Tag Archives: life

The Right-Size Glass

Posted on by
6

“Accept—then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.”

–Eckhart Tolle (b. 1948). German-born spiritual teacher and author of The Power of Now and A New Earth, whose teachings focus on presence, acceptance, and personal transformation.

A few weeks ago, over cocktails and conversation, my neighbor—an IT guy with a philosophical streak—offered a twist on the old “glass half full or half empty” dilemma. His late wife, Jody, always saw the glass as half-full, but as an engineer, Gary sees it differently:

“Just get a glass that’s the right size for what you’ve got.”

At the time, I nodded politely and filed it under:

“Clever things other people say that may or may not linger in my memory.”

Turns out, I remembered.

A few mornings later—cue ominous music!—my tablet powered up with all the charm of a sulky teenager and promptly informed me that Microsoft had done me the favor of wiping my PowerPoint app into oblivion.

This, mind you, on the eve of speaking to the Mary E. Wilkins Freeman Society—an international gathering of scholars and fellow literary sleuths—about a woman who has occupied both my imagination and my file drawers for over fifty years. The event was titled An Hour with Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Brent L. Kendrick. The tech test was hours away. I clicked. I reinstalled. I cursed. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

And then I thought of my neighbor.

“Wrong glass, Brent.”

I hauled my all-in-one PC upstairs to the better WiFi zone, and boom—there it was. Slides intact. Calm restored. Presentation saved.

Turns out, sometimes you don’t need more water. You just need the right-size glass.

Since then, I’ve been thinking more about the right-size-glass concept, and I can think of several other times when I applied it unawares.

There was a time, for example, when I thought my glass had shattered completely. Not cracked—shattered. After Allen died, I wasn’t sure there was any vessel left that could hold what I’d once poured so freely: love, joy, even hope. For a long while, I didn’t try. But healing has its own quiet rhythm, and eventually, I realized I didn’t need the same glass. I just needed one shaped for the life I have now. It took a while, but recently I’ve found one the right size to hold who I’ve become. To hold who I am. Now.

Long before that right-size-glass moment came the time when I first moved to my mountain. I wanted a cabin in the clearing—so I cleared a wide swath of woods to make it so. I cleared far more than I could have imagined, and certainly more than I could realistically manage, especially now at my age. Some days, it feels like my glass is half empty, like I’m falling behind. But the truth is, I just need a different-sized glass. If I choose—as I have chosen—to let some of those cleared areas return to their wild, natural state, I haven’t lost anything. In fact, my glass is now full—full of birdsong and the wisdom of knowing when to stop clearing and simply let things grow.

I think we can apply the “right-size-glass” concept to more than gardening and grief.

Let’s begin with a few low-stakes moments—the ones that test our patience more than our purpose.

● Cooking substitution. Out of buttermilk? Use yogurt and lemon. Different glass. Same outcome.

● Gardening workaround. Tried planting in the wrong spot? Don’t mourn the wilt—move the pot.

● Home décor puzzle. Wardrobe too big for one wall? Move it to a room with a larger wall that showcases all of its Shaker joinery.

Some shifts, though, aren’t minor—they’re wake-up calls. Still, the right-size glass helps.

● Travel plans. Canceled? Money’s tight? Plan a “staycation” with the same sense of purpose.

● Exercise limitations. Can’t run anymore? Try swimming or yoga. Same vitality, different vessel.

● Friendship shift. Someone pulls away? Focus on others who consistently show up.

● Career detours. Passed over for a promotion? Use the freedom to explore a side gig or project with heart.

Or let’s move on up a little higher to some emotional and existential applications.

● Creative droughts. When the writing won’t flow, ask: is it really writer’s block—or just the wrong-shaped glass for the ideas trying to come through?

● Life plan upended. Divorce, retirement, illness—what happens when your “glass” shatters? You pick up what still holds and find a new container for your spirit.

