reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: two artists


by 1 Comment

addling the addled. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

though i didn’t sign up for it, i receive emails from a source called uncover words. in the middle of the middle of all the chaos and destruction of this country, this is the word that i received one day recently: addle.

i could not help but grimace at the timing.

addle: to confuse or muddle; to make unable to think clearly.

gee…i wonder who that could describe.

might it be people who are being tossed around as if they are at the end of a crack-the-whip – flung from one inane or juicy-gossipy topic to another in an effort to cover up the really important things that are taking place in this country? might it be people who are absolutely and completely averse to fact-checking, to looking up anything that might distort their cultist admiring view of the current administration? might it be people who have been propagandized into sheer ignorance by watching a news channel that is overtly dedicated to the pedestalizing of this same administration? might it be people whose base anger has made them into spitting, spewing hate mongers? might it be people who react before thinking, who yell before talking, who see only red even when it brings harm to their very own families, people in their own communities?

to addle.

addled.

lost.

a second word in that email was maunder. maunder is a verb. it means to talk in a rambling manner, to wander aimlessly in speech or thought.

wow. that seems contemporaneously and politically connected to “addled”.

to maunder.

the addled.

to maunder to the addled.

to make the lost more lost.

hmmm.

a third word that came on that email was this: effulgence.

effulgence is a noun that is defined as: a brilliant radiance; a shining forth.

an auspicious word.

using that in a sentence:

let’s hope there is an effulgence that might awaken the addled among us.

yes.

otherwise, we are destined for this country’s democracy to be entirely mauled by a maunderer with a dedication to depraved darkness – the opposite of effulgence – while the shockingly addled stand by, complicit.

*****

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

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

buymeacoffee is a website where you may directly support an artist whose work directly touches or impacts you.


by 1 Comment

we do both. [kerri’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

in true escapism fantasies we are either touring around in a tiny rv or we are hiking the pacific crest trail. both speak to us.

there is an obvious difference – the physical nature of the PCT is a tad bit more taxing than pulling a little rv around behind us.

in my dream, we do both.

and we never look at the news.

ever.

we just ride – or hike – off into the sunset, toting the minimum of stuff we need. we write, we paint, we compose, we take photographs. we drink coffee made over tiny ultralight stoves by streams and sip wine in canyonland blm sites. we hold witness to day in and day out.

we remember what is good, what is gloriously beautiful, what is real.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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

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


by Leave a comment

what else is real. [kerri’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

i read one too many articles yesterday. and then i cried.

we can either pay attention to every single bit of madness – live inside the depraved minds and soulless hearts of what is happening right here and right now – or we can zero in – as well – on what else is real.

when my big brother died he was merely 41. i was 33 and expecting my second child. in my grief i could not – as much as i tried – grok how the world could go on if he could not feel it. i thought that was a new existential question for me – at that time – until this week when i read in an old notebook of reflections these words i had written at 18: “it’s strange – you die and the world goes on living and you’re not there.“

were i to write about mortality now – to dive into that unending mystery – i would likely echo these same thoughts, this same wrangling of the visceral, of evanescence.

so – what becomes the relevant? it is notwithstanding everything else that is happening. it is not ignoring the chaos, the insanity, the cruelty. we absolutely need pay mind to what is happening around us. we absolutely need be proponents of peace and democracy, humanitarianism, equality, accountability, critical thinking, the environment, integrity, morality – all of it.

we also absolutely need pay mind to the angst that is showing up as vibrations in our chest, exhaustion, depression, hopelessness. we absolutely need not sacrifice the all of us, the all of our precious and limited time. also relevant? a recognition that the world will go on, whether you are there or not.

and sometimes – because you have the same existential questions at 18 and 33 and 66 – sometimes you just need to say it’s all enough and refocus on what else is real.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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

