Done.

Thanks, Kurt

Thanks.

Firchau, Drew, The Explorer, 2009

A wise man once told me not to be frustrated by misunderstanding ... either by others or your own ... "Most of what we say and do is misunderstood."

That's difficult to handle.

But true, I guess.

Language is just sound. We give it meaning only after we "hear" it, and that only happens if we truly "listen."

But then ... we're doing the "listening."

As I get older I feel that less and less of what I say and do is authentically understood. Especially when I attempt the conveyance of compassion or care. Silence is often taken as apathy.

Russell Chatham was fond of the saying, "Most people get it wrong." He speaks of the authentic ... the real.

Attempts.

Adjustments.

Sincerity.

Unforced.

Substance.

Understanding.

There's a Chinese proverb that I heard Gary Snyder recite once that says, "The one who understands does not speak; the one who speaks does not understand."

Be still.

Listen.

A good one ... for 5th graders and their teachers.

Wives and husbands.

Sisters and brothers.

Friends.

Smoochers.

Co-workers.

Carl Jung ... “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

Van Morrison ssang ...

Chop that wood
Carry water
What's the sound of one hand clapping
Enlightenment, don't know what it is

Every second, every minute
It keeps changing to something different
Enlightenment, don't know what it is
Enlightenment, don't know what it is
It says it's non attachment
Non attachment. non attachment

I'm in the here and now, and I'm meditating
And still I'm suffering but that's my problem
Enlightenment, don't know what it is

Wake up

Enlightenment says the world is nothing
Nothing but a dream, everything's an illusion
And nothing is real

Trust.

Hope.

Believe.

Confide.

Balance.

The most important thing my mentor taught me during my first year of teaching was to "teach, help them and then let 'em go. Let 'em surprise you." Thanks Trisha.

Trust.

The unattainable attempted. The journey is the destination.

Understanding? Knowing? Absolutes?

If you're on the path, just keep walking.

I love this clip from A River Runs Through It.

Drew ... "Dad, sometimes you just need a big hand in a little hand."

Thanks, Drew.

Over.

ParkeHarrison, The Navigator, 2002

1. Choose tranquility over chaos.
2. Choose authenticity over hype.
3. Choose nothing over anything.
4. Choose friends over followers.
5. Choose patience over pace.
6. Choose books over social media.
7. Choose conversation over texting.
8. Choose listening over talking.
9. Choose beginning over mastery.
10. Choose experience over prejudice.
11. Choose sleep over television.
12. Choose stillness over schedules.
13. Choose appreciation over expectation.
14. Choose humility over arrogance.

Beyond.

Art has always been my salvation. And my gods are Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Mozart. I believe in them with all my heart. And when Mozart is playing in my room, I am in conjunction with something I can’t explain — I don’t need to. I know that if there’s a purpose for life, it was for me to hear Mozart. Or if I walk in the woods and I see an animal, the purpose of my life was to see that animal. I can recollect it, I can notice it. I’m here to take note of. And that is beyond my ego, beyond anything that belongs to me, an observer, an observer.

 Maurice Sendak

Responsible.

A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes - within the limits of endowment and environment- he has made out of himself. In the concentration camps, for example, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions.

By declaring that man is responsible and must actualize the potential meaning of his life, I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system. I have termed this constitutive characteristic, "the self-transcendence of human existence." It denotes the fact that being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself--be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself--by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love--the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.

Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

Every library should contain this book.

Simply.

Strong, C.S. Lewis at Magdalene College, 1947

It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind. 

C.S. Lewis, from Mere Christianity

Thanks, Pop.

Live.

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

Jack London

Living.

Juan Mari Arzak has no bad days ... 

It’s after noon, but he has just gotten out of bed. “I’m not very hungry yet. There was a lot of traveling yesterday,” says Arzak, who at 72, with his wispy white hair and his gentle demeanor, might seem like any grandfatherly figure on vacation and out of place among the hipsters who are here to blow it out like they’re starring in their own MTV videos. But this grandfather can teach the youngsters a thing or two about living it up.

“Maybe just a little jamón,” he says when you’re seated for coffee. Straightaway, the chef at the hotel’s Traymore restaurant, which specializes in seafood, sends out a glistening plate of the finest Pata Negra, which appears nowhere on the menu. Then Arzak gets a hankering for gambas, instructing the waiter to make sure the kitchen doesn’t overcook them. The kitchen does one better, sending out a heap of fat, plain langostinos, just like he likes them. Arzak, whose famed restaurant in posh, seaside San Sebastián has held on to its three Michelin-star rating for a remarkable 26 years, dips a couple of the tails in fresh mayonnaise and sucks out a couple of heads before he realizes something else is missing. 

“Let’s drink vino tinto,” he says, and out comes the red wine.

Fully-Lived.

Sir Winston on the arts, imagination, and other things related to a life fully-lived ...

The arts are essential to any complete national life. The State owes it to itself to sustain and encourage them. The country possesses in the Royal Academy an institution of wealth and power for the purpose of encouraging the arts of painting and sculpture….

The Prime Minister, who spoke with so much feeling and thought on this subject, has reminded us of the old saying that it is by art man gets nearest to the angels and farthest from the animals. Indeed it is a pregnant thought. Here you have a man with a brush and palette. With a dozen blobs of pigment he makes a certain pattern on one or two square yards of canvas, and something is created which carries its shining message of inspiration not only to all who are living with him on the world, but across hundreds of years to generations unborn. It lights the path and links the thought of one generation with another, and in the realm of price holds its own in intrinsic value with an ingot of gold. Evidently we are in the presence of a mystery which strikes down to the deepest foundations of human genius and of human glory. Ill fares the race which fails to salute the arts with the reverence and delight which are their due.

