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Monthly Archives: September 2025


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the wistfuls. [kerri’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

we’d get on our bikes early in the day and just take off. susan and i would bike hike anywhere – we’d plan our journeys and make sure there was a carvel or a mcdonald’s somewhere on the way. as long as we were home by dinner no one worried about us. and we had the freedom to roam around our neighborhoods or anywhere we could reach on the island.

it should be this way.

back in school, in the fall – after the ultimate freedom of our summer – we practiced getting under our desks at school but the likelihood of any bombing actually happening to our school was a mere mention on a fire-drill-bomb-scare just-in-case checklist.

every year d and i talk to each other about “the wistfuls”. it hasn’t happened yet this year – neither of us has felt it descend on us. but we know it will.

there’s fall – the changing of the guard moving toward fallow. my favorite season of jeans and boots and flannel shirts. and there’s fall – a recognition of summer ending, of the sun and long, hot days and freedom and a lightness of spirit coming to a close.

and i wonder – in these gorgeous fall days, the lower sun intense, the breeze cooler, the colors more vibrant with the humidity pushed aside – what that wistful is about.

is it about those days growing up? is it about a yen to have little to no responsibility, no concerns, a time of fiercely following curiosity, of grasping the tiny adventures of childhood with both hands, believing they were huge explorations? is it about painfully remembering a time when my whole extended family seemed to be on the same page, supporting each other, caring for the world and its inhabitants?

is it about a yearning for when my own children were little? when their backyard playing was the everyday joy of looking out the kitchen window? when the dining room table was the gathering place for school supplies and backpacks? when the summer freedom slipped back into a schedule of school and homework and lessons and sports practices? when, after dropping them off or seeing them onto the bus, hoping that they ate their packed lunch, remembered their spelling words, weren’t bullied by anyone were my worries?

although there were occasional bomb threats issued at the schools and 9/11 was a profoundly terrifying day, there was never an actual shooter on the premises (that i knew of).

but there had been moments in our town. and the moment i heard a loud inner voice direct me – vehemently – to NOT stop at the mcdonald’s i was about to pull into on my way home from the mall with my two tiny children – the day that minutes later a shooter entered that very mcdonald’s through the back door, killing the people at the table where we always sat – the one at the very back opposite the door, where the smoking-allowed-smoke didn’t reach our happy meals – that moment reached inside me and raised up the fear i had carried with me since my own earlier life, the time after bike hikes and carvel and fireflies in the neighborhood.

it shouldn’t be like that.

i just watched an instagram reel during which a mom instructs her little boy – who is five years old – about following his teacher’s directions during an emergency at school. between reading the circumstances about her little boy, his physical challenges, and the thought that his tiny – tiny! – self following directions could mean the difference between life and death made my head want to explode.

it should not be this way.

and is it any wonder that i wonder what the wistful is about???

oh, i imagine that when the wistful hits, it will be with some degree of force. for everything is changing – not just the leaves. and we are suddenly thrust into a world – a country – where freedom and rights are being usurped, where the administration is upholding the secrecy of sexual predators, where school shootings – with children and adults dying – dying! – elicit merely passive thoughts and prayers, where xenophobic, racist, homophobic, misogynistic leaders wish to eliminate – eliminate! – actual people they consider superfluous, unwelcomed, expendable, where the premise of warmongering seems to be a sport and the propensity to further lethality and offensive actions on those they perceive as disposables runs rampant, where healthcare and the ability to have enough food is considered elite, where having more gets more and having less doesn’t matter.

