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Tag Archives: middle age


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just lenses, please. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

i can still locate my 1985-ish glasses. they are huge tortoise shell frames – bigger than my face – that sit way above my eyebrows and way down on my cheeks. i have no idea what i was thinking, but i suppose they were all the rage at the time.

well, guess what?

they are again.

giant frames, wide frames, frames that cover all expanse of your visage. yikes!

i look – decidedly – like a bug wearing any of these. like a fly – with big eyes – or an ant or – adding to my list of lookalikes – a meerkat or a spectral tarsier.

these are not good looks for me, i have decided. it didn’t even take pondering. it’s quite obvious.

so, re-using the 1985 glasses doesn’t work. i can’t find my glasses from the mid-90s but i know – i remember distinctly – that those do not sit low enough on my cheeks to cover the sometimes-dark-circles i have inherited from my poppo. somewhere in there i sort of remember a pair of big clear glasses. fortunately, they have gone the way of one of the charities that collects eyeglasses. i, in addition to ordering new lenses, was stuck having to look for a new frame.

but that’s a whole ‘nother story.

mostly, the experience of deciding what kind of lenses – lenses! – you want is complex.

i am a contact lens wearer and only need glasses when my eyes are tired at night and maybe we’re driving and i’m behind the wheel. in that case, i want the lenses that specifically deal with darkness and oncoming headlights and the possibility of rainy wet streets and glare off puddles and asphalt, orange barrels that populate every road in our vicinity and on every highway we choose to travel, equipped with deer-alerting alarms.

so – the anti-dark, anti-glare, anti-highbeam, anti-barrel, anti-deer, anti-sleepy lenses, please.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

SMACK-DAB. ©️ 2023 kerrianddavid.com


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idling. [k.s. friday]

in the middle of the night – as i lie awake – i can hear the trains. not just the haunting whistles of freight chugging by or a late passenger railcar, but a train or two in the yard, idling. the sound hits me at just the wrong frequency – i am hyper aware of its rise and fall, the pulsing of it. once i hear it, i cannot un-hear it. it stays present and i stay awake.

nevertheless, the tracks hold sweet mystery and, each time i see a train, i wonder its destination, i wonder its journey, i wonder its freight or its passengers. i had not ever stood in the middle of a rural track, bent down – almost kneeling, photographing, until recent years. the track – a classic portrayal of perspective, narrowing further away.

i stood in the middle and looked both ways. south and then north. the south curved into the woods, the north was a straightaway. i turned back south.

in the right-now there seems no straight path, no tight focus, no horizon point that is clear. the tracks curve into the woods, beyond my sight, beyond my imagining. i meander. it makes me wonder.

we seek next and idle in our thoughts in the night, not-knowing. it’s liminal space, a diesel engine that needs to be kept warm for the next day, a time to be present on the tracks, bent down, looking for classic perspective. we are attendants.

i hear the haunting whistle in the wee hours and consider this journey.

*****

MEANDER ©️ 2004 kerri sherwood

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read DAVID’s thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY


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night-table for grown-ups. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

we’re running out of room. the nightstands to the side of our bed are overly-laden.

if you take away the lamp, the clock, a few pictures and a jelly jar of pens and pencils, it barely leaves room for the water bottle, tissue box, readers, cellphone, flashlight, itty-bitty-booklight, backscratcher, pad-for-the-stuff-you-want-to-remember-but-know-you-will-forget-by-morning, ankle socks and – when we plan ahead – the midnight bananas. if we determine anything else is of absolute necessity inthemiddleofthenight we will have to purchase a new night-table. bigger.

i wonder if aarp has grown-up night-tables on discount.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

SMACK-DAB. ©️ 2023 kerrianddavid.com


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in simplicity. [d.r. thursday]

the front of the garnet hill catalog features a collection of stones and says, “there’s beauty in simplicity.” yes. i recognize those rocks – they are scattered through our house…pebbles of mica-laced igneous, slices of red rock, chunks of granite, smooth water-worn river rock. small cairns stacked on the windowsill or the sunroom table, a vase with rocks that are special but can no longer be traced back specifically to why. simple beauty, they remind us that we are all a part of it. no less, no more.

as i get older i realize that i am leaning into simplicity. i am less inclined to be moved by fancy stuff, more given to the unembellished. we hike on trails and are reminded of nature’s brilliant eye for decorating the world. no tchotchkes or trinkets, just no-frills and unadorned life.

i’m guessing this propensity – this leaning – has something to do with my love of arvo pärt’s tintinnabuli minimalist exquisiteness. spiegel im spiegel on repeat. not fussy. not ornamented. straight up gut-wrenchingly beautiful, much like the pine needles in the snow. two monodic lines – melody and triad – woven into the simplest tapestry and “expressing the composer’s special relationship to silence”. nothing bombastic. no blustering. purity.

