Learning to Love in New Ways

Posted on July 7, 2025 by Brent L. Kendrick

“To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow—this is a human offering that can border on miraculous.”
—Elizabeth Gilbert, b. 1969. Author of Eat, Pray, Love (2006),
A modern meditation on love, loss, and the sacredness of being seen.

YOU—MY DEAR READER (WHEREVER YOU ARE)
What Age Can Finally Teach You About Love

You’ve heard it over and over again, so often that no one wants to hear it anymore. But here I go, tossing it out into a yawning world once more:

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

To which I reply—

Balderdash!
Phooey!

You’re not a dog. And you’re not old. Well—not in your mind, at least. You may be 77–just like me–but in your head, you’re somewhere between way back when and right here and now—and on most days–just like me–your way-back-when wins.

All right. Fine. I confess. I’m into time travel. Say what? You are, too? Excellent! You might also be a lifelong learner who loves staying on top of things—especially new things, just like me. I have been learning forever, but I won’t bore you with details about my past adventures. I don’t have time to rehash the past, and even if I did, I wouldn’t want to.

These days, I’m too excited about something new that I’m learning. I’m sharing it with you right here, right now, hoping that it will help you learn something new, too. It’s quiet, but it’s rad. Really rad.

I’m learning to love in new ways.

Here’s what I’ve come to believe so far. You can’t really learn these lessons when you’re young. You have to reach a certain kind of readiness—the kind that comes with age, with experience, and with edges—softened with heartache and suffering. Only then can you flip the old cliché on its head:

You can teach an old dog new tricks.

When you’re younger, love often begins with the fall—swept up, headlong, into fire and passion. But as you age, as you lean into love again, falling isn’t enough. In the falling, there must also be learning. Sustained, steady learning—about how to love differently.

You discover that love doesn’t always arrive with trumpets and roses. Sometimes, it just quietly walks in—a dimpled smile, a vase of flowers, a gardening trowel, a hammer, a grocery list, a notepad, or even a look of disbelief. No violins, no swelling strings. Just shirts ironed with care. Meals admired with gratitude. The gentle act of sharing space.

You begin to understand that silence isn’t absence—it’s a kind of presence. Two people in the same house, moving at different tempos—one resting, one reorganizing the basement—and somehow, the house hums with harmony.

You no longer expect to always be engaged in the same thing at the same time. You lean into your different skills, your different interests—knowing that when the day ends, you’ll have twice as much accomplished and twice as much worth celebrating.

And when your talents converge on the same plane—when brilliance meets brilliance—you might pull back just enough to let the other person shine a little brighter.

Sometimes, you step back—not to disappear, but to admire. You let the other person lead the dance for a while. And it feels good.

You make room—not just in your heart, but in your home. You move your wardrobe somewhere else to make space for someone else’s dresser. You swap out your kitchen table not because it’s broken but because someone else’s table carries stories too. And now, you’ve got one together.

You learn that your footsteps don’t need to land on top of one another. They can move side by side, on parallel paths, converging when it matters—and that’s most of the time and that’s more than enough.

You watch your partner do something in a way you wouldn’t—folding the towels, arranging the chairs—and instead of correcting, you smile. You let it be. Love grows well in the soil of gentle restraint.

When you notice a difference—how to load the dishwasher, how to water the plants—you ask yourself, Does this matter? Most times, it doesn’t. But the grace in letting it go? That always matters.

And when you catch yourself about to suggest doing something just slightly differently than the perfectly good way your partner is already doing it, you pull back from the familiar impulse to course-correct. You resist the urge to say:

I wonder what would happen if…
Have you considered…
Somewhere or other I saw…

Because you know—truly know—that your partner has likely already been there and done that, maybe even better than you could have imagined. And even if not, you realize: kingdoms and principalities will neither rise nor fall because of how this one thing gets done. But love? Love will continue to grow richly in the kind of soil that lets what wants to rise, rise.

So you build the cake you’re building. And you let your partner put on the proverbial frosting.

And get this—I’m betting you’ll let out a humongous sigh of relief. You no longer have to rely on the old lines:

Honey, I’ve got a headache. Not tonight.

Why not? Chances are good that you both already know whether tonight is the night. There’s no posturing. No pretending. You listen to your body. You honor the rhythm. You know—Yay or Nay—affection is still there.

So take that old cultural script—the one that said you always had to be “on,” always seductive, always dazzling–and toss it. If tonight’s not the night, it’s not the night. No drama. No guilt. The love doesn’t vanish. It simply waits.

This kind of love doesn’t need fireworks. It needs kindling. It’s not performance—it’s patience. It’s not the honeymoon suite—it’s two mugs on the counter beside the coffee maker. A light or three left on for the night even when far too many lights are burning already. A dinner napkin placed next to yours. A drawer cleared to hold the socks and underwear folded far better than you ever knew how to fold them.

Over time, you start to realize—sometimes slowly, sometimes with the clarity of a lightning bolt—that love at this stage of life teaches different lessons than the ones you were handed in your youth.

It’s not about falling anymore, not really. It’s about forming. Shaping. Inviting.

It’s less about being swept off your feet, and more about standing firmly beside—presence over drama, steadiness over spectacle.

And if you’re lucky, you’re still learning—every single day—that love, like anything worth tending, changes its shape over time.

So, no. You’re not old. You’re ripening.

And if that’s not a new trick worth learning, I don’t know what is.

ME

My Learning Notes for a Work-in-Progress

I can never be civilized—
but I can be reminded that the Romaine probably wasn’t prewashed.
I can be inspired to put things where they belong
the first time.
And I can be organized a little better.

I’m discovering that little by little,
bit by bit,
I might find my way to
An OHIO state of mind.

I’m discovering that when the day ends, and we’re both tired,
and I hear,

“Ruby and I walked down your garden path with the steps that go nowhere,”

I don’t need to explain where the steps once led.
Instead, I can talk about
where they might one day lead.

I’m discovering that falling in love happens faster now—
not because the fire is hotter,
but because the walls are lower,
the noise is quieter,
and I no longer mistake caution for wisdom.

I’m discovering it doesn’t matter what we call it—
Sex.
Making love.
We both know the truth:
if there’s no heart, no heat,
and no brushing teeth first,
it’s not happening.

I’m discovering the contours of a body—
no longer shaped by youth’s smooth muscle,
but by time,
by tenderness,
by all the sharpened, weathered lines
of a well-lived life,
and a well-bloomed love.

I’m discovering that what’s heart-healthy for one
is heart-healthy for the other —
in food, in movement,
and especially in tenderness.

I’m discovering that love, at this stage,
isn’t about recapturing youth or chasing fireworks.
It’s about something quieter.
Stronger.
Truer.
A love that folds laundry and picks out flooring—
but also whispers stay
when the silence gets long.

I’m discovering that a kneeler
protects my knees just as well
in the garden
as it does while tending the soul.

I’m discovering that Ruby’s not the only one who snores.
We do, too, even if we think we don’t.
But when it’s the three of us?
It’s just another rhythm to fall asleep to.

I’m discovering that I only need to be shown some things once.
Like how to fold a grocery store plastic bag into a teeny-weeny triangle for storage.
I nailed it. Once might have been enough.
(“Wait. Wait. Let me do one more, my Love. This is almost like meditation.”)

I’m discovering that the Henkel-Harris bed really does look better
with the bedding tucked inside the side rails.
Gracious me—how could I have lived threescore-and-seventeen years without that life-saver of a bedroom tip?

I’m discovering, anew,
that sharing is 99% of the joy.
The story, the supper, the last bite of dessert—for Ruby, of course.
Even the silence tastes better when it’s passed between two.

I’m discovering—more than anything else—that together isn’t just better.
It’s braver.
It’s kinder.
It’s more us.
More alive.

WE

Our Lessons

Clearly, you can teach old dogs new tricks, especially if they’re Tennessee Gary and me. We aren’t just any old dogs. We’re two clever ones, willing to learn together. And in case you’re wondering how people react when we tell them what we’re up to, most folks seem happy. Some, wishful. Others, wistful. Sometimes, some look twice. They blink. They tilt their heads. They ask—sometimes aloud, sometimes with raised eyebrows—

Aren’t you too old for shenanigans like this?

To which we say:

Balderdash!

Phooey!

We are not too old for love.
We are not too late for wonder.
We are not past the season for becoming.

Because when the day is done—
the goodnight kiss planted,
the I-love-you dreamily reaffirmed—we’re not winding down.
We’re bedding down.

And come morning, we rise again—
not just from sleep,
but into this shared, surprising, still-unfolding life.

What keeps us going isn’t mystery or magic.
It’s the anchors that hold love through storms and stillness:

Trust. Fidelity. Respect.
Communication. Collaboration. Compromise.
Intentional love. Intimacy. Empathy.
Acceptance.
And perhaps most vital of all:
Forgiveness.

So, dare we clue you in on what two old dogs are learning about love—maybe better than most, certainly better than our younger selves ever did?

Do you really want to know the bottom line?

Are you sure?

You do? You really do?

Alrighteez, tighty-whities. If you insist…

Lean in and listen carefully.

We’ll tell you once and once only:

Love at our age isn’t the final act.
It’s the encore.

