reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Monthly Archives: November 2022


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momma, poppo and dolly parton. [merely-a-thought monday]

i wish – every day – that my sweet momma and poppo were still here. that we could coffeesit with them, make them great soups for lunch, spoil them for dinner. that we could take them apple-picking and introduce my dad to a new scotch or two he hadn’t tried yet. that we could maybe adventure a little or just be quiet and listen to their old stories. i wish.

the thing i know, though, is that they would be beside themselves in this circus of a country we now have. it would make both of them irate to watch the vitriol being tossed about, the divisiveness that is being fed by rabid spewers, the lack of transparency, the lies. my daddy-o would have a few choice words to describe these folks and they wouldn’t be pretty.

and my mom? well, she would have no time for anyone who is less than kind to another. she would want nothing to do with any politician or religious leader or pundit who skips kindness in their approach to life, who excuses their own behavior, stance, agenda, platform, control tactic, extremism based on warped interpretation of law or scripture. she would point out the colossal hypocrisy. she might reiterate the story about when, in the dark night, they parked their little vw bug next to a small hill off the road. tired while traveling europe by car, they needed to rest and could find no guesthouse nearby. the little hill would serve them well, they thought. they woke up next to a gigantic dung pile, covered with black tarp held down by old tires. she would trust that we could connect the metaphoric dots. sometimes a hill is not a hill.

i think that both of them – were they here – would be ashamed of what it’s all become. my dad would wonder how his service – missing-in-action in world war II and then as a POW in a bulgarian camp – mattered now to these people who are making a mockery of democracy. my mom would be aghast at how people are being treated, marginalized, discriminated against, excluded. she, who worked hard to be kind to everyone, would worry about the popularity of this ugly trend. yes, they would both – were they here – be astonished at how, in so many arenas and in so many circumstances, people are just downright not good to each other.

i guess that – were they here – they would love a sit-down with dolly parton. they’d probably all talk at once, new yawk and a southern drawl all intermingling in conversation. and they’d all agree that they didn’t understand why anyone at all would “let religion and politics and things like that stand in the way of just being good human beings.”

and then – were they here, the three of them together – they would remind us all to stay away from dung piles posing as hills.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY


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you can’t take it with you. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

there is always time. nothing we do is more important than the time we spend together. all of us.

my sweet poppo always said, “you can’t take it with you!” and was referring to money. but it generalizes to pretty much everything. in the end, you can’t take your possessions, your achievements, your investments, even your failures, with you. they will stay behind and it’s love that will carry you on, love that you will carry with you.

so even in the middle of important checklists of chores, work tasks, more achievements and more failures, more, more, more anything – cars, clothes, houses, boats, snowblowers and appliances, shoes, hairdos, all the fancypants trappings of “made-it” – there is time. to walk and talk and be silent and swish your feet through crunchy fallen autumn leaves.

cause you can’t take the other stuff with you.

my dad’s last words to me were, “i love you, kook.” my last words to him were, “i love you, my poppo.”

he’s watching us swish our feet through the leaves now. and smiling.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

SMACK-DAB. ©️ 2022 kerrianddavid.com


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it’s in our vote. [k.s. friday]

the midterms are rapidly approaching. the rhetoric is amping up. the tv ads, the phone calls, the billboards, the texts, the email messages, the political mail in the mailbox – all dedicated to sway our vote.

i realize that this is the way to raise money, that this is the way to get one party ahead of the other. many voters will elect to vote a straight party ballot. some will vote without asking any questions. some will vote without any information at all. some will vote for vapid minds, choosing the rough edges of spewed anger, covert scheming. they are voting on a bandwagon – with truth obscured – and haven’t looked past the exterior of the candidates.

i was chatting quite some time ago with a college professor. he was teaching a class three days a week and was talking about his experiences. “anybody can be brilliant for an hour and a half,” he quipped. i laughed, thinking how true that is.

but it’s the long haul that counts. it’s what’s at the crux that counts. i wonder what is in the center of what motivates the candidates we are considering. what is past the exterior, what are the things they affirm, believe in, wish to move forward?

anyone can look pious, even righteous, in brevity, for short spurts of time. but these same pedestalized people can bring to the table masked and unmasked agenda that is riddled with inequality, marginalization, discrimination, divisiveness, violence, a thwarting of social, racial, gender, financial equity all under the auspices of brilliance. it is our responsibility to peel back the layers, to poke through the season-of-midterm blahblah, to examine the intentions, the integrity, of the people we choose – truly, in every arena – to represent us.

how these people manifest in their communication, their compassion, their fairness, their steadfast evenhandedness, their actual brilliance – not the hourandahalf variety – should tell us something important. if a person does not represent the values we uphold ourselves, the ones we would lay out to each and every one of those we love, why would we elect that person to represent us, to reflect us? if our vote was revealed to our loved ones, our children, our family, friends, community, colleagues, would we take comfort, would we have pride, in what was revealed?

for it is in our vote that we truly show what is beyond the exterior. it is in our vote that we truly show what is in our heart.