Winston Churchill, born on this day in 1874, from a speech given at The Royal Academy of Arts, 30 April 1938

If you are inclined - late in life though it be - to reconnoitre a foreign sphere of limitless extent, be persuaded that the first quality that is needed is Audacity. There really is no time for the deliberate approach. Two years of drawing-lessons, three years of copying woodcuts, five years of plaster casts - these are for the young. They have enough to bear. And this thorough grounding is for those who, hearing the call in the morning of their days, are able to make painting their paramount lifelong vocation. The truth and beauty of line and form which by the slightest touch or twist of the brush a real artist imparts to every feature of his design must be founded on long, hard, persevering apprenticeship and a practice so habitual that it has become instinctive. We must not be too ambitious. We cannot aspire to masterpieces. We may content ourselves with a joy ride in a paint-box. And for this Audacity is the only ticket.

Sir Winston Churchill, from Painting as a Pastime

Armed with a paint-box, one cannot be bored, one cannot be left at a loose end, one cannot "have several days on one's hands." One must not be too ambitious. One cannot aspire to masterpieces. We may content ourselves with a joy ride in a paint box. And, for this, audacity is the only ticket.  Just to paint is great fun. The colors are lovely to look at and delicious to squeeze out. Matching them, however crudely, with what you see is fascinating and absolutely absorbing. 

Sir Winston Churchill, from Painting as a Pastime

You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination. But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period - I am addressing myself to the School - surely from this period of ten months this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated.

Winston Churchill, from his speech at the Harrow School, October 29, 1941

Live.

Engelsberg Ideas reviews Christopher Beckman's new book, A Twist in the Tail: How the Humble Anchovy Flavoured Western Cuisine ...

If anchovies have been a food of excess and indulgence, they have also been a food of frugality and want. In the mid-15th century, impoverished young Alpine villagers in Piedmont began making annual treks to Genoa along the ancient Salt Road to bring back salted anchovies to their native hills and valleys, where bagna cauda, an anchovy-infused dipping sauce, first developed. The call of one of these itinerant traders ran: ‘Anchovies of Malaga, of Setabal, buy them, eat them, and they will keep you warm all winter!’ In the 19th century, Basque and Cantabrian women hauled stocks of preserved fish inland from the coastal towns and villages, covering up to 25 miles a day to trade the catch with wine, oil, wheat and vinegar.

Live life. 

Child.

I want to be a child of wonder and astonishment.

Dot's digging Eliot, too.

Feel.

Feel stuff.

Beautiful.

From the late sixties to the mid-eighties, "the very best station on the radio dial" was always playing in my Uncle Fred's cottage Up North.

Uncle Fred ... Borkum Riff tobacco in his pipe and the faintest scent of bay rum.  His daily uniform consisted Bean khakis, Bermudas, or corduroys, white canvas Top-Siders, gingham button-downs in every color imaginable, Izod cardigans, and an ancient Timex dive watch.  He drove a navy blue Jeep woody Wagoneer with a huge glass pipe ashtray on the console.  He sailed, fished, and knew every snowmobile trail within a 50-mile radius around Higgins Lake.

His cottage had a bar in the kitchen that fascinated me as a kid, not because I wanted to get at the Crown Royal and Kessler's ("for first-aid purposes on the snowmobile"), but because of all of the other treasures it held: vacuum-sealed glass containers of Planters dry-roasted peanuts, Cheez-Its, and Schuler's rye chips, with accompanying bar cheese in the 'frig, next to the Vernor's, Faygo rock and rye, and the pull-top Budweiser (put the tab in the can after you pull it).

I'm certain that my life-long love of Gordon Lightfoot's music came from the magical time with my family spent enjoying the wondrous woods and water Up North at Uncle Fred's place (don't run on the dock) playing softly in the background on WGER.

Blue-jay screams.

It's sandwich time.  Make mine hard salami and mayonnaise on rye.

Courage.

We've forgotten that a rich life consists, most importantly, in serving others – trying to leave the world a little better than you found it. We need the courage to question the powers that be, the courage to be impatient with evil and patient with people, the courage to fight for social justice. In many instances we will be stepping out on nothing, and just hoping to land on something. But that's the struggle. To live is to wrestle with despair, yet never allow despair to have the last word.

 Reverend Dr. Cornel West

Time.

You may delay, but time will not. 

Benjamin Franklin

Limited.

Detail.

If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.

Thomas Merton

Tasted.

Caravaggio, Basket of Fruit (detail), 1599

You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could. 

Louise Erdrich

Curiosity.

With age all my opinions drift away. Who am I to say for sure? My people thought they’d see Jesus when they died. Now that we know we have 90 billion galaxies, I’m not inclined to discount anything. How can I say what is not possible in this universe? You can disembowel reality all you want and certainties are hard to find, the towering reality being death. I don’t mind. I was never asked. On death, a tour of the 90 billion galaxies would be flattering. Yes? Our curiosity is still in the lead. Wittgenstein said that the miracle is that the world exists.

Jim Harrison

Deliciousness.

To enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.

Herman Melville, from Moby-Dick or, the Whale