My Altar Ego

Posted on June 16, 2025 by Brent L. Kendrick

“I tried so hard to do nothing that I accidentally did everything I needed.”
— Poor Brentford Lee (born 1947 and born again today).

Long, long ago I learned to not complain about the weather. For me, it was not a hard lesson to master. I love weather. I love how it arrives unbothered by plans, how it doesn’t ask permission to shift. Rain seeps, sun scorches, wind whispers or howls—all of it a steady reminder that the world turns whether I make a list or not. Seasons don’t hustle. They don’t perform. They simply become what they are, and in that quiet becoming, I find permission to do the same.

And so it is that I often find myself luxuriating in my bathtub–sunny days, rainy days, snowy days. Any day in any weather will do for a good old-fashioned soak. It’s especially good in a real tub like mine. Cast-iron enamel. Please tell me that no others are manufactured. Or if you tell me that they are, please have my smelling salts handy.

Let’s be clear: my bathtub is not clawfoot elegant, but it’s deep enough to pretend. When I slide in, I tell myself that I’m taking time to be. But I know the truth. I’ve turned soaking into an event that I do.

Usually, it’s not much of an event or a do. It doesn’t need to be since I don’t need much. Water. Hot. Always hot. None of this lukewarm nonsense for me. If I’m going to bother drawing a bath, I want it to steam like a sultry Shenandoah Valley morning, rolling up from the tub like fog curling along the Seven Bends of the Shenandoah.

Getting the water that I need is not as straightforward as you might think. No. It’s not. Even though I live on a mountain, I do not draw it from my well. It’s pumped from my deep well and flows through copper pipes indoors, as befits a mountain man with a porcelain tub. And, of course, mine has proper porcelain turns—white handles, chrome collars, and bold Hot and Cold lettering, like a tub straight out of a 1950s film noir. Hot, thank goodness, does bring hot. Cold brings cold. So far, so good. But to adjust the flow, I have to turn both knobs left. Why? Because my plumber, bless his well-meaning hands, apparently installed them backwards. I think. I always thought I turned the hot water knob counterclockwise to turn on the flow and clockwise to turn off the flow. The cold lever is opposite, clockwise to turn on the flow, and counterclockwise to turn it off. It is something like that. Right? Damned if I know anymore. Apparently, I’ve spent years turning one way, only to be met with the smug silence of a faucet that refuses to gush or blush. In this tub, turning is just plumb wrong.

I guess it’s a small metaphor for life, really. Just when you’re sure you’re doing it correctly—hot water flowing, intentions pure, and everything else on course—you realize the universe wants you to turn the other way.

But before I turn the other way and step into the tub–which is, I must warn you, the stage on which I will be soaking, ruminating, and possibly overdoing it for the rest of this essay—I must direct the stage lights toward something magnificent. Close your eyes for a sec. Okay. Now open, look down, and let your eyes feast upon my …

… bubble bath.

Yes. I do use bubble bath. Lord knows it’s not for the scent—though I admit, I have a weakness for sandalwood. And lavender. But let the record show: I allow lavender only in the tub. Nowhere else. A mountain man like me has standards and has to stand by them.

I tell myself that it’s not for the fragrance. It’s for the foam. Even though I reveal to you, My Dear Readers, far more than I should, I want to assure you that I do have a modicum of modesty. A bubble here, a bubble there—tastefully arranged to preserve an illusion of decency. Let’s just say the bubbles know where to gather.

Yep. That’s about all I need for one of my regular soaks. A tub. Hot water. Bubble bath.

But let’s face it. Every once in a blue moon, a mountain man needs a little spice. I’m no exception, even though I confess to being more than a little exceptional.

It’s on those blue-moon occasions that I line up a full production. Then, believe you me. I don’t just take a bath. I stage a bath.

I arrange things just so on my Broadway altar: mug of chamomile tea (because sometimes wine in a stemmed and fluted Baccarat feels like too much doing), one candle (the fancy one that I don’t even own, but begrudgingly burn anyway), and three colognes that I don’t own yet, each vying for my American Express card that I do own. Imagine. Three bottles lined up like contestants on The Bachelor: Mountain-Man Bathroom Edition. It’s far more than cologne drama. It’s downright Shakespearean. It’s The Mountain meets The Globe.

It opens with a cologne smackdown.

Baie 19: (sniffily) “Let’s not pretend I’m not the one Poor Brentford truly wants. I’m rainfall and memory. I’m the whisper of longing on damp skin. I’m practically poetry in a bottle.”

Oud Wood: (with velvet growl) “Poetry’s lovely, dear, but I’m seduction that lingers. I’m cashmere confidence. I’m what Tennessee Gary leans in to smell twice.”

Patchouli Absolu: (swaggering) “Children, please. I’m the heartbeat of the forest and the soul of a vinyl jazz LP. I’m Poor Brentford in full earthy glory. He doesn’t wear me, he becomes me.”

Baie 19: “You smell like a commune.”

Oud Wood: “You smell like wet pebbles.”

Patchouli Absolu: “And you both smell like insecurity.”

ME (overwhelmed on one of my rare occasions when I know how it feels to feel overwhelmed, which is not overwhelmingly often): “You’re all exhausting. No one’s coming over. I’m about to confess my sins to the lefty-tighty, righty loosey faucet and cry into the loofah that I neither have nor want.”

They fall silent. I choose. None. Scentless, I splash around in the tub like a mountain man who moonlights in musicals.

Then what do I do? I lean back, all the way back, and I start confessing. The bubbles gather ’round in all the right places like gossiping parishioners. The faucet stares. Ruby settles nearby with the look of a creature who’s seen this show before, seen it all before, all too often.

I speak.

“Forgive me, tub, for I have over-functioned.”

Drip.

“I said I was going to be. Just be. Instead, look at what I’ve done. I’ve curated a still-life. I folded the towel just so. I fluffed my own ego like it was company. I …”

Drip. Drip.

“… I checked my smartphone. Three times. I told myself I wouldn’t, but what if he texted? What if he sensed my aching soul? Oh, do not ask me, “Who?” You tease. Please be still. Surely, you know exactly who. Surely, you do. You do, don’t you?”

Ruby raises one eye and promptly closes it again. Even she doesn’t buy my shameless shenanigans.

“And yes,” I whisper, “I lit the special candle that I don’t have. The one I said I was saving. For what? For when? Who knows. I guess I was saving it for this moment of low-grade thirst.”

Replies? None. Not one. No, not one single solitary reply. I suspect judgment. Is that what exfoliating looks like? Is that how it feels? Judgment?

I confess one more thing. Doing this being thingy that I’m supposed to be doing ain’t easy. But what’s a mountain man to do when he be soakin’ in a tub?

The very question made some of the less bashful bubbles pop, just as I brought on stage everything that I’ll need to play out my after-the-rain weather act—the one I fully plan on doing.

I’ll harness my weedwhacker around me like medieval armor and march into the yard. Oh. Don’t get alarmed. I’ll don all my clothes so that the scorching sun will not be led into temptation. No doubt the overgrowth in the lower yard and along the rutted road will wave at me and thrash about, like green adversaries, defiant and smug.

And I, in true Don Quixote theatrics at their finest, will tilt my weedwhacker and tackle it all, tackle it all already, as I have tackled it all already so often already in the past.

And I will be noble.

And I will be productive.

And I will be heroic.

And I will let the rains come and the winds blow. Ruby, smarter than I, will bolt for shelter. But I will stay. Drenched. Steaming. And—without even trying—I will finally be. Just… be.

Wet. Ridiculous. Peaceful. Winded. My trusty weedwhacker by my side. But I will have achieved being.

That is the theme, isn’t it, of whatever it is that I’ve got goin’ on in this here tub? Right? The daily tug-of-war between doing and being.

I want to be at peace, but now I’ve done gone and plotted out all the steps and ruined it.

I want to be still, but now I’ve done gone and ended up writing about the stillness.

I want to be the mountain man who soaks in sandalwood and lavender in a porcelain tub with porcelain faucets that can’t figure out which way to turn.

But I also want to be the mountain man who hosts, cooks, flirts, loves, writes books, directs theatrical Broadway tub shows, and maybe gets a text from someone–in Tennessee?–who says, “You smell good—even when you don’t wear cologne, especially when you don’t wear cologne.”

And here, my dear Readers, is the moment when the lights begin to dim ever so faintly, the audience leans in more spellbound than before, and Poor Brentford steps on stage–front and center, fully wrapped in his towel (or is he fully wrapt?)–for his soliloquy that he never dreamt of speaking, let alone rehearsing:

“I tried so hard to do nothing that I accidentally did everything I needed.

“I made peace with three colognes I dreamt about, one candle that I don’t own but burn at both ends anyway, a tub with faulty faucets, and me– myself, just as I am.

“I let the bubbles baptize my busy mind.

“And when I stepped out—wrinkled, radiant, ridiculoos—I realized:

“‘I be fabulous.’

“I also realized: ‘You be fabulous, too.’

“So. Listen up. Go now. Take a soak, with or without bubble bath.

“It’s where becoming begins.”

In Honor of Fathers Everywhere | What My Father Saw

Posted on June 13, 2025 by Brent L. Kendrick

With Father’s Day weekend upon us, I’m republishing “What My Father Saw” as a gentle reminder of the quiet ways fathers shape our lives—through their labor, their vision, and the legacy they leave behind.

