reverse threading

the path back is the path forward


Leave a comment

chicken marsala monday

sometimesfaith WITH EYES jpeg copy 3“…well, i will walk by faith, well, even when i cannot see, because this broken road prepares your will for me…” (lyrics from a really great 2002 song by jeremy camp called ‘walk by faith’)

“we walk by faith and not by sight….” (19th century lyrics from a 1984 hymn ‘we walk by faith’ by marty haugen)

trust.  practice.  faith.  repeat.  not necessarily in that order.  through the ages, a common challenge – faith without seeing.  ‘we’ are no different now than ‘they’ were ‘back then.’  faith.  it’s ambiguous.

it’s funny.  you might think that the most faith-reinforcing moments come during a service and this true for some.  as a minister of music for three decades, i have always sought to create those moments for others…when all things come together:  music, lyrics, emotion to amplify the words (and the word) spoken in the service and resonate within someone’s heart and reinforce their feelings of faith. it is a job i take seriously; sometimes you only have one chance to help connect a service with a person’s heart, one chance to reassure, one chance to raise awareness, one chance to have them ask questions within their faith, to challenge their assumptions for and otherwise.

for me, though, the most faith-reinforcing moments are outside of the faith-based venue, be it a church, temple, cathedral, mosque.  they are the moments that i can feel the hugeness of this universe of God and my absolute tiny-ness within it:  walking in the woods, standing in the sunlight, looking out on a mountain, holding hands, seeing the moon rise over the lake, watching the surf, seeing love pass between two people’s eyes, hearing my children’s voices, finding the right chord for a song, eating breakfast on the deck in the sun with cardinals, hearing music swell…

as a minister of music, i have heard a lot of sermons and been at an un-countable number of services.  think about it.  (and this is not counting all the years not spent in this position, nor does it count all the extra services at certain times of the year…you’re thinking, “ok, ok, ohmygosh, we get it!” )  so thirty years multiplied by 52 weeks multiplied by at least two services a sunday (sometimes three, but we will round it to two, as you roll your eyes.)  that equals 3,120 services and sermons.  and let me just mention, some have been…ummm…way better than others.  so you would likely deduce that i would know all the stories of the old and new testaments pretty well by now.  well, i beg to differ with you.  for me, those stories are peripheral.

what really counts for me is the stuff you can’t see with your eyes, the things you can only experience:  love, kindness, peace, generosity…  simplicities.  complexities.  these are the foundations of my faith.  faith in goodness.  faith in being held.  faith in grace. choosing actions that are life-giving.  knowing that if i fail today, i can try again tomorrow.  walking the broken road, faithfully believing that there is a higher power that i can’t see but i can experience.  one that surrounds me in my joy and in my pain.  ptom, in his lenten sermon the other evening, said, “God is for you.”  it takes a little (read:  a lot of) practice; it’s a new day every new day.  but i believe.

FAITH TAKES PRACTICE – we have different products for this on both www.society6.com/chickenmarsala and www.society6.com/kerrisherwood

society 6 info jpeg copy

 

CHICKEN MARSALA MONDAY – ON OUR SITE

 

faith takes practice FRAMED ART PRINT copy

wall art, cards, home decor

 

faith takes practice SQ PILLOW copy

 

faith takes practice LEGGINGS copy

‘faith takes practice’ LEGGINGS

 

faith chicken mug copy

 

 

 

faith white mug copy

 

faith chicken iphone case copy

read DAVID’S thoughts on FAITH TAKES PRACTICE

 

sometimes faith takes a little practice ©️ 2016 david robinson & kerri sherwood

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Leave a comment

ks friday

jacketrfthjpeg copywith the advent of ancestry kits and accessible dna testing, we are a society of people with more desire to learn about our individual heritage.  for christmas, The Girl and The Boy each got a dna testing kit from their father.  i’m excited to hear the results of these.  it’s fascinating to me to find out what our roots are; despite some specificity flaws and rounding up (or down) of genetic heredity in the testing and reporting kits i have read about, it is still interesting to know just a little bit more about where we come from.