*****

FIGURE IT OUT ©️ 2010 kerri sherwood

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read DAVID’S thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY


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creatures of habit. [d.r. thursday]

pre-gluten-free-diet we would eat english muffins every morning for breakfast. every day – every single day – an english muffin. jif natural peanut butter and (back then) smuckers simply fruit jam would fill the nooks and crannies. heavenly! we were creatures of habit.

every morning now we have potatoes and one egg, a halo and half a banana. every morning – every single morning. and i know you know about the coffee. steeping mugs of bold black coffee. there is nothing more comforting than our breakfast for starting the day. we are justalittle thrown off the days we don’t have Our Breakfast. we are creatures of habit.

and so it comes as no surprise that we have another new habit. our new Thing is painting rocks. more and more and more rocks. i’ve blogged about this – sitting together with our paint pens and rocks we have gathered at the beach down by the historic beachhouse where we held our bonfire-foodtruck-hulahoop-cupcake-dancewithabandon wedding. it is as much a joy to hide these rocks as it is to paint them and we giggle like little kids as we place them in the crooks of trees, on stumps, on a curve in the trail. we just finished placing the last of the painted rocks – this fish included – so we know we’ll be at our tiny canvases again soon. it’s predictable. like english muffins or potatoes and eggs.

i suppose that we can think of other things to do. outside of work or chores there are infinite possibilities. but i am not unhappy that our choice – more often than not these days – is to sit and chat and paint rocks together…preparing folk-artsy positive messages to leave for other people to find.

i remember a day in the woods – some time ago – when i really, really needed a positive message. and then we passed this one particular tree in the woods – a place we love to hide our rocks now – and on the burl at the base of the tree was a rock that read “imagine!”.

there are worse practices.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY


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a smidge of flipped. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

it’s like a romper room book – from the back but not turned over. upside down.

or like i had stood on my head to click. which, of course, i didn’t.

a tree – full of leaves reaching, reaching. no shedding here. no drooping. no waning into the pull of autumn. instead, golden leaves – almost brilliant orange – standing on their stems, stretching, dancing.

perspective rearrange. it took me by surprise skimming through the photographs i had taken. a close-up of the leaves – just one other photo – was also flipped.

perhaps there were just a few minutes there – out in the forest – when the world turned upside down.

maybe we just don’t know. maybe that happens all the time…little smidges of time when all is flipped. maybe that’s good. especially when right side up is pokin’ at us a little. reminders to stand tall. reminders to stretch. reminders to dance.

i cannot get diana ross’ fabulous voice out of my head, “upside down, boy, you turn me inside out and ’round and ’round…”

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY


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a bounty of astounding. [two artists tuesday]

it is most astounding to me. each and every time. it doesn’t matter the shining of the sun or the drizzle or the misty humid air or dusk falling around us. and though it is familiar – oh, so familiar – it is new when we visit, our footfalls on the path erased and lasting as we walk. i’m comforted by this trail. and it teases me – into truly wondering about thru-hikes and exquisitely ordinary days that explode into extraordinary just by entering them.

this is an easy trail. we have hiked many others. easy trails, moderate trails, difficult trails. elevation gains, a little scrambling here and there. but when – and it is often – we need an old quilt of a trail and time to be quiet, to think, to talk, to sort, to sink into astounding beauty, stillness and ever-percolating life, we hike here, close by.

my camera is ready. i try to capture it all to remember. the trail is full of linear lines now as the underbrush succumbs to the season. a bounty of astounding. even in transition.

i believe – as we enter the woods – that it greets us back.

and as we leave – filled up – it waves and whispers, “see ya.”

“have you ever tried to enter the long black branches of other lives —
tried to imagine what the crisp fringes, full of honey, hanging
from the branches of the young locust trees, in early morning, feel like?” (mary oliver)

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY