reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: kerri sherwood


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

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

it was perspective-arranging.

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

it was also perspective-arranging.

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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any feather in silhouette. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

in silhouette – in the trees against the sky – it was difficult to tell if they were starlings or grackles. the identifying characteristics like feather, head, leg or beak color fly in the face of the silhouette. tail length and body shape can be discerning factors as well as their bird calls or the raucous sound that they make while hanging out in trees together. but – at these moments that we were photographing them – they were quiet and, though i might lean toward starling – because of their general body shape and tail – i’m really not sure. plus, starlings and grackles and blackbirds all often mingle together, so it can be hard to distinguish one from the other.

what i do know is that it doesn’t matter. they were beautiful all perched in the trees and it’s a marvel to look up and see sooo many birds, resting and waiting before they move on.

we are coming ever closer to the changeover in the administration of our government. it feels like we are getting a little bit quiet in waiting. there is so much chaos that can happen quickly and this morning we talked about who will stand in integrity to push back against it all, who will be decent, who will abide by the laws of the land, who will be responsible advocates for humanity – the absence of which will perpetuate a chaos of insane proportion.

were we all to be seen in silhouette perhaps there would be more likelihood that we might all be treated equally, that people would not be disenfranchised or marginalized because of pigmentation or gender or ethnicity or sexual orientation or socioeconomic status or any other differentiating thing.

if we had to squint to try and make out the details of each other and – still then – think that we are all basically the same – for silhouettes – and yes, people – are like that – maybe this country could be a better place.

i shudder thinking about what’s coming. it makes me feel sick to my stomach.

i wonder when wisdom might return. the meanwhile is going to be a shameful place.

if you’re looking for me, i’ll be in the tree communing with the birds. you’re certainly welcome to hang out. they say birds of a feather flock together. any feather.

*****

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

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relentlessly. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

they are on 24/7. we haven’t taken them off our old wrought iron railing because – well – we need the light.

today i read a tiny post about someone who had taken her christmas tree down and had lugged it outside, getting it ready to go to the drop-off where it will be picked up and recycled into mulch. she wrote that she was sad and that she told her husband – when he arrived home – that she already missed the lighted tree. the end of her bitty post revealed that the tree was back in the house – lighted. it warmed my heart.

we have taken down the holiday decorations. it was just a couple days ago and i already miss the glimmer. it’s all so joyous and – once put away into bins – feels plain. to be honest, i did keep one lighted lodgepole pine tree in the sitting room and i am contemplating bringing another back up. it won’t take much to convince him that they are necessary for a while, even though i was prepared with “they don’t reeeeally look like christmas trees….”

whatever it takes, i’m thinking. if we need more happy lights, then we should – by all means – put them up. anything to stay in the light, particularly right now. these darker winter months require much vitamin d and anything else that brings us beams of hopeful … and this one – this winter – well, there are particularly dark circumstances that will make us look for anything to try to even out the seesaw. if a couple fake lodgepole pines and a wrought iron railing with lights help, then so be it.

we spent saturday moseying about antique shoppes, one of our favorite things to do. i was looking for glimmer….things that might reflect light or hope or remind us to be “relentlessly present” (john pavlovitz).

each of the seconds that ticks by – even in this particular right now – cannot be held, cannot be relived. to lose them – those seconds – is to let the indecency win. to seek a balance – where we zero in on the stuff that is flashing by us and still attend to whatever we can do to further goodness in a not-good time – seems prudent. otherwise, every last bit of glimmer will be gone and the dark will usurp us. to be relentlessly present is to be mindful of breathing, i’m learning.

we found a cool candleholder – wrought iron and reflective silver – bargain-priced. it is now on the radiator where the happy-light-covered aspen log is, reflecting the light from those tiny bulbs.

we also found a wooden ampersand. we didn’t buy it – though also bargain-priced, there is the budget and all – but i think we may be going back for it (or find some other iteration of it).

something about having an “and” sign in the living room may remind us – relentlessly – about each other, about the fragile balance we need to hold, about this moment and the next and the next and-&-and.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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

when you write a blog every-day-every-day you are opening your stream of consciousness up to anyone who cares to read it. we have no preconceived notions of our blogs – they are simply a practice of artistry – of writing – one medium through which we might express ourselves.

i would suppose – as i scroll back through blogtime – that these might appear somewhat – well – scattered. because we haven’t opted for a blog that is entirely about one thing – unless you count that they are about living life – we traverse all over the place.