my sweet momma and poppo traveled to salt lake city to work on the genealogy of our family.  they spent hours in the library there, researching.  they would have loved the idea of simply submitting dna to find out a broad spectrum of heredity, of lineage, but i suspect they still would have traveled to work on this the old-fashioned way, looking for names of family and how the branches of the tree spread out.

without doubt you have seen the commercials for these tests.  my favorites are the ones where people find that they were either mistaken about their ethnic heritage or they found that there were some surprises.  the best part is that – and i know it’s a commercial, but hey, i’m gullible – they embrace learning about this new part of their identity they had no idea existed.  they embrace something different.   they want to celebrate ethnicities they knew nothing about.  why not celebrate these whether or not it is a part of our heritage?  maybe we can make the legacy we pass down one of inclusion and acceptance and a curiosity to learn and welcome others, whether or not their dna matches ours.

 

to download LEGACY from RELEASED FROM THE HEART track 12 – on iTunes

to download LEGACY from RELEASED FROM THE HEART track 12 – on CDBaby.com

to purchase the physical CD RELEASED FROM THE HEART

and if you’d like to browse KS DESIGNS on SOCIETY6.com:

LEGGINGS

THROW PILLOWS

WALL ART

TOTE BAGS, CARDS, HOME DECOR

 

KS FRIDAY (KERRI SHERWOOD FRIDAY) – ON OUR SITE

to read DAVID’S thoughts on this KS FRIDAY

LEGACY from RELEASED FROM THE HEART ©️ 1995 kerri sherwood

 

 


Leave a comment

flawed cartoon wednesday

MASTER turtlenecks jpeg copysisu sue swore by them.  turtlenecks.  she has them in every color, every kind of weave and fabric.  she looks fabulous in them and wears adorable chic jackets over them.  she is one cool and trendy lady and i adore her.

having already started the hot-flasharama-period of my life when we were working together, i would ask her how she could stand having a turtleneck on; it was (and mostly still is) out of my realm of imagination being able to wear a turtleneck and not ripping it off in the middle of -say- the choir room or the train to chicago or in the car while driving.  this oh-so-wise treasured woman told me that someday i would understand.

THAT DAY HAS COME.

i look in the mirror, a few steps of days away from 59, and stare at (you might want to stop reading now) my NECK.  what has HAPPENED?  suddenly, my neck (and chin, for that matter) have become O-L-D.  where has the time gone?  where did my old neck go?  and where did that new chin-under-my-chin come from?

my sweet momma, at 93, looked at me one day and said, “i looked in the mirror and (in a horrified voice) i saw an OLD woman.”  “momma,” i reassured her, “at 93, you are an old woman, but you are a BEAUTIFUL old woman.”  personally, i thought my momma was striking.  every last wrinkle told a story.  every last thing she saw as a flaw.  but my words fell on deaf ears.  she just stared back at me.  probably feeling much the same as me.  delusionally thinking that time would stand still in our necks and chins and -yup- everywhere else.  time and menopause take their toll.

the next time you see me try not to stare at my neck (although i have likely set you up for that.)  i may or may not be wearing a turtleneck.  the ironic part is that a real turtle’s neck really does look a lot like mine.  sheesh.

TURTLENECKS ARE IN – a link to t-shirts, art prints, cards, throw pillows, phone cases

 

society 6 info jpeg copy

 

turtlenecks FRAMED PRINT copy

framed art prints, cards

 

turtlenecks COFFEE MUG copy

mugs, travel mugs

 

turtlenecks iPHONE CASE copy

phone cases

 

turtlenecks TSHIRT copy

t-shirts, home decor

 

FLAWED WEDNESDAY – ON OUR SITE

 

 

read DAVID’S thoughts on TURTLENECKS

don’t you know that turtlenecks are in?!?! ©️ 2016 david robinson & kerri sherwood


