reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Category Archives: DR thursday


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

there is something deeply rewarding about hiking on a snow-covered trail.

at any moment, you can turn around and see evidence of your having been there, evidence of your passing-through. there is no question. you have been there.

for us, the imprint of our hiking shoes meshed with a couple other boots, hoof prints of deer, tiny handprints of raccoons, the triangular prints of bunnies, the familiar prints of squirrels with a few dog paw prints and horseshoes. we had all passed by. separately. together. in community.

in the quietude of the snowscape, we pushed on a bit further. it had been a bit since we had been hiking outside – the weather was frigid and there were other things on our plate. but the peacefulness of the woods, the partially-frozen river, the familiar wind of the trail kept us going on this day.

though there is less variation in color on this winter’s day, there are innumerable textures and the fine differences in muted tones are peaceful, surrounding us in hushed comfort – like an old quilt – despite the cold wind.

this particular trail is an out-and-back. and so, we encountered our own footprints in every turn of the path on our way back. anyone hiking after us would wonder who had walked before, just as we wondered the same.

arriving at the trailhead and then littlebabyscion we were tired. but ever reminded that we each choose our path. we choose what to leave behind – our prints on the world – our existing – from the boots we wear to the care we have for all else on our path. we are cohabitants on this good earth. it is up to each of us us to sustain mutual respect in the all-too-finite.

there will be some evidence of our passing-through. it is my hope that what we leave – in the snow, in the dirt, in any wake we leave from our time here – will be as peaceful as this muted winter day on our trail.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

INSTRUMENT OF PEACE – mixed media 48″ x 91″

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in the seats of america. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

i would rather drive than be driven. relatively easily solvable. i would rather fly than be flown. there is one teensy problem with that one though. i do not have the qualifications to fly a jet airplane. and so, if i wish to travel via jet from one place to another, i have to give it up – control, that is.

for me, it is not so much about control as it is about motion sickness. if my brain – sans bonine/dramamine/large quantities of ginger chews – can see what my intention is as i drive/fly, than i am able to go with the flow, so to speak, and my equilibrium seems to adjust. i never did get a pair of those funky anti-motion-sick glasses, so that is one thing i haven’t tried. but wearing a pair of those – in addition to a mask – onboard an airplane is sure to get me some looks.

i was nervous when my children were little and i had to fly places – away from them – for concerts or shows. giving over control to someone i did not know at the helm required more than a bit of trust for me. i had to consciously work at it once i was a mom, with much prayer and self-talk throughout the flights. ultimately, as time went by and i safely arrived at venues and back home, i learned – slowly – to give over, to trust that the person in the pilot’s seat had all of our best interests at heart. i learned – slowly – to utter a prayer for her or his clearheadedness and expertise, sit back and relax a little.

but now times are different. we just recently flew – pretty much right after a couple aircraft disasters had taken place and many FAA personnel had been fired – introducing more risk – and i found myself wishing we had had the option to drive. trust me, i do know that driving is more dangerous than flying, but – remember – i get to be behind the wheel so it all feels a little different. i managed to keep my calm and fly – several legs – out west and back.

but the idea of control has stuck with me.

because here we are – in the seats of america – with madmen at the helm. here we are – sitting in a democracy being taken apart, being dismantled piece by piece. here we are – citizens of a country in which every check and balance is going unchecked, where oversight is being eliminated, where the core of our republic is being shredded.

this is most definitely a time to be absolutely worried about control. the risk is monumental, the potential loss world and life-changing. this is not a time to trust nor to give over. this is a time to be wary, to not sit back, to not relax. they do not have our best interests at heart.

“there are times when fear is good. it must keep its watchful place at the heart’s controls.” (aeschylus)

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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

his name is guttah. he stands right off our deck, just yards away from the back door and the gutter overhead that started to ice-dam in perfect ice-damming conditions which necessitated use of the snow rake that pulled all the snow off the sunroom roof onto the deck and subsequently down onto the patio where it piled up and invited guttah to come to life. and so, there he is.

he looks a little stunned and i’m guessing he is. suddenly, he came out of d’s imagination and into the snow. suddenly, he got eyes of coal and sticks for a nose and mouth and arms and ornamental grass hair. suddenly, he is. pretty existential stuff.

we don’t know where guttah was before this. zooming around the universe in some jet stream, looking for a place to self-actualize, perhaps. we do know that his arrival prompted dogga to sniff and wonder. so that, in turn, has me wondering.

what does guttah see – here in this world of packed snow? what does guttah ponder as he stands there, looking a bit astounded? is he searching for meaning, for balance or healing in what he could see as he zoomed from non-existence into existence? or is he desperately looking for a way back to wherever he came from?

