I am sitting in the dark, just finished a bowl of cereal, Trix if you want to know. I am listening to the rain and thunder. And the lightning strikes flash in the kitchen window.
I am worried. Worried for so many reasons. Worried for so many people. Worried about the days and years ahead. And the lightning strikes flash in the kitchen window.
Yesterday sometimes feels better than today. Tomorrow feels heavy and sticky, like the humidity that will soak my skin on my morning walk. Routines can foster a dread of the unknown, yet that is where we find the edges of who we are.
And the lightning strikes flash in the kitchen window.
I don’t understand so many aspects of this life. How Love never really wins, never lands enough punches to turn the tide. The judges always side with Hate. But when the bell rings, Love finds its legs, making it through another round. But I am tired. The temptation to throw in the towel gets harder to shred.
And the lightning strikes flash in the kitchen window.
I was originally going to title this post as “I attended a funeral on my 28th wedding anniversary while reading poetry.”
I also thought about the title, “What is life if all we do is die?”
Instead I dated the post, because it was yesterday, and now it is a memory. I read a book of poetry, had a lovely dinner with my wife, and have a program from the funeral. I am driven to write a blog post about why any of it matters. (Yes, I thought of writing a poem, but the muse is indicating this is a blog post about connecting dots.)
So let me explain the dots.
First, I am doing the Sealy Challenge: reading a book of poetry everyday in August. Yesterday I read Today Means Amen by Sierra DeMulder. Today I am reading Dragging Sand Creek for Minnows by William Kloefkorn. I’ll come back to the poetry later.
Second, yesterday was our 28th anniversary. We had dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, The Odyssey. (The best bread pudding dessert. It was lemon blueberry this time!) Of course we talked about the last 28 years, but the funeral we attended in the morning was the main conversation topic.
Third dot, the funeral of my wife’s aunt, age 83. She was the youngest of seven children. The church was filled with family. She had 10 children of her own, 27 grandchildren and 38 great-grandchildren. I am always amazed at the size of my wife’s side of our family.
The last page of the program summarized 83 years of her life. There was a table at the luncheon that had photo albums and the wedding album of her aunt’s marriage. Especially at lunch the air was filled with stories, and with tears and hugs.
August 1, 2026, was a day that reinforced the foundation of what this life is really about. Love expressed through living every day.
Here’s what I mean on a deeper level with the three dots. My wife’s aunt’s life was more than the five paragraphs on the back of the program, the family and generations in the church was evidence of what she did, how she lived.
The poems I read, and the ones I’m reading today, gave me a glimpse of the poet’s heart, of their lives. As a poet, I know the vulnerability of writing, of crafting a verse that reflects the heart.
Twenty-eight years of marriage. Our own six children, the ups and downs present in the everyday, the love it takes to build a home, to build a life. It takes time and heart.
There will come a day when someone will try to summarize my years on this earth on the last page of the program for my funeral. There will probably be some photo albums, too. And my children will share stories, and maybe even my best dad jokes or even read some of my poems. But that day will simply be the accumulation of the days I tried my best to live this life with love. Love of the written word. Love of my wife, children, and friends. Love of having ordinary days to show that love.
transitive verb : to call into question the truth of
noun : a lack of confidence
To me doubt is a heavy stone that often sits on top of my lungs. The weight pushes against my sternum, sending small pulses that make my tear ducts itchy.
In everyday life we all can be plagued with this feeling. Doubts greatest strength is in its ability to make you question any aspect of your life. Your parenting, your skills, your personal growth, your relationships, any aspect of living. Doubt adapts to any situation, which makes it hard to battle. Especially since the fuel it uses comes from the external world, from other people’s opinion and reaction to us, from social media, from the negative bombardment of society.
It all sits so heavy in our chests.
Trust is an antonym to doubt.
According to Merrian-Webster TRUST is defined as
transitive verb : to rely on the truthfulness or accuracy of
noun : assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something
To me trust is the foundation I build from the beauty of everyday interactions with loved ones. To live in the talents and dreams I have for my life.
In everyday life we have the opportunity to show our strength, build our character by the way we approach our relationships, to be honest in living according to what we say is valuable. Trust takes work and work is a part of every aspect of our lives. Trust opens up our hearts. It gains power from our talents, from the work we do, and the way we treat others.
I find that doubt gets to me when I am not engaged with my everyday life. When I value other people’s opinions, especially regarding my writing, over the joy of being fully engaged with what I love to do. Doubt is never ending in its attacks or the ways it can find to sit heavy in my chest. But I trust the sunrise. I trust the words I write. I trust in the truth of living by loving every day.
This poem / observation was jotted down in my note app as I was on my walk. I also took this picture to reinforce the idea.
One of the reasons I like to walk everyday is the mental aspect, the way my mind can drift and be inspired by the world around me. As I continued on my walk I thought about how much a home is like a tree.
On average, most people (6 out of 10) live within 100 miles of their home town. And most of them are only 30 miles away (2022 Census).
Even wind-dispersed seeds of trees travel just over a mile, but can reach 18 miles.
I thought about how my desire to create a stable home for my own family influenced aspects of my personal life, my goals. One of the biggest aspects has been coaching, specifically football. But also my writing goals. This town is not a poetic mecca by any means.
But the thing about trees is that they are beautiful in their strength and characteristics; leaf shape, color, and their bark patterns. Trees withstand the seasons by changing with the weather.
We have been in this particular house for 15 years. My three oldest children are out in the world, two are over 100 miles away while one is in town. I have three more children at home, one of them will be a senior and ready to make the decision of which college to attend.
I do not know where the wind will take my children, but they know where home is. It is a strong blue house… sitting pretty close to heaven.
I know some of you are wondering, no album from Prince? Well, the wait is over. There are two rules that made this choice so difficult. One album per artist. Prince released over 40 studio albums. Because of the rule I only get to choose one. ONE!
After hours of debating with myself I got it down to two albums. Again the rules I set for myself helped. Even as a fan, there are songs I will skip on an album. Especially if I am in a particular mood, so that rule helped a lot.
Then the last rule that allowed me to finally choose the album. No soundtracks with various artists. Now, that rule eliminated some great sound tracks. But I thought the rule was fair because there are soundtracks by single artists, like The Jazz Singer by Neil Diamond, that are powerful albums.
So, that brings me to my fifth album I can’t live without… no it is not Purple Rain. It is Parade.
Everyone knows the song “Kiss” but as a whole album Parade encompasses Prince’s personality the best at that time of his life. Meaning, artists grow as people and their art reflects that. As fans I think we forget that sometimes and want them to produce the same kind of art they did when we became fans. Anyway, back to the album.
The opening track, “Christopher Tracy’s Parade,” sets a wonderful, joyful tone, while touching on some of the themes to come in the other songs / movie.
“I Wonder U” switches things up with a slowed down musical trip. In its own way, it is a cool love song.
“Under the Cherry Moon” continues with the slower vibe. Prince ponders life and love through the lyrics. The song feels like a walk at night, under a full moon.
The sixth track never fails to make me move or lift my spirits. “Life Can Be So Nice” picks up the tempo and has lyrics that hit you with their clever examples that you can’t help but sing along with.
As Prince is known to do, the next track seems to come out of nowhere. It makes you stop and just feel. “Venus De Milo” is a wonderful instrumental piece. It is on a number of my playlists.
“Mountains” was released as a single. It reached number 23 on the charts. It is one of my favorite songs of all time by Prince. “Mountains” delves into the idea of the power of love and how it can be a force in life.
And maybe the saddest song ever, “Sometimes It Snows in April.” Of course it connects to the story line of the movie, but listeners can easily follow the plot line and get lost in the theme of the song. The song touches on our shared hurt and questioning of why bad things happen, especially when we lose someone we love.
So, here are my 5 albums I can’t live without… or is it????
People don’t really believe me when I say I have a wide range of musical genres that I like. They don’t believe that I listen to Jazz, Rap, or Barry Manilow. This is the case regarding the artist for album three, Kirk Whalum and his album, In This Life.
Now I know this album has guest singers, but Kirk has his moments in every song, his saxophone playing elevates the voices in those songs. This album is an emotional experience. I used to play it during study time in my classroom when I first started teaching, and even had a few students who became fans of Kirk Whalum. That says something that teenagers loved this album, too.
The opening title track, “In This Life” is a powerful reflection on love. The kind of love that we hope for, the kind that stands strong through the hardships and wrongs we have received or done in life.
Now love is a theme for this album, and I am a sucker for any type of love song, but track two is a unique but truthful look at our desire to find love. The cover of “‘Til I Get It Right” is sung by the known jazz and soul singer, Vaneese Thomas. She is perfect for this song. You feel the hopeful hurt when she sings, “So I’ll just keep on fallin’ in love ’til I get it right.”
Not every song on this album has vocals. “Peaceful Hideaway” is the first instrumental piece and it does carry the listener away from the world and softens the hurt or worries they might have.
“Living For The City” is a wonderful instrumental piece, it brings up the energy of the album. It is joyful in its expressions and you can’t help but nod your head a little to it.
Heartbreak is hard to deal with, even with time. “When The Night Rolls In” is a truthful look at how time doesn’t always heal our hearts. It is so real in its theme, I just sing along, remembering the times I felt like this.
After 28 years of marriage, I understand the song, “The Way I Need You Now,” on a different level. “No, the way I need you now / Is gonna take our faith, it’s gonna take our honesty / There’s so much waiting for us” is a powerful aspect of a relationship as it changes, as it grows. This song hits so much harder for me now.
I have a number of albums of Kirk Whalum’s, but In This Life, hits my soft spot for love songs but is also a wonderful listening experience as I get lost in his saxophone.
The rule that I could only choose one album per artist makes for a unique challenge for me. Many of my favorite bands have a number of albums I love. But the idea, too, that I couldn’t live without it helps, especially with the artist for album 2; Tears For Fears and their album The Seeds of Love.
This selection is also an example of connecting to an album the more you listen to it. How an album can age well, like wine. I remember not being blown away by the album in 1989, but I was a senior in high school, getting ready for college, all that stuff. Honestly, I didn’t really get into the album until after college. And I think part of the reason is because of the depth of themes of the songs, as a teenager I didn’t really connect to them like I could after growing up some and experiencing life.
The album starts with what I feel is one of the saddest songs of all time, “Women in Chains.” Because this post is about the music, I’m going to let the song speak for itself.
The second song on the album is “Badman’s Song” and I love when it comes on my playlist while I’m walking. The backstory is that during the tour for The Hurting, Roland Orzabal overheard some of the band members talking bad about him. The third line seems to indicate the hotel room they were in, “Well here’s to the boys back in 628.”
But I love the musical trip the song takes me on, and the underlying idea of hope for the badman. The references of faith and life lift my heart.
Many of the songs on the album run over five minutes, yet the songs don’t drag. “Swords and Knives” runs just over 6 minutes and is heavy with instrumental movements that create the perfect accompaniment to the theme of the song about violence in the world. And it transitions into one of my favorite songs of all time, “Year of the Knife.”
The track is high energy, and for me, poetic. I love the lines, “They say his famous final words / Came from the heart of man.” Plus the symbolism of love as a knife, played against the “young gun” is cool.
I’ve written about the final track, “Famous Last Words” in the post “Thank You, Tears For Fears” during the COVID pandemic. The track is a perfect ending to a great album. I love the thread of love throughout the album and the depth of the songs. This is an example of how music can grow with us, if we keep listening.
