Daily Blues & Views

Moving has always been difficult for me.  It's the rootless feeling and the uncertainty of change, not to mention change of address madness.  It gets easier as I get older, but still, I'd rather not.  As I anticipate me next move, and hopefully the last one for awhile, I'm struck by how many people I now know are in this fluid state and all for such different reasons. My family is currently searching for a place to own so that we have some control and certainty over the critical process of our aging and some say over where we would like to live.  Our town, like many, is changing so rapid that people are being out priced or out spent about these decisions.  Rentals are high and higher, and prospective home buyers are being out spent by those who have cash.  And then their are a few couples I know who seem to be separating.  Half of these twosomes will be seeking a separate home for at least a short while.  Their distance show their commitment t...

Spent the day with the Oregon Writing Project at the annual Renewal Day.  I always look forward to what kind of poetry or fiction or memoir will emerge.  All writing is creative writing, isn't it? In an exercise about writing about place, this arrived: My focus was a classroom, Another home for 30 years, Behind carved desks, a wall of faces: Flannery O'Connor, Little Richard,                                                         Roberto Clemente, Little Rascals,                Alice Walker, a devilish Steinbeck, Langston Hughes smiles down,                          On Josephine Baker, Lunch bags, Kleenex, scampering ants, A discarded note,                         ...

All those cliches come to mind.  Stuff about "in a heartbeat", "a split second", and how life changes on a random whim.  Straightaway, here's the news: I lost control of my wife's car on a 12 hour drive home up the Interstate from the Bay Area to Portland.  Another list of cliches begins with "wake-up call", thought I could just push through, and "lucky to be alive." We skidded, hit a semi truck, spun in a circle, and ended up on the shoulder of the freeway perfectly tucked away from any more danger.  That last point is the only thing I feel good about.  "Not my time " or somebody "watching over us" fits well here. I will not drive when I haven't had enough sleep again.  How many times do you want me to write that?  I'll do it because I take full responsibility for not taking responsibility.  That's hard for me because I live my life carefully.  Usually within strict borders that keep risk-taking to a car...