I had definitely outgrown the old model.
It had served me well enough over the years and fulfilled its minimum requirements, but it had limited capabilities, lower performance, and diminshing appeal.
I had driven it around my whole life, and it was time for a change. Time for something more lightweight, smaller, faster and more streamlined.
Somehow, I had ended up with a model that no longer fit my needs. Continue reading The Upgrade
It was a pretty big box.
I pulled the dusty container out of the closet from under the stairs where it had been hiding in the far back corner for over a decade.
It was like finding a long lost treasure.
On the top of the box I spied a barely legible label with the words “Home Videos” scrawled on it, that led me to my first clue of what I would find inside.
I had a faint memory of stashing the box when we had first moved in, back in 2005, but it had not seen the light of day since. Continue reading Pandora’s Box
It sounded fun.
For a half a second, when I made the plans, it actually sounded like it would be a good time.
I have been wrong about many things before, but I have never been more wrong about anything, than I was about the snowshoeing.
Once upon a time, in the winter of 2002, we had decided that a snowy vacation in a new place would be a marvelous adventure.
My oldest son, who was 7 at the time, wanted to take snowboarding lessons, so we packed up and headed to Whistler BC, Canada for a relaxing stay at the Whistler Village.
I had every intention of sitting in front of a crackling fire at the Grand Lodge, drinking hot chocolate and admiring all of the “adventurous” people doing ridiculously adventurous things while freezing their asses off and slipping around on the ice Continue reading If Cinderella’s Slipper was a Snowshoe
Is it a matter of its measure,
or a matter of its weight?
As I looked up, my eyes followed the sound of a gaggle of geese just below the cloud line.
Their chatter was intense, and I watched while they kept their perfect formation as they passed.
They were so purposeful in their instictively choreographed unity towards a shared destination. There was such an intrinsic beauty in their flight, and so I pondered how very similar we are to birds.
Some of us fly instinctively, and others of us shun such ideas, and make our lives on the ground while watching others fly, and wishing we had the ability.
Some of us are flightless birds, and some of us are just afraid to fly.
But even flightless birds have wings.
You see, there is comfort in discomfort. Continue reading The Maiden Flight of a Once Flightless Bird
I was undercover.
I had spent the better part of a decade in hiding.
I was conveniently cloaked in my disguise, and had carefully crafted an existence where there were very few public sightings of me in my natural habitat.
Similar to the elusive migration of a wild jungle cat, I had roamed quietly on the outskirts of the tree line, and had learned to keep my distance from dangerous predators.
I was adept in the secret art of camouflage. Continue reading The Secret Art of Camouflage
I’ve definitely had to manage and navigate some pretty difficult relationships in my life.
But the most complex and complicated relationship, by far, has always been the one with myself.
It can be hard to find the necessary balance when you are your own worst critic. When you’re dealing with yourself, for instance, you may forget that there are such things as manners. Continue reading Alice in One-derland
It looked so small- that crevice in the rock- that tiny space between the two giant boulders.
I squinted as I sized it up.
I had never made it past this point before. It was what stood between me and the part of this trail that I had never seen. It looked impassable, like a very tight squeeze.
I stood there wondering why they called it “Fat Man’s Pass”, when clearly, a fat man could not pass. Was it supposed to be ironic? Kind of like when you call a fat guy Slim, nickname a big guy Tiny, or refer to a grumpy person as Miss Mary Sunshine? Continue reading Between a Rock and a Hard Place
What would I say to her?
If I could go back in time, and thank her, for getting me here…
What would I say?
What COULD I possibly say, that would be enough?
I’d often wondered.
Four years ago in Philadelphia, I sat on a bed in my hotel room looking at my foot.
It was infected. Continue reading The Time Traveler
It’s never going to be perfect, so keep your sense of humor.
It’s never going to be exactly how you pictured it.
For all intensive purposes, this is a new body. It’s not going to look like it used to look when you were in high school, when you last weighed what you weigh now. It’s a different body. This body has made babies. This body has scars. This body has a birthday suit that doesn’t quite fit anymore, because you stretched it out, and it’s still a little bit too big for the smaller person underneath. It’s wrinkly, and its worn, and has that “lived in look” Continue reading Note to Self
Same Hat, Different Me 