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Category Archives: merely a thought monday


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so much on our plates. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

it is a raw clay plate dating back to the 1940s. signed by the artist in 1947, four years after my parents married, two years after world war II ended. the painting depicts a scene that i would guess most of us might yearn for: idyllic, quiet, a dirt driveway to land next to a lake, a house, a barn, aspen trees. really simple. really beautiful.

along the bottom edge of this plate – its paint peeling from lack of firing finish – is what appears the artist’s monogram logo and the number 47, clearly the year this decorative plate was completed.

and therein is the problem.

for there will never – in our lifetime – be a number more burdened by foul memories. there will never be a number that has caused more pain, more divisiveness, more rifts, more sadistic cruelty, more self-serving agenda-ized policy that undermines the potential goodness of this country, even in the context of the greater global world.

that number – i wish it was not on this plate.

just like i erase the word “great” every time i write it. just like the word “tremendous”, the word “ballroom”, the acronym “maga”, the word “woke”, the words “better than anyone else”, the word “fraud”, the word “pardon”. just like red hats. just like the american flag. just like the thought of congress or the supreme court. just like alternative facts and people talking over, talking over, talking over others asking questions. i wonder how i might ask others if they want frozen water in their glasses without using the word “ice”. i wonder how we will fare in the future with so much ptsd on our plates.

there will be fallout from all this. and much of it will cause a great number of people in this country much long-term angst. not withstanding actual suffering of people far and wide, we will suffer the use of words, the turn of phrase, the sight of the white house, viewing the vast footage taken at the nation’s capitol on january 6, 2021. we will suffer the stripping of rights, the stripping of conscience, the stripping of truth, the stripping of sheer morality, the stripping of democracy. we will shudder to hear recordings of certain voices; we will turn away from the video of people’s faces twisted – contorted – by hatred, vitriol, bigotry.

we will need time to heal. we will need quiet to heal.

i look at this plate and wish i were there.

*****

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

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the chair that brought him home. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

it’s a classic story. an age-old story.

it was after a photo shoot – for pictures with which to list it for sale – that i discovered it.

this old rocking chair had been with him for decades. his studio chair, he bought it in a colorado mountain town and it traipsed along with him, re-homing down south, to los angeles, to seattle. it was one of the few items – outside of paintings – that made the cut when we moved him here in a budget truck.

when it arrived here it became a studio chair once again, tucked into his basement studio next to the rocking chair in which i rocked my babies.

but now, in the process of cleaning out and going through, he has decided it has run its course. this beautiful chair needs restoring. caning is missing and, if someone rathers finished over organic, it needs sanding and some good varnish. with really good bones and a decade of life-patina, it’s ready to move on.

we brought it upstairs for the shoot and i took photos of each angle and turned leg. doing research on mission style rockers like this i came across where to find identifying information. so i went back out into the living room to look more closely.

and there it was.

the word “wisconsin”.

to say i was a bit stunned would be an understatement.

diving into it, i discovered that this chair was made by the wisconsin chair company in port washington – just up the lakefront from us sometime around the early 1900s.

this chair – after a century of domestic travel – had come home.

i asked him if he wanted to keep it – knowing this new detail of the chair’s history. he said it was still time for the chair to move on, to be loved into renewal.

i’m wondering if this rocking chair had anything to do with david finding home – after a lifetime of living other places. if this chair somehow had strong enough ties to this place that it created the circumstances in which we met. if this chair had a gravitational pull back to wisconsin so strong that it brought david here, instead of the reverse. if this rocking chair brought him home.

*****

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

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less and less sand. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

about this week: there is a peril, it seems, to writing ahead these days. we had decided that this week – the first full week of a new year – we wished to use images of light as our prompts, we wished to linger on the possibility of light, of hope, of goodness. though our blogposts might stray from that as we pen them, it was without constant nod to the constant updating of current events – a mass of indefensible, unconscionable acts. we pondered what to do about these blogposts we had written and decided to keep them. we hope that – whether or not any absence of the happenings of the day, whether or not the chance these written words seem somewhat inane at this moment – you might know that those events – of corruption, illegality, immorality – do not distill or distort our intention – to bring light and hope to this new year – the first days of which bring more insanity and unnerving instability. we are still holding space for light.