“A house is made with walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams.”
–Attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882). American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century.

Houses come. Houses go. Some we remember. Some we don’t. Usually, though, the house that we remember the most is the one that we call home. For me, it was the house that I lived in from the age of ten (when I started the fifth grade) until the age of seventeen (when I graduated from high school, left home, and started college). We moved there in the summer of 1957.

It wasn’t much of a house. White clapboard siding. Front porch with wooden columns. Living room. Kitchen. Two bedrooms. Screened back porch. Unfinished basement. Outhouse. The woods on one side were so close that the trees seemed to brush against the windowpanes even in the gentlest breeze.

It wasn’t much of a move, either, maybe a mile south of where we had been renting. That fall, I went to the same grade school that I had attended since we moved to Shady Spring. I remember standing in the school yard with Mr. Pack, my English teacher. I pointed to the house, calling his attention to the side stairs that led up to the screened-in back porch.

But this house was different from the others. This house was our home. Well, it would be one day if my parents could stay on top of the mortgage payments. It didn’t have a white picket fence, and it needed lots of “fixin’ up.” But it was our slice of the American Dream.

Fixin’ up was right up my father’s alley. Even though he was a coal miner, he was, in many ways, a visionary. When we moved in, my father saw many things that he could do that would turn what had been a tucked-away summer place into our year-round home.

I remember lots of his improvements because I was his helper. Straightaway, he and I started clearing the adjacent lot. Our home was still in the woods but no longer against the trees. I helped him take the back porch and turn it into a dining room opening into the kitchen. The two of us mixed cement in a wheelbarrow and poured a floor in the large unfinished basement, where my father framed out two bedrooms, a downstairs kitchen, and a bathroom. We tilled the field across the road and turned the thin layer of soil on top of the rock shelf into a garden, perfect for sturdy stalks of corn rising up like sentinels with delicate tendrils of green beans gracefully twining around them. The dry, clay soil seemed ideal for sunflowers, too. Somewhere, I have a polaroid of me kneeling –sun-bleached hair, radiant smile–holding a sunflower so large that it covered my chest.

Looking back at the initial hard work and the eventual improvements, I see my father’s unwavering determination. He saw potential where others saw obstacles, teaching me the importance of perseverance and the transformative power of a dream fueled by love. This house was more than a structure. It was a testament to his resilience and dedication to our family’s future.

But more than any of those memories is the memory of my father at the dinner table. I was the youngest child, the last one at home eating with my parents.

My mother, who always said grace, sat at the head of the table, looking toward the wall at the other end, with a large oil painting of the Last Supper. My father sat to her left, gazing through his bifocals out of the large picture window in the dining room that he had built. I sat to his left, looking toward the window as well, with a golden candle sconce on each side, their glass shades gently casting a warm glow on holidays or when we had company.

I turned toward my father and my mother a lot, usually talking with my mother. My father was, by nature, a reserved man, and after talking about his day’s work in the mines and about his strategy for loading more cars of coal the next day, he didn’t have much to say other than to praise what my mother had prepared for dinner or to respond to something that my mother or I said that required his response. I didn’t think anything about his silence then. I don’t think anything about his silence now. It was as natural to my father as being talkative was to me and my mother.

But as I watched him looking out our dining room picture window, I wondered then–and I wonder now–what my father saw.

No doubt he saw the present.

He had a multitude of snapshot possibilities. In his immediate line of vision would have been our lower terraced yard concealing an elaborate and fully provisioned underground bomb shelter that my father built. Further down the sloped yard was the meandering creek. My father planted an apple tree next to it that still bears fruit. Across the creek, another small garden. One summer, my father erected six or so towering structures, made from large sapling poles. He planted his favorite Kentucky Wonder beans around them. Somewhere, I have a polaroid of him standing inside one of the green-bean teepees. Long, smooth beans hanging down met his calloused, coal-sooted hands, reaching up.

Beyond that snapshot would have been the homes of three neighbors on Rt. 3. We always called it the Hinton Road because it connected our town to Hinton and the world beyond. More important than those neighbors’ homes, though, was the immense towering oak. My father stood beneath it, waiting for his ride to the mines, day after day after day, stretching out to the final day of his fifty-year career as a coal miner, never missing a day’s work.

Looking back, I see my father surveying the tangible results of his hard work and vision. Each tree planted, each structure built or improved, was a testament to his ability to transform dreams into reality. His daily routines, anchored by resilience and a relentless work ethic, spoke to the value of dedication. Even in the most ordinary moments, my father’s presence embodied commitment to our family and our future. His view from the window wasn’t just of our present home. It was of a legacy he was building, one that would endure long after he was gone.

No doubt he saw his past.

His mind likely wandered to his most recent past, the bankruptcy that bottomed out his short-lived dream of being a prosperous coal-mining operator on par with the company-store owner. It prompted our move from Ashland to Shady Spring.

Perhaps he saw his early coal mining years in the late nineteen teens and the 1920s. He was an activist for the United Mine Workers of America and a staunch supporter of its president, John L. Lewis. Somewhere, I have my father’s first UMWA membership card.

Perhaps he saw even further back to Patrick Springs, Virginia, where his farming family had Colonial American roots and where he was born in 1902. Perhaps he saw the day when, as a teenager, he left home and boarded the Danville and Western Railroad. He made his way to Cherokee, WV, to make a life in the booming coal heartland of America.

Looking back at my father’s journey from a farmer’s son to a coal miner to an advocate for workers’ rights, I see a man who never let his circumstances define him. His past was marked by hard work, sacrifice, and an unyielding spirit. These experiences shaped his character, instilling in him a relentless drive to provide and care for his family, despite the hardships he faced. His past was not just a series of events, but a foundation of strength and resilience that he built upon every day.

No doubt he saw his future.

Perhaps my father saw the day when I would go to college, leaving him and my mother to explore their new roles as empty nesters. They always waited for me and my five siblings to come back home for visits.

Perhaps he envisioned some of his many innovative ideas coming to fruition in the marketplace. He made copper jewelry, believing that it provided therapeutic benefits for arthritis sufferers. (My father’s idea was not far-fetched: copper jewelry began to be marketed in the early 1970s.)

He also had a vision for extension ladders with adjustable legs, designed for painting homes built on sloped yards like ours, and he even built a prototype. (Again, my father’s idea was ahead of its time: extension ladders with adjustable legs for working on slopes began appearing on the market around the early 2000s.)

One of his more futuristic ideas involved cars moving along highways, advancing magnetically to specific destinations designated by the driver at the start of the journey. (This concept, while far-fetched in its time, became reality with the marketing of self-driving cars in the mid-2010s.)

Perhaps my father saw into his final years. I wonder whether his body was telling him early on what his doctors told him later. Black Lung. Third Stage Silicosis. I wonder whether his heart saw a 1982 Golden Wedding Anniversary. I wonder whether his soul foresaw a calm and peaceful passage heavenward a year later.

Looking back at my father gazing out the window, envisioning the future, I realize that he saw possibilities that others didn’t. His innovative ideas and forward-thinking mindset were a testament to his enduring hope and determination. Even in the face of illness and the unknown, he remained focused on what could be, leaving a legacy of optimism and ingenuity. His ability to dream beyond the present instilled in me the same fervor and faith in the future.

Whatever my father saw–whether his present, his past, or his future–I have not a doubt in the world that he was looking through the same metaphorical lens that he held up to my eyes when he taught me as a young boy how to use a push plow to lay out a perfectly straight row in the field.

“Don’t look down. Keep your eyes fixed on something in the distance where you want the row to end.”

He was teaching me far more than how to plow a straight row. He was teaching me how to live my life in a way that mirrored his. Maintain a clear vision. Stay focused on long-term objectives. Persevere through challenges with resilience and determination.

That’s what my father saw.

A Reader’s Compendium to Intimacy

Posted on May 19, 2025 by Brent L. Kendrick

“Maybe the next new old way to intimacy is right here. Voice. Breath. Story.”
—-TheWiredResearcher, b. 1947. Author of A Reader’s Compendium to Intimacy, guaranteed to make you explore all the rooms in your home.

Whiplash!

If I were a betting man, I’d wager the title gave you a little jolt. You paused on Compendium—“Wait, does that mean what I think it means?”—and then BAM! You hit Intimacy, and it was like you got rear-ended at a stoplight. Neck snap. Mind swirl. Whiplash.

Let me double down. The moment you saw Intimacy, your head unzipped at least one of these:

● “Sex.”
● “Emotional stuff… here we go.”
● “Being seen. Fully. Yikes.”
● “Something I want—and fear.”
● “Crying in front of someone.”
● “Letting someone in—too far in.”
● “When it’s good, it’s everything.”
● “That’s what I’m missing.”
● “It never lasts.”
● “Real connection. No filter.”
● “The kind of thing that leaves you wordless—and maybe a little wrecked.”

Aha! Caught you! If you hadn’t blushed, I wouldn’t have known. But don’t worry. You’re okay. I’m okay. And talking about intimacy? Trust me. It’s more than okay. Try it. You’ll be surprised by your discoveries.

Let me also assure you of something else. If sex is what you thought of first, you’re still fine. I’ll prove it to you. I wanted to sprinkle some hard data into this essay, like the suggestive power of scattering rose petals on bedroom sheets, so I googled:

“How many times a day do people think about intimacy?”

