Spring Journal: The Joke
The groundhogs don’t know the stream floods.
They just dig. Sip. Rest. Begin again.
This piece is about watching them work—
And realizing we do the same.
We build our lives beside a stream that will rise and sweep it all away.
But in that certainty, there’s freedom. In that impermanence, a strange lightness.
What if falling… is just another word for flight?
Spring Journal: Two, yet not two
The valley awakens in purple fire.
Snow crocuses rise from frost-heaved ground—tiny, defiant, luminous.
This reflection is about early blooms, a single honeybee, and the deep magic that binds them.
Two, yet not two. Flower and bee. Light and earth. You and the world.
Spring begins here.
Spring Journal: Betrayal
We thought spring had arrived.
But last night, snow returned—quietly rewriting everything in white.
This piece is about late snow, broken expectations, and the sorrow of things not going to plan.
But also about what happens when we release the map, and simply notice the cardinal in the laurel.
Spring Journal: Mud
Spring doesn’t arrive with fanfare.
It seeps in slowly—through thawing trails, frost-cracked soil, and the patient churn of mud.
This reflection is about frost seeding, trail-building, and the quiet power of letting the mess make way for something new.
Creation begins with dissolution. Mud first, then bloom.
Winter Journal: Hunger Moon
The deer come at dusk, ribs showing, coats dull.
The hunger moon rises. The carrion birds gather.
This is a meditation on the sharp edge of late winter—
where bare branches, bones, and longing all speak the same truth:
Don’t look away.
Even now, there is beauty. Even now, everything belongs.
Winter Journal: Deer
Each morning, the deer return.
I watch them through my window—daughters grooming mothers, fawns testing new legs.
For years, I thought I knew them. I even named one.
But lately, I’ve begun to see more clearly.
This piece is about how nothing truly disappears.
Not the deer. Not the stream. Not even us.
Everything returns. Everything flows.
Winter Journal: Light
The valley teaches in light.
Each season arrives with its own voice—spring’s honey-gold promise, summer’s restless shimmer, autumn’s amber hush, winter’s quiet charcoal.
From my stillness, I see it all more clearly now. Every leaf. Every shadow. Every tender change.
This reflection is about watching the year turn from a wheelchair—and realizing light is always writing love letters across the walls.
Introduction: Third Year
This winter marks my third in the valley—and my third inside a body growing still.
What began as a stumble has become a quiet unraveling. And yet, while my strength fades, something else opens: presence, clarity, light.
This is not just a story of loss. It’s the end of story itself.
Come sit with me in the stillness—where words fall away and something deeper remains.
Introduction: Second Year
One winter morning, I fell on the ice—and couldn’t get up.
That moment marked the end of something… and the beginning of something else.
This piece is about losing the last pieces of independence, the arrival of a tattooed caregiver named Mark, and a children’s book I wrote for grandchildren I’ll never meet.
It’s about legacy. Lightness. And the slow, sacred weight of a feather.
Introduction: First Year
In the first year after my diagnosis, I planted lavender, towed a teardrop trailer across the East Coast with my son, built a billion-dollar company, and studied the soul’s terrain from my kitchen table.
I knew the clock was ticking.
So I chose to live—deeply, honestly, and all the way through.
This reflection is about fatherhood, fortitude, and finding wonder even in the narrowing.