and so…

on the coldest of days, in any weather, we have gone down to the beach to dig a big contractor-sized pail of sand. once you have waxed bags, sand is the first thing you need for luminaria.

we’d add a couple cups of grainy sand to each bag and then center a votive candle into it for a flame that would linger for several hours.

for a few years we’d line them up on the sidewalks along our street – on both sides – to bring light in the latest of christmas eve hours, to gather a whole bunch of people together, to celebrate around a couple bonfires in our driveway.

even on the coldest of nights, we loved our new tradition.

until the pandemic.

since then our luminaria have been set up in our backyard, small groups of dear ones or just us watching them glow into the night.

this year – a rainy eve – we lit them inside our house. and we simplified.

waxed bag, glass votive, tea light candle.

no sand.

there was no reason to believe that our luminaria might tip over or blow away. so, we simply didn’t need the sand. we didn’t need anything to weigh down the bags. they were still ever-so-captivating.

in these days now since the holiday we have continued to clean out, to sort, to ponder things to keep, things to no longer hold onto.

each and every thing we donate or sell or discard has made me feel lighter. even the tiniest bric-a-brac that finds its way into the “go” pile has given me reason to celebrate.

space.

more space.

less begets less. it’s invigorating, refreshing, addictive.

each new piece i am pondering ends up on our dining room table. it has become the staging ground for decision-making. it has become the weigh-station…the place to weigh if what is weighing us down holds weight for us.

this will go on for a while. there is much to sort. as you know, thirty-six years in one house – a house with a basement and an attic – means there is a lot tucked in all the nooks and crannies.

but there is time. and in this time during which i am touching all these pieces of the past, i have a chance to touch all the emotions of these times-gone-by as well.

and so, it becomes a time of letting go. letting go of stuff, letting go of unnecessary goopy angst, letting go of emotions that get in the way of greeting the new days of what’s next.

the three luminaria in front of our fireplace stayed lit for a couple hours. without the challenge of the wind, they burned brightly. we turned off the room lights and sat in a living room illuminated only by happy lights and tiny tea light candles.

sinking in under furry throw blankets, we reveled in this place we call home, grateful and cozy.

with less and less sand.

*****

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

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may peace. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

he asked me as we hiked the river trail on christmas day. it was brisk, but we had warm coats and gloves, turtles and boots so we were cozy enough to be out there for a few hours. “what would you like to see in the new year?” he posed as we rounded the icy bend in the woods.

heidi and i had a phone chat. it wasn’t really long but she told me of a sentiment she received in a holiday greeting card. “may peace gently find you and fall upon your heart.”

we talked about how – instead of going out to seek peace – this wish she had received was one that simply – and gently – graced her with peace. we talked about how feeling peace fall upon you – like the softest snowflakes falling from a winter sky – would impact us.

and so, this.

peace.

in answer to d’s question on the trail, i listed all the things i would like to see resolved in the new year. i listed all the things i would like changed in the new year. i listed all the things i might really want in the new year – to do, to accomplish, to try, to find. i could have also listed things that might make this a better world. i could have also listed things that might bring balance back into people’s lives. i could have also listed things that might make people conscious, compassionate, moral, in their right mind again.

and peace.

there are only two more days left of this year, three if you count today. i wonder what i might do with these days as i approach next year.

i wonder what i might let go of in order to allow space for peace to find me. i wonder what i might reflect on in order to feel peace falling upon my heart. i wonder what i might commit to in order to hold that peace close, to let it simmer and grow.

*****

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

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the ultimate failure. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

friday, december 12, 2025. too many.

another. and another. they statistically stack up, these school shooting victims, the children – children – who have died at the hand of a lethal shooter with a gun.

it is beyond comprehension.

and it has become the norm.

all the empty rooms was released on december 1. we watched it a couple days after its release. the trailer alone had made me weep, so i was aware ahead of time that it would be gut-wrenching.

steve hartman is a reporter who has often been sent to the site of the innumerable number of school shootings that happen in this country. over the past 30 years, he has attempted to help the viewers “stay optimistic”. pushing back against whitewashing these horrific acts – against simply finding something of goodness in something so heinous – he decided to do something different.

