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a chicken and a cow in autumn. [two artists tuesday]

my nephew called. i guess technically he isn’t my nephew now but neither one of us cares about the technicality of it. we talked a couple years ago but not since. no matter. he was ironing and he thought of me. he described how ironing makes you just kind of slow down and lets your mind wander. and so he followed his instinct and dialed. i told him i was glad he wasn’t thinking of me as he was washing the floor. he agreed and said that a washing-the-floor conversation wouldn’t be as whimsical.

whimsical.

i loved how he used that word. we slowed down our hiking, shuffling our feet through the leaves on the trail, david encouraging me to chat. my nephew and i laughed and told stories, asked questions, laughed some more. later, in some text-reminiscing, he asked me if i still had the beer cap earrings he had bought me when we were together up-north many years back. he said, “you’re one of my favorites.” i walked slowly into flashes of another time of life. it was a gift.

from the deck it looks like a chicken. suddenly a chicken leaf fell from the maple tree and landed squarely on our little curlicue-fence. i stopped at the top of the steps and drew d’s attention to it. “look at the chicken back there!” i insisted. we laughed at the chicken on our fence. ok, not exactly. but imagination is a funny thing. we make castles out of refrigerator boxes and gazelles out of cumulus puffs. we create out of thin air.

“have you noticed that autumn is like a yellow cow?” (pablo neruda) “have they counted the gold in the cornfields?”

we are not alone in our imaginings. pondering leaves, clouds, swirls in the lake’s surface, rocks on the trail, i wonder what it would be to not ponder these things. i feel like i might laugh a little less, like there would be a little less whimsy.

i’m not sure how autumn is like a yellow cow, though i am sure that is valid for pablo. it’s all good. it makes the world go round with a little more pizzazz. there is gold everywhere.

right now i’m just wondering where exactly my beer cap earrings are.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY


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sense? [merely-a-thought monday]

there is a vintage mailbox in our bathroom. it’s over on the wall under the window and current magazines and catalogs live there. it was the first mailbox we had after this old house was sided and the mailslot was covered over. there is still a little door inside the foyer where the mail used to wait after delivery, but it hasn’t been used in recent years. for a while i would keep treats in there for piano students as they left. one student, in particular, loved this tiny door and would check it every time after his lesson. if i had grandchildren i would most definitely keep surprises for them in there. a girl can dream…

when i walked into the bathroom the other day it just so happened that the way the magazines were stuffed into the mailbox revealed one word – sense. sometimes the universe has a sense of humor. no pun intended. for “sense” was what i was seeking at that moment. a layer cake of sense.

predatory lending in the student loan arena began around 2000. the arrow of the poison bow hit david in graduate school. it has not let go since. navient – one of the big student loan lenders – took part in subprime loans, private loans, misrepresented loans, aggressive forebearance-steering, sloppy accounting, the list goes on. and people’s lives – real people in the real world trying to make a real living and pay off real debt – have been skewered forever. crushing debt…in story after story in which interest is principalized, in which families aren’t given income-driven options, in which the debt rises instead of falls even as diligent efforts are made to pay down this farce of lending.

i walked into the bathroom – inbetween phone calls with navient during which they were unable to even supply the simplest of information – how doesn’t this feel like withholding while deadlines loom near? i’m gobsmacked by the murkiness of it all. dysfunction rears its ugly head.

“student loans were never meant to be a life sentence,” (united states secretary of education miguel cardona)

2001-2022. that’s a pretty long sentence. predatory indeed.

and now, as we – in our sixties – join in hopeful song with millions of others – of various ages – who have been – thisisnotanexaggeration – victimized by student loan lending malpractice, more than a few things happen. there is a mysteriously quiet change made for privately-held FFEL loanholders, a screeching halt. and then, there is an uprising putting the whole kitnkaboodle on hold.

to which naacp president derrick johnson said, “the very people blaming this administration for inflation are coming after the policies that will ease the pain of inflation on those most impacted.” he adds, “this is hypocritical. when we bail out billion-dollar corporations, it’s never an issue. but when it comes to lifting people who need the help most, including pell grant recipients—51% of which go to students whose families earn less than $20,000 a year—somehow it becomes an issue.”

so many stories. so many we-the-people. so many families. and their general welfare.

but that’s what predatory is.

i rolled my eyes as i walked into the bathroom. “sense”

so much of it all doesn’t make sense.

thinking that it actually might, makes me sad.

i’m going to check the little mailslot in the foyer for a treat. a girl can dream…

*****

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


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math geek. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

mathletes. i loved mathletes. a math quiz team, we gathered and did math problems and equations and then went out and about, competing. apparently, it stuck. i blame woody p. and then, mostly, mr. h, everyone’s adored high school math teacher. i still cannot help myself. it’s constant, this figuring-out-thing. and, though i would love to maybe forget some of the number details, i simply can’t. i love math.