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


by 1 Comment

not to be underestimated. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

this year – because i guess we are somewhat behind the gardener-curve – we fell in love with sweet potato vine. we planted a small lime green starter-plant in a pot on our deck, placing it on top a vintage stepladder. every single day we stand in awe out there, marveling at its growth, drinking in the color, peacock-proud of “our” accomplishment – which, as you know, only entailed transplanting it into a pot with some good dirt. mother nature did the rest. we were merely barely-consequential conduits in the process. we vow that next year – and i’ll put this on the calendar – we will get more lime-vines, for lime-joy is not to be underestimated.

because we – silly us – thought that there may be more of these – still – at the gorgeous they-grow-it-all-there nursery we go to, we had a little adventure there the other day.

we could – and do – spend hours wandering in and amongst the aisles and winding paths of this nursery. we are sponges – trying to learn a bit more and a bit more as we go. we ask the attendants there questions. we get answers rich in information and planting advice; it is a lesson in the gift of receiving lessons, of still learning.

we found a dark purple vine to put on the tall upright ladder on our deck and a licorice plant to go on a garden table, both on sale. we took note of what we might like to plant next year.

our front gardens are filled with switchgrasses and hydrangea, day lilies and sedum. our back gardens of ferns, grasses, daylilies, hosta, clematis are stalwart hosts of our herb potting garden. it’s really our deck and our patio that have room for a bit of creativity, annuals that captivate us.

we sat on the deck in the waning heat and light of day and talked about maybe adding a small raised bed next year – one of those galvanized metal planters. we deliberately veered away from current events. we rolled our eyes and vehemently shook our heads, not willing to ‘go there’. we are both aghast at the state of things – so many things under so many umbrellas. so, in our best wander-women-how-many-summers-do-we-truly-have-left-and-how-do-we-wish-to-spend-them mindset, we planned and dreamed and lived – for those minutes – in the small space taken up on earth by our deck, our house, our front yard and backyard. we bragged aloud – to each other – about the explosive growth of everything out back (including weeds). we know that this year we know a bit more than we did last year. i vow to write it all down so that we might draw from our new this-year knowledge next year.

we sigh and settle back in our old gravity chairs and watch the squirrels sip water at the birdbath. a breeze picks up off the lake and i close my eyes to memorize it all.

*****

we are trying to regroup, rethink and refocus our melange blogpost writing a bit. we – like you – know what is really happening in our world and do not need one more person – including ourselves – telling us the details of this saddest of descents destroying democracy and humanity. though we know our effort will not be 100% successful – for there is sooo much to bemoan in these everydays – we have decided to try and lean into another way – to instead write about WHAT ELSE IS REAL. this will not negate negativity, but we hope that it will help prescribe presence as antidote and balm for our collective weariness.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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

DANCING IN THE FRONT YARD 24″x24″

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


by 1 Comment

pathetic. [kerri’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

because most of us in this country have deep ancestral roots in other parts of the world, most of us have actual relatives in other parts of the world.

in the social media free-for-all that is the current environment, we are privy to what these folks are doing just as they are – at least superficially – aware of what we all are up to. i shudder every time i think of this.

i wonder what on earth they are thinking – as they watch the pathetic taking place here in these un-united states. i wonder if they are careful to discern what each of their american-soil relatives believe in – individually – rather than generalizing and lumping us all together in one universal stance, distilling us onto one political bandwagon and its associated numbness of morality. i wonder if they notice who is speaking up, who is tacitly – complicitly – silent. i wonder if they are shaking their heads, grateful to not be here, not to be gathered around the “family” table, not to be sitting and visiting in a lazy boy in the middle of the great divide. i wonder if they wonder about what happened to the heart of it all.

no national moral compass. fatal wounds to people’s most basic needs – physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem. nary a nod to the constitution, to the law of the land, to staunch protection of democratic principles and freedoms, to respect of the people…of all the populace.

the depravity is pathetic.

it is all pathetic.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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


by 1 Comment

to be a bird. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

we used to climb out of the bedroom window upstairs onto the flat roof. we’d pass adirondack chairs up from the deck below and experience our backyard from a “patio” spot higher up. it is always perspective-arranging to be up there. we can see further from that vantage point.