● Shifting beliefs. Formerly held faith, politics, or ideals evolve? Refill your life with what still nourishes—and let go of the brittle framework.

By now, I’m willing to bet you’ve started thinking of your own moments—the ones when you didn’t force what no longer fit, but quietly shifted, adjusted, adapted. Maybe you pivoted. Maybe you paused. Either way, those are the moments that reshape a life.

So, my Dear Readers, consider this your open invitation to rethink how you hold disappointment, change, resistance—or anything else that life sets before you. Not by pouring harder into what doesn’t fit, but by choosing a different container altogether.

Here’s to finding the right-size glass—for your spirit, your strength, your joy.

Right Now, I Still Believe in Heart-Ons

Posted on by
5

“Honey, if you don’t know what I mean, then maybe it wasn’t meant for you to know just yet.”

–Imagined RuPaul-meets-Brentism (but isn’t that how most good wisdom starts?)

We’ve all heard the saying:

“You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy.”

And I imagine we all know what it means. Regardless of where we go, we’ll always carry with us the (gold)dust from where we’ve been.

It seems to me that the same truth surrounds naiveté. If a person is inherently innocent, chances are good that all the experience in the world will not remove the foundational greenness and unworldliness from that person.

Chances are good–actually, they’re high–that I might just be one such person.

Let me offer up some proof.

Last year, I agreed to do a talk about online dating apps for seniors. No. No. Not for high-school seniors. They know exactly how to score…or not. My talk was for bifocaled folks on the other end of the age spectrum. Senior Citizens facing a triathlon: being online, navigating dating apps, and exposing themselves to Lord knows who or where or how or when or why. At 77, I can relate.

I agreed to do the talk, and then I decided that I’d better do some research.

It was a match made in heaven. I’d get to give a talk, plus I really was on the move–or is it on the make?–for a date. Well. Whatever. I was hot for a date. Let’s just say it had been a while. A long while.

So last year, off I went. I explored bunches and bunches of dating apps. Let me pause to assure you right now–before I expose my naiveté one whit more–that I did so only in the interest of conducting genuine, in-depth research. After all, if I was going to bare all–about dating apps–in my talk, then I had to know all so that I could strut my stuff with pride.

And lo! I had hardly gotten started when I got sucked into a dating app that caused me to flutter. For the life of me, I’m not sure that I even remember its name, and I probably wouldn’t share it if I did.

Anyway, that app nearly gave me an infarction, first from possible joy and then from definite tremors. Brace yourself. R u ready? I landed on this guy right here in my neck of the woods who added RN after his first name in his profile.

Hot damn! I’m gonna get a date with a guy who’s gay AND a Registered Nurse. Joy of all joys.

With a twofer like that waiting for me, I fired off a quick reply.

He didn’t waste any time getting back to me. To my horror, I discovered that his RN wasn’t a medical credential at all. It was a time degree:

Right Now

Say whaaaat? Right now? No way. I swiped left and got rid of him RT (right then), but the shock lingered long.

Is that naiveté or what? Well. Now I know. Now, you do, too. Even at 77, I’m carrying around some genuine innocence, and I don’t even blush talking about it.

But that RN thing set me to thinking. It seems to me that I’ve always been naive, or, as country folks would say, I’ve always been green. More often than not–and with no small degree of irony–down through the years, my most blushing moments of greenness have involved language. Sometimes, it was an acronym, like RN–that I didn’t know but would never forget meeting. At other times, it was a full-blown word.

Let me tell you about two.

Growing up, I had never heard the F-word. Not whispered behind lockers. Not scrawled on bathroom stalls. Not murmured by boys trying on bravado. It simply wasn’t part of my world.

There. That didn’t hurt too much, did it? Nope. I’m ok. R u?

But the summer before heading off to college, I had to read a list of books for my Honors English Seminar that fall. I didn’t know a thing about any of them, including J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. No problem. I was dutiful. I was curious (yellow). And I was a little thrilled to be reading something vaguely subversive. Holden Caulfield’s voice quickly grabbed hold of me, tugging at some tender place inside.

