Wednesday, March 4, 2026
Tuesday, March 3, 2026
Inattentive
Monday, March 2, 2026
Foolscap
Sunday, March 1, 2026
Mush, puppy
Saturday, February 28, 2026
Busy enough
Curiosity
Friday, February 27, 2026
Comfort or self calming?
So a repeating question: Are we put on this earth to fail our children? I just heard my father‘s voice in my head and he was saying, “I’m sorry.” I say the same thing to my children in my head so frequently, and I think about my siblings’ children, too: So many disastrous missteps that their parents -I- cannot, could not, or would not prevent. We fail to protect them from errors of their ways or our own.
I remember the images of sweet, smiling infants, at least photos: E, S, I, A, C, D, L, myself, and I cherish them. I consider my neighbor’s uber intense efforts to shelter her daughters and admire her for them, with hopes their lives will turn out better for that all-in mother love.
But we all suffer. Then laugh in the face of it sometimes, or die crying. “Bible says, dust to dust. That’s why I don’t dust; might be somebody we know.”
And, really, I think parental guilt may be what attaches me so closely to my little dog at this time of life. And here I thought it was love! Well, I’ve always acknowledged my lack of clarity on love. Tut, tut.
Thursday, February 26, 2026
Wednesday, February 25, 2026
Wakey wakey
Tuesday, February 24, 2026
Time together
No walking today, except 5 minutes down the driveway after JP shoveled, about 6:30 pm, after dark. He was still outdoors, clearing L’s driveway, I don’t know how: that wind was brutal. I’m thankful we never lost power. Snow accumulation is hard to guess since wind blows the driveway practically clear but the doorway but piles it up 3 feet deep down by the street. Phone Weather said we had 4.8 inches. That’s not so much total.
Our quiet time included A reading a couple of chapters of Deuteronomy to me mid morning and a Scrabble game late afternoon, partly to break up S’s phone kvetching. I won this time. He won last time, so maybe one more game tonight to beak the tie.
Like the Americans did Sunday at the ice hockey final? Nah. I’m just stretching to intro that topic because we so enjoyed watching Jack with his snaggletooth grin especially, and the team, celebrate the win. Strong young men, JP, Jack, et al: God bless them!
Monday, February 23, 2026
Sitting it out
“What is Time, as we ordinarily understand it? A single track succession of events. At every given moment we are called upon to make a choice among a number of possibilities and at every such choice the unchosen possibilities are, as it were, sacrificed. Time as succession is simply the actualization of one possibility out of many in each successive moment. Could we actualize two possibilities, or three or four at once, we should be living in two or three or four different streams of time. Our life, though no longer than before, would nevertheless contain more time. We should be living several ordinary lives at once.”
A.R. Orage, No. 7, Psychological Essays, quoted in Lee van Laer Substack, Journal of Gurdjieff Studies, 2-20-26