he and photographer lou bopp went to eight homes where they photographed the bedrooms that used to belong to school-shooting victims. the short documentary depicts three of these bedrooms. every nook, every cranny, every tiny nuance. not wanting any semblance of their child to disappear – the trinkets, the scent, the aura, the essence – parents have kept the room the way their child left it – on their very last day on this earth – perhaps to – desperately – try and feel their child once again.

the colorful rubber hair ties wrapped around the doorknob did me in.

because there are two bobby pins on the old desk side table next to the couch in the living room, left there by my daughter in 2019 which i dust and place back, to feel her there. she – thankfully – is very much alive and well.

but those colorful rubber hair ties – elastics of a little girl killed by a school shooter.

if you aren’t already aghast, it should not take any more than this to stop you in your tracks.

and i agree with steve: “i wish that we could transport all americans to stand in one of those bedrooms for just a few minutes. we’d be a different america.”

though i now have my doubts about the morality of some americans – even if they watched this profound short – i hope that steve’s words – his if-this-then-that antecedent-consequent trigger-action conditional statement – would be true.

and though i now have my doubts about the government of this country – the government that has not protected the children of this nation – the government that has panted over the second amendment – the government that has lost itself in big lobby money and corruption – i would hope that steve’s words could be true.

and so, instead of zealously lusting over guns, we – as a country united by broken hearts – would raise up – value above all else – the safety of our children. every single one of them.

december 13, 2025. too many + 2.

staggering and shameful.

the ultimate failure.

*****

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

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more good. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

“the more we focus on the good, the more good will circulate.” (carl blanchet)

it would be easy – outside on an extension ladder at 2:00 am – in ten degrees – hauling plastic decanters of hot water up and down – pouring it on a frozen gutter that has been melting into the house – to get crabby, to focus on the negative.

it would be easy – with blow dryer in hand, plastic spatula, rubber mallet and many loads of towels in and out of the washer and dryer – de-icing interior windowsills and windows from the ice-damming above – preventing any further accumulation – to get crabby, to focus on the negative.

it would be easy – as we keep revisiting and dealing with the ice-damming – day after day – for the conditions continue to be ripe with icing – to get crabby, to focus on the negative.

it would be easy – sitting in the parking lot – our truck broken down – big red’s hood up for all to see (including our neighbor who happened to park next to us but pretended not to see us – yikes) – waiting for a tow truck for five hours in less-than-twenty-actual-degree weather – to get crabby, to focus on the negative.

it would be easy – getting summoned for jury duty – at a time when the courts are unconscionably questionable – when the supremes are throwing out constitutional law – when none of us are assured the rights and privileges of this democracy – to sit in the jury room surrounded by over a hundred others – that waiting place – waiting, waiting – to get crabby, to focus on the negative.

but then we wouldn’t have considered the good. for the good that has happened, the good we have witnessed, the good we personally have been privy to – even over the last couple weeks – that good has far outweighed anything that should make us crabby.

the good of strangers, friends, neighbors – trying to help or helping…the good of professionals generously doing their job…the good of circumstances for which we are grateful…the good of the simplest things…the good of waking up.

truly, as carl blanchet backpacks the pacific crest trail for the second time, his focus is on all the good he has encountered. his message is clear – he believes that focus will circulate more good. and i have to say i agree.

for even in these current times – in this current climate – in this country as it currently is – in divided families, divided neighbors, divided communities – we must do the best we can to recognize every morsel of good, to appreciate every bit of good extended to us, to bring good, to pass good on.

there is only one way to get through all the challenges we each face on a daily basis, not to mention the seemingly insurmountable challenges we are facing as the united states of america.

and that is for ruthless goodness to circulate, for each of us to be ruthlessly kind.

to – without hesitation – trump the bad with good.