Then, I got to a page that nearly made me fall down my mental stairwell:

“Somebody’d written ‘Fuck you’ on the wall. It drove me damn near crazy.”

Holden wasn’t shocked by the word. He was heartbroken. He was protective. He worried his kid sister Phoebe would see it. He worried that some other child would ask what it meant. He worried that a “dirty kid” would explain it—wrongly—and the mystery of it would wound them.

Right there. Right then. I saw a brand-new word, standing in front of me, stark naked, showing off all the strokes and flourishes of all four letters. I knew it meant something that I knew nothing about, something that I daren’t even mention to anyone. It made me pause and stare forever. Although the word never became part of my vocabulary, I did something that I had never done. I dogeared the page.

A year or two later, another word in real life was hurled squarely at me, and this time, my greenness shined even brighter not because of the word my friend said to me but because of the word that I thought he had said to me. What I heard and what he spoke were worlds apart.

He was an upperclassman, always reading, always relaxed. I liked him. Actually, I liked him a lot. Don’t get alarmed but let me tell you something: I’ve known that I was gay since I was four. For years and years–certainly, as a student at a Baptist college in WV in the 1960s–I felt like I might be the only gay guy on the planet. I had no script. I had no community. I had no way to ask:

Are you … you know … like me?

One evening, I stopped by my friend’s room–I often did, as did lots of other guys who were our friends. He was popular. He was straight. And I don’t know, maybe he thought I was gay and decided to tease me in front of the other guys–all straight like him. Out of the blue, he looked up from his book and nailed me with his baby blues:

“Every time you come into the room, I get a hard-on.”

But I didn’t hear that word.

I heard heart-on.

And my heart swelled. It fluttered. I thought he meant something warm. I thought that I had moved something in him. I thought that I mattered.

I smiled and blurted out:

“Oh stop. You do not. Show me!”

I meant it innocently and playfully. I wasn’t teasing. I was confident that he would simply pull back his buttoned shirt and show me a t-shirt emblazoned with a huge red heart–just like the iconic S that Superman sported on his chest.

I had no understanding of what my friend had said. Not then. Not in that moment. And certainly not with that word dropped so casually in a room full of guys, like it was a joke I wasn’t in on yet.

He didn’t unbutton his shirt as I thought he would. He just stared at me and then looked back at his book. The moment passed, thin as onion-skin paper.

Laughter ricocheted off the dorm room walls. All the guys were convinced that I had executed a brilliant put down by demanding:

“Show me.”

They thought that I had deliberately put my friend in his place. Little did they know. My innocence had saved the moment. Their laughter had protected me. The verbal misunderstanding had shielded me.

Looking back, I see that my innocence that evening protected me in ways I couldn’t have known at the time. I could have been humiliated. I could have been ridiculed. I could have internalized shame. But instead, I floated through the moment on a current of my own misunderstanding. I wasn’t wounded. I wasn’t exposed. I was shielded.

My mishearing gave me cover. And somehow, the laughter that followed—laughter I didn’t understand either—wrapped around me like a protective cloak. Everyone thought I was clever. Imagine that. I wasn’t. I was just green. Country green.

And yet, that greenness did something extraordinary. It saved me.

It didn’t save me from truth. It saved me from the too-muchness of it. It saved me from knowing more than I could hold at the time. It saved me from rushing into meanings I wasn’t prepared to carry. It saved me from being someone I wasn’t ready to become.

Now, I’m old enough and seasoned enough to know that innocence doesn’t prevent hurt forever. But it can delay it just long enough for us to grow strong enough to bear it. It can stretch the veil of childhood a little further into adulthood, letting us stumble forward with a safety net that keeps us from breaking into smithereens.