the very first day we met in person we climbed out that window onto the roof. that day i had a rug, a couple chairs, blankets and wine glasses ready. it was utterly magical and has made us dream about securing the roof structure and designing a more permanent space that we might enter through an actual door.

we haven’t climbed out the window in a while now, though we have often spoken about it and i imagine that one of these days – after the heat dome has moved on – that we will again have happy hour on the roof.

when the bird landed on the pinnacle of our roofline, i wondered what it could see. i wondered what it might be thinking as it looked upward to unlimited sky. i wondered what it might be like to be a bird – sans the complexities of living in community with other human beings.

each day we juggle the choice of participating in current-event-information-overload or divesting ourselves of all of it and hiking with nothing on our minds but PCT-someday-dreams and the snacks we carried with us.

each day – as citizens of this country – we try to understand how anyone could wish to destroy this democracy, how anyone could wish to subject other people to the inhumane cruelty we are witnessing, how anyone could wish to align with such horror.

each day we wonder about the next. we wonder what will happen. we wonder what the next few decades will look like – as we, now, are moving into a time when a few decades is all we have.

each day i am overwhelmed by the brutal reality that we – as human beings – generously graced with intelligence and the skills of critical thinking – on this stunningly beautiful mother earth – are literally incapable of living in peace.

and i wonder if the bird – perched on the tippy-top of our roof – is counting its blessings that it is a bird.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

PRAYER OF OPPOSITES 48”x 48”

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

buymeacoffee is a website where you may directly impact an artist whose work has directly impacted you.


by 1 Comment

the almighty dollar. [kerri’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

“the almighty dollar,” my sweet poppo would say.

and then he’d insist – “you can’t take it with you.”

and so, he and my momma would help others, donate money to causes, spend little on themselves (save for my dad’s love of a good pair of shoes and a sleeve of grocery store flowers for my mom).

but times are different and my parents – on the other side of the plane of existence – are rolling their eyes, nauseated by the bloated greed demonstrated by the new administration of this country.

it appears that the idolatry of the dollar (or, say, billions of dollars) is wiping out any sort of moral conscience that might have poked through the supposed-human-skin and the supposed-human-heart of the current leadership regime.

to marginalize, disenfranchise, suppress, endanger, incite violence upon, decimate – people, communities, natural resources, wildlife, national lands – all for personal capitalistic, bigoted extremist, vile self-serving, narcissistic money-hoarding gluttonous greed – is beyond my comprehension.

i wonder when it is that this country hits the place that it is beyond repair.

they – those “in charge” – have scoffed at negligence. they have gone way past corruption. they have made a laughingstock of indecency. the depravity of their mindset – everything for the almighty dollar, no matter what – is ruling the land.

and, shamefully, people – real people – the regular folks – we the people – will suffer greatly.

is that what they mean by “make america great again’?

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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

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


by 1 Comment

hopeseekers. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

“hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.” (anne lamott)

and so, one step at a time – though the path is rugged and the way is not clear – we keep hoping. and trudging. toward the light.

each day, after my brain clears from the fog of sleeping, i remember. each morning i am stunned back into awakeness. today was no different.

i woke up and – after i remembered – i thought about five months ago. it feels like an eternity. and yet here we are. in the middle of a coalescence of horrific.

and, even after millions of americans marched and protested in the streets of this nation, we are still here – at the precipice of autocracy.

and i wonder what will pierce the darkness that is descending upon a land so bright with potential. i wonder what will actually stop the brutality, the cruelty, the apathy, the greed. i wonder at all the people showing up, trying to do the right thing, all the people waiting for the dawn.

when my children were little i did not let them use the word ‘hate’. i also tried – best as i could – to not allow them to say ‘shut up’. big issues at the time.