WHY is it this way?

the wistfuls indeed.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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to fly. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

“each of us is in truth an idea of the great gull, an unlimited idea of freedom,” jonathan would say in the evenings on the beach, “and precision flying is a step toward expressing our real nature. everything that limits us we have to put aside.” (jonathan livingston seagull – richard bach)

as this new school year begins i think of all the teachers and mentors i have known – those who were my teachers, my professors, my mentors, those who taught my children, friends who have been teachers, my own time spent as a teacher, instructor, director. immensely different stories, all over the spectrum.

the common denominator – to empower others to push themselves without limits, to reach their own potential, to become the best version of themselves, to fly. jonathan’s imperative.

growing up on long island meant – in the sheer sense of the word island – that i was surrounded by water. i spent a great deal of time by that water, particularly when i was able to get myself there – by bike or my little vw. i was always enchanted with the seagulls that lined our coastline, seagulls swooping and diving and soaring. the book jonathan livingston seagull was a treasured possession, kept close on the little bookshelf next to my bed. my paperback copy is waterstained and priced at only $1.50, evidence of its long tenure in my life.

even back then – on a beach towel at crab meadow beach in the mid 1970s – it was clear that the search for a life of purpose and excellence meant, also, a life of self-discovery and risk-taking. but susan polis schutz’s words “let us dance in the sun wearing wild flowers in our hair” rang for me as joyful north stars.

and so i watched and studied seagulls flying in community, flying alone. i walked the beach together with others and alone. i studied poetry with others and wrote in my tree alone. i sat on spotlit piano benches with a boom mic on old wooden stages together with others and alone.

my son recently wrote some vulnerable words. his post ended with, “…stick with it no matter what. tell your story.”

were jonathan livingston seagull around, he’d nod and think of an elder seagull’s words to him, “you will begin to touch heaven, jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. and that isn’t flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn’t have limits. perfect speed, my son, is being there.”

i paged through my old book. and went back to the title pages.

there in pencil i had written one of the lines i quoted above:

“everything that limits us we have to put aside.“

*****

TAKE FLIGHT © 1997, 2000 kerri sherwood

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read DAVID’s thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

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kinship. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

were this monarch to have the tiniest of notebooks and a tinier pencil, i would feel even more kinship with it.

i can imagine that it – perched on the vine-wall that has taken over the fence – is writing gentle poetry, haikus about flying and how sunshine feels on its wings. i can imagine that it – late in the summer, maybe a super-generation butterfly – is pondering the freedom of a bit-longer lifespan, the sky-trip it has booked to mexico as summer ends. it might write of adventures and exploring, of new discoveries, milkweed and other plants it now feeds on.

i wonder if it feels the same way i felt – so many decades ago – sitting in my maple tree, perched against the trunk, writing. it felt like there could be nothing at all wrong in the world, and that, like the monarch’s vibrant colors warning of toxins, my coca-cola it’s-the-real-thing pants and floppy hat would keep away any predators. i wonder if its words flit over sunrises and sunsets, grown-up seagull dreams, innocence and possibility.

we’re sitting in the old gravity chairs we unearthed from up in the rafters of the garage. our feet up, pillows behind our backs, we quietly watch the busy life of our backyard. there’s so much space to just think, to ponder.

the butterfly floats past us, over us, behind us. it lands on the burgeoning vine, the natural privacy screen growing helter-skelter on the fence. it is free to roam. it is free to be.

and then.

i overheard, “he got a monarch.” the butterfly’s vivid orange and black and broad stripes didn’t protect it from the cat prowling for prey next door.

i felt my heart sink. in like manner, my coca-cola pants and dr scholl’s, hard-held value set and a sunrise-sunset horizon full of possibility didn’t protect me either.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

66 and 19 © david robinson (mixed-media)

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mighty garden. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

it is a mighty garden.

built from a couple planks of old barn wood and some galvanized pipe, its possibilities were endless. tucked into a corner of the backyard, cozied up between the edge of the deck and the fence, every day this mighty garden called my name.

not so mighty in size, it was wildly enormous in delivering zen. with a pair of clippers in my hand and a watering wand waiting nearby, i spent hours through this summer tending this garden.

and it has rewarded us with jalapeños and cherry tomatoes, basil and mint and rosemary and cilantro and parsley. nothing you can’t purchase at a market, but there is something about growing right outside your kitchen, a few steps across the deck, through a wrought iron gate from the patio.

we continue to harvest from this potting stand. we’ll see it through to the last of the herbs, the last of the peppers and tomatoes, all the while planning a bit more for next year. success begets trying some new things. we planted in previous years – and there was a yield of herbs, a few tomatoes, a handful of peppers – but there was something a bit different about this year.

and this was the year we needed it.

somehow, the universe – in all its energy and light – knew that this was the time. a time for us to invest our own energy and attention into growing things. not just grasses or ferns or peonies or a few other flowers, but things that would nourish us, things that would connect the dots from dirt to our kitchen.

a gift of growing at a time when growth – real, human, throw-out-your-arms-and-hold-all-the-world-close growth – seems to be shunned, devalued, debased.

it has been mighty.