if i were a snowbeing that just arrived from the galaxy of ice crystals and snowflakes, i most certainly would be questioning the intention of bringing me to life. particularly right now.

but after perusing the contemporaneous news of my newfound home, after looking around, grokking all that is happening, i would be certain of the reason.

for i would recognize that my very existence had brought about a bit of giddiness, a little bit of laughter, many smiles, conversation, a fun photo shoot. my existence had made the day of ice-damming, another day of negative-news, the coming polar freeze just a bit easier.

and for that, i would stand in anyone’s yard, off their deck, on their patio or in their grass.

guttah will likely be around for a bit of time. windchills are going to be below zero for a few days, at least.

i have to say, he is a pretty adorable addition to the fam.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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the doormat. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

it’s pretty much a ritual – at the end of fall – to store the front and back rubber doormats away into the garage. both make it more difficult to shovel snow, so, rather than ramming the shovel into the mat while moving snow on the deck – having forgotten it was there – which hurts one’s shoulder – it’s best to put it away. it can also cause problems when there is ice – making it nearly impossible to open the back screen door, which is level with the deck with only a thin rubber mat’s thickness to spare. so, we are usually pretty diligent. there are several things, i’m sure, we all agree on – in preparing for winter. the yard furniture, the clay and ceramic pots, deck decor – it all needs to be stored.

i’m not sure, then, why the back doormat didn’t end up in the garage. somehow in the midst of this fall – miserable in all that fun lighthearted time after the election and such – we forgot. or maybe we just didn’t have the energy to pick up the mats and bring them to the garage. later in november – we were holding out hope for one more beautiful day – we put away the deck rugs, the table and chairs, the decor, the adirondack chairs. but we forgot the mats – at both doors.

so when i opened the back door the other day and stepped out to admire the snow i was surprised to look back at the mat. the snow peeeeeeeled back. it didn’t smush back or get lodged under the screen door – which ceases all door movement and is just slightly annoying when it happens – but it peeled back over itself. in one piece. pretty much unbroken. like peeling back the chocolate icing layer on a hostess cupcake.

we were lucky. there have been times that the snow and ice – because ice damming is a thing – have accumulated over the mat to such a point where the door will not open and you have to exit out the front door. that doesn’t sound like much of a problem until you hear that – for years – there was no way to unlock the front door from the outside as something had gone wrong with the barrel of the old door handle and lock. now that that has been repaired, we are not faced with the can’t-get-in-the-house crisis we had before if the back door is blocked and unable to open.

nevertheless, it was somewhat astounding (remember we are easily amused) to see the snow folded back on itself. and i gave myself a little talking-to about preparation and the perils of the winter.

a few days ago i spent several hours taking screenshots of every single thing on our student loan accounts. because – well – preparation and all. i had come across a recommendation to read a forbes business article about how prudent it would be to capture all this information just in case the department of education was dissolved or imploded or blown up or whatever, which would take out all its websites. it was the practical thing to do – even in the midst of my growling about the predatory nature of d’s student loans which have been nothing shy of criminal. i just couldn’t believe what i was doing and the reason i was doing it. preparation not for winter, not for snow or ice, but for the destruction of the department of education along with every other thing in the constitution.

i don’t honestly know what else we should do to prepare against what’s coming. i am horrified by every single thing we are seeing from this administration. i read a few comments on a meme that was posted by someone in alliance with this destruction of our country. it was – frankly – shocking. the stuff that people have been fed to believe goes beyond any adjective i can think of. it makes me wonder if they have prepared, for the malfeasance of overtaking our government – the one supposed to be of-the-people-by-the-people-for-the-people – and the shattering of our constitution will affect them as well. they too will be caught in the icy snowstorm with their mat out.

the back doormat was a good reminder. in two ways – one, that we might vigilantly stay in one piece – unbroken – and bend with the time (or the back door, whatever, just go with the metaphor) and two, that there are things we might need do in order to avoid being locked out of our own home – this country and its freedoms and rights.

this will be a long winter.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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mostly sansevieria. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

our sansevieria is called “a perfect houseplant“. it doesn’t require much tending, much light, much water. it is hardy and healthy and has grown immensely since we brought it home, filling the window nook.

it makes me think of my sweet momma, since she is the one who first introduced me to sansevieria – the snake plant. she had several and called them by their scientific name.

our sansevieria seems unconcerned that it is referred to as an “old school succulent“. and, according to the miraclegro website, they are “almost comically easy to grow, so chances are you’ll encounter few problems with them.”

the other day d and i were talking about trends. neither of us is particularly trendy nor aware of the trending trends. we reminisced about growing up with parents who also weren’t trendy and didn’t try to keep up with pop culture. we wondered about whether that was a detriment but decided that it was likely helpful since staying on trend requires a financial investment and real-life artists are generally not in that sort of position.