I guess the bottom line is that while some people grow up quickly, I didn’t. And I’m grateful. I used to think I was the only green soul who didn’t catch the drift, who didn’t get the joke, or who didn’t see the neon sign blinking right there in plain view. But over time—and Lord knows I’ve had some time, plus—I’ve come to believe I wasn’t the only one wandering through the orchard a little slow to pick the ripest fruit.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are far more of us than I ever imagined. I’m talking about folks who didn’t know what the F-word meant the first time it rang out like a firecracker. I’m talking about folks who heard hard-on and thought heart-on—and answered with a “show me.” I’m talking about folks who walked through the world, always assuming everyone meant well and most things weren’t coded for something more.

Sure. Innocence like that can get you in trouble. You miss a signal. You say the wrong thing. You walk away from something you didn’t even know was being offered. Or was it? But more often than not, innocence like that saves you. It lets you grow at your own pace. It buys you time. It keeps your heart soft while the rest of the world’s toughening up. That’s not foolishness. That’s grace in slow motion.

And when the meaning finally lands—when you finally do “get it”—you don’t feel duped. You feel ready. And you look back and laugh, and you don’t redden at all when you share those moments, just as I’m sharing here without a tinge of blush.

It seems to me there’s a kind of wisdom that comes only from a place of not knowing too soon. And bless your little heart, I’ve lived there most of my life.

If you’re reading this and thinking, “Mercy me! I thought RN meant Registered Nurse, too,” or “I didn’t hear that word until college and didn’t dare say it out loud until I was grown,”—well, honey, pull up a chair and sit a spell with me, and we can while away an hour or so, side by side.

“What will we do?”

“Lands sakes alive, darling! We’ll talk.”

We’ll talk about all the pages we’ve dogeared down through the years and why. We’ll talk about people who believe what others say is more important than what they imply. We’ll talk about people like us who listen with their hearts before they learn the rest.

And when we’re done with all that, I’ll lean in real close and tell you once more that my innocence always lets me see beauty first. I’ll tell you once more that my innocence always lets me feel awe. I’ll tell you once more that my innocence always lets me believe in heart-ons.

And, honey, guess what? I still do.

My Altar Ego

Posted on by
5

“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.”

What I Hear When I Stop Talking

Posted on by
2

“Silence is not the absence of something but the presence of everything.”

–Gordon Hempton (b. 1952), acoustic ecologist and advocate for the power of natural silence.

My Mother told the world, especially anyone who would listen, that I was born smiling. I can just hear her now–well, obviously I can’t, and certainly I don’t remember it from when I was a baby, but you know what I mean:

“Oh, look. Mama’s Little Mr. Sunshine is lighting up the Coal Camp already.”

Her regular reinforcement, of course, kept me smiling, smiling, and smiling. I never stopped. I guess I don’t know how, even though people are always wondering what no-good nonsense I’m up to or what I know that they wish they did.

What my Mother didn’t tell folks is that I was born talking. All right. Fine. Have it your way. Maybe I wasn’t born talking out loud. But I am certain that I was born talking quietly to myself. And when the time came–and I am fairly certain that it came precociously sooner rather than belatedly later–and I heard words roll off my tongue like orchestral notes at the New York Philharmonic, I vowed to keep right on talking, talking, and talking. I never stopped. I guess I don’t know how, even though people sometimes give me looks that seem to say:

“Shut up. Won’t you please shut up. You’re exhaustive and exhausting.”

Like I said, sometimes they give me that look, but luckily, they never come right and say so. If they do, I don’t hear them. I guess people need to learn to speak up, especially if they expect to be heard while I’m talking.

I guess you might say that I’m one of those extroverts who make it a challenge for people who value quiet to be around. Of course, I’m just guessing. But every now and then, I seem to catch a glimpse of someone giving me a look that seems to be a plea for silence. But I don’t know. Looks are just looks. And the more that I think about it, I don’t think any of those people who suffer my loquaciousness in silence–even the many who have suffered sufficiently to be worthy of sainthood–have ever come right out and asked me to be quiet.

