Goodbye...Xanga...

Beginnings

Well, it's been a crazy start to the new year, after a 10 day visit to what should have been (but wasn't) sunny Florida, I came home for a week and then flew to NJ to visit my father in the hospital. He suffered a fairly major heart attack before Christmas and there were some days when it didn't look like he was going to make it. Although it was good to see everyone there, I would have been much happier spending time with Dad, and the rest of my family, under better circumstances. I also felt very much aware that I don't get out to the East Coast often enough, which is something I would really like to work on in the future.

My father is doing fairly well, but it was more than a little difficult to see him in the care facility where he was undergoing physical therapy. He seems to be facing some hard facts about his life, but appears to be open to the changes needed to keep him healthy and alive for a while yet. I'm sure everyone goes through this, but watching your parents age is much more difficult than I ever imagined.

 I always took it for granted that everyone gets older and we just find ways to deal with it, but the reality is that we tend to hold on to memories of the man who chased the monsters from under the bed, or built the tree house in the back yard for us to play in. My father is still taller than me in my mind, still swinging a hammer, or hanging cabinets in someone’s kitchen, or fishing for trout on a Vermont lake. But the hard truth is he's becoming fragile, and today I had to push him in a wheelchair through the facility halls where he works to regain enough strength to go home and care for himself. 

During the visit today Dad told me he had come to realize that the worst thing he could imagine would be to die without telling the important people in his life how he felt about them. I left him today with the nagging thought that he's right and I need to do better in this regard myself. Time, and life, is short and fleeting, and we only really leave behind what people remember about us. If you want to have an impact on someone's life, tell them you love them, or even just like them. Tell someone they're beautiful, or smart, or funny, just tell them something. If you leave nothing else behind, leave the people in your life with a smile when they think about you. 

 You just can't tell what tomorrow will bring, so do it, or say it today, tell someone what they mean to you. What better legacy could there possibly be.

Flow

Silence

They live here, and there,

and sometimes over there too.

Underfoot, over-fed,

a worn spot on the carpet,

a warm spot on the couch,

a hole in the yard

where something good

was buried, or not,

maybe something good

was just the digging.

The jingle of tags,

the clicking of nails

on tile floors at 3:00 AM,

and of course the

inevitable cold wet nose

pressed against my cheek,

followed by a warm wet tongue.

Love, the constant presence

of love, a wag, a whimper,

a soft bark at dawn.

No shortage of sounds,

no lack of activity,

but I can’t take the silence

whenever they’re gone.

Yes!

I received the proof copy of One Minute Movies today, there were a few corrections but nothing much. The cover was my biggest concern, and it turned out great. I approved the printing, and it is now available to order here -

Order a copy...

You can preview some of it as well, I'm really happy with the way things worked out with Lulu.com and their publishing tools. I would definitely recommend them to anyone trying to get something printed, whether it's just for personal reasons or for sale. Check them out at www.lulu.com, you can also find a huge selection of books there for sale. As with music, it's amazing to me how much talent there is out there that never makes it to the shelves in Borders or Barnes and Noble.