*****

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

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keep your eyes open. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

back in the day i spent a lot of time on the sidelines of soccer fields, baseball diamonds, basketball courts, tennis courts. under fleece blankets and roasting in the sun, i have listened to coaches coaching and parents of team members instruction-yelling. i have sat on bleachers and watched lessons and warmups and scrimmages and many, many games and tournaments and matches. i have attempted – poorly, i might add – my hand at golf and volleyball, tennis and ping-pong – some quite limited times – and have been instructed with good intention – but with little prowess for application.

the things that i have heard – over and over – and over and over – is to keep your eyes open, to keep your eyes on the ball.

it makes sense. not only will it help in balance, in appropriate contact with the ball, in prediction of the ball’s trajectory, it keeps you in the game. it’s essential.

in these times – in this country – it would seem the same: to keep your eyes open, to keep your eyes on the ball.

it also seems utterly impossible to do – if you are relying entirely on mainstream – legacy – media. for they, in many ways, have dropped the proverbial ball. they are languaging these days of chaos in milder terms than should be tolerated. they are minimizing and normalizing. it is leaving the reds in red-land where they are fed conspiracy after conspiracy, lie after lie. it is leaving the blues in blue-land where the words describing the actions and intentions of the current administration are sorely lacking in descriptors that even begin to touch the peril in which this country finds itself.

if the course of ten years ago – and since – hadn’t already brought us to the place of question-asking, fact-checking, source-locating, detail-expounding, independent-media-watching/reading/listening, the horror of these days would have pushed us there.

we have encountered many who would just rather not. rather not know, rather not talk about it, rather not deal with it, rather not.

we are simply keeping our eyes on the ball. it will help keep us in balance, in appropriate contact with the game, in prediction of the trajectory.

anything else is the behavior of wishful thinking, the behavior of ostriches, the behavior of people who don’t care what happens to this country, its laws, its land, or its people.

being an informed citizen is essential. let’s keep our eyes open.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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urgent needs. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

the grocery store receipt reads $157. there is no meat on this bill. there is not much on this bill. we made a menu, made a list from the menu and shopped to the list. there may have been an exception or two: a 99 cent box of tissues and a loaf of bread that somehow didn’t make it onto the list. $157.

we are frugal. and we know that – when the ridiculous tariffs take effect – this $157 will be lots more.

on the way home we talked about how families are doing it. sans high wages and benefits covering health insurance, it seems like it would be impossible to exist. it is a world – this country – that is leaving the middle class behind, burying us all in costs, living expenses, debt. all imposed with a side of apathy and cruelty. my heart hurt for the man standing on the other side of the road with a sign asking for help.

it takes an instant to go from feeling shaky to feeling fortunate.

and being washed in gratitude is empowering.

we can make more with less, we agree. we can make meals that extend leftovers for days. we can ignore the frivolous and buy only the practical. and we can help.

the local food pantry/shelter has an easy-to-access list of needs on their website. it is clear. i called to make sure that something that was labeled as “urgent” was still considered urgent; we wanted to address that need the best we could.

driving away from the center after dropping multiples of their “urgent need” was a gift. it was a reminder of all the times someone has sensed an “urgent need” in us.

and sometimes, in those moments, somehow the white light of the universe enveloped us and someone stepped up to help.

we are all capable of being that white light. and – in these times of need, these times of people’s lives being beaten down and minimalized, these times dismissive of compassion and care – it would seem urgent – and incumbent upon us – to gather that light and pass it on.

*****

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

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