Leave a comment

two artists tuesday

typewriter copy 2anyone walking in our home knows this is true:  i’m a vintage type.  our home is not populated with new things fresh from the pottery barn catalog.  instead, it is filled with things that are re-purposed, things that are old, things that have some history, things we haven’t replaced with new things.  even our manner of work is kinda vintage, although this blog and our online product lines aren’t evidence of that.  but as an acoustic-analog-type musician and a brush-to-the-canvas painter, we pretty much scream
“vintage”.

one of my most treasured physical memories of my poppo are a few old small wooden boxes we found next to his workbench.   they would likely have been thrown away, but i knew he had “saved them” for some future purpose – perhaps holding random fasteners or nuts and bolts.  we carefully wrapped them and brought them home and they now sit in our sunroom (next to our not-so-vintage-and-really-awesome nespresso machine) and they hold nespresso capsules (which are recycled) and a collection of old clothespins my sweet momma used to use on the old clothesline in our backyard growing up.  it’s not the fancy stuff.  it’s the vintage stuff.

i lusted over this typewriter in the antique store.  i’m still thinking about it.  if it’s still there one day when we are visiting that shop and i have a little bit of extra spending money, i will buy it.  i’m not sure what i will do with it, but it speeeeeaks to me.  my sweet momma loved typewriters too.  what is it about those??  i think correctotype and purple carbon paper, the workout your fingers got, how it feels when you take the return handle to move to the next line down of type, and that really great sound -think of it…hear it- when you pull the paper out of the roll.  it’s visceral.

the stove/oven in our kitchen is, ummm, old, and, although i prefer to think of it as ‘vintage’, it doesn’t necessarily count as  romantic ‘vintage’.  it was here when we bought the house in 1989 and had likely been here at least ten years at that point; the people who owned the house before us were not the buy-new or even fix-it-up type.  matter of fact, they took it to a new level, putting contact paper on the countertops and backsplash and offering to teach us how to replace it.  (eww.  the sheer bacteria-breeding-ground-ness of that makes me shiver.  one of the first things i did was remove that stuff.)  but, back to the stove/oven.  it continues to work and i can’t tell you how many meals i have cooked on it and how many people have eaten those meals.  (if you merely consider almost 29 years and maybe just one meal a day, that is 10,585 times that this appliance has served me and my family and it is likely about 40 years old.)  my sister has had multiple stoves/ovens in the time i have had this one.  granted, she has enjoyed lots of updated features i haven’t had, but i haven’t (knock wood) spent anything to date on a stove/oven since 1989.  amazing.  it’s a testament to kenmore’s older appliances.  someday i know we will have a new one, but in the meanwhile this workhorse is not taking up room in a dump somewhere, with a half-life of a billion years (ok, slight exaggeration) and i feel good about that.  it’s not pretty, it’s not high-tech; i feel it has earned the label ‘vintage’ and no one seems to run – aghast- out of our kitchen because it graces the spot for ‘stove/oven’.  there is something to be said for that.

we just had breakfast; d made it as he does each morning these days.  he cooked it on that stove and it was deeeeelicous.  and me?  i’m going to get out our coin jar and count what’s in there.  maybe there will be enough to go back to that antique shop so i can bring home this typewriter.

I’M A VINTAGE TYPE – this link will take you to wall art, cards, leggings, throw pillows, bags, fun stuff

 

society 6 info jpeg copy

 

vintage type FRAMED ART PRINT copy

framed art prints, metal wall art, cards

 

vintage type SQUARE PILLOW copy

throw pillows all shapes & sizes, floor pillows, clocks, rugs

 

Vintage tyoe LEGGINGS copy

leggings/yoga pants

 

vintage type COFFEE MUG copy          Screen Shot 2018-03-19 at 10.49.14 AM

 

vintage type TOTE BAG copy

tote bags, phone cases, laptop sleeves

 

TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY – ON OUR SITE

 

 

read DAVID’S thoughts on A VINTAGE TYPE

i’m a vintage type ©️ 2018 kerri sherwood & david robinson

 

 

 

 