What popped up first? Guess. Every hit focused on some aspect of sex, and since I’ve already gone down that rabbit hole, let me share what I found. Men think about sex 19 times a day; women, 10.

But sex is just one slice of intimacy. So if something else popped up as your first thought, you’re in good company. As a matter of fact, many studies don’t even include physical closeness in defining intimacy.

Instead, they zero in on what intimacy requires before it even begins: establishing trust, cultivating closeness, and voicing truth aloud.

Some experts get really specific and focus on what they call the 5 As of intimacy:

● Attention to the present moment–observing, listening, and noticing all the feelings at play in the relationships.
● Acceptance of ourselves and others just as we are.
● Appreciation of all our gifts, our limits, and our longings as human beings.
● Affection shown through holding and touching.
● Allowing life and love to be just as they are, with all their ecstasy and ache, without trying to take control.

Other experts focus on the 5 Cs of intimacy:

● Communication–talking openly, honestly, and respectfully.
● Compatibility–sharing core values and goals.
● Commitment–showing up and working through challenges together.
● Care–expressing love through empathy, support, and small gestures.
● Compromise–meeting in the middle to make sure both people feel heard, valued, and respected.

Also, the experts have recommendations for keeping intimacy alive and well in the bedroom. Well. Good grief. Somebody needs to tell the experts that houses have more rooms than the bedroom. Joking aside, most of the tips circle back to sex. So let me share one that doesn’t. I stumbled on it the other day. It’s the 2-2-2 rule that goes like this. Committed couples should go on a date once every two weeks, spend a weekend away every two months, and take a week-long vacation every two years.

I’m fascinated by that rule, but just to be transparent: I’d need more dates, more getaways, and more week-long vacays. Preferably soon. Preferably with someone special who knows how to linger over dessert and pillow talk and other sweet nuthins that mean everything.

Lately, though, something softer has been curling around the edges of my mind. It’s something that doesn’t require a plane ticket or a fancy reservation. All it needs is a dedicated space, a good voice, and the willingness to listen.

Are you ready? It’s so incredibly simple.

Reading aloud to someone.

Can you imagine?

Actually, I can. I don’t know about you, but I love reading aloud. I always have. As an educator, reading literary selections aloud to my students is one of my greatest joys. Time after time after time, they respond:

“Professor Kendrick, when I read this story, I didn’t get it. But hearing you read helped me understand. Now, I get it.”

I think I know why. Reading aloud requires understanding not just the meaning strung out in words but also the heart and soul that live in the spaces surrounding those words, sometimes haunting those spaces, and sometimes hoping and longing for release that comes only when the words hear themselves spoken, knowing that they’ve been set free through sharing. Author. Reader. Listener. Intertwined. Joined. One. It’s one of the most intimate moments ever, even if fleeting.

Occasionally, that moment becomes even more intimate when words catch the reader off guard and nuanced meanings surface as the words roll off the tongue, releasing a sudden floodgate of tears, falling unexpectedly but without need of apology or explanation.

It’s happened to me more than once, but I most remember what happened when I taught Thomas Wolfe’s “The Lost Boy” for the first time. I loved the story from the start, and I was confident of my ability to lead a general class discussion built around the question:

“Who is the lost boy in the novella?

“Eugene? Grover? How do you know. Where’s the textual evidence to support your claim?”

Just as we were ending our lively and spirited class conversation, I decided to read the last paragraph.

“And out of the enchanted wood, that thicket of man’s memory, Eugene knew that the dark eye and the quiet face of his friend and brother—poor child, life’s stranger, and life’s exile, lost like all of us, a cipher in blind mazes, long ago—the lost boy was gone forever, and would not return.”

With quivering voice and with tears moistening my cheeks, I made it through the final words, realizing as I had never realized before, the existential pain that comes with knowing how lost we all are on life’s journey.

There I stood in all my vulnerability. There my students sat, seeing me in that moment. And then, we all understood simply because I had read aloud.

The intensity of that intimate moment remains unforgettable.

I’ve never tried reading aloud in a relationship, but I’d love to try it. I’m thinking that it would be slow burn. I’m thinking that it would be like foreplay for the soul.

I’ll take credit for the sultriness that I just brought to the notion of reading aloud to someone. But when it comes to the idea itself, I’ll have to give credit to a neighbor. We were enjoying a cocktail, and somewhere between Gin-and-Tonic sips, Gary started telling me about the reading ritual he and his late wife practiced daily:

● Same time.
● Same place.
● Different books, usually.
● Breaking the silence, whenever desired, to share a passage aloud.

As he kept talking, I watched and listened, spellbound. He was transported if only for a few fleeting moments to a lifetime of fleeting moments when he and Jody read together in a ritual so profound that it transcended the physical and found home in heart and soul.

Actually, neither Gary nor Jody can claim the ritual as theirs. Couples have been doing it forever.

Step back in American history to Thomas and Martha Jefferson. They were known to spend evenings at Monticello reading novels and poetry to each other, their voices soft against the candlelight of a Virginia evening. It was one of the few quiet pleasures in a life that was otherwise noisy with politics.

Several presidencies later, John and Abigail Adams read political theory, plays, and moral philosophy aloud to each other—sometimes in the same room, sometimes through the pages of their legendary letters. Shared reading was one way they kept their minds, and their marriage, sharp.

Hop to the other side of the Pond and fast forward to the next century and we’ll find Queen Victoria and Prince Albert often reading poetry aloud in the evenings—sometimes in English, sometimes in German. Victoria later wrote in her journals that Albert’s voice brought her calm. Their reading wasn’t just education. It was connection.

Reading aloud to each other isn’t just a thing of the past either.

Fast forward to the present. Everyone knows that Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter—married for 77 years—read the Bible aloud to one another every single night, even when they were apart. When travel or illness intervened, they kept the tradition alive by phone. It wasn’t about religion so much as rhythm. A ritual. A bond.

Another presidential couple, Barack and Michelle Obama, often speak about sharing books with each other—discussing what they’re reading, trading pages, sometimes reading passages aloud. For them, books are not only a window into each other’s minds but also a way to stay close while being in the public eye.

Even acting duos like Michael McKean and Annette O’Toole read books aloud to each other. They’ve done so for decades, weaving stories into the fabric of their relationship like a shared language.

Now that I’ve got my rhythm going, let me share with you something that I’ve known all along. Literature is filled with couples who share books, poems, and whispered lines by firelight.

I’m thinking about Hazel & Augustus in John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. They read An Imperial Affliction aloud to each other, sharing lines that feel like lifelines. It’s tender, flirty, and heartbreaking.

Or what about Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe in L. M. Montgomery’s Anne’s House of Dreams? As their relationship deepens, they read poetry and essays together, sometimes aloud. It’s subtle, romantic, and tied to their shared love of words and growth.

I guess I should mention The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a novel by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. Several characters read aloud to each other throughout wartime, showing that community forms through books and shared voices and that reading as intimacy outlasts chaos.

But I’m not going to talk about any of those literary works. They’re all lovely, earnest, and romantic. But I want something different. I want something quieter. I want to talk about Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. After fire and blindness and the long stretch of absence, it’s Jane who reads aloud to Mr. Rochester. She does it not to dazzle, not to perform, but simply to be there. Her voice becomes his window to the world—and maybe even back to himself. It’s not just love—it’s restoration, offered one word at a time.

And that’s the kind of reading aloud that I’m moving toward at this point in my life. I want it to be not just a ritual of sharing aloud but also a ritual of staying in place.

It’s a ritual that I’ve never practiced in a relationship. But I’m ready to give it a try, just to see. Maybe start with poetry or essays.

I’m ready to say, “Pick something you love–or wrote. Maybe a poem. I’ll pick something I love–or wrote. Maybe an essay. Let’s read when we feel like it. Share when we want to. Listen, when we can.”

I’m ready for a voice I know to wrap itself around ideas I don’t.

I’m ready for the quiet thrill of saying, “Listen to this,” and meaning everything.

Who knows. Maybe that’s the next new old way to explore intimacy—not with technique or timing or strategy, but with voice, breath, and story.

There. Now you have it. A Reader’s Compendium to Intimacy. Now you know.

Go. Do it. No rose petals. No script.

Just this. Read. Together. Aloud, sometimes. And when your love reads back to you?

Remember: That’s not just a voice.

Remember: That’s a heart unfolding, anew.

The Nearness of Faraway Places: How Our Roots and Our Dreams Keep Tugging at Each Other

Posted on May 12, 2025 by Brent L. Kendrick

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965), Nobel Prize-winning poet and one of the most influential literary figures of the twentieth century. His major works explore spiritual desolation, renewal, and the search for meaning.

Once upon a time, in a previous life long, long ago, I started a side hustle. It lasted several years and could have lasted longer. But here’s the thing. It did so well that I had to choose between it and my federal career. It was impossible to live in both worlds. I had to choose one or the other. I chose my federal career.

But linger with me for a second, and let me tell you about something I learned when Potomac Research Organization (PRO) was my hustle. Simply put, I did research, mainly using the Library of Congress and the National Archives. One area that brought lots of clients my way, sometimes high-paying ones, was finding people.

