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Tag Archives: canyonlands


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

there is this corner in our lakefront neighborhood. we take walks around the ‘hood, looking forward to this particular spot.

in the middle of every other nod to autumn, this corner glows. the maples there are in soft focus – all golden and pink. it is like seeing through a filter, stepping under a fresnel spot with a lighting gel. we make room to stop and take it in…each and every time we pass by.

some things are like that. we know them well and, yet, we anticipate them, knowing how they make us feel, knowing that we will be better for them. these trees.

there are spots on our favorite trails like this…when we enter the pine stands or when the trail curves through the forest…when we walk high above the river below us…when we turn into the afternoon sun with the meadow to our right. there is a spot as we come out of the tunnel on the highway and i can see the high rockies stretching out in front of us. there is a spot on the ditch trail in aspen – at the end – deep in the woods where there are rocks you can sit on as the stream breaks around you. there is a fallen log in breckenridge, up a ways on the path, next to the brook. there is another higher, in the meadow that opens to the sky.

someday, i will go stand again where my daughter and i stood, in canyonlands, and i will satisfy the anticipation of being there – in that spot of unspeakable emotion – once again.

someday, i will go stand on crab meadow beach again and – with anticipation and all-that-has-been-since washing over me – maybe i will feel what i used to feel there, way way earlier, the freedom of being, the anticipation of future.

the knowing of these places doesn’t take them off the list of places-to-go. rather, it’s the sheer knowing that keeps them on the list. it’s the recognition, the familiarity, the unbridled comfort.

as we turn the corner and look ahead, we can see the trees down at the next intersection. so much beauty. we both look forward to getting closer.

we are not on a luxurious vacation nor are we rambling much away from our careful budget. we are recognizing the we-are-here-ness and that is what we have right now – we have right now. if we can remember to anticipate each moment this way, we will truly be living.

and then, there is the feeling when we see our driveway, when we walk in the door. the spotlight pulls back and bathes our home in gratitude.

*****

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

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lusting over glossy card stock. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

lusting over brochures is kind of my thing. there is nothing quite like the dreamy four-color-magazine-quality-glossy-coated-silk-card-stock intrigue that beckons me, inviting imaginative adventure and exploring. a good brochure will take you there, place you there, let you sink in and never want to leave. i am clearly the targeted recipient of their magic. and i am – ahem – a collector.

like my relationship with catalogs, i can immerse in the story of the place, the action…it’s deeply satisfying.

sometimes we stop at the welcome center and i load up with all the possibilities of our destination, never to crack them open. it’s like having a treasure chest, knowing you have the treasure chest, not-knowing what’s in the treasure chest but knowing it’s enough you have it. a back pocket full of shiny coins, should you need them.

and sometimes we stop at the welcome center and i find something in a brochure that will not let go. i wonder and ponder and strategize and scheme how to get there, how to experience it, how to afford it. i’m a little overwhelmed by the draw of whatever the thing/place/action is, but i know the likelihood of it is relatively dim.

we clicked on an article on the-island-phone the other day. like shiny card stock, it beautifully featured a resort in utah: amangiri. there was nothing about this resort that wasn’t stunning.

i’ve never stayed in a resort, nonetheless one where your pillow-piled-down-comfortered-bed was out under the stars in the desert, your space open to remote canyonlands of red rock. my breathing got more rapid as i showed david. i clicked on “make a reservation”.

$12,000 a night.

deeper reservation diving revealed a range of pricing, verbose reviews, glamorous indeed, this place.

$12,000/night.

a little fancy.

clearly we won’t be staying there.

but, in the way that catalogs and brochures also function for me, i saved it and looked at it a few more times. i’ll probably glance a time or two more at this wildly expensive place to stay. and then i’ll delete it. because, by then, i’ll be satisfied.

and besides, the tiny blue airbnb house on one of the side streets in the mountain town in north carolina is also magical. it will afford us a chance to unplug, to hike unfamiliar trails, to cook and eat out on the front porch watching traffic go by, to immerse in a new place, a getaway.

and it is also dreamy.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

SMACK-DAB. ©️ 2022 kerrianddavid.com


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evanescent. [two artists tuesday]

the eiffel tower stands in our front yard, along with niagara falls and hunter mountain and the atlantic surf and canyonlands national park and the rocky mountains and northport harbor. they are there, even without clear shape. each are shadowy remembrances of time spent, each are mementos of life and time, tiny moments passing, never to be identically repeated, always to be celebrated.