and so poor david is stuck listening to me as i study stuff, run the numbers, figure percentages and cost per ounce, apply coupon discounts, choose items or discard them as choices. even though i know it’s way-too-much-information, it spills from my brain and out of my mouth before i can help it. again, mr. h’s fault, making me a total math geek, but i love him for it anyway.

the fuel and heating guy came to check our boiler. it’s about thirty years old now, but a workhorse and there is a coupon that comes in the mail every year to remind you to have it serviced. as he went back out to his truck to write an invoice he asked, “do you have the coupon?”

do i????

of COURSE i do!!

and the best part (other than the a-ok on the boiler)???

figuring out how much we saved because we had The Coupon.

life is good.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

SMACK-DAB. ©️ 2022 kerrianddavid.com


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just three. [k.s. friday]

we stood in the grocery store in brevard, right by the display. the food lion price for the charming smushy-flat white pumpkin was $8.99. it called to me, “you need me! bring me home!” but i got hung up on the price tag and we didn’t buy it.

we’ve had a pumpkin or two most years, often a pie pumpkin that we place on this funny wrought iron stand with arms, making it look like a pumpkinperson. we’ve gotten gourds – interesting shapes that tickle us. but not yet a white pumpkin, even though i really love how they look.

budgets are sometimes fun-oppressors. but any artist can tell you they are necessary. and any artist can tell you that there’s been at least one time that an $8.99 pumpkin – even one that might do the dishes and sorts socks – has not made the cut.

there is a sweet apple orchard out in the county. there is wine-tasting and a distillery at aeppeltreow, so there are spirits and spirited fun. there are a zillion apples and there are pumpkins and gourds and apple cider donuts. two years ago we picked out our tiny patch o’ pumpkins from their flatbeds and gardens of choices. coming home with a pear-shaped gourd and a couple smaller that were wart-laden we felt rich.

we bought pumpkins in aspen that same year and carved jack-o-lanterns at our airbnb with our daughter, leaving our artwork and extra candles behind for the next guests.

last year we featured our aging pear-shaped gourd in our sunroom, put out some orange happy lights and indulged in apple cider donuts at the orchard. despite the gluten they were worth it.

i think this year we will get a white pumpkin. and maybe two orange ones. three in all. just three.

but it will truly be magical.

*****

MILLNECK FALL ©️ 1996 kerri sherwood

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read DAVID’S thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY


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drum roll, please. [d.r. thursday]

we have waited.

it’s not like we will get a medal or a certificate or a trophy. we will not be featured in a newspaper article we can clip and put on our fridge with the pizza-place-magnet. we won’t be acknowledged on a who’s who list nor on a marquee.

but we waited anyway.

the fuel and heating company is coming on friday to do a check-up on our boiler. in the meanwhile, we have waited.

until now.

it is with a mix of pride and trepidation that i will approach the thermostat. under the flannel sheets and the comforter and the quilt all is well. but step out and whammo! the cold is biting. and that’s IN the house.

one glance at the grasses out front – oddly looking like a packer-backer display – and you know it’s fall. no doubtaboutit.

the weekend before this just-past weekend – that would be two weekends ago just to be clear – i pulled out a pair of boots with fake fur in them. the fur was visible at the ankle. i wore them out. and it felt completely wrong. it was too early. i put them on the steps to go back upstairs into the winter shoe bin.

but they never made it up there. because – suddenly – in the briefest of days passing – it was no longer too early. the autumn winds have found their way here and fur is in order.

so, today as i type – a few days before the day that this post publishes – my nose is cold and my hands are freezing. and i have to give in.

i need to turn on the heat.

there is something wistful about that. the end of summer. a time of fallow to come. it was christmas in the home improvement store the other day and it’s not yet halloween. for a few moments, i panicked, thinking about how i had not completed or even started any presents-shopping. i mean, whattheheck, i just started wearing furry-ankle-boots. i relaxed as we passed the trick-or-treat candy display and the plastic pumpkin pails and perspective returned.

so – though i am hoping the fuel and heating company might come a little sooner – maybe someone will cancel their check-up, deciding to tough it out ala life-below-zero folks, deciding that mr. we (as 20 calls the electric and gas company) won’t be racking it up – atleastnotyet – on them, deciding it’s not that bad and wearing one of those snuggies – the official blanket with sleeves – all day – i think that it just might be The Day.

at the very least, maybe we could have a drum roll.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

earth interrupted vii (48″ x 36″)…the colors of deep fall
(the snuggie from my sweet momma)


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slowly. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

we almost did it. almost. almost ordered thai food for pick-up.

but we didn’t.

we’d been hiking and were cold and tired. and we didn’t reeeeally want to make dinner.

but we did.