“there’s beauty in simplicity.” stark, unpretentious, natural.

i couldn’t agree more.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY


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vindication. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

we each have our strengths. and, on the flip side, we each have our weaknesses. i am a detail person. he is a big picture person. sometimes that equates to a lovely full-length view of the world. sometimes it’s a total pain in the ass.

most of the time david is kind of mushy, endearingly compassionate and not all male-blustery-like. this is a good thing. we tend to be on the same page a lot – until we are not. and then, those are the moments the dog senses that his best laying-down-spot is in the bathroom. we aren’t really yellers, but, since our dog is as empathic as we are, he just knows that our tone is changing and someone is miffed and he is going to get out of the way. soon, he checks back in to see how things are going and is generally relieved when – even before leaving – we turn to him in miff-middle and reassure him, “it’s ok, dogga,” anticipating his departure.

there have been a few times that d has done the guy thing…you know, the well-it’s-not-working-for-you-so-let-me-do-it. i wouldn’t be honest if i didn’t say that it is royally annoying. i also wouldn’t be honest if i didn’t say that i feel total vindication when the whatever-it-was-that-wasn’t-working doesn’t work for him either. empowering. somehow i think you know what i’m talking about.

it’s in those exact moments – either way – on either side of the miffmobile – we all need to remember it’s good to laugh.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

SMACK-DAB. ©️2023 kerrianddavid.com


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not-knowing. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

94. the ages of our vehicles add up to 94. years.

yep. that makes us pretty analog, i’d say. there is nothing in our vw superbeetle, big red or littlebabyscion that even resembles the digital world.

so when we got in my niece’s volvo or my sister’s nautilus we felt a taaad bit lost. my niece said, “hey, while we’re gone feel free to use the car!” as she walked out the door. we looked at each other, laughing. there was no way we would use her car. sheesh. we don’t even know how to start those cars. we would need a littlebitta instruction – remedial help – before taking to the road.

i guess we have some catching-up to do.

some day.

in the meanwhile, we will languish in not-knowing.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

SMACK-DAB. ©️ 2023 kerrianddavid.com


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flannel people. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

“…eat bread and understand comfort….” (mary oliver – to begin with, the sweet grass)

flannel is like that. flannel shirts, flannel sheets, flannel pjs. the touch of flannel on our skin and we become swaddled babies, small children held in the arms of a loved one, cozied, reassured, comforted.

though there are expensive flannel sheets ‘out there,’ our flannel sheets are from target. two sets of them now. both soothing, serene, bread-like.

we sat in paris – on park benches, cathedral steps, in the grass – with baguettes and cheese, bottles of wine, olives. when i think of paris now, i think of this…comfort – sinking in to the place, like sinking in to flannel sheets on a cold winter’s night, gordon lightfoot’s webs of snow drifting outside our window. i wonder how we could have had a better time – i know…the butter, the starred eateries, the crepes, the cuisine. but we are flannel people, i suppose, and we learned – for us – the way to really feel paris was to sit on its steps, in its parks, in the grass. it was to shop its markets, its boulangeries, its tiny groceries. it was to simplify and to feel the flannel.

because we ate bread and understood.

“…i have become older and, cherishing what i have learned, i have become younger….” (mary oliver)

*****

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


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tree lessons. [two artists tuesday]

we know the trees well. on all three of the hikes we usually take in our area. we watch them as they change through the seasons, giving their leaves over to fallow, holding snow, reawakening. their portraits shift against the sky – from dense to sparse and back to dense. we notice when limbs fall and when nests are built in their branches. we watch as they turn from photographs of trees to graphic images, of dark and light. ever-changing. evolving. we use no filters.

eyes wide open – sort of – we move about our days. we see the people we see, do the work we do, go the places we go. some days are all about the familiar, the patterned, the every-day-ish-ness of it both reassuring and maybe a little stifling. we look at the days without noticing the days, at the people without noticing the people, at the work without noticing the work, at the places without noticing the places.

sometimes i stand just inside the front door of our home and look in. i try hard to pretend that it is my first step into this home. and i look – really look – to see what i see, feel what i feel, notice.

and days, and people, and work, and places.

the trees are teaching me.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY


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our mirepoix. [merely-a-thought monday]

“…all mixed together for a mirepoix of a day,” jonathan-the-wise-one wrote.

what a delicious word. meer-pwah.

i did exactly this a few days ago. made a mirepoix – a sautéed combination of carrots and celery and herbs – in preparation for our homemade chicken soup. chicken soup is “good for what ails you,” according to my sweet momma. really, good for anything that ails you. we had spent time writing ahead – like this post – for there will be a few days we are away. and we had had a glorious fresh air walk – our faces were still flush from the cold wind.

i thought about a dear friend as i added fresh baby spinach leaves and ladled hot soup over them, wilting them. i thought about loida as we ate out of beautiful williams and sonoma bowls. we sipped red wine and talked about our families. we watched videos of jaxon. i thought about jen – who always has fun napkins – as i pulled out our 2023 napkins, willing 2023 to be a good year. we talked to 20 on the phone and sat up late-late-late to watch our son mix music on a livestream youtube. 2am is later than it used to be.

a mirepoix – the base – for flavorful soups and stews, that which is nourishing, life-giving, warming.

i can think of no better way to describe those around us – those people who have loved us into existence and those who hold on – than “our mirepoix”.

*****

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


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elated. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

elated to see them.

SHOW that you are elated to see them.

wise words, often attributed to brené brown.

today, i will bow not only to brene, but to dogga and that angel-babycat.

there’s so much to learn from the steady and unbridled, enthusiastic, unconditional love of our pets.

how would everyone feel to be waited for and greeted this way…by our beloveds, by our family and friends, by our colleagues, by people in our community? like we are all elated to see each other?

i suspect the world would be a happy happy place.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

SMACK-DAB. ©️ 2023 kerrianddavid.com