we watch the play of sun on the snow, the shadows of the trees, the clouds drifting across the sky, the night shroud filled with stars. never static. we bring gratitude for every second we have had, though sometimes we forget to appreciate them, sometimes we forget to acknowledge the fleetingness. in those times, we hold, with foolish tenacity, to thoughts of what’s-next instead of lingering in the delicious stew of right now, regardless of essences and elements that may not be to our liking. we wonder if it’s all maybe not enough, if we are maybe not enough.

we don’t realize that our shadow in the snow is perfect. it is also light and dark, interrupted by the brick wall and tree limbs. it stands tall as we learn about standing tall. it moves in grace as we step and change, all part of the never-ending flow, the coming and going of it all, the roll. it bows its head as we bow ours, thanking the universe for this evanescent time in the sun.

our shadow is right next to all we have seen, looking to all we will see. edges, a little less precise, a little less defined, softer, glorious, present. our shadow is right next to the eiffel tower, niagara falls, hunter mountain, the atlantic surf, canyonlands, the rockies and northport harbor.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY


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no timely manner. [d.r. thursday]

now i understand. at least, i am beginning to understand.

my sweet momma and poppo would linger…watching birds, gazing at flowers, studying the horizon – be it shorefront or mountainside, cityscape or tiny town or rural farmland, slowly taking it in. in the hurry-hurry of my younger years, i would scurry past, noticing but maybe not really.

i am moving slower now. not because i can’t scurry, but because i am choosing to list to the linger side. though we still watch re-runs after re-runs of joey hiking and climbing and backpacking and pitching tents any and everywhere, imagining ourselves in those canyonlands keeping up, imagining ourselves on the pct or the john muir or the colorado trail, i know that our pace would not match the pace of joey or the exuberant younguns on heading somewhere or walking with purpose or the meticulous norwegian xplorer. we would be slower, lingering, lingering. i’m not sure that would get us from point a to point b successfully or in a timely manner, but i’m thinking that our definition of ‘timely manner’ may have to just be different. because now – in the middle of this grand middle age – is different.

for now i want to watch the birds and gaze at flowers up-close. i want to stop and stare, drop to sit on a nearby log and take it in. i want to notice the intricasies of all of it, the undertones, the overtones.

as i look at the close-up of this milkweed trailside i am struck by the layers of detail. it somehow makes me recall decisions between the major chord and the relative minor, a continuum of impact. it makes me think of melodic gestures, a spectrum of color and of grace. a horsehair brush extended from the heights of the universe, painting perfection in the woods. artists’ hands waving paint on canvas, cupping clay on a wheel, flying over the white and black on a piano, coaxing lines that make you weep from a cello. all the same. creation in all its iterations.

on the call pat told me that the music – my music – had harmonics, tuned with the universe, that made her travel. humbling.

for i see that is what my momma and poppo were doing. traveling. they allowed the beauty around them to touch them, to slow them down, convincing them – in all the infinite glory that beauty -and art- can muster – that ‘a timely manner’ was relative, that time was relative. that time spent in a slow linger was precious.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

linger on DAVID’s online gallery


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southport cairns. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

southport cairn

wearing flipflops, our feet weren’t prepared for schoolhouse beach.  one of only five sandless limestone beaches in the world, we were picking our way across glacier-polished rocks on washington island, vowing to wear our hiking sandals the next time.  it was stunning, these smooth white rocks representing thousands of years of geology.  it is illegal to take even the tiniest of stones from this beach, but it is obvious that people need to hold these silken rocks in their hands, cairns built along the water’s edge.  it’s a place you will forever recognize once having visited there, a place that touches a sense of peace within you.

the cairns up on the high ridges of red rock were equally as moving.  stunning in the sunsetting high desert sky, the uneven sandstone edges of stones were piled in formations and i relished every second sharing this with my cherished daughter.  it is a sacred place, these canyonlands full of red rock millions of years old.

as we walked in the drizzle in our neighborhood, the sky over the lake began to take on a pinkish hue.  we approached the lakefront down by the old beachhouse and saw them, something in thirty years of walking this lakefront i have never seen: dozens of cairns stacked on the rocky beach, mazes, tiny labyrinths.

inspiring and inviting, the cairns beckoned us and we spent time in raindrops wandering and photographing.  we were quiet; you could hear the lake gently lapping at the shoreline.  mostly, it took us out of our thoughts and worries of the time.  someone had made lemonade and we had the good fortune to sip of it.

