Hectic as a . . .

A co-worker of mine keeps asking me when I’m going to start writing this blog again. 

I can probably come up with a few dozen-thousand reasons why I’ve CHOSEN to take a respite, but I’ll just use one: 

While ponderer life on a hike through a southern Indiana marshy land Saturday, I came across this.

That’s it! I’ve been as busy as a beaver!

I really wish that I had a chain saw with me so that I could have cut a section of this and dragged it home with the aspiration of someday repurposing it.

However, I know in my heart that the “something” would probably just be a nuisance to my children who will have to dispose of my belongings after I’m dead and gone. 

So, I did the responsible thing and followed the motto of the Baltimore Grotto (some sort of caving society according to the inter web):

    "Take nothing but pictures.
    Leave nothing but footprints.
    Kill nothing but time." [except mosquitoes and ticks!]

Spring--nearly here-- is a time of plans and projects.  Spring is also a time to pay attention to the woods.

“I am going to try to pay attention to the spring. I am going to look around at all the flowers, and look up at the hectic trees. I am going to close my eyes and listen.” — Anne Lamott

Just someone to chew on this week.

Carpe Diem Life,
David Kuhn

CarpeDiem-Life.com

Riders On The Storm

Riders on the storm 

Awaken to the present

It is as it is

Carpe Diem Life,
David Kuhn

CarpeDiem-Life.com

“No Paintings For Sale!”

While on my hiatus from writing, I ran across the story of an American artist and author that touched a nerve and prompted me to get out of my journal. 

Meet Harlan Hubbard.  Born in Bellevue, Kentucky, in 1900.  His father died when Harlan was only seven.  Soon thereafter, his mother moved him to New York City.  There, he received his art education.  In 1919, he returned to northern Kentucky.

According to Wikipedia: As a young man, Hubbard saw the industrial development in America as a threat to the natural world and he came to reject consumer culture. In 1929 he started keeping a journal into which he poured his thoughts on society. In 1943, he married Anna Eikenhout. The following year they built a shanty boat at Brent, Kentucky and traveled down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. 

Harlan is known for his simple lifestyle, simple storytelling, and pastoral art. 

As the story I was reading goes, Hubbard sent a portrait of his mother to a juryless exhibition at the Cincinnati Art Museum.  When he traveled to see the show, he found the portrait hanging in an obscure corner of an obscure room.  He wrote,

“I do not understand why anyone who has painted as long and seriously as I have, and who has asked little, should have absolutely no success or recognition.  But I have gone this far and now I must go on.”

His defiance had, as Wendell Berry wrote, “achieved a kind of style: “I will paint for myself and turn the canvases to the wall.’”

In negativity of his rejecters, Hubbard found that his “failures” actually helped him connect with the source of his work. 

“No Paintings for Sale."  That's the sign he tacked a sign to his door when he came to the realization that the mere hope of a sale and acceptance of fellow artists and critics had created a “psychic trap.”
 As Gail Sher wrote, “Not until he could paint without even the possibility of selling, would he be able entirely to surrender to himself.”

To paraphrase Harlan Hubbard, “I will write for myself and close the cover of the journal.” 

But, please stay tuned.  Unlike Hubbard, I’m not ready to, “sever completely all possible connections to the world and live on the outside fringe, a rebel”

What is your “No Paintings for Sale” craft, hobby, or passion?

Carpe Diem Life,
David Kuhn

CarpeDiem-Life.com

hi·a·tus

hi·a·tus

hīˈādəs/

noun

noun: hiatus; plural noun: hiatuses

a pause or gap in a sequence, series, or process.

 

Thanks to those that actually took the time to read my essays. 

Thanks to those who took a little more time to like or respond.

Peace.

 

Carpe Diem Life

David Kuhn

7,323,187,457 . . .

7,323,187,457

That’s the official total of human beings alive on the planet (at last count).

The Median age is the age that divides a population into two numerically equal groups - that is, half the people are younger than this age and half are older -- is 30.1.

30.1

Today, I’m the proud father of the newest member of a 30-year old.  I won't see her today.  She's far off celebrating with her family.  As it should be.

There are not enough pages in my journals (though I’ve tried) to express all the joy that Amy has brought into my life since February 14, 1987.  I’ll just say Thank you.

Thank you and Happy Valentine’s Day to Suzanne (now the mother of a 30-year old), Amy, and LucyAnne.

Love,
David

Spring in mid-winter?

If you had driven through my neighborhood yesterday you would have seen an old man doing some spring cleaning in the yard.  Me.

I've already established that I'm not a lawn guy,  yet I do have a few rules when it comes to yard work.  One, I don't rake leave in the fall until after Halloween.  This allows for a nice blanket of crunchy leaves for little trick-or-treaters to kick their way through.  Another, I don't cut the back yard until after Easter.  This allows the grass and wild onion to grow nice and tall so Easter Bunny has lots of choice hiding places.  Common sense really.

Which brings to yesterday, February 12.  I guess it was a combination of cabin fever, unseasonably warm spring-like weather, and a heavy layer of oak leaves that didn't drop until after I had finished my final fall raking that motivated me to un-shed the rakes and fire of the lawn mower.

"It's winter!" coughed Toro on the first pull.  "What the hell are you doing?"

"Time to make hay while the sun is shining!" I replied.

Believe me, she was none too happy to be stirred from her winter hibernation.  I fed her some fresh gas and she eventually gave in.  We raked, mulched, bagged-- twice.

It felt strange moving the yard work clock up a month or so.  Spring is still five weeks away.  Still, I was happy getting a jump on it.  Besides, now when the first real spring weekend comes along you will find me paddling a canoe instead pushing a lawn mower.

I'll trade a rake for a fishing pole any day.

Carpe Diem Life,
David Kuhn

CarpeDiem-Life.com

Sand Castles

Got a text from my soon-to-be 30-year-old daughter on her first vacation with her family.  She wanted to vacate the Midwest cold to a warmer beach on the Atlantic Ocean. 

All my five-year-old granddaughter talked about was building sand castles.

Yesterday, I received the photo of little Annabeth and her first sand castle. Perhaps not perfect in most people’s eyes, but a masterpiece nonetheless. I can only imagine the pleasure she felt learning how to use her new tiny pail, tiny shovel, and her tiny hands to construct the most magical castle on the beach.

Now comes the hard lesson.  I know that at some point today, she’s going to learn about the law of tides.  She won’t understand why all her hard work was destroyed.  Why?  She will be very disappointed; I’m sure my daughter and her husband will teach her that the laws of nature are in effect and that it’s inevitable that the tide will always come in and sweep the sand castles away.  She will learn that there is nothing we can do to stop it.  Hopefully, she'll learn that all she can do is pick up her pail and her shovel and start building again.

This whole process becomes a metaphor for life.  It starts with sands through the hourglass  . . .
We only have a  brief period of time on this beach, and joy comes in the creative moments of the building of the sand castles.

We are like children building a sand castle. We embellish it with beautiful shells, bits of driftwood, and pieces of colored glass. The castle is ours, off limits to others. We’re willing to attack if others threaten to hurt it. Yet despite all our attachment, we know that the tide will inevitably come in and sweep the sand castle away. The trick is to enjoy it fully but without clinging, and when the time comes, let it dissolve back into the sea.     -- Pema Chodron

The tide comes in.  The beach is a blank canvas.  Go build some sand castles this weekend!

Carpe Diem Life
David Kuhn

CarpeDiem-Life.com