Category Archives: Musings

Stuff I find myself thinking about.

Symbolic Sumac

This is not about the moon, though I suppose it could be, because it seems my Cancer existence is always backlit by lunar influence. That beautiful, amber Full Buck Moon has passed and the clear starlit sky has left my midnight driveway darkened this week, a blackness that is palpable as I walk from the […]

Cover Commotion

It finally arrived Monday! I was starting to wonder. Truth be told, I had been eagerly awaiting it since dismissing as inadequate the homogenized news reports I had read, watched and listened to following that sad day in April when two curb-side pressure cookers exploded, killing three and permanently impacting the lives of far too […]

Fishing For Forgiveness

That mournful flute was entrancing, spooky. Its deep, hollow, haunting moans filled the bright, airy, riverside chamber called Great Hall and pierced a private internal sanctuary in me that few can penetrate, entering through a slim wound that oozed grief, gushed guilt. The handsome wooden instrument still resonated the next morning, like a spiritual echo […]

Troubling Taboo

We call it “The Canopy,” a formal upstairs bedroom capping the southeast corner of our home’s main block, an 1827 addition by the last of three consecutive Samuel Hinsdales to own the property. I typically sleep there when my grandson supplants me in my downstairs bed, but this was the first time we had two […]

Spring Fever

I finally got back on my feet over the weekend and celebrated my newfound mobility by inhaling our tasty March-brown February, rare indeed, while traversing the western hills through Colrain, Shelburne, Conway, Whately, South Ashfield and a little corner of Williamsburg; my country, stained throughout by ancient family DNA, sugarhouses belching dense steam skyward along […]

Lakeside Respite

Loons laughed, wailed and moaned as we enjoyed perfect vacation weather last week on a peaceful North Country lake called Harvey’s in West Barnet, Vt. Most of the time, it was just me, wife Joanne, grandson Jordi and the three dogs. No TV, no cell-phone service, no computer distractions. A heavenly change of pace in […]

Birthday Ramble

This is a  post on my 58th birthday as I race toward old age with no regrets and no apologies for indiscretions. Though lame, I’m still young at heart, had a great time getting here, will enjoy what’s left and cling with fury to my rebel spirit, borne of the Sixties. * Maybe I should […]

Whispers and Roars

Although I stopped fishing many years ago, primarily because my schedule doesn’t permit it, I have not lost my love for running water — brooks and streams and rivers that in many ways symbolize life’s ebbs and flows and eddies, those random midstream pockets formed by natural obstacles disrupting the current and creating a calm, swirling […]

Woodland Waltz

My fourth cord of wood was piled high in the shed, air cool, morning sun bright … off to my favorite Whately stomping grounds. Eli Terry, rhythmic heartbeat ticking from his dining-room shelf, read 11 a.m. My only worry was bear season. I didn’t want to get me or my dogs shot. But who’s going […]

Summer’s Slipping Away

Two large Japanese maples stand just inside the southern point of my property, providing three-season privacy from oncoming traffic headed north to the Colrain/Green River roads fork. These ornamental trees bud in pastel red and grow brilliant scarlet leaves that fade to a soft, olive-green before bursting into their brightest fall cardinal-red. They then shed […]

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