Leave a comment

chicken marsala monday

MASTER trytoseewhattheysee WITH EYES jpeg copy 2try to see what they see.  i glanced back over what i’ve written the last week:  about trying to see eye to eye, about assuming awe, about being relentless in a life that isn’t simply black and white, about being brave.  is it possible to write too many words about the importance of empathy?  the importance of trying to walk in another’s shoes to really understand their circumstance, their joy, their plight, their challenge?  because it’s easy to forget, i never feel like i can be reminded enough; it’s always hard to remember my perspective is different than any-other-person’s-on-earth.  sometimes it’s laden with stuff.  it’s all so complicated.

when dogdog was little we were astounded by his exuberant joy.  he was always bounding, seemingly ever hopeful.  he still is.  i’ve written about what his take on the world looks like to us; i’ve written about what babycat’s take on the world looks like to us.  they look forward and see possibility, without the capacity to mull all the looking-backwards-stuff over in their brains.

we surround ourselves with wonderful pets who unconditionally love us.  all of us who have dogs or cats -or any pet- we adore know this; people who dedicate time or their lives to keeping animals safe – like aly, a veterinarian, or jen, who has spent lots of time volunteering at humane societies and sanctuaries, or my sister, who just adopted a puppy-she-wasn’t-expecting…we all know this.  they see us like no one else.  and they are part of us in ways not easy to express in words.  they aren’t looking at us with prejudice or judgement, emotional baggage or elitist measurements of value.  they simply expect the best and somehow they find it in the very next moment.  they find it in each moment.  they clearly know something we don’t know.  they don’t need to walk in another’s shoes.  they just look forward and trust.  it’s simple for them.

for us?  we can stand to be in those other shoes AND to look forward.  we can try to see what they see.

TRY TO SEE WHAT THEY SEE – A LINK TO PERUSE CARDS, WALL ART, THROW PILLOWS & LEGGINGS ……

 

society 6 info jpeg copy

 

try to see what they see FRAMED ART PRINT copy

 

try to see what they see METAL WALL ART copy

 

try to see what they see LEGGINGS copy

 

try to see what they see MUG copy

 

try to see what they see TOTE BAG copy

 

try to see IPHONE CASE copy

 

CHICKEN MARSALA MONDAY – ON OUR SITE

 

read DAVID’S thoughts on this CHICKEN MARSALA MONDAY

try to see what they see ©️ 2016 david robinson & kerri sherwood

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Leave a comment

flawed cartoon wednesday: eye to eye/i to i

MASTER we never see eye to eye jpegBIG copy 2i hardly know where to start. eye to eye.  i to i.  dang.

it’s easy to look at this and think of my own daily-life-eye-to-eye challenges.  but – i can’t look at this cartoon and stay away from the political climate in our country.  whether you prefer blue or red – or even purple – you have to admit, we are not in a state of blissful co-existing.  we have moved in together and have drawn lines down the middle of the virtual apartment, down the middle of the ever-increasingly important issues, down the middle of integrity, down the middle of people’s hearts.  and, with such strong big-thick-font-lines drawn, there seems to be no meeting ground, no where to go.  the “eyes” of wisdom and for-the-good-of-all-people have disappeared and the “i’s” have shown up, stronger and bigger and more powerful than before; superman without clark kent’s goodness.

where DO we start?  pstacey said the other day that we have to start in our own little corner of the world.  i agree.  how hard is it sometimes to see eye to eye/i to i in our own relationships, our own families?  ptom’s words “acts of radical kindness = building community”.  i agree.  in the middle of our own concentric circles, we make a teeny movement of goodness and the ripple spreads out.  there is no where else to start.  without our grounding in the breath-space we each take up in the world, we can’t make any progress, we can’t ripple out.

perhaps we all could work on seeing eye to eye (er, i to i) if we made conscious and generous life-giving decisions with every choice-we-are-faced-with that take into account a weighing-in of how it might impact others.  we don’t have to agree.  but we have to respect each other in the process, try to walk in another’s shoes, see another perspective, see what someone else’s eyes see.  see i to i.

EYE TO EYE  – MERCHANDISE /// I TO I – MERCHANDISE

yes!  there are two different product lines – each easily accessible by clicking on the “eye to eye merchandise” link OR the “i to i merchandise” link above.

