A Mindful Life

Some family members read my blog as a way of feeling connected, of dropping in to see what I’m up to, to see what stuff has crossed my radar and I made note of.
This is one of those posts where I say: I am alive, I am well enough.
I am also a stew of emotions. [...]

One day at work I noticed a bird had built a nest on top of a light attached to the wall. When I came in the next day, the nest was on the ground along with fragments of blue shell and dried innards. I decided to amend the sadness I felt by bringing it home. [...]

The rains stopped. The sun has glowed three days in a row, and I am enjoying it when not at work.
After work, my play consists of hanging out at an online poetry workshop, where all my notions of poetry are proving woefully inaccurate. I thought I knew what poetry is. I thought what I wrote [...]

One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats.
–Iris Murdoch

My workload continues to increase such that in the morning I feel myself tensing up as I drive to work. I can’t go into details. I’m hoping to get a handle on it somehow. On days when I’m close enough and my schedule allows I’ve been going to the gym mid-day and working later. The [...]

Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives.
–William Dement

There will be no poem tonight. My brain is too full, there’s no room to move around. It’s late, I’ve got nothing to say, nothing at the ready. Sorry teacher, the cat ate my homework.
Meanwhile, I’ve been hanging out at an online poetry workshop that is chock full of incredible resources. They have clear rules [...]

Banks pepper us with plastic,
feed our indwelling greed –
we risk our well-being
to barter for glitter,
gorge on obsolescence.
Too many are willing
to forfeit the future,
surrender their power –
it’s just paper, they say –
in exchange for their fix,
allaying the craving
for more, yet more, and more.
–
Poem #11 for NaPoWriMo
This poem is built on the scaffold of Stephen Burt’s After [...]

I believe that the highest quality of life is full of art and creative expression and that all people deserve it. I believe in a broad definition of what art is and who artists are: Barbers, cooks, auto detailers, janitors and gardeners have as much right to claims of artistry as designers, architects, painters and [...]

Since I worked Sunday, today is my day off. I’ve spent it reading poetry, reading about poetry, and being a little creative. I ought to go to the gym. But first — the bookmark that I made.