*****

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

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backer rod, oh backer rod. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

we have become backer rod junkies. having never heard of it before this fall, it has been a quick conversion to fanhood, but we are there, nonetheless.

it’s been a week now since i woke up at midnight to the steady drip, drip, drip in the next room. yes. IN the next room. i threw off the covers, which woke d up immediately. and then i ran into the sitting room.

pulling up the miniblind disclosed what i expected: internal window sills of ice and a steady drip from above. it’s called ice damming.

the ridiculously frigid temperatures have caused the water in the gutter above these twin windows to freeze. we have a heating cable in that gutter, but – and here’s the big but – despite checking it before the snowfall, we didn’t know that the outdoor outlet the cable is plugged into had since failed.

so the water in the gutter froze and then the heat from the house started to thaw the snow on the steeply pitched cape cod roof which then melted toward the gutter – which had somehow misaligned itself – and, with the ice filling the gutter the water had nowhere to go but into the window structure behind the wall and voila! an interior (of the double hung windows) filled with ice. this – as you may guess – is not our favorite thing.

so, there we were, at midnight getting our equipment together. david with his 32 degrees base layers and boots and the infamous nike jacket, the ladder and plastic pitchers from which to pour hot water – and me, with my blow dryer, lots of old towels, a heater, a rubber spatula, mallet, and anything i could get my hands on that might waylay water from actually spilling INTO the room.

it was 2:30am before we went back to bed after d had climbed the ladder about 57 times in the frigid night air, melting the gutter and the downspout and replugging the heating element wire into an extension cord.

and then it all started again the next day. and the next. and the next. we are hoping for a 50 degree day, but it doesn’t look promising.

i’m writing this ahead so i am hoping that we have gotten it all under control by this time – hoping the backer rod and the towels and the cold-weather flex paste and the overburdened gutter guy have – in combo – solved this. but, for right now, as i write this, we are still in midstream, dealing with it. yep. midstream.

it is my hope (against hope) that the inordinate amount of backer rod we now proudly own will do the trick – being impermeable to water and such. we are counting on that impermeable thing. we shall see.

but in the meanwhile, we are nevertheless hope-filled-backer-rod-fans and will not hesitate to do the backer rod dance should backer rod help to solve this issue.

ice damming is a royal pain. we do our best to avoid it. every time it snows i hopehopehope it won’t be followed by a period of melting and then frigid sub-zero temperatures. not to mention a failing outlet or a gutter that has shifted out of alignment. eh.

we try to keep it in perspective, though, as we punt through our improvised fix. we feel fortunate, even as we damn the ice damming.

and mostly, i’m trying to decide if we should publicize my new backer rod theme song (to the tune of “edelweiss”) “backer rod, backer rod, every gap you are sealing. backer rod, backer rod, our love for you is revealing…joints and gaps will be waterproofed, that’s no spoof, we’re cheering…back rod, backer rod, you can’t know how much we’re feeling.”

*****

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

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harvest the love. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

in a very, very long-ago life i wrote a song for a youth choir called “harvest the love“. i recently found the arrangement i composed. it is a bubblegum kind of song – full of rhyming idealism. “…we are all one fam’ly under the sun, we are brothers, we are sisters, we are one...”. wowza.

one of my closest friends in high school – marc – used to make fun of me (in the kindest way possible). he’d poke at my embrace of rainbows and sunrises and bubbles and sunsets. i was all-in on that stuff, believing it was absolutely possible to be “all one fam’ly under the sun”. “…for aren’t we really crops in the sun and aren’t we ready for work and for fun, as all one fam’ly under the sun…”. (it’s ok to laugh.)

we had a quiet thanksgiving. it felt good to store away the deck furniture and rugs, to complete prepping the backyard for winter – for (as i write this) we’re due for 6-10 inches of snow over the weekend (which, incidentally, we did get about 10). we wrapped happy lights around the giant tree branch that used to be in our living room, now fastened to our deck. on a timer, we look forward to this tree greeting us as we arrive home in the dark. we neatly tucked everything else away and the snow shovel is in its at-the-ready place by the back door.

we had the good fortune of visiting frank over the holidays. in a rehab facility, exhausted and challenged from a serious health event, he roused to tell us stories accumulated over the nine plus decades of his life. he – most definitely – lived a life ready for both work and for fun, just like my giddy song lyrics.

and then – back home – between sending out thanksgiving greetings and receiving them – we prepared a big stockpot of irish stew for our meal. with george winston playing in the sunroom, we chopped and sautéed and, ultimately, simmered our way to dinner. it was just us, but as we gathered, we talked about the people in our lives who have meant so much to us, about memories of thanksgivings, about our gratitude for our home and each other. two weeks ago our children and their partners gathered around our dining room table and i am still holding fast to how it all felt that day, stretching it out like good taffy.