 

NeverSeeEyeToEye FRAMED PRINT copy

 

NeverSeeEyeToEye square pillow copy

eye to eye /i to i pillows

i to i SQUARE PILLOW copy

 

 

NeverSeeEyeToEye Rect pillow copy

relationship pillows

 

i to i LEGGINGS copy

try to see i to i leggings

 

i to i coffee mug copy    NeverSeeEyeToEye mug copy

 

FLAWED CARTOON WEDNESDAY

 

read DAVID’S thoughts on FLAWED CARTOON WEDNESDAY

 

why is it that we never see eye to eye on anything??? ©️ 2016 david robinson

 

 


Leave a comment

two artists tuesday

MASTER be relentless big copy 2i don’t have to look further than my two children for examples of being relentless.

The Boy decided, early in high school, that he wanted to change his attention from baseball to tennis.  now, most of his classmates who were tennis players on the varsity team had played since earlier childhood.  The Boy had only hit the ball around on the court a few times with his very-best-growing-up-friend-miles or pierre-who-hung-out-here-all-the-time-in-high-school but his decision was made and he pursued it with zeal.  a part of the jv team, he practiced and took individual lessons, group lessons, worked with his coaches.  i, on the sidelines, sweated and watched, trying hard to be quiet as he pushed himself.  he, a natural athlete, was moved up to the varsity team and doubled-down on the hard work of tennis – a “game” possibly more psychological than physical….ridiculously tough on a mom.  he went to a university that welcomed him on their tennis team and, for years, i spent the better part of tennis season (and tournament season) driving all over the state and beyond, proud to see his skill on the court, proud to see his drive and, mostly, that it paid off for him.  now he applies the same strategic tennis-approach to his life, his career.  he was – and is – relentless.

The Girl decided, upon moving to the high mountains of colorado, that she, having never been on skis or other propelling-downhill-snow-gear (other than a sled), wanted to snowboard.  she was working in a professional (indoor office) position out there, but she spent every spare moment on the slopes, striving to learn.  every now and then she’d report in about her experience on copper mountain or keystone or breck or vail or ….  she broke her arm, she twisted limbs, she broke her helmet.  she persisted.  time passed and she traded up for better snowboards, more equipment; she asked more people for advice or pointers; she was a learner beyond compare.  she boarded in aspen, in snowmass, in patagonia.  she dropped off ledges and split-boarded up vast mountains.  fast forward just a few short years and she, no longer in an inside office doing the piece-of-paper-from-the-university-of-minnesota-work-she-was-trained-for, has taken the learn how to learn, learn how to persevere, learn how to dream – from life, from college, from her own purposeful heart – and is a snowboard instructor and a snowboard coach for a team in aspen.  she offers more than snowboarding to those around her; she is the picture of excited zealousness.  she was – and is – relentless.

so i………who read to them as little ones and tucked them in and drove them to music lessons and sporting events and played with matchbox cars and dressed barbies and ran alongside two-wheelers and crossed my fingers as they sat behind the wheel of the car and tried to instill a little appreciation of beauty and respect, and helped with homework and stayed up all night while they worked on last-minute-projects and rocked them to sleep at night with a well-loved-tattered ‘goodnight moon’ falling off my lap……..now learn from them.  to be relentless.

there is this adorable couple from mississippi on hgtv these days.  erin and ben star in a show called Home Town and they are working to restore their tiny town of laurel one beautiful home at a time.  my favorite moment, as they run commercials for this very popular show, is erin passionately looking into the camera saying, with the most charming southern drawl, “get up and DO it.”  you can tell she means this about every single thing.  and to her call to action, i just might add – and be relentless.