I had a solid track record for locating lost heirs, sometimes in cemetery plots. But that was okay: I still found them and took pride in knowing that my sleuthing had paid off even though previous efforts by others–often licensed private investigators–had failed. I attributed my success then–and even now, looking back–to something anecdotal perhaps, but it always proved true. Most people never go too far away from home. Most people stay near their roots, usually within 300 miles or so.

Over and over again, I’d say:

“Tell me where the person was born, and I’ll find the heirs.”

I always did.

Once, I found someone far closer: within a half mile of where my search began. My client was a DC businessman who was adopted at birth. He was looking for his mother. I do not need to bore you with all the details, nor would I even if I could remember them all. Jack–not his real name, but he has to have one–didn’t have a lot of information, but he had enough that I decided to take his case.

● Date of Birth: August 1943.
● Place of Birth: DC.
● Mother’s Maiden Name: Jones (fictitious, just like my client’s first name).
● Mother’s Place of Birth: Iowa.

I started by exploring published cemetery records across the entire state of Iowa. I lucked out. I found one with lots of people who had the same last name as Jack’s mother. Then, I consulted telephone directories and found a possible relative.

I passed the number along to Jack. When he called, he discovered that the woman who answered the phone was his aunt. She put him in touch with his mother, who was living in DC, less than a half mile from where Jack had lived his entire life. You don’t need the subsequent details, but you do need to know that the story had a happy ending. Jack and his mother reconnected, and the last I heard, they were still having clandestine monthly lunches. I always wondered whether Jack eventually found a place in the new life and new family that his mother had carved for herself after he was born. Realistically, I doubt it. Geographically, he and his mother were never more than half a mile apart. Spiritually, however, he had one leg in his familiar adoptive world and the other in his newly discovered birth world. I suppose, though, that Jack was at home, as much as he could ever be, as much as any of us can ever be.

Jack’s truth is true for all of us. The homing instinct is a strong one, and most people, in one way or another, end up going back home. Some people, though, return to their roots only to discover they’re no longer at the place they once knew as home. I’m thinking about people whose education (or social mobility) lifts them into a new world but leaves them hanging between two realities–their roots on one side and their new opportunities on the other. They don’t feel fully at home in either place.

In fact, there’s even a bit of academic writing about it, especially around first-generation college students, upward social mobility, and immigrant experiences.
Sociologists and memoirists alike talk about the tension:

● Feeling “too educated” or “different” when they go back home.

● Feeling “not polished enough” or “out of step” among the educated elite.

● Constantly negotiating a kind of invisible gap between the two.

Not too surprisingly, there’s a term for people like me: straddlers. I had never heard the term until a student in one of my Creative Writing classes did her book report on Alfred Lubrano’s Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams (2005). Lubrano shows how chasing the American Dream can leave you straddling two worlds—where you’re too educated to go back home, but you never feel quite refined enough for the boardroom. Through his own story and others, he reminds us that success doesn’t always come with a map or a welcome mat.

My student–an Ohio straddler–grew teary-eyed as she gave her report, leaving me teary-eyed, too–a West Virginia straddler, the first in my family to go to college. I could relate. Being a straddler is like living in a kind of cultural no-man’s-land—never entirely belonging again to the old world that spurred you on and never quite accepted by the new world where you landed. It’s a lonely, often bittersweet place.

Ironically, the straddlers I know–mostly community college professors like me–don’t talk about the dilemma that much unless we’re part of a panel or symposium exploring the challenges of first-generation college students. Even then, we focus on the power of education to transform.

In fact, it just occurred to me that until this post, I’ve never talked much about being a straddler either. Even now, it snuck up on me and took me by surprise.

But for writers, being somewhere between two worlds and not feeling really at home in either is perfect material.

One comes to mind immediately: American writer Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. She grew up as the daughter of a dry goods merchant/housewright and then became an overnight literary success equal in popularity to Mark Twain. Yet despite her literary status, while living in Randolph, Massachusetts–the boot factory town where she was born–she wrote to a friend:

“I have survived another Boston luncheon. I’m not literary enough for Boston, but I’m awfully afraid I’ve got to go to a dinner there.” (Kate Upson Clark, before August 1892, Letter 105, The Infant Sphinx: Collected Letters of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Edited with Biographical and Critical Introductions by Brent L. Kendrick, 1985)

Or what about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story, “Winter Dreams”? It’s a perfect case study of what it’s like being a straddler. Dexter Green earns the success he dreamed of, but the world he craves still sees him as an outsider. Some doors open, but never all the way.

Even the characters we celebrate—and the writers who created them—know what it means to stand on a shifting patch of ground. You might have a seat at the table, but you can still feel the worn wood of your own kitchen chair in your bones. You might build your fortune and earn your degrees, but somewhere deep down, you remember being the boy who was the caddy at the golf course.

Poets know that truth, too. Robert Frost hints at this quiet but universal dislocation in “The Star-Splitter.” In the poem, Brad McLaughlin grows weary of hugger-mugger farming, burns his house down, and takes the insurance proceeds to buy himself a telescope so that he can explore our place in the universe. Brad spends the rest of his life as a straddler, one leg on his rocky farm and the other somewhere out there between and betwixt the stars:

We’ve looked and looked, but after all where are we?
Do we know any better where we are,
And how it stands between the night tonight
And a man with a smoky lantern chimney?
How different from the way it ever stood?

We search, we climb, and we study the stars, but we never completely leave the farm fields where we took our first steps.

Maybe it comes down to nothing more than this. Being human means learning to live with one foot planted deep in the soil of home, and the other reaching, straining, yearning toward something larger—something luminous—just out of reach.

The tension that I’m writing about here and that we all experience whenever we stretch across two worlds—literal or metaphorical—is not a modern invention. It has ancient roots, reaching deep into the earliest reflections on what it means to be human. Across cultures and centuries, writers and thinkers have wrestled with the same essential dilemma that’s central to human existence—the inherent conflict between the flesh and the spirit. Are we ruled by appetite or guided by aspiration? Are we creatures of earth or beings reaching for the divine?

Even an ancient Egyptian text, The Dispute Between a Man and His Ba (c. 2000 BCE), captures the longing to escape the burdens of mortal life. A weary speaker pleads for release, saying:

“Death is to me today like the smell of myrrh.”

Centuries later, the Greek philosopher Plato echoed a similar weariness with bodily existence. In Phaedo (360 BCE), he writes:

“The body is a source of endless trouble to us … it fills us with loves, desires, fears, all sorts of fancies and a great deal of nonsense.”

This longing was not confined to Egyptian prayers or Greek philosophy. In early Christian thought, the tension was just as fierce. The Apostle Paul, in his Letter to the Galatians, draws the battle lines plainly:

“For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other.” (5:17-21)

Clearly, across time and tradition, the yearning to transcend the physical and grasp something eternal has been a defining part of the human story.

Maybe, at the end of the day, it comes down to nothing more than this. It’s not about the Apostle Paul or Plato or the Egyptians. It’s not about Brad or Dexter or Freeman. It’s not about my student or me. It’s not even about Jack.

Maybe, at the end of the day, it’s about all of us.

Maybe we’re all travelers looking for a place to call home, a place to land, sighing a sigh of relief as we say, “I made it.”

Maybe we’re all straddlers caught between two worlds, peering back over our shoulders even as we gaze toward the stars.

The Route Home

Posted on April 28, 2025 by Brent L. Kendrick

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
—Douglas Adams (1952–2001. Best known for his 1979 novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a blend of science fiction, sharp wit, and existential insight.)

Home was just a few miles away–ten at best–and I knew exactly how to get there. I could have done it blindfolded. But as I headed home, I decided to fool around with my Jeep’s navigation system. Just for fun. Just for the hell of it.

● Start ENGINE

● Press NAV

● Select HOME

● Press GO!

Getting home have been easier. I knew that a gentle voice would tell me just what to do and when to do it.

● Please proceed to the highlighted route

● At end of the road, turn left on Hoover Road

● Turn left

I decided to turn right. That’s where my fun began.

● Route recalculated

● At end of the road, turn right

● In one thousand feet turn right

● Take the next right onto I-81 toward Edinburg

No way. I wasn’t about to hop on the Interstate, head south to Edinburg, then backtrack on Rt. 11 toward home.

I ignored the commands. I kept right on going while my Jeep’s voice kept right on trying to change my mind:

● Route recalculation. Make a U-turn where possible.

Eventually, I decided that I needed to stop foolin’ around. It was obvious–and I knew it anyway–that my Jeep’s navigation system would keep redirecting me with each of my wrong turns until I reached home.

But that little joyride made me realize something. I may not be the world’s best when it comes to getting from one place to the next, but I’ve always managed to find my way. Even in the days of printed road maps, I got where I needed to go. I highlighted my routes in yellow so I could see them clearly. And even when I forgot the map, I figured that I’d end up in the right place if I followed the road signs, stayed mindful of cardinal directions, and paid attention to my brain’s compass. It always seemed to work.

These days, with GPS built into every vehicle, I may not always take the shortest route. But I trust my Jeep’s system enough to head off anywhere, barely noticing my surroundings, confident that I’ll get a heads-up when it’s time to turn.

Still, after that bit of foolin’ around, I found myself scratching my head and wondering:

Do I extend that same trust to the systems that guide my life’s journey?

Do you?