Recently, though, I might have been closer than close to that “Please-be-quiet” threshold. But then again, I might not have been. Who knows? Maybe. I’m not really sure. I’m just guessing.

If I really was close to crossing that threshold, Gary was polite enough and gentlemanly enough not to say anything. I’m not talking about my neighbor, Gary. I’m talking about my Gary from Tennessee. It’s not that he’s the quiet type. Actually, he’s quite the talker, and when he gets going, I’ll swear that he could talk out the entire book of Genesis without leaving out any of the beseeches and begats. Of course, he doesn’t talk in Old Testamentese like that, but when he talks, what he says is rich and robust and layered with details known to Adam and Eve and all of their descendants since the Garden of Eden, including me.

At the same time, I know fully well that Gary appreciates quiet. So far, though, that has not stopped me from talking. When he’s here and he’s doing his thing and I’m doing my thing, little dramas might unfold thusly:

Gary: Weeding. Not looking up. Not saying a word.

Brent: “Just ignore me. I’m just going to the compost heap. What you’re doing looks great. What do you think?”

Or, later in the day or perhaps earlier in the morning.

Gary: Reading on the deck. Looking right at his book. Not saying a word.

Brent: “Isn’t this quiet great? So peaceful. So relaxing. The only sound you can hear is the quiet song of a bird singing from time to time. Oh. Listen. Hear that one? Robin? Cardinal? OMG! Now listen. It’s the crow that lives in the pine tree midway up the mountain. See? I can just barely see it. Can you?”

I don’t think my chatter bothered Gary. It must not have. If it had, he would have said something. But he didn’t say anything. Not one word.

Still, I imagine that when he got in his Mazda, drove down the rutted mountain road, and headed back to Tennessee, he sighed a sigh of relief, verily saying aloud to himself:

“Peace. Quiet. Thank God.”

I’m sure, though, that it was a short sigh because it didn’t take too long before he sent me a text message. Or did I send one to him?

Who sent what to whom and when doesn’t really matter, does it? Either way, texting is talking. Right?

I think so, and the message–whether coming in from Gary or going out from me–found me sitting on my deck, listening to the birds, and thinking to myself:

“How incredibly quiet. I can’t believe how peacefully quiet it is, sitting here, me, myself, sipping on my coffee. Sipping. Sipping. Sipping.”

In that nanosecond, Kay Ryan’s “Shark’s Teeth” talked its poetic way into my quiet:

Everything contains some
silence. Noise gets
its zest from the
small shark’s-tooth
shaped fragments
of rest angled
in it. An hour
of city holds maybe
a minute of these
remnants of a time
when silence reigned,
compact and dangerous
as a shark. Sometimes
a bit of a tail
or fin can still
be sensed in parks.

And I sat there, sipping my coffee, cup held high in mid-air—my morning salutation to quiet, my morning celebration of quiet, my morning realization that much of life is framed by quiet.

In art, it’s the white that lets the red pop. The space the eye travels through to find what matters. The breath between brushstrokes. Without it, everything would shout. And nothing would be seen.

In music, it’s the rest that gives the chord its ache. The pause before the resolution. The silence that says, wait. And because you waited, you feel more.

And in me?
Despite the smile.
Despite the gab.
Even I need the quiet that I so often deny others.

Not just to appreciate it—
but to let it hold me,
steady me,
remind me
that I belong to the silence, too.

The kind that doesn’t ask for attention.
The kind that lets the world be.
The kind that lets me be, too.

A crow calling far off.
A weed pulled in rhythm.
A breath drawn but not spoken over.
A book opened without comment.

Gary nearby, not needing to say a word.
And I? Nearby as well. Listening.
Savoring quiet in silence.

The Route Home

Posted on by
3

“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 by
2

“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 by
3

“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 by
6

“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 by
9

“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.