i’m thinking that we are both sansevieria.

perhaps we all need to be succulent sansevieria. easy to care for, ruthlessly growing despite all odds. we need to be hardy and healthy, comically easy. maybe that will give us the strength we need to prevail through all the chaos and uncertainty we are experiencing.

the one thing that we don’t have in common with our snake plant? the part that reads “chances are you’ll encounter few problems with them.”

it’s our job as artists – and, let’s face it, as humans – to push back on cruelty, on injustice, on betrayal, on marginalization, on stupidity. so…you may encounter a few problems.

yeah, we’re mostly sansevieria. but definitely watch for a few prickly cactus spines thrown in for self-preservation and for the protection of others.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts D.R. THURSDAY

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dogga’s squeakers. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

dogga has two favorite toys. one is candy cane and the other is snowman. we purchased both of them in december 2017 at festival grocery store – in a bin in the front of the store – each for $1. they are both squeaky toys. and they both still squeak.

this is pretty much a miracle. any other toy – particularly the stuffed ones – has lost its stuffing, lost its head (if it had one), lost all or most of the semblance of what it really is.

but candy cane and snowman have survived. neither have suffered even a nibble off their shape. dogga’s gentleness with these two treasured toys has been unparalleled. he carries these around with him, dropping them by his side in the kitchen or on the rug in the living room or on the bed. he never brings them outside, always dropping them inside by the back door, checking on them or picking them up again as he comes back inside. it would seem that he is protecting them – and their longevity is proof that he – the guardian of these plastic squeakers – has kept them intact. it is completely endearing.

perhaps there is a lesson to be learned.

perhaps we need hold gently that which or who are dear to us. perhaps we should wish to keep them close, to be soft with them, to not harm them or place them in harm’s way, to protect them, to make sure that they still squeak.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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our tracks. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

like you, maybe, i woke up on tuesday, sickened. the scourge has impaled the nation and i am stunned beyond belief. though i know we – personally – will be working at keeping on keeping on, the fallout of less than 24 hours was mind-blowing. which i know was the point. shock and awe, as they say.

in the tracks of our future we need to decide just exactly what we wish there. the present tense cannot be that which we leave in our wake, for this twisted leadership’s twisted governing will – most definitely – be the end of humanity as we know it. it is hard to grok this kind of cruelty.

in this time of grieving for our country, our democratic ideals, rights and freedoms on the chopping block to be desecrated, a moral center devoid of morality, the heaviness of depression and dread move in like a thick fog – difficult to see through to the other side. this is stifling, intense, horrible.

and so, maybe, i know how you feel. and sitting in this “collective depression” (john pavlovitz) is necessary – for the moment. we need spend time looking back, looking at now, looking down the road. we need spend time in the middle of it all. there are no easy solutions, i suspect. but each inch of the road forward counts and the tracks we leave will tell the story of our attempt to find balance and peace and goodness. it is the fundamental one-foot-after-another.

even as i write this i know that i don’t know what i’m talking about. not really. i have not lived through such a time. i am – like you – newly embarking on a trek heavy with the baggage of an administration steeped in hatred, retaliation, corruption. to think i know anything about such things is overstating, hyperbole. i – like you – have been mostly fortunate to live – most of my life – in a country with laws, checks and balances, at least a few grains of fairness mixed in. but here we are. and, though 77 million people voted for this maniacal cadre, more did not – through their vote or their silence.

anne frank embraced hope, “i don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.”

ralph waldo emerson’s words remind, “life is a journey, not a destination.”

when i come out from under the quilt, reopen the blinds and step out, i know that we will consider carefully our path as we go. we will step lightly and intentionally. we’ll not carry the fancy luggage with leather-edged nasty executive orders and gleeful manifestations of greed and malfeasance with us.

we will carry the scroll of our constitution and its good will from here and now to next days and the days after – our tracks will not be shameful indicators of the worst of us nor will they embarrass us. instead, they will be steady and strong and will tell the story of this journey for “whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly” (martin luther king, jr.) and we have a legacy to choose.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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our space in the dirt. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

there was a meme that he showed me this morning. it depicted the milky way – with an arrow to a tiny dot you couldn’t see that said “you. paying taxes and living in fear.”

it was perspective-arranging.

the next thing i saw was a meme that spoke to the cutting of social programs as the new administration seeks to continue coveted tax breaks for the very wealthiest among us.

it was also perspective-arranging.

and so here we are – living this strangely bi-polar reality, seeking some kind of balance, some kind of hope, trying to stay centered, as cris wrote to us.

they hand-feed the cottontails at their back door every day. we gaze out the window at the things that keep us grounded – our dogga running around the pond, our sweet aspen tree “breck”, our old piano aging in the snow. it is the relentless pursuit of relentless presence.

