Memoirous

 Visitors to the Tiny House have been introduced to my favorite trail, just steps from where I work and the loop is close to 3 km in length. A few weeks ago, Playmakers, where I work, asked me to help re-set the community room after an event. There had been a meeting for Friends of the Lansing River Trail. As I picked up trash and ate some catered leftovers, I said to a guy: I love the river trail! Let me tell you about my favorite trail. He said, Hold that thought, and brought over another person. Come to find out Jordyn is the communications director for the organization and after I gushed about my favorite section of the trail, we arranged a time to meet at the trail entrance, where they set up a camera and had me and my grandson ride our bikes back and forth. It was fun! It’s about connection. The following is a link to the website and to my video. facebook.com/reel/2094247154809332/?rdid=wFNswiXhGHHD1rKB&share_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fshare%2Fr%2F18aX...

Recently a friend invited me and my grandson to a trampoline park for a playdate; they had an extra ticket. Sky Zone was awesome. It was hot outside and cool inside and NOT overrun with kids. Thus, I was able to get on the apparatus. So was this a good idea? I’m 65, and marginally medically insured, like most of us. As I sat on the swing high above a foam cube pit, I wondered about first setting up a Go Fund Me. How would I be able to explain to my boss at work, how I’d broken my arm, leg, foot, finger? The idea was to push off from the platform and about 7 feet below was an impact pit. I’m sure it is soft, but from height, considering my weight, it could still hurt. At this point my friend who is 8 months pregnant and not doing it herself plus her son and my grandson were spurring me on. Just do it. She had her cell phone camera trained on me. After a few more minutes of deliberation, I let go, where I discovered . . . The worse part was the worry. Which reminded me of every...

 I finished Philosophy for Polar Explorers by Erling Kagge. So much of what he wrote is about the everday everybody—not just those ascending Everest or seeking the Pole. Of course as a long-distance cyclist I can find myself in many of his messages. Yes, I’m not fast, I’m not breaking world records, nor am I the first. I’m just a solo trekker of a certain age—who people tell me is brave. I don’t always feel that way. For instance: as a writer it is much tougher than you think to come back to a project where you have failed and try to revive it, or to tell yourself you might have to let this one go. To face the blank page. A bigger Pole is to create with words something out of nothing, to translate that feeling or concept you harbor in your head into words, words that have an impact upon a reader. There are times I find this impossible—and yet I keep trying. Writing is like being a polar explorer. It is about facing your fears, the absurdity of the task, and being present anyw...

My last meditation provoked by reading Philosophy for Polar Explorers by Erling Kagge is about routine. I completely tore up the pages of my life in Chicago, nearly 40 years there, to fly out to Eugene with a bicycle and a suitcase to “start over.” Yet, once again, I began to build routine. We are creatures of habit. I imagine Neanderthals lounging around in caves bored, but also satisfied that for a brief moment they do not have to run from dinosaurs or whatever danger was right outside their stone walls. We all take comfort in a set list that is settled and gives a familiar feeling of structure. It’s why I cycle. Yes, it is easy to feel like a machine, part of the cogs on the freewheel, a link in the chain, so to speak. But, I never had to question my existence or what to do that day: I woke up to pedal, I ate to pedal, I slept to wake up and pedal. It was about getting from A to B. It was that easy. So in Eugene, embarking on my new life I established a routine. Tea, stretch...

 Well, thank you Universe! Thank you God! After my exercise in listing what it was I wanted in accommodation in Michigan (click on link )—I got an answer. I wrote that post on a Thursday late morning. A few hours went by and I checked Craigslist. What I found at the top, just landed there, was exactly what I’d described. A professor at MSU who often travels (3 weeks out of a month) was looking for a roommate not just to cut expenses but sort of look after things. We called and chatted that evening. By Friday lunchtime I was the forerunner candidate. By evening I was her choice. How does one write about the synchronicity, the coincidence of just this: an answer to prayer. I put it out there. So next steps are a job and actually getting there—all things will come to those who wait, and seek.

 I feel like a high school senior whose parents and relatives keep asking: What are you going to do? What’re your plans? I have no idea. I keep checking the various websites looking for rental properties in the Lansing, MI area. My daughter thought I was just being negative but even she agreed that most offerings look like meth houses. And it’s not just Craigslist. You’d think even a realtor taking site glamor shots would straighten the towels in the bathroom. I’m just not sure how I’m going to get from A to B at this rate. So I’ve decided to write down my dream list, aspects I’d like to see in my next sojourn:             *ground floor entrance, I have 2 bikes             *a balcony or back patio *kitchen             *bathroom             *cozy ti...