Co-Scripting the Postscript

Posted on by
13

Exultation is the going
Of an inland soul to sea,
Past the houses — past the headlands —
Into deep Eternity —

Bred as we, among the mountains,
Can the sailor understand
The divine intoxication
Of the first league out from land?

–Emily Dickinson (1830–1886; pioneering American poet who explored themes of death, immortality, and nature with unmatched depth.)

Frank is dead, yet he liveth. I have proof. Well, it’s proof enough to satisfy me. I’ll share it with you so you can decide for yourself, as we all must do in the end.

Frank is my friend. My use of the present tense is deliberate. Remember: though he be dead, he liveth.

We became fast friends decades ago in the 1980s when we worked together at the Library of Congress. Frank was an attorney in the General Counsel’s Office; I, Special Assistant for Human Resources. From the start, wordplay cemented our friendship. Frank loved words as much as I, and when it came to verbal banter, Frank outdistanced me often, if not always. He was the perpetual prankster as well. I remember one occasion when his twin visited, and they switched roles. John became the attorney. Frank, the visitor. They duped all of us until well past noon, when Frank decided it was time to fess up, showing everyone the fun of being identical twins.

Beyond his pranks and his verbal banter, Frank commanded trust, and it was the kind of trust that went beyond attorney-client privilege. It was trust forged from seeing moral fiber in action. Frank was no stranger to walking the high road. He and I often walked it together.

Ironically, during those years, Frank and I weren’t friends outside of work. But that didn’t matter. Friends are friends. I will forever remember my last day at work when I took an early retirement. Frank came to my office wearing a deep burgundy casual shirt, one that I had admired time and time again. He smiled, pointed to his shirt, and turned around several times:

“You want it?”

“Of course, I do.”

With all the theatrics he could muster, he unbuttoned his shirt, took it off, twirled it around in the air, and tossed it to me.

“It’s all yours. Enjoy!”

I enjoyed it until its beauty was threadbare. Friends really do that sort of thing, literally and metaphorically. They take the shirt right off their backs and give it to you. Frank was that kind of friend.

Our friendship survived my move to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and, in many ways, it became stronger. We didn’t see one another as often, but our connections seemed deeper and more meaningful because they were more planned and more deliberate.

I remember several special get-togethers that strengthened our already strong bond.

The first was a visit here to my mountaintop when my home was still the weekend cabin that I purchased initially. Frank came up so that he could see what I saw living up here, but he ended up helping me transplant several large Leyland Cypress. One still stands in my lower yard, towering over the landscape. Friends, like trees, stand tall.

The next was a weekend when Frank visited me in Front Royal, where I lived while juggling a teaching schedule across two campuses. I’ll always remember the unexpected snow that started falling while we were out for an evening stroll that seemed to last for hours. Eventually, we stepped inside for a late-night dinner. We were the only diners in a restaurant reminiscent of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, with its large glass windows and warm light casting an inviting glow against the stark, quiet night outside. Friends make unexpected joys more joyful.

Fast forward to more recent times. Frank and I decided to meet for lunch from time to time in historic Middleburg, VA, midway between his home in Springfield and mine in Edinburg. Before long, our occasional lunches became monthly rituals, always at the King Street Oyster Bar, always sipping Bombay Sapphire Gin and Tonics, and always sharing several dozen briny oysters on the half shell. When Frank’s wife Barbara joined us for the first time, it was as if I had known her as long as I had known Frank. Friends like that are rare.

Betwixt and between our lunches and our frequent texting were several special celebrations. Thanksgiving of 2022 comes to mind most readily. Frank, Barbara, and their friend James joined me for the day, and I served up a modest feast, including the one thing that Frank had requested: store-bought jellied cranberry sauce. Friends have quirks.

The next spring, Frank and Barbara flew to Burlington, Vermont, for the publisher’s launch of my book Green Mountain Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, just to make sure that someone came to the event. Friends look out for friends.