eventually.

we got around to it.

slowly.

we pulled our adirondack chairs into the last vestiges of sun in the yard, sipped wine, had a happy snack. when the sun disappeared, we brought our glasses inside and painted rocks – from the sand near the beachhouse – at the kitchen table, for we had hidden all the ones we previously painted. time stretched out in front of us, slow, a glorious saturday night.

instead of pad thai, we made tacos with homemade seasoning, had one of the last two avocados from my sister, watched a hallmark – yes, hallmark – movie under a big sherpa blanket, had two squares of chocolate.

hiking – tough elevation climbs – on this last trip to north carolina reminded me to go slow. it was the lesson i brought home from vacation. set a slower pace, don’t set too high a bar, mosey a bit, let living happen.

so i planted the painted rock on our sunroom table on top of sandstone from those smoky mountain trails. the other side of the rock reads, “no. slower.” you know…take a backroad, linger in the setting sun, sink under a blanket, climb a little slower.

my snapchat alerted me to a flashback. two years ago. on a balcony in aspen. the caption: “i don’t want to leave.” i remember slowly packing up, slowly loading the truck, slowly driving away. it was hard to go – as always – but slower made it a little easier.

i leave summer slowly and i step into autumn – my favorite – slowly. i wasn’t really ready for flannel. i pulled off the summer sheets for the last time in the season, thinking about how it feels on a hot night to place your face on a cool spot of the pillow. flannel isn’t like that.

but at the end of the night, after hiking and tacos and wine, chocolate and blanketed-movie-watching, in a house chilled by blustery northwest winds, the flannel was warm and i found myself snugged in soft stripes, slowly drifting off.

*****

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


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witnesses. [two artists tuesday]

out of the corner of my eye i caught a glimpse of him leading her over to the edge of the garden. something about his tenderness made me stop and linger. he had his hands on her shoulders and was looking right into her face. and suddenly, he got down on one knee.

they were strangers – and remain strangers – but i had goosebumps of excitement as i watched him on his knee. we couldn’t hear anything, really, but when she threw her arms around him and he was beaming, it was pretty obvious. family and friends spilled out of the places they had hidden in the botanic garden and surrounded them, celebrating.

it was a moment in time. and we were witnesses to it.

we walk along the shoreline and marvel at the expanse of lake michigan. often – after the work day is over – the sun is lower in the sky to our west, so the sky over the lake is starting to turn all crayola-like as we walk. our shadows get longer, longer. it would seem we are on stilts. we stop for a minute to appreciate it all, take a picture, hug. witnesses to the end of day, one that we cannot recreate no matter how hard we try.

we walk on, sometimes entirely quiet, sometimes reviewing our day. we marvel that it is mid-october. already. witnesses to time flying, warp-speed, flimsy tendrils floating you cannot harness.

our trail was mostly empty on saturday. hiking there – in the woods – is like wrapping in a comforter. the turns and twists, the meadows, the fallen logs…they are known to us, familiar. it had been a couple weeks. many leaves had fallen. the ones that remained were yellow, some red, some orange. some of the trees were hanging on – their leaves were still green, but i imagine the color changing tiny bit by tiny bit even as we passed by. witnesses to autumn.

we often photograph our shadows. there is no worry about smiling in a photograph of your shadow. funny thing, though…we almost always smile anyway. the capture in time we got to be in a place, together, passing through, witnesses to a moment.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY


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102. [merely-a-thought monday]

102.

my sweet poppo would be 102 today. were he here, i would treat him to a scotch on the rocks, a good steak on the grill (that he doesn’t have to stress over), chocolate ganache cake, a hot cup of coffee. i would tease him and poke at him, asking him if he remembered to get my momma an anniversary card (for they were married on his birthday and it would be their 79th anniversary and, for some reason, this was always my job through the years – to take on the angst of wondering if my dad remembered…).

i wish he were here.

we were in our airbnb in the little mountain town.

we had just arrived that day. took a walk downtown, had pop-up happy hour on the porch, made a sheet-pan dinner, relished being there.

a warm and welcoming old house, there was a wine bottle stand in the dining room that held books and brochures of the area, menus and hiking trails, places to forge metal and horsebackride, guides to hundreds of waterfalls. good resources to plan our next days.

i randomly pulled out the small book on the end of the shelf and flipped it open. this was the page it flipped to. “how do you like them apples?” because i am redundant (yepyep) and because some things stick in my mind more than others, i have already written about how my dad always said this. kind of a nonsensical phrase, sometimes appropriate in context, sometimes not so much. it is with tremendous fondness i hear or see this phrase. it goes along with “do you think the rain will hurt the rhubarb?”

i held it open, photographed it, wanted to pack it away in my backpack. i was held – suspended – in a moment with my dad. he smiled from afar and thought he was pretty clever to pull it off.

he wanted to live to 100. if you asked him how he was, he would tell you that he was going to live to 100.

but he didn’t.

i wonder if he’s shaking his head on the other side, incredulous that things just work out how they work out, in spite of our plans, saying, “how do you like them apples?”.

though we loved that they were there – particularly me – we didn’t open the brochures much. we just punted and found ourselves on gravel roads in the woods seeking trailheads and climbing to waterfalls and granite outcroppings in forests of rhododendron, surprised again and again by howdoyoulikethemapples moments.