In truth, we have navigational systems for nearly everything that matters—health, learning, careers, relationships, aging, and faith. We know the basics. We’ve heard about them. We’ve read about them. We’ve lived long enough to know that they work. But how often do we trust them? How often do we follow their cues with the same confidence that we give a GPS?

Take health, for example. The map isn’t mysterious: eat real food, move your body, sleep enough, manage your stress, hydrate, and laugh once in a while. We’ve seen the studies. We’ve heard it from doctors and mothers and friends who’ve faced wake-up calls. And still, we drive right past the obvious. We skip meals or eat meals that barely qualify as such. We stay up late, ignore symptoms, and postpone appointments. The check engine light flashes, and we figure we’ll deal with it next week.

And then there’s education. Curiosity and critical thinking are clearly marked paths. We’re told to keep learning, keep questioning, and keep evolving. And yet, how many of us treat learning like something that ends with a diploma or a degree? Or reject new ideas because they don’t come from their usual route? We scroll more than we study and nod along more than we inquire. We’d rather feel certain than feel stretched.

When it comes to careers, we’ve got entire industries built around career navigation—assessments, mentors, and step-by-step plans. We’re advised to find meaning, stay flexible, and avoid burnout. But those signs are easy to ignore when the faster route promises more money, more status, or just less fear. We trade direction for acceleration, only to find we’re speeding toward a place we never meant to go.

Even in relationships, we know the guidance there too: communicate, be honest, show up, listen, say thank you, and forgive. Don’t just speak—connect. Love is not a mystery novel. And yet we sabotage, assume, ghost, or stay silent. We expect relationships to work without maintenance. And when they don’t, we blame the other driver instead of checking the map.

Aging? There’s no avoiding this road. Ask me. I know. But there is a way to travel it. Let go of what no longer fits. Befriend your limits. Gather your joys and carry them with you. The people who age well usually do it with humor, grace, and a willingness to take new roads—even slower ones. But many of us cling to the idea that if we just hit the gas hard enough, we can outrun time. Spoiler alert: we can’t.

And faith—whatever form that takes. Every tradition has its own kind of compass. Not a GPS, no. There’s no turn-by-turn audible voice telling you exactly what to do. But there is the inner voice–the compass that knows, even when the map is blank. And there are coordinates: love, service, awe, humility, and compassion. Yet faith may be one of the hardest to trust because we’re not 100% certain of the destination. At best, we have a hope that we will arrive. In the meantime, faith requires that we keep on moving, even when the road ahead is unknown and sometimes dark.

I scratch my head again, and I wonder: Why is it so easy to trust the voice in our vehicles–and so hard to trust the wisdom we’ve already been given?

I think I know. Maybe it’s because GPS promises certainty. It offers fast answers, smooth roads, and an almost soothing illusion that we are in control. Life doesn’t work that way. Life meanders. It doubles back. It throws in detours, delays, and dead ends. And unlike our vehicles’ voices, the inner systems that help us live well—truly live—don’t shout. They speak softly in hushed tones. They require attention. They assume we’re willing to participate.

Still, I wonder: what if we gave those quiet inner systems the same trust that we give the GPS?

What if we followed the map toward health, education, careers, relationships, aging, and faith—not perfectly, but faithfully? What if, when we made a wrong turn, we heard a calm voice say: Don’t worry. Recalculating. What if we believed it?

Maybe then we’d realize that we were never really lost. We were just rerouted, always headed in the right direction–home.

From Francesco’s Stew to the Sound of My Pounding Heart

Posted on April 21, 2025 by Brent L. Kendrick

“When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.”
—Lao Tzu (6th century BCE; ancient Chinese philosopher and founder of Taoism. His teachings emphasize harmony with the natural flow of life.)

Ta-TUM. Ta-TUM. Ta-TUM.

With rhythmic precision, it keeps pounding just like my heart.

But it’s not my heart.

It’s my mind, beating to the same rhythm, chanting.

I want. I want. I want.

In my most recent chant, I wanted Francesco Mattano’s famed Peposo, a traditional Tuscan Red Wine Beef Stew. It’s so simple with just a few ingredients: garlic, beef, salt, coarsely ground black pepper, a bouquet garni, and red wine. Simmered for several hours and served up in a well of buttered polenta, it’s the recipe’s clean simplicity that makes it so sinfully delicious.

Altroché! That’s just what I wanted–an entree promising good-to-the-last-bite deliciousness. At the same time, I was well aware that I had leftover pork tenderloin as well as chicken salad.

Once upon a time, I would have rushed off to the grocery store, bought the provisions for Peposo, and celebrated another culinary triumph.

These days, however, even though my wants are as rhythmic as my heart, I am pulling back as I try to reconcile what I want with what I have.

With food, for example, I wanted Francesco’s stew, but I had pork tenderloin and chicken salad already prepared. The craving was there, but so was a perfectly good meal.

Take books, for example. I’ve dedicated decades of my life to Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, and I’ve amassed a significant collection. But I want to chase after one more obscure letter or document that will make my already rich archive even richer.

What about dating? I want romance—not out of need, but out of hope. My life is full and meaningful, yet I’d love to share it with someone who brings his own fullness—a shared life made richer by both of us.

Even in garden centers, new specimen evergreens whisper, “Take me. Plant me.” But I already have a beautiful Zen-like landscape.

I’m also trying to reconcile what I want with what I need.

I might want dessert, but what I need is a meal that aligns with my health goals. I’m cutting out sweets but keeping nightly Bunnahabhain—for balance!

When it comes to fitness, I might want quick results, but I need consistency not as much in biking as in weight training. At my age–no, at any age–real strength comes from steady, intentional effort.

What about my writing? I want more time to write, but I need to manage my other commitments more wisely so that I have the time I need.

Even in relationships, I want certainty, but I need to let connections unfold naturally—his rhythm, my rhythm, coming into step together.

The more I realize that I don’t need everything I want and that, in reality, I already have what I need, the more I’m discovering new dimensions of freedom.

What had been a constant search for more, whether material things, achievements, or validation, has given way to peace.

What had been a scarcity mindset has become a focus on embracing abundance—not in excess, but in sufficiency.

What had been a notion that having more means being more has yielded to the realization that I’m already enough.

What had been impulse is now intentional as I make choices that nourish me rather than just satisfy my fleeting cravings.

I’m shifting from grasping to gratitude,
from craving to contentment.

I’m no longer mistaking wants for purpose.
I’m recognizing that growth, connection, and presence matter more.

I’m starting to trust the rhythm of life,
just like I trust the rhythm of my own heart.

My heart beats on, steady and sure—
not demanding, just existing.

It thumps a lesson that I’m learning:
I don’t have to chase every want.
What I need is already here—or on its way, arriving in the fullness of time.

And that, in itself, is everything.

The Rust Whisperer

Posted on April 14, 2025 by Brent L. Kendrick

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
—Lao Tzu (6th century BCE. Founder of Taoism. His teachings focus on harmony with nature, patience in becoming, and the quiet power of letting life unfold in its own time.)

Every time I walked to my Jeep and looked toward the forest’s edge, I chuckled. Smack dab in front of me was a contraption the likes of which I had never seen in my life. Actually, I made it and even gave it a name. The Rust Spa.

“Say whaaaaat?” someone just rasped.

Yes. The Rust Spa. It didn’t take me long to come up with the idea. It works so well that I may apply for a patent and sell it to US Steel, the company that owns the trademark for Corten. You may know it as COR-TEN.

Either way–and rather ironically as you will discover–the COR stands for COrrosion Resistance and the TEN stands for TENsile strength. Corten is well-known for aging gracefully and creating a deep, natural tone as “the thickened oxide forms.” For me, that translates to aging gracefully as plain ole rust appears, and I actually love the deep rich natural brownish-red tone that metal takes on over time.

That’s exactly why I bought myself a Corten planter–for its trademark rusty patina. Of course, I realized when I bought it, that rusting would take time.

I knew it would take a long, long time when the planter arrived, and I opened the box. Behold! Sleek. Clean. Almost smug in its shine. Smooth bare metal, cool to the touch, untouched by time. No rust, no streaks, no signs of surrender. Just raw, industrial silver. It was so pristine it practically glinted in the morning sun, as if daring me to try to change it.

Change it, however, I would, and I knew my resolve from the start. In a bottle, I mixed equal parts of white vinegar and hydrogen peroxide with one tablespoon of salt per cup of liquid. Then I positioned the Corten planter on a stump near the forest’s edge, and every three hours or so, I sprayed it evenly like a soft mist of time.

After just a few applications, the raw steel started to shift—deep ochre streaks rippled down the surface, gathering in drips and blooms that caught the light like burnished velvet. The edges darkened, the face mottled, and the rust arrived quietly.

But I was eager for a little more fanfare. In that moment–and let history take note–I came up with the idea that will ensure my infamy: The Rust Spa. I wanted to speed up the alchemy. Easy peasy. I misted the planter with my magic spray of time. I put it inside a black yard bag to trap heat and moisture, both ideal for rust formation. Then, to keep it all in place, I inverted the delivery box and placed it on top. Voila! The Rust Spa.

The Rust Spa worked its quiet magic. When I disrobed the planter, it sat proudly on its stump throne, no longer silver and self-conscious, but cloaked in a deep, burnished rust. Its warm, mottled patina caught the light in uneven streaks, each drip and blush a quiet testament to time, to weather, to letting go. It no longer shouted; it hummed. And in that stillness, it held a beauty—neither flashy nor fresh but seasoned and settled. With a coat of boiled linseed oil, I sealed the patina in place, locking in that rich, rusty finish like a photograph of time itself.