In 2024, the Washington Area Group for Print Culture Studies (WAGPCS) invited me to speak at one of their monthly meetings in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress. Barbara was instrumental in orchestrating it all. When she first asked me whether I’d be willing to come back and talk, Frank commented that it would be like circling back home. Indeed, it was. I started my career at the Library of Congress in 1969, and it was there that Frank and I engraved our friendship. I loved Frank’s observation so much that I incorporated it into the title of my April 4th talk: “Circling Back Home: Thomas Shuler Shaw, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, and the Library of Congress.” Frank and Barbara were there for the talk and for dinner afterward. Friends keep friends in their circle.

Frank and I were well aware that our friendship was special. I suppose that’s why every time we met and then parted to go our separate ways, we always turned around, in sync it seemed, to smile and wave goodbye at least once, sometimes twice, as if that goodbye might be forever. Friends know that one day, forever comes.

The last time that Frank and I carried out our turn-around-and-wave-goodbye ritual was last September when we lunched at the King Street Oyster Bar, with John joining us. Frank seemed strong despite having some health issues that his doctors thought might be related to his liver. Within a month or so, Frank was given the grim news that he was in liver failure, with perhaps four months or so to live. He called to tell me. Friends share tragedy, even through tears.

The details of our interactions since then are of little consequence except for my proof that though Frank be dead, he liveth. Here’s how I know.

During one of our conversations, Frank wanted to talk about dying. Conversations about death and dying are so important, yet so many people aren’t comfortable grappling with the topic. Frank knew that I was. We didn’t talk about the art of dying. Instead, we talked about the mystery of the Great Beyond. What awaits us when we are freed from our mortal selves?

We both talked. We both listened. Frank is Catholic. I’m Protestant. We talked about the Christian notion of the Afterlife as a divine manuscript of salvation or separation, with Heaven and Hell serving as eternal footnotes to a life well (or poorly) lived. Barbara is Jewish. We talked about Judaism often leaving the notion of the afterlife intentionally open-ended, a poetic ellipsis, focusing more on righteous living than on what comes after. We talked about the fact that while different world religions script the afterlife differently, each crafts a unique but converging narrative that points toward some form of existence beyond death.

We both agreed that death is not the end. We both agreed that religions, in their diverse and poetic ways, reassure us that the story carries on, that the postscript—whatever its shape—awaits. We reminded one another of the universal longing for connection—across faiths, lives, and time.

I jokingly suggested to Frank that if he died first, which seemed likely, that he should reach out to me somehow and let me know whatever he could let me know. He agreed. Friends reach out to one another, always.

And here’s where proof marches in.

Frank died peacefully on January 13th, at 10:04pm. I didn’t get Barbara’s text message until the next morning.

As I tried to process the weight of Frank’s passing, I turned to one of the things that always brings me solace—Gospel music. I have dozens and dozens of Gospel songs on my playlist, never knowing which song will play first.

“Alexa, shuffle my playlist Gospel.”

The song that started playing gave me goosebumps from head to toe. It was Ralph Stanley, the acclaimed King of Mountain Music, triumphantly singing “When I Wake Up to Sleep No More”:

What a glad thought some wonderful morning
Just to hear Gabriel’s trumpet sound
When I wake up (When I wake up)
To sleep no more

Rising to meet my blessed Redeemer
With a glad shout I’ll leave the ground
When I wake up (When I wake up)
To sleep no more

When I wake up (on some glad morning)
To sleep no more (jewels adorning)
Happy I’ll be (over in glory)
On Heaven’s bright shore (telling the story)
With the redeemed of all the ages
Praising the One whom I adore
When I wake up (when I wake up)
To sleep no more

I chuckled, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that Frank had just paid me a visit.

True to his word, Frank kept his part of our agreement, and, in listening and believing, I kept mine. Together, we co-scripted the postscript—a reminder that the stories we write with those we love don’t end.

§  §  §

Frank Mack

December 13, 1952 – January 13, 2025

Invisible, yet alive—

Whispers. Touches. Sings.