*****

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


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will a little blue liquid work? [saturday morning smack-dab.]

my whole life.

i have experienced motion sickness my whole life. no books, no games, no phone-use, no looking down.

this was a problem when – at eight and ten – i couldn’t drive. and at eleven. and twelve. and…at every turn on the number line.

they say as people a-g-e it can go two ways…either get better or worse. i thought that maybe menopause – with all its marvelous gifts and surprises – might generously reward me with a hormonal shift in my motion sickness tendencies. but no. post-menopause i can report that these days it has gotten worse. i want my menopause money back.

so i drive.

everywhere.

all the time.

and david sits in the passenger seat and entertains me. he feeds me snacks and treats and reads the news or tidbits of interesting factoids, he gps-es and makes sure we stop at rest areas to walk around a bit.

and then…

the other day these funky glasses came across my feed. i wondered how my feed knew. about the whole motion sick thing. ahhh, your feed knows all.

i clicked. because that’s what we do. we click.

and it brought me to an info-ad for motion sickness glasses with a blue liquid in them that is supposed to readjust your brain in such a way that you will no longer be motion sick. you will – indeed – look a little goofy, but you will not be motion sick.

the original ones were made in france and the ceo says, ““motion sickness comes from a sense of conflict between what your eyes can see and what your balance system and your inner ears can feel.” they have two round lenses in front and two on the side, the hollow rims each half filled with blue liquid. the liquid moves with the movement of the boat or vehicle, creating an artificial horizon. “your eyes always get the reality of the movement and get a signal that is consistent with the balance system perception.” in the same way as generic anythings, there are many other companies making them now as well.

i’ve never actually seeeeen anyone wearing these, but they seem like nothing shy of a miracle.

have you tried these?

i’m seriously wondering if my brain would participate.

i think it’s worth a try.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

SMACK-DAB. ©️ 2022 kerrianddavid.com


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alive. [k.s. friday]

marty was the first man i knew who was a breast cancer survivor. we also learned he was deathly allergic to shrimp – while we were all at joe’s crab shack devouring seafood. yiiikes. it feels like a zillion years ago, but it was a great community of folks – all who were dedicated to their craft and showing at large wholesale shows, lining up accounts with small and large shops across the country. it was before streaming was really The Thing and i was moving boxes and boxes and boxes – thousands – of cds with displays, all to be sold by real people in real places. the days were long – yamaha delivered in a piano and it was hours upon hours of playing, talking, writing purchase orders, selling cash and carry. in the evening we would all sometimes gather together somewhere, to share stories, to unwind. that one night, joe’s crab shack made us a little bit nervous. we traded seats around so marty wasn’t near any shrimp and wondered why we didn’t go to a steakhouse.

community makes a difference. in this latest lean time of community that is now particularly pronounced.

i watched as my dear big sister shared her breast cancer story on facebook. she is now, thankfully, on the other side, mostly healed from surgery and radiation, slogging slowly through a period of difficulty adjusting to a long-term hormone blocker. i know, without a doubt, that the people who sent her their love – even online – helped her. a community that rallies around is the village we all need, especially in desperate times.

heidi and i spent so very much time together. our mutual work was in the oncological field – performing at large and small cancer survivor and breast cancer awareness events. there are many posts in this blog about places we have been and i consider them to be moments i was honored to be a part of the supportive oncology community and a part of the story.

my grandmother-who-i-never-knew, my dad’s mom, died of metastatic breast cancer. my sweet momma had a double mastectomy at 93. my dad was a lung cancer survivor and my brother died because of lung cancer. this year my sister’s breast cancer diagnosis scared us.

in the middle of the night, when things are raw, i decided that a “sisu” bracelet was in order so i found an artist who designed and crafted it out of silver so that my sister could wear it and know i was with her, a part of her community, holding her close. i ordered one for me as well. because the middle of the night can be a scary time when you are thinking too much.

marty didn’t mention the whole shrimp-thing until we were already at joe’s. i guess he had decided to just go-with-it, to just live. he had already been through so much.

though i really wouldn’t change it – as i love my “sisu” bracelet – i wonder if it should just say “alive”.

*****

click here for a few other words about “i am alive”

I AM ALIVE ©️ 2005 kerri sherwood

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read DAVID’S thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY