Random Beauty
One of the things I like most about wandering most any city is to find, at random, evidence that art is not always created at the hand of a person. While I know the eternal arguments about mother nature's artful creations, what I like to see are "mini-creations"...
face2face in Provence
Memory, Mom and the Healthy Male
Today I am thinking about my mom. This memory spark was ignited by an article by Chauncey Devega in Salon about angry young white males centered on the evil that Dylan Roof wrought in South Carolina. In my faceBook posting about this article, I said: "I think the...
Fuzziness is clear now
I am searching now to find the right balance between the mythic and the intimate. As I move from a world of business to a world of exploring my inner life, the mythic expands and reveals the intellectual intimacy of knowing oneself. All time is mine now to share as...
To the Studio
Lea and I have purchased a very small house (lot is 4m X 20m) one block from our current house in Merida. The house will be a garage and my painting studio. We will begin construction within a few weeks. The interior will be kept simple, plain and matter-of-fact. This...
We are but a fragile vine
The past few weeks have been difficult. I have wrestled with many questions. Some have been practical, some have been legal and some have been philosophical. In Martha Nussbaum's classic book The Fragility of Goodness, she quotes Pindar: 'But human excellence grows...
Leaving the HereNow to Dive Deep
There comes a time in everyone's life that they face change. It sometimes comes as a surprise and sometimes it is planned. In every case, at least for me, the other side of change has been brighter. While there were indeed dark times during the change-period, I