I am going to just warn you now, this post will ramble but try to connect the dots at the end.
I just finished my walk about 20 minutes ago. And I thought about a lot of things, had a lot of dots on the paper of my mind. But let’s start in the middle of my walk.
There is a small cemetery, Sunset Memorial Gardens, that I walk past on one of my routes through my neighborhood. Sometimes, I stop to sit and reflect. Today was one of those days. As I sat down on a bench the “Love Theme from St. Elmo’s Fire” started to play in my earbuds. St. Elmo’s Fire is one of my favorite movies, so it got me thinking.
I took a couple of pictures to share on social media. I tend to take unique pictures on my walk just to share. While I was taking the photos I noticed that there were two fresh mounds of dirt. One of the grave sites did not have a date on the tombstone, but the second one did.
This is when the dots filled my head.
Here I was standing by her grave on January 4, 2026. Janice was just days away from the New Year when she passed away.
I, we all do to a degree, take time for granted. I have a specific pair of shoes I use for my walks. I am in the middle of logging the steps I take on my walks in these shoes for a blog post when I get new shoes.
I am assuming I will be here in 6 months. That I will be able to walk, to listen to music, to think, and write poetry.
As I continued on my walk I was deep in thought about life. A poetic line came to mind, “There will come a time…” (I’ll share the poem later in the blog).
Thinking about the poem led me to something that has been heavy on my heart lately… about how much I have failed in accomplishing my big dreams. I let myself down all the time. I have books I want to write. I want to learn to play the piano (or at least write this song I have). I want to help people write better (this is an idea in the works).
But instead… I fail.
Like all of us, life tricks us into believing there is time. And the trick is that there is time… until there isn’t. And we don’t know when that time will end.
On the home stretch of my walk, I spotted an older couple walking their dogs on the golf course, at times holding hands waiting for their second dog to catch up.
It was a beautiful site and reminded me that no one knows how much time they will have. But we are all given a life. And we do get to decide on how we live it. Failing at dreams, walking on a 60 degree January day, or making it home to be a dad…when I got home my second daughter needed help getting her boomerang (she got for Christmas) down from the roof of the house.
Some dreams are so big they have to be accomplished everyday.
Ohhh, yeah, I wrote this poem while walking too. This is the draft from my notes. The final poem will be worked on later.
“There will come a time”
There will come a time
Because of a dead watch
When I will stop moving
My hands across my face
To check how well I shaved
To start a new day
There will come a time
Because of the sunset
That I will be encased in darkness
Like Orion
Dreams stuck in position
Of a constellation of the past
There will come a time
Because of the last page
That I will no longer
Be able to write
A single word of a poem
Or love letter for her to read
There will come a time
Because of the rules of LIFE
I will reach the end
Have no more turns to spin the wheel
Get an action card
Have a pet
Or fill my little green car
With people I love
One last thing, here is the song that played as I came home.
I’m not sure what actually triggered the slight shift of my perspective. I can not pinpoint the week, the day, or the hour that I really started to consider how important it is to make sure my actions represent love.
For the last couple of months I have been conscious of what my actions are revealing about what this world is about. It is a daunting thought. My smile for a person in the grocery store will not create a viral trend. My dad joke in class only gets a few chuckles and quite a few groans. The question about Christmas gifts I ask for the barista is only for them. My insight on a poem shared on X is quick but could be so much deeper.
My actions will not change the world.
I could easily walk past the person in the cereal aisle. Get right to the lesson plan in class. Wait for my coffee silently. Just repost the poem.
The world would continue as is.
Except for the change in the moment and what the world could be like if all the moments were like the first examples. And let’s see if I can express this personal idea clearly.
In one way, Ben Rector said it well, “But now I just wanna look more like love.”