BE RELENTLESS MERCHANDISE

 

BeRelentless METAL WALL ART copy

metal wall art

 

BeRelentless LEGGINGS copy

be relentless leggings

 

BeRelentless coffee mug copy

be relentless coffee mugs

BeRelentless square pillow copy

be relentless throw pillows

 

 

TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

 

read DAVID’S thoughts on this TWO ARTIST TUESDAY

 

be relentless ©️ 2016 kerri sherwood & david robinson


1 Comment

chicken marsala monday

MASTER assumeawe WITH EYES jpeg copy 2so i’ve decided that there is a difference between us and our pets.  you roll your eyes and think, “she is clearly a little slow on this…”  but i’m not just stating the obvious.  i watch dogdog and babycat through their days and find wonder in their absolutely joy-filled acceptance of the moment.  for dogdog and babycat, there is no continuum of how-am-i-going-to-feel-right-now; it is simply always at the apex of ‘happy’.

dogdog runs around the backyard gleeful.  our neighbor and friend john says he can practically hear him thinking, “oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!”  he meets us at the back door when we arrive back home or when we ask him if he wants to “go on errands”, vertical-jumping to challenge the best of basketball players.  at the end of the evening, when he is sure it is time for “sleepynightnight”, he rolls over for a treasured ‘belly-belly’; nothing else matters to him at that moment.  all of his actions are based in the moment.  all of them assume the best.

if babycat can’t be laying curled up next to you, he seeks the sun and follows it around the house.  he sits on the chest in front of the window (just as in this drawing of chicken marsala and babycat) and gazes outside, clearly enchanted by everything ‘out there’.  he gets most excited by mealtime and a ‘treat’ will literally make him come running and put him over the top.  all of his actions are based in the moment.  all of them assume the best.

why is it that we function so differently?  why is it that we cannot assume the best?  we tend to pre-form our view about our day, our challenges, our life, our conversations, our relationships, our, well, most everything.  we drag all the old baggage along with us, all of which contributes to heavy-hearted-difficult-to-circumvent-or-navigate negative assumptions of what is to come.  what would it be like for us – as individuals, as couples, as families, as a community, as a country, as a world – to assume the best?  to assume awe?

ASSUME AWE MERCHANDISE

 

assume awe rect. pillow copy

pillows and fun rugs

 

assume awe mug copy

ceramic mugs and travel mugs

 

assume awe LEGGINGS copy

leggings

 

assume awe framed print copy

framed wall art

 

assume awe METAL WALL ART copy

metal wall art

 

assume awe iPHONE case copy

cellphone cases

 

CHICKEN MARSALA MONDAY

 

read DAVID’S thoughts on this CHICKEN MARSALA MONDAY

assume awe ©️ 2016 david robinson & kerri sherwood


Leave a comment

two artists tuesday

brave-poster-jpegthis one’s hard.  i’ve written about bravery before.  i’ve written about women with backbone.  i’ve written about holding to truths and actively working for peace and respect.  about waking up each day on mother earth and the people around us working to keep this a good place.

faced with the word “brave” as our two artists tuesday image, i flounder with where to start.

very early this morning our dear friend linda left her home to go to chicago to have a cochlear implant.  we spent time with her a few evenings ago, as she sorted through hope and fear, what she’s known and the future unknown.  one of her greatest passions in life is dancing.  she dances to music designed for dance, to music she hears in passing, to music in her head.  terrified of losing the ability to hear music post-surgery, she pondered the what-if of not having this done.  but her desire to actually be able to hear MORE (more beloved voices, more broadcasted music, more cds out on the deck or in the dance hall) won out and she is on a new journey.  she is brave. brave. brave.  brave word jpeg copy

my sister just had surgery on her hand to remove a skin cancer.  i am grateful and relieved she is healing from this and will likely not have to have any additional treatment.   d and i talked about this on a walk the other day.  i was weeping openly on the sidewalks in our neighborhood as i spoke about my big brother, who died after a valiant fight with lung cancer, my daddy who was a twelve-year-or-so survivor of lung cancer, my sweet momma who had a double mastectomy for stage four breast cancer at the age of 93.  i cannot help but have some fear.  who among us is exempt from that?  but my big sister was brave and positive and i am determined, as i move forward in life, to be brave as well.  in all arenas.  on all fronts.  d says i am much braver than he is.  i’m not sure why he says this, but his words make me feel stronger.