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

cairns website box


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out there. [k.s. friday]

moab.k. out there.

out there

ks website header

kerri sherwood on iTUNES

read DAVID’S thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

their palettes website box

out there ©️ 2019 kerri sherwood


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tomorrow. lettuce and erle. [k.s. friday]

THIS erle cover

one of the gifts i received for my 60th birthday this week – an envelope with seed packets of lettuces in it, dirt and manure.  on the outside of the envelope of seeds was this:

“to plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” (audrey hepburn)

early november. moab, utah.  i was standing on the precipice of a vast and deep canyon and was filled with wonder.  My Girl encouraged me a bit further out, a bit higher.  she was right to push me.  the gorge inches away, unforgiving, i didn’t lose my breath until the very edge.  but i breathed in so much more.  i felt like ME. me, in my old hiking boots and ripped jeans, a couple black layered shirts and a vest, fingerless gloves linda made.  ME.  the air of the high desert mountains seemed to fill me and, as i stood there, pondering my very existence in this place, i felt renewed.  a meeting ground, i could feel all the yesterdays that brought me there and the tomorrows that stretched forward.  it is a spiritual place.  she was right and i tied my heart to it just as she had predicted.  the sun and i were each merely a tiny piece of the enormity.  we watched day end and shadows paint the canyon walls until dark filled the void. we laughed uncontrollably.  i cried.  no matter what, the next day – tomorrow – would come to that place and sun would spackle the walls until it would -again- be light.

THIS will be the next album cover.  in some tomorrow time.  i wish to bring burning sun and immense canyons into that project.  mountains and Spirit and old boots.  a bow to yesterday and to tomorrow and the place inbetween.  the air in me.  i don’t know when or exactly how.  i just know i need to somehow make the chance.  i need to stand on the very edge, once again.  it matters not whether i am relevant in these times.  it just matters that i plant it.  lettuce, here i come.

read DAVID’S thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

thank you to old friends who called or texted or FB-messaged me this week.  i can’t begin to tell you what you mean to me. with love.

www.kerrisherwood.com

iTunes: kerri sherwood

muddy boots blue website box

erle. ©️ 2019 kerri sherwood

OLD FRIENDS REVISITED from RELEASED FROM THE HEART ©️ 1995 kerri sherwood

 


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sisu. [merely a thought monday]

sisu box

sisu.  perseverance.  fortitude.  stamina.  courage.  determination.  my grandmother mama dear used this finnish term all the time and passed it down to my sweet momma beaky who passed it down to me.  a philosophy of life, a mantra, “you gotta have sisu!” mama dear would say.  if up against the odds, if forging upstream, my sweet momma would say, “you gotta have sisu!”  and so it was without a second thought when it was time to name my own company, the independent recording label that has been sisu music productions for the last 23 years.  i can’t think of a better name for all the challenges that have risen – and continue to rise – as an independent artist.

any moment of fear, of uncertainty, brings me to draw on that sisu…digging in my heels and standing firmly in it.  it’s kind of a blind faith and has everything to do with that.  in the face of adversity, of the scales tilted not-in-your-favor, you just keep on.  in the face of fear…everyone has their thing…the thing that makes them afraid…the thing that makes them white-knuckled…you just keep on.   sisu.

i was flying back from telluride to denver a couple days ago – in a smaller plane.  there was a big strapping guy all dressed in camouflage who got on the plane before me.  he told the flight attendant he had been out in the middle of nowhere hunting (successfully) elk and mule deer.  he was a rough and tumble kind of guy and ended up seated just across the aisle from me.  when the plane hit turbulence, particularly over the front range, his face turned red and he looked over at me with a deer-in-the-headlights look and said, “i hate this part!!”  i started talking to him then, trying to ease his obvious fear, talking about the wind currents and the mountains…how i could see the airport…we are almost there…just a teeny bit further…wheels are going to touch down any minute….  he was gripping the lock on the little tray table and finally relaxed his grip and smiled.  everyone has their thing.

we can loan others the sisu we carry with us.  we can bank on the sisu we carry with us.  i often credit being-from-new-york for times i have just forged-ahead-anyway, but my sisu roots go way further back than that.

sisu.  i stood back from the edge of a deep deep canyon the other day, my beautiful daughter on another boulder a few hundred yards away.  i looked at the sky, the sunset playing over red rock.  thought about that very moment in time, this moment i was sharing with the part of my heart known as kirsten…this moment that wouldn’t be repeated.  and i heard the voice in my head, “you gotta have sisu.”  i stepped to the very edge of the canyon, stretched out my arms and laughed aloud.

moab edges with website

read DAVID’S thoughts on SISU

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