Now, locked in time, it graces my deck in the middle of a rustic, wrought-iron table with stone top.

It’s there in all my comings and goings, and every time I cast admiring glances in its direction, I cast backward glances to my own life, to all the times when I wished to be older so that I could experience sooner all the things that I would experience later on at the appointed time.

When I was eleven and twelve, I was eager to be a teenager, so I could do the “cool stuff.” Looking back, I’m not certain what the “cool stuff” was. We didn’t have a car. We didn’t have a telephone. We had a TV, but why would I stay up late? For what? As for choices, I was known for making my own and for making them my way. Still, I wanted to fast forward my life. I wanted my own Rust Spa.

After I reached my teenage years, I was eager to be sixteen. Even though we didn’t have a family car, my sister and her husband lived next door. Judy taught me how to drive, and I thought that I had arrived when I got my driver’s license. I’m not sure why. I suppose I dreamt of driving off into the sunset with the gay date that I didn’t have in the Chevy that I didn’t own. Still, I wanted to fast forward my life. I wanted my own Rust Spa.

Then, of course, I was so eager to be eighteen, so I could get away from all the limitations of my home, my town, and my place. I did. I went to college in fast pursuit of me, myself, more authentic than the one I wasn’t really able to be in my home, my town, and my place. How ironic that I always went back on holidays and breaks. Still, I wanted to fast forward my life. I wanted my own Rust Spa.

With my degree in hand, I was eager to start climbing the rungs of my career ladder. That’s just what I did, and it ended up being a twofer. I landed a position at The Library of Congress, at home in the place with all of the books. And I found myself living on Capitol Hill, at home with me as a gay guy, realizing that I wasn’t alone. Still, I wanted to fast forward my life to a place where I could learn more. I wanted my own Rust Spa.

The place turned out to be the University of South Carolina in Columbia, where I earned my doctor’s degree in philosophy and became an expert in American Literature, British Literature, Handpress Bibliography, and, more important, where I learned that an education softens character and keeps it from being cruel. Still, I wanted to fast forward my life to a place where I had been before: home. I wanted my own Rust Spa.

I circled back home to DC and the Library of Congress. A place of emotional grounding where I felt whole, safe, and—authentic. A place where I sensed spiritual and intellectual belonging. A place where I could elevate self-acceptance from fleeting to permanent. A place where I could wrap my arms around all with all that my mother taught me as a child about diversity, equity, and inclusion and, at the same time, widen my embrace to include gender identity and sexual orientation. A place where, through the power of my pen, I soared to heights higher than I ever dreamt that words could fly. Still, I was eager to be what I had dreamt of being since the third grade: a college English professor. I wanted my own Rust Spa.

Laurel Ridge Community College opened the door, and the dream was fulfilled. Imagine! Me–a professor. A desire to stretch my students helped me stand on tiptoe looking at the bright futures of more than 7,000 students for twenty-three years. And beyond fulfilling the professional dream was realizing another one. Falling in love and exchanging wedding rings. Two men living their lives openly. Proud. Explanations? None. The happiness of our twenty-year love outlives Allen’s unexpected death. Still, I was eager to write my final chapters. I wanted my own Rust Spa.

I’m writing them now as one more part of Reinvention. Ask all who know me. I did not reTIRE because I ain’t no ways tired. In fact, I’ve been reinventing myself forever, with every twist and turn of my journey. This most recent started in 2023, and it’s turning out to be one of the most creative and productive times of my life. Five published books with others in progress. Speaking engagements several times a year, including a few that showcase not only my hopes for AI to save us from ourselves but also my hopes for online dating to spirit another Mr. Right my way so that we can co-author the closing chapters together–his, mine, ours.

And here’s where I start to chuckle again. My Corten planter had absolutely nothing to do with achieving its exquisite and inexplicable patina. I did it by speeding up the process in my Rust Spa. I kept applying my mist of time until it achieved the look that I wanted. Then, I sealed it for all eternity.

And so it is with me. Despite all the times down through the years when I wished to be older so that I could experience sooner all the things that I would experience later on at the appointed time, I could do little more than wish and dream.

In reality, I had no more control over achieving my aged patina than my planter had. It’s been a journey filled with yearnings. To arrive. To become.

In reality, every time I was eager to be “somewhere next,” I had to wait on time to take me there.

In reality, I can no more see my finish than my planter can see its.

Yet I know that it’s seasoned.

Yet I know that it’s settled.

Yet I know that it’s not finished.

Still, of this much I am certain. When the appointed time comes, soft and magical mists will seal in place patinaed perfection.

The Gospel of Biscuits. Or, I Don’t Want to Bother.

Posted on March 24, 2025 by Brent L. Kendrick

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
—Mary Oliver (1935–2019; American poet celebrated for her keen observations of nature, the human spirit, and the connection between the two. Oliver’s poetry encourages readers to engage deeply with the world around them and to embrace life’s moments with curiosity and intention.)

Crunchy fried chicken, its golden-brown crust crackling with every bite. Check. Pimento cheese potato salad, creamy and tangy, with just enough bite to earn nods of approval. Check. Green beans simmered long and slow, tender and rich with the deep, smoky whisper of a ham hock. Check. Sliced tomatoes, their sun-ripened juices glistening under a light sprinkle of salt. Check. Peach pie cooling on the counter, its buttery crust cradling syrupy, sun-warmed fruit, promising the perfect sweet finish. Check.

Dinner was falling into shape, as country as country could be—homey, solid, the kind of meal that settles deep and satisfies. Except I hadn’t made my sourdough biscuits. And it’s those damned biscuits that caused the problem.

Easy peasy. Sourdough discard. Flour. Butter. Milk. Salt. It’s hard to imagine that such a modest assemblage could rise up to become so flaky and tender, hundreds of layers as light and lofty as billowy clouds. But that always happens, in record time.

Get this. I had all the ingredients lined up, waiting for the gentle touch of my deft hands to spring into action. But with my measure mid-air, I stopped in a heated exchange of self-talk:

“I don’t want to bother.”

“Come on. They only take ten minutes.”

“But everything else is done. Why mess up the kitchen now?”

“Biscuits. You always make biscuits.”

“Not tonight.”

“Come on. Just mix the dough.”

“No.”

“You’ll regret it.”

“No. I won’t.”

I set the measuring cup down, exhaled hard, walked away, and floured one up to “I don’t want to bother.”

I’d like to think that ended my self-talk on that topic. It did, for a while. After all, with a meal that was a culinary triumph by anyone’s standards, who needs biscuits?

But here’s the thing. The next day, those biscuits got on my case. In reality, it wasn’t the biscuits. It couldn’t have been since I didn’t make them. It was the underlying reason for not making them that started eating away at me:

“I don’t want to bother.”

I mean, let’s face it. I could have said any number of things:

“I don’t want to.”

“I’m tired. I need a break.”

“With a spread like that, who needs biscuits?”

I didn’t say any of those things because they just weren’t true. My truth was what I had told myself:

“I don’t want to bother.”

Bother. That’s the word that stuck in my craw. Bother—a term that’s been around since at least 1842, when someone first wrote, “We can’t do it at all, we can’t be bothered.” And here I was, almost two centuries later, falling into the same trap.

Realistically, one single utterance should be no cause for alarm. Right? I’m not so certain.

What if it moved from biscuits to other areas of my life?

What about brushing Ruby, my best dog ever? It would be easier to let it slide.

What about publishing my blog posts, week after week after week? It would be a lot easier to skip a week here, there, forever.

What about pushing through with my daily biking routine? It would be a lot easier to bike fewer miles every day or to skip a day now and then.

What about finishing a major research project? It would be a lot easier to put it aside.

Luckily, I haven’t allowed “I don’t want to bother” to prevail. And look at the results.

I have a well-groomed faithful companion, Ruby. I have a blog with a track record for being published every Monday morning before seven just as regularly as clockwork. I bike 15-20 miles every day, seven days a week, knowing that it never gets easier. I just solved one of America’s greatest literary mysteries–Unmasking The Humourist: Alexander Gordon’s Lost Essays of Colonial Charleston, South Carolina. The Humourist’s incisive voice will now be heard once more.

I hope, especially as I age, that I will never let “I don’t want to bother” prevail. Here’s why.

It seems to me that the more we avoid doing things, the smaller our world becomes. What starts as skipping small inconveniences—like making biscuits or brushing the dog—can gradually turn into avoiding new experiences, opportunities, and relationships. The mindset can shift from “I don’t want to bother” to the even more passive “I can’t be bothered.”

It seems to me that the best experiences in life often require an extra push—whether in personal growth, relationships, or creativity. Habitual avoidance means fewer “What if?” moments that lead to breakthroughs or unexpected joys. Sometimes we find ourselves in a rut, not because we lack talent, intelligence, or resources, but simply because we repeatedly choose the path of least resistance.

It seems to me that friendships and family connections need tending. If “I don’t want to bother” becomes the default, relationships slowly fade through neglect. This can lead to isolation, where we wake up one day and realize we haven’t had a meaningful conversation in weeks or months.