at the same time there is much about which to be worried. there are merely days before every single thing changes and this country will be run by heartless souls who wouldn’t feed a cottontail or watch a piano age under any circumstance. we are clinging to some sort of it’ll-be-ok even though we don’t think it will and we find it mind-boggling and heartbreaking to think of all the people who are pleased with the cruel impending mindset of our country.

it’s freezing today as i write this – a couple days before it will be published. by the time it is published the weather will be a bit better – for a day or two. it’s supposed to break over the freezing mark and hit forty degrees. but for right now – this very moment – it feels like 4 and we are side by side under the quilt, sipping coffee with dogga at our feet. it is a suspended moment in time but we can feel the other moments coming.

this year i will turn 66 and david 64. we wonder if – in our lifetime – we will actually see this country return to a place of compassion and sanity. what if it doesn’t? what if the self-aggrandizing-corruptly-narcissistic-strategically-agendized-greedy oligarchs just continue their reign for decades, pushing down those of us who have far less so that we will have far-far less? what if we move into a state of being where there is no equality – there are no rights – for anyone who is different than those in cold, extremist leadership positions?

breck doesn’t know the answers. but breck stands – fervently staunch – in the wind, the rain, the snow and hot sun – and thrives. it takes up the most minuscule amount of space in the dirt on this earth in the solar system of this galaxy. and so do we.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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

we move forward in this new year – attending to the processes of democracy and this nation’s constitution. we pass by the sixth of january.

“four years ago, a few thousand insurrectionists attempted to disregard the laws of this nation for a single career criminal. and what they could not accomplish then in the capitol rotunda, 77 million americans now have at the voting booth: the voices of our forebears have been rendered silent, the protections of our constitution have been destroyed, and a convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, and wannabe dictator has been given the keys to the kingdom.” (john pavlovitz)

if that is not prickly, i don’t know what is.

once upon a time, back in the day, there was a sexual predator. he was charming and indubitably well-versed at preying on young women. he started by grooming – paying undue attention to these young women – even girls – who were far younger than he, gifting them, serenading them with song and words that – clearly – meant nothing. because he was well-practiced, it did not take him long to go from zero to sexual abuse – his deflowering count blossoming. and then – post-conquest – he would quickly discard that conquest – another young woman who was forever-devastatingly-changed – and move on to the next. he was never punished for any of his crimes nor was he ever held accountable. the misogynistic men who knew and who should have handled the crimes of this crony-of-theirs stayed silent, a peer group of complicity, continuing to enable him. he still walks about freely here in these united states. for decades.

prickly, eh?

and here we are – decades later – nearly half a century since the time of this one devastating story among millions of such stories – and we have not moved any further along. as a matter of fact, we have now elected a misogynistic sexual abuser – with his own bevy of complicit lawless cronies – to the highest office of the land.

it’s just like the story from back in the day. interesting how little has changed. only – now – 77 million people are part of the story – who not only stayed silent but became a part of the enabling – who stamped their wholehearted approval and voted him in – a man liable for sexual abuse.

if you don’t feel prickly about that, i don’t know what’s wrong with you. because your embrace of violence – your ignorance, pushing this newsy news aside – your lack of morality – your perpetuating of this travesty – your complicity – has placed every single woman in this country in peril.

in the way that conditional if-then statements work, that would all condense to: if you voted for him then you are culpable.

pretty prickly.

“we don’t coddle our kids when they spew nonsense or think the truth is irrelevant. we correct them.” (rex huppke)

or – as history and the present show – we let them walk free and even make them president.

“the decision to put someone like [him] back in the most powerful position in america should be embarrassing. it wasn’t.” (rex huppke)

prickly as all hell.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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buymeacoffee is a website where you may directly impact an artist whose work has directly impacted you. xoxo


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of fire. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

there is a reverence of fire. it centers me into stillness, quiet time when much else slips away. just silently staring at its dance makes time – always vibrating – shift into slower motion.

there are moments – sitting in front of a fire – when you can feel that you are coming back to yourself. it is like the somethings that have been covered over, put aside, chucked away come forward and the fingers of flame burn off what hides it from your heart. the fire melts the rigid in you, pushes you past doubt, past angst, and beyond places that ache.

and suddenly we are a tiny bit open – more open than before – to the universe tapping our shoulder, to releasing the fear of being raw, to cracking open the vulnerable, to receive gifted divine intervention, to maybe-just-maybe wings to Back.

“may courage

cause our lives to flame,

in the name of the fire

and the flame

and the light.”

(john o’donohue)

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

like. subscribe. share. support. comment. – thank you. xoxo

buymeacoffee is a website where you may directly impact an artist whose work directly impacts you. xoxo