On the surface that is the idea, but the reason why is important. My actions express to everyone what the meaning of life is. But so does everyone’s actions. The person driving while busy on their phone says that the content on the screen is more important than driving safely. The fights in the stands of sporting events say that being a fan of a team is more important than being respectful of another person. There are so many examples of heartbreaking actions in this world that reveal people’s meaning of life is not love or the well being of others. Even my own parents taught me that drugs, alcohol, and other people were more important than me.
Our everyday actions reveal our meaning of life to the world. To the people around us, the people we love and the people we can’t stand. And it’s hard to not be swayed by things like money or success (which Ben Rector’s song deals with). It’s hard not to be judgmental, especially for people we don’t get along with.
But, the other day as my wife and I were having dinner at Red Lobster, a little boy across the aisle was looking at us. His mom and dad were trying to get him to eat some broccoli. His other brother was nicely eating corn and shrimp. I smiled at him. His face lit up and then he buried his head in his mom’s arm. Then he shot a look back at me. I smiled again. He smiled and then buried his face again.
I remembered when we would bring our children to Red Lobster. How my oldest daughter loved the broccoli, but my boys wanted applesauce. I smiled again at the little boy because I wanted him to know this world was filled with love.
Even though I know the little boy would learn that the world is also filled with things like hate and broken relationships, I wanted my actions to show him that this world can be a wonderful place, as I hope others would show my own children.
My actions will not change the world. But at any given moment, I can look more like love. I can show another person in that single moment that the meaning of life is love. If you put enough moments like that together, a life can be wonderful. It can be strong enough to withstand the negative waves that happen to us all.
Well, it was 60 degrees today. Only a few days away from Christmas, and I was walking in shorts this afternoon. My youngest daughter said it shouldn’t feel like spring right now.
But it does feel like Christmas for me… Everyone, plus significant others, will be home for Christmas morning. And mom and I have decided that Santa is coming for everyone this year. That means stockings and everything. I can’t wait!
But that is in a few days, there were a number of cool days in 2025.
One of the best days from this last year was seeing The Outsiders musical with my wife and three younger daughters. I wondered how they would make such an iconic book into a musical. I was impressed, and even teared up at different times during the performance.
Speaking of music, my Spotify top 100 songs were a mix of classic and more modern music. My number one song was Dermot Kennedy’s “Moments Passed” and in conjunction with the blog post, “Song Number 25”, my 25th song was “Overrated” by Thriving Ivory.
The coolest musical events though came from two interviews Dante and I conducted for our podcast, The Creative Moment. We had the honor of interviewing Rascal Martinez and Chris Glover, known as Penguin Prison. It was fun learning about how the muse works in the musical world.
But we didn’t just interview musicians, we talked to LMDesign8, a virtual and real world artist, and Konn Lavery, an author that writes horror novels and stories.
In a few months we will host our 100th episode! Stay tuned for that milestone.
On a personal note, I recently released a new collection of poetry, Life in Poetic Form. And released an audio poetry EP, Open Mic, which is available on all streaming services. Even though I had over 10 major rejections for my writing, not just poetry this year, I believe that my writing can make an impact for others. So, I write…
I am finishing up two books during break. I will then meet my goal of 60 books this year! One of my biggest surprises was the two volumes of the graphic novel, Starve. The series was written in 2016, but I came across the first collection in a book store. Then I ordered the second volume because I loved the story. This is the wonder of books, the timelessness of a story in physical form. The power of browsing a book store. The slight chance of finding a story that brings wonder and joy into your life.
This year also reinforced that magic of recommendations. Of the connection people build by suggesting a book they love to someone else. I read the book, Stoner, by John Williams, because it was recommended to me by a Twitter (I know its X…) friend. We talked about the book on X as I read it. I loved the book. Again, the power of books / stories to build connections in this world.
I’m not sure what 2026 will bring. How many rejections I will read. How many blog posts I will write. What new music I will hear, or new stories I will read.
But I know I will continue to try to build connections, to share poetry, and to let love lead me through the next 365 days.
It is all Connected 