we meet our challenges singlehandedly, we meet our challenges with a world of support, which is sometimes just one living person, one other being. our bravery is fortified by the love of others, by their words of wisdom, by their ability to shift our perspective, even just a little, by our re-defining.  for we are not in this alone.  we have on our wall in the bedroom a sign that reads, “wherever you are, that’s where i will be.”  our ‘brave’ is fed by our faith, the sisu (perseverance and fortitude) we’ve honed in life, the courageous alter-reaction to the terror of taking a step, our community of people.   susan and i have used the word “scrappy” to describe our lives; in looking at the definition of “brave” i would add intrepid and plucky.  great word – plucky.   Screen Shot 2018-03-05 at 10.41.48 AM

i mean, let’s face it – just being in the world and being who we really are each day is damn brave.

 

BRAVE MERCHANDISE

 

brave leggings copy

brave pillow copy

brave travel mug

Screen Shot 2018-03-05 at 10.59.34 AM

TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

melange button jpeg

check out DAVID’S thoughts on BRAVE

brave. ©️ 2017 kerri sherwood & david robinson


Leave a comment

chicken marsala monday

thismomentunique WITH EYES jpeg copy 2late yesterday afternoon, after a day spent working on computers and designs, with technology sluggishness taking over our souls, we headed to the woods to take a hike.  any time we feel tired or ‘stuck’ we walk.  around the ‘hood, along the lake, or to the starbucks about 2 and a half miles away.  any time we feel exuberant or elated we walk.  sometimes in the mountains (ahh!!) or in chicago or the third ward in milwaukee.  any time we need a ‘business meeting’ we walk.  mostly in the woods, in a county or state park.  walking and breathing in fresh air brings us back to the moment.  it re-centers us.

we hiked up the small rise in the woods, the light was waning and behind us the sky was deep deep orange.  in the clearing beyond the stand of trees stood, very still, a deer.  it was clearly the ‘lookout’ as way back in the field were six more deer, easy to count in the almost-dark as their white tails bobbed when the lookout gave the alert.  we stood perfectly still watching this beauty, a magic moment in the woods.  neither of us wanted to leave the spot.  i took a picture, not because you can see the deer in it, but because it preserved the moment for me.  i didn’t want to forget.  because, as you already know, i am thready like that.

around me, every rock or feather or piece of wood or ticket stub or scrap of notepaper carries with it a specific moment – preserved in time.  i could not necessarily tell the story of each of those moments – there are far too many for my synapse-challenged-brain to remember.  but i know that each one had meaning for me.  each one defined yet another piece of me, my relationship with someone i love, a time i shared with another being, a learning, a moment of sheer bliss, a moment of deep sadness.  each moment renewed me and brought me to my next moment of living.

as i have moved through life one thing has become certain.  that everything changes.  nothing stays the same.  life is in flux, always fluid.  what more do we have than each moment as it arrives for us?  i ask myself, “how do i want to spend this moment?  what do i want to feel about this moment?”  for i can never get it back.  i can never re-do it.  time has moved on.  and so i must keep moving.  i write about moments, i compose about moments, i tell stories about moments.  for me, those details count.   attempting to put succinctly (ha!) into words my philosophy-of-what-moments-mean is impossible; it is the umbrella that skies over everything else i believe, everything else i think.

when The Boy was little, he called the rearview mirror in cars the “review” mirror.  particularly poignant i think.  i have seen it written “don’t stare into the rearview mirror.  that’s not the direction you are going.”  instead i try (read: TRY) to review the past moments, learn from them, find grace in them, save the memory threads.  and wholeheartedly embrace the ones to come.  the moments.  unique.  in every way.   i love this chicken marsala image.

THIS MOMENT…UNIQUE…IN EVERY WAY MERCHANDISE

     ThisMomentUnique clock copy

ThisMomentUnique iphone case

ThisMomentUnique mug copy

CHICKEN MARSALA MONDAY

melange button jpeg

check out DAVID’S thoughts on this CHICKEN MARSALA

this moment…unique…in every way ©️ 2016 david robinson & kerri sherwood