-established narratives, conditioned in my mind…
Bluewater
April 27, 2023 The sea has been my life’s central line of consistency, a colorful ally in my stumble through day-to-day existence. From my lifelong hobby, scuba diving, to my first real job as a Navy A-6 Intruder aircraft carrier…
The new, old me
While editing past blogs for a future book, I came across a piece written on February 14, 2021, six weeks after knee replacement surgery, while convalescing on the long road to recovery. From Humbled (again): “…An increased mental fogginess and a…