most of the lyrics of this old song are really indicative of my age (late teens) and where i had come from – you can tell i spent a lot of time sitting in my tree outside my window writing poetry. “…isn’t it time now to harvest the love in your roots and splash in the puddles around you. from dawn of the day and its dew, we bask in the sunshine surrounds us...” yikes.

then there’s: “…dig our holes in fertile soil of living and hope that it will yield us as giving...” that would seem an innocently metaphoric way – full of autumnal reference – of saying we reap what we sow. and…i still agree with that.

and then, after the song – predictably – in late 70s fashion – modulates up a full step to a new key, it ends: “harvest the love within your heart, harvest the love. harvest the love within your heart, harvest the love…(with repeat signs)...”

which is – really – i think – still what i believe. love. harvest the LOVE. gather with those you love. LOVE one another. we ARE all one fam’ly under the sun. we ARE brothers, we ARE sisters.

now if only we could all act like it.

*****

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

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

“i once believed that silence was strength.” (anonymous)

and then i didn’t.

because “silence isn’t strength. it’s complicity.” (barbra streisand)

and so i – in my noisy – will stand firm and tall.

and i will wonder how others have not yet gotten there – to noisy. how others have not yet realized inside themselves that their silence – in these very days – is complicity. how others have not spoken up, spoken for, spoken against. how others have not been openly horrified at what this country’s administration is allowing, how this country’s administration is grifting, what this country’s administration is hiding, what this country’s administration is intending.

and i will wonder how others protect the wrongdoers. how others cavalierly wield the power differential around, like a discus before its release, spinning, spinning. how others thwart the rights of people they consider beneath them, lesser, somehow, than them. how others avoid accountability, culpability, the simple act of being responsible. how others stay quiet – seemingly a mute cheering squad for these, both voiceless and gleeful.

and i will wonder how it is that sexual assault survivors are expected to internalize their abuse, desperately seeking anything to normalize that which is not normal. how it is that sexual assault survivors are not lifted from their pain with the steady voices of everyone around them, instead of shushed or doubted or ignored. how it is that this question – “why we doubt accusers and protect abusers” – has any turf on which to stand.

but these are not my wonders to solve. these are mine to get noisy about. for it is my own heart i must answer to.

because, for me, silence is not strength. it is capitulating to wrong, quietly suggesting that i agree.

and i don’t.

“it happened. it was wrong. it matters.” (tarana burke)

it’s happening. it is wrong. it matters.

all of it.

*****

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

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a cupcake toast. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

we have few vices. very few, actually. we love coffee. we enjoy a glass of wine. and chocolate – well – sometimes chocolate makes the list (more often for d than for me.)

so when our dear dear friends made us a care package for a recent roadtrip, they included all three. a bottle of wine, a box (yes! a whole box!) of hostess cupcakes, and a bottle of stok cold brew coffee. there were other goodies too – nuts and chocolate bars, munchies galore.

the first night was following ten hours of driving. though we have decided we prefer (wholeheartedly) to drive road trips in reasonable daylight hours now, we were past sunset and were driving the last of our journey that night in the dark. naturally, this was on windy, hilly, non-lit roads with the presence of deer, both alive and deceased. stressful. we went slow and were anxious to get to our accommodations in a little town in the mountains.

we warmed up the pre-prepared dinner we had brought with us and sat down at the tiny counter with a glass of wine to eat, exhaling from a long day and the last hour of our travel.

though we haven’t indulged in a hostess cupcake in forever, it was our obvious choice for dessert (gluten or no, it was clear!). we cheered our glasses and raised our cupcake to jen and brad as we sat, talking about our trip and the gift of having people traveling alongside with you, cheering you on, buoying your every mile.

because the hostess cupcake and the bottle of wine and the stok weren’t so much about the hostess cupcake and the wine and the coffee as they were about the talismans of support and love.

there is nothing like people walking – or driving – or flying – or just holding steady with you.

we raise our hostess cupcake to any of you out there who do the same for others. i’m pretty sure that – THAT – is what being in the world is about.

*****

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

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

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