i look at the children of today – listening to or watching the current administration of this nation – and shudder to think of what kind of clean-up one must do as a parent to explain away the horribleness of the vile messaging of this regime, what kind of debriefing one must do as a parent to help children process the atrocities they are witnessing, what kind of protection one must resort to as a parent to shield children from the hatred spewing into the air of this country.

it makes saying ‘shut up’ seem like child’s play. particularly in a country where lies and false narrative abound, where rights are being stripped from the populace, where sadistic, escalating violence is being blatantly encouraged, where i’m certain many of us – the stubborn hopeseekers – would love to just scream “shut up!!!” every time the wanna-be-dictator opens his mouth.

*****

weeping man 48″ x 36″

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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

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


by 1 Comment

choose radical love. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

chosen family.

“the powerful, loving bonds formed between individuals who are not biologically related but who choose to be family…highlighting the strength of these non-traditional family units and the unconditional love they provide.”(the trevor project)

so, dna ain’t everything.

i, for one, have found it personally shocking at times to be related to my similar-dna-stranded relatives. particularly now. for one – incorrectly – assumes that one is aligned with those in one’s family – with values and love and respect leading the way. this, however, is not always true. and – shockingly – families, like friends or colleagues, are quite capable of throwing others under the bus. shocking, indeed.

so we seek those who support us, who support our world view, who challenge and push, who protect, who encourage others to be their best and most authentic self.

in this – incredibly the 21st century – with a twisted administration – we are faced with making decisions of estrangement – boundary setting that is squarely focused on the upholding of each other and our rights and freedoms. it is impossible to pretend to be “family” if members have chosen to undermine the rights and freedoms of other members. dna schmee-n-a.

a week ago we spent the weekend attending milwaukee pride events at which our EDM artist son performed. his friends welcomed us with hugs and dancing and conversation. we were embraced and felt the love. i cannot imagine why anyone would reject or endanger such a community – LGBTQIA – so inclusive of all. it is incomprehensible.

one of his friends came up to us while we were dancing and drew us close in to talk above the music. “if i had parents like you, i’d have everything,” he said into our ears. i cried as he walked away.

my grown children have a wonderful father. they have a generous-of-spirit stepmom who cares about them. they have me. and they have david, who has been supportive in every way that a caring father can be. they are every much his children in this last decade. we all share them and join together as the circle of one-generation-previous people around them who want them to be their best and most authentic selves. isn’t that what parenthood is? they are just lucky enough to share dna with two of the four of us. but we are all their parents.

these are days of non-traditional. we are fortunate to live in these days – days of wisdom and cultivated illumination – when love is simply love and the bonds of family extend beyond ancestry lines. i can only hope that we all celebrate each other – in our differences and in our sameness. we can seek family with bonds based on unconditional love and support. if we can look at our biological families and freely choose each other, we are lucky. if our own families endanger others or refuse to see or value them, it is incumbent upon us to draw lines in the sand. this life keeps ticking. it would seem infinite love – acceptance, inclusion, belonging – would be the way to live these tiny lives we get.

be the people whom others choose. “chosen families have helped queer people survive and experience radical love and joy at a time when their rights, and in some cases their very lives, are threatened.” (alex welch)

radical love and joy. life is too short for anything else.

*****

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

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

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


by Leave a comment

weeping scars. [kerri’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

the neverending havoc, the abject cruelty, the malignant narcissism, the discarding of rights, the disrespect of humanity, the dismantling of democracy – it all leaves me nauseated.

the scars will run deep upon the land. profound, weeping scars.

and where do we-the-people go from here?

“every day just gets a little shorter, don’t you think?/take a look around you, and you’ll see just what i mean/people got to come together, not just out of fear…

where do we go/where do we go/where do we go from here?

try to find a better place, but soon it’s all the same/what you thought was a paradise is not just what it seemed/the more i look around i find the more i have to fear

where do we go/where do we go/where do we go from here?

….” (where do we go from here? – peter cetera)

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING SMACK-DAB

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

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