It seems to me that small decisions accumulate. If we regularly skip writing, gardening, dating, or learning new things, we might later look back and wonder, “What did I do with all that time?”

It seems to me that the difference between people who feel satisfied with life and those who feel unfulfilled often comes down to these small moments of effort—choosing to bother when it counts.

Believe me. The next time I serve up a meal like that—or any meal, for that matter—I won’t hesitate. I’ll bother.

Finding Love Later in Life—Baggage and All

Posted on February 10, 2025 by Brent L. Kendrick

“There is no remedy for love but to love more.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862; American philosopher, naturalist, and writer whose reflections on love, like his views on life, emphasize depth, authenticity, and resilience.)

Trust me: I can’t sing. I can’t hit the high notes. I can’t hit the low notes. Honestly, I’m not even sure I recognize the notes. But that doesn’t stop me from trying, and when my vocal efforts disappoint even me, I just switch to humming and keep right on going.

I’ve been doing that a lot for the last few days, I guess because February is the month of love, and, at 77, I have a large repertoire of love songs filed away mentally in my jukebox of melodies, most from the 1960s when my teenage head was full of love notions.

I’m thinking of songs like Ben E. King’s “Stand by Me,” The Crystals’ “Then He Kissed Me,” The Beatles’ “And I Love Him,” Sonny & Cher’s “I Got You Babe,” and The Bee Gees’ “To Love Somebody.”

I could croon on and on with those golden oldies. But right now, I’m thinking of one that was released on November 21, 1961, the day after I turned fourteen. It’s Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love”:

Wise men say
Only fools, only fools rush in
Oh, but I, but I, I can’t help falling in love with you

[…]

Take my hand
Take my whole life too
For I can’t help falling in love with you
For I can’t help falling in love with you

Those lyrics capture a truth about love that we’ve all experienced and know first-hand. When Cupid shoots his arrow, you’re filled with uncontrollable desire. You just can’t help yourself. You’re a goner.

Here’s another thing to consider. Cupid strikes at times when you least expect it and in places where you’d never dream. Remember Manfred Mann’s “Do Wah Diddy Diddy”?

There he was just a-walkin’ down the street, singin’
“Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do”
Snappin’ his fingers and shufflin’ his feet, singin’
“Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do”
He looked good (Looked good)
He looked fine (Looked fine)
He looked good, he looked fine
And I nearly lost my mind

Lord knows he looked mighty fine to me. Lord knows, too, that I lost my mind, many a time, in those days. When nothing came of my uncontrollable desires, I just hummed another classic love song, “Some Day My Prince Will Come”:

Some day my prince will come
Some day I’ll find my love
And how thrilling that moment will be
When the prince of my dreams comes to me
He’ll whisper, I love you
And steal a kiss or two
Though he’s far away
I’ll find my love some day

All of those lyrics are spot on, and you know why as well as I do.

When you’re young, you’re convinced that your prince will come.

When you’re young, you fully believe that he’ll come a-walkin’ down the street, right toward you. When he passes, he’ll look back to see if you’re looking back to see.

When you’re young, you’re so full of yourself that you’re not about to listen to all the wisdom in the world pleading with you not to rush into love, telling you that only fools are brazen enough to do so.

When you’re young, you’re certain that you’re ready to love, ready to find your soulmate, and ready to offer up your whole life. Why not? Your whole life lies ahead of you as you lie in bed, dreaming about how sweet it will be when “I” becomes “We.” You create little mantras each beginning with We Can:

● buy our first home together, pick out furniture, argue over paint colors, and plant roots.

● build careers together, support each other’s ambitions, and figure out work-life balance.

● start a family (or not), decide whether to have children, get a pet, and shape a shared future.

● travel together, dream about Sedona and Scotland, and road-trip just because.

● make traditions, holidays, Sunday morning pancakes, little rituals that become “ours.”

● grow old together idyllically, just as English poet Robert Browning would have everyone do:

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made.

All of these things feel right when you’re young because time is on your side. Love feels like an open road. And it is. More lies ahead than behind.

Trust me. I know. I’ve been there. I’ve done that. The love I shared with Allen was like a twenty-year fairy tale, even if it did come along later in life than I expected. But love doesn’t always last a lifetime. Sometimes, death claims it, as it did mine. Other times, it’s cut short by separation or divorce. And for some, it never arrives at all—not for lack of wanting, but because life has a way of unfolding differently than we imagined.

Now here’s where you have to work with me, especially if you’re an older person like me looking for love once more to round out life’s final act.

When you’re older, things are a little different. You’ve already bought your first home together, built careers together, started a family (or not) together, traveled together, made traditions together, and grown old together.

You get it, I’m sure. When you’re older, you’ve already done all of the We Can’s that you dreamt of when you were young. Those love feats shaped you, molded you, and will be with you forever. It’s your baggage, and even if you wanted to get rid of it you couldn’t. When you’re looking for love later in life, you realize that in all likelihood more lies behind you that ahead of you. No problem. Longevity is not guaranteed to anyone, not even the young. So, be bold and be willing to step into a bright new tomorrow with a brand-new lover, but as you do, be ready to reconcile the past, yours and his.

It is possible to do that, you know. I’m thinking of a famous American short story where the protagonist is able to reconcile four past lives that ironically come together in ways that cannot be avoided. In Edith Wharton’s “The Other Two” (1904), it happens with an almost comedic inevitability.

Waythorn, a successful businessman in his late 30s, has just married Alice, a poised and pragmatic woman in her mid-to-late 30s, twice divorced with a 12-year-old daughter. He assumes her past is neatly behind her—until it isn’t. First, he finds himself dealing with Haskett, Alice’s first husband, a quiet, working-class man likely in his late 40s or 50s, who remains involved in their daughter’s life. Then comes Varick, Alice’s second husband, a smooth and socially active businessman in his 40s, who reappears through business dealings.

Before long, all three men find themselves in the same room, sipping tea like old acquaintances, their lives inextricably linked by Alice. What should be unsettling instead becomes an exercise in adaptation. Waythorn comes to accept that Alice isn’t burdened by her past—she’s shaped by it. Indeed, she has baggage—but baggage is just another word for experience, and experience, he realizes, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Waythorn may not have married an untouched ideal, but he has married a woman seasoned by life—poised, pragmatic, and undeniably her own person.

I’m thinking, too, of a more recent literary work where the protagonists must reconcile their pasts as they navigate love later in life. In Elizabeth Strout’s Olive, Again (2019), it happens with an almost startling inevitability.

Olive Kitteridge, in her 70s, has spent a lifetime being sharp, independent, and sometimes difficult. She’s lost her husband, Henry, and has settled into widowhood, resigned to a future of solitude. Then along comes Jack Kennison, a retired Harvard professor, also in his 70s, widowed, stubborn, and carrying regrets of his own. They meet hesitantly, two people who never expected to find companionship again, both acutely aware that their pasts don’t just vanish with a new beginning.

Their baggage doesn’t disappear; it sits beside them at the table. Olive and Jack don’t have the luxury of youthful romance, where love is a blank slate. Instead, love at their age requires a different kind of bravery. Not the reckless kind of “jump in and build something new,” but the quiet courage of “I accept you, scars and all. Can we walk forward together?” And somehow, despite everything that came before, they do.

Isn’t that something? Love can come even later in life—maybe even for me. I’ll carry my baggage with me, including Allen’s love that can never be replaced. And let’s face it: if the man I fall in love with as we write our final chapters together is the right fit for me, he knows that Allen can’t be replaced. He accepts it because he has his own past loves, too, and I will accept them. More importantly, he knows that he and I can have a brand-new love, unique and special, unlike any love that either of us has ever enjoyed in the past.

For now, I just can’t help myself. I’m in a Do-Wah-Diddy-Diddy place in my life—hopeful, open, humming along. And why not? Love has found its way to others, even when it seemed unlikely. I am confident that my prince will come.

Maybe love won’t come the way it did when I was young, but I know this: the heart doesn’t close with age, and mine is still wide open as I keep reminding myself that love is all about:

● knowing the past is always present—but choosing to love anyway.

● making space at the table, even if there are ghosts.

● finding someone whose baggage complements my own.

● laughing over dinner, even if we’ve both told the same old stories before.

● realizing that February isn’t just for the young.

● looking ahead, even when there’s more behind.

Perhaps, most important of all is this: believing that it’s still possible to find love later in life–baggage and all.

The Wired Researcher

Brent L. Kendrick's Blog on the Joys of Writing and Research

Category Archives: Aging

Learning to Love in New Ways

YOU—MY DEAR READER (WHEREVER YOU ARE)
What Age Can Finally Teach You About Love

ME

My Learning Notes for a Work-in-Progress

WE

Our Lessons

My Altar Ego

In Honor of Fathers Everywhere | What My Father Saw

A Reader’s Compendium to Intimacy

The Route Home

From Francesco’s Stew to the Sound of My Pounding Heart

The Rust Whisperer

The Gospel of Biscuits. Or, I Don’t Want to Bother.

Finding Love Later in Life—Baggage and All

YOU—MY DEAR READER (WHEREVER YOU ARE)What Age Can Finally Teach You About Love

ME

My Learning Notes for a Work-in-Progress

WE

Our Lessons

YOU—MY DEAR READER (WHEREVER YOU ARE)
What Age Can Finally Teach You About Love