sometimes, they are about creating – through music or paint – and sometimes they are about the tiniest of moments lived. sometimes they are absolute rants about inequalities or the disenfranchising of people or those in high positions pushing other people under the proverbial bus. they are not the entirety of life but they are schnibbles of our lives, our experiences, our thoughts, our worries, our successes or deep disappointments. sometimes one of us – in our individual blog – is off the rails and sometimes it’s the other. sometimes we write and erase the whole thing. sometimes it is all just too much to share. facing vulnerability is alive and well in this sort of thing.

so as you ride the coaster with us – if you are choosing to ride it – know that we are not lingering in one place or the other. like you, we are surfing the full spectrum – end point to end point. we are sorting and wondering and asking questions and trying to do the best we can at getting through while being sure to relish every good thing we see or feel or experience.

we’d love to be all rainbows and bubbles and sunrises – as i was accused of by my dear friend marc all through high school – but living isn’t just all that. and sometimes, people need to hear that they are not alone in what they feel or in how they are struggling. i know we do.

and so, our blogs ride the tide – a virtual tidal wave – of emotion that is life these days. we’d love to know that we have made you smile. we’d also love to know we somehow made you weep.

when my cds were being sold on the television shopping network qvc, i received a note from a stranger. she told me that her dad had passed and that when she went to his home in texas to sit and write his memorial service, she wandered about, looking for clues about his last days so that she might include them in the service. she found three cds in his CD player – all three of them mine. she played them for his service and told me that i was on the journey of his last days on earth. it was humbling and gratifying to read her words and to know that the ripples – those incessant concentric circles of all manners – i sent out in my recordings had wrapped around someone and, perhaps, comforted them.

even in the worst of moments, in the worst of writing, in the darkest of blogs, i wonder if someone out there is nodding their head, glad to know they aren’t the only one feeling what they feel. i also wonder if someone is out there growling. both.

a long time ago i was told that as an artist it’s not my job to determine what happens in the out there – it’s just my job to put it out there.

in this new year – a tidal roller coaster promising to be of giant proportion – let’s hold hands and know we aren’t alone in the roll.

isn’t that the point anyway?

*****

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

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in the overlook. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

i pulled off quickly – into a small lot overlooking the lake – because i knew that it would soon cease to be there – this striping of snowy beach, lake, storm, clouds and sky. soon it would disappear – maybe in moments – this differentiation of color – this horizon – soon it would become mostly gray. soon the textures would blend and it would become flat.

i am – we are – in the middle – once again – of a big attempt to clean out. thirty-five plus years of accumulation is a lot to go through and re-organize, donate, discard. every single thing takes longer than you might think. and, frankly, i am not anxious to go through it faster, to flatten it all out into neat-and-tidy in as short a time as possible.

i actually want to see all the textures of all this time. i am – figuratively – pulling off into the overlook so that i might gaze and reflect, remember and feel.

already, i’ve come upon surprises. already, i’ve been given a chance to remember tiny details i had forgotten. already, i’ve danced through children’s books and old vcr tapes, cassettes from the 70s and scraps of lyrics tucked deep in desk drawers. there is much to be done, but i’m in no rush. our focus will mostly be right here – in this era of national upheaval – and we will take our sweet time.

“everything takes so much longer than you think,” stating the obvious, i looked over at d, immersed in his own tasks of our cleaning-out.

“that’s ok,” he replied.

“yeah,” i sighed. “no need to rush,” a promise to go slow.

there’s plenty of time for neat and tidy, organized and pared down.

in the meanwhile, the textures of decades are on the horizon. in closets. in the basement. in the attic.

and i am in the overlook.

*****

THE WAY HOME © 1997, 2000 kerri sherwood

read DAVID’s thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

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the beautiful and the blurred. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

it is hard for me to pass by something this beautiful – this wispy milkweed pod – without stopping. i am fortunate to hike with someone who understands this. we stop and i study the milkweed; i take several shots.

it is not the first time i have taken photographs of milkweed in the winter. i’m pretty sure it won’t be the last. each time i see milkweed – even in the winter – even in its fallow – i feel like it is different – its slant in the meadow, the curve of the pod, the way sunlight plays on it.

this is how i will get through it all, i think. zeroing in on intense beauty, tiny nuances, millisecond moments. i realize that this is the power that is available to me. this is the distraction.

the invitations are numerous from the side of the trail, from the side of life. they beckon to each of us and it is up to us whether to accept those invitations.

i am kind of a detail person…so the invitations are somewhat evident to me, hard to miss. they blur out everything else, if you intend to really take notice.

and, in just that way, we are intending new practices – more intentional meditation, more exercise, more outside. and each time – despite any same-ness, there is the possibility of new. each time we may stop and study or gaze and admire.

“things will not be the same, because we will not be the same.” (anon)

it may be difficult to avoid focusing on the way things will be in these fraught times. nevertheless, we will try to focus elsewhere. to lean into the beautiful and leave the rest of it blurred.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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


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what will be the Real? [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

it was almost like a reverse-print. the trail revealed only the snow-footprints left behind.

i studied photography a bit in college. this trail was like the negative of the positive. in darkroom speak, a “negative” is a reversed image – the dark is light and vice versa – when you shine light through the negative onto the paper upon which you’re printing, the tones revert back to their correct appearance, to that which is Real.

the snow of the trail had blown off, save for the footprints. as people used to seeing footprints stamped in the snow, it is somewhat odd to see just the snowprints on a dirt trail.

i couldn’t help but ponder the parallel.

what will we leave behind as our footprints in 2025? what impression will we make? what impact will we have? what will people see on the path after we have walked on?

when we shine light through all we are, all we do, all we say in 2025, what will be the Real printed for all time?

*****

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

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


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the precipice and the fallout. [kerri’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

i have no doubt we’ll all fall over it at some point – the precipice.

there will be some moment of grief, some slight, some jarring change, some out-and-out grotesque manifestation of this-thing-that-is-coming that will be the precipice for each of us.

i have already felt it. i fell over it on new year’s day. i realized that this thing that is coming now – in 2025 – this new administration’s cruelty and revenge, the emphasized attitudes disenfranchising people, the new way of being in this country, the gloating extremist, isolationist stance this country will take in this world – is already taking a toll. the precipice is real.

for the life of me i cannot understand wanting such things. i cannot understand turning my back on the rights and needs and experiences of my own family or friends. i cannot understand being a cheerleader for what’s coming. and, on new year’s day, it pushed me over the precipice and i spent the day grieving. for all the light i have tried to seek, for all the light i have tried to be, this thing-that-is-coming faster-than-fast pushed me under and into darkness.

it is real.

there will be fallout. fallout for people who know it’s coming, for people who bandwagoned and didn’t bother researching, for people who have family and friends against whom they voted. and that’s the part that made my heart hurtle over the cliff.

even though i knew it – and have known it for a couple months now – the fallout – part of which, of course, is silence – is painful beyond imagining.

knowing is hard.

i imagine i am not alone…one day at a time it all becomes more and more real…and so one day at a time there are others who are over-the-precipice-ing. it’s not going away and, as we are gleaning, it will only get worse and worse. and people voted for all of it. and i wonder – again and again – if it ever occurred to them to think about their own families or friends or community that might be drastically impacted by this new reality – the one they were choosing.

and so the fallout will gain momentum. not just the stuff that the new administration is going to set in place – the stuff that will marginalize more and more people, that will push people down – those already disenfranchised, those about-to-be disenfranchised. the fallout will lift up others – those with self-aggrandizing agenda, those with monster motives, those who perpetuate hatred, those who are clearly soul-less. and the fallout – well – it will snap the binding of relationships at their core, it will silence conversation, it will destroy friendships, it will undermine families.

because it’s real.

now – each time we are hurtled over the precipice – for it is likely that will be more than once – it will be our job to climb back up, to seek safe shelter and to heal from the pummeling of the precipice-fall. even a little bit. to keep going. to get to – what we hope will be – the other side of all this. to survive.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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

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

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

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

“may courage

cause our lives to flame,

in the name of the fire

and the flame

and the light.”

(john o’donohue)

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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


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the extra mile. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

when i looked up the term “go the extra mile” one of the definitions was from http://www.collinsdictionary.com. it listed the definition as “willing to make a special effort to do or achieve something.” then it gave an example, which was this: “the president is determined ‘to go the extra mile for peace.'” ahh. good example. uh-huh. let’s hope so.

as humans, particularly in this particular new year steeped with particularly hard particular challenges, it would seem we should be compelled to go the extra mile. with resolve. it’s the hollies’ “he ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” route, the “love is the answer” england dan and john ford coley route, the john lennon “imagine” route, the “lean on me” bill withers route, the “what a wonderful world” louis armstrong route, the carole king “you’ve got a friend” route.

sometimes the extra mile is only a candle in a bag.

the luminaria lit the night, cutting through darkness and cold. it conjured up my sweet momma and poppo, inviting them from behind the curtain of the other dimension. it was beautiful and hopeful; a tiny gesture. on a night filled with other things, the extra mile. simple and profound.

it will be rare in life to know the result of something we do. the extra mile may never reveal its impact. the concentric circles may never ripple the water in ways we can see. but no river stands absolutely still. and, in between the right now and next, the current is pulling us past every single opportunity for the extra mile.

in this new year, we hope to grab onto the opportunities – like life preservers – and choose to go those extra miles. big or small. passionately.

get your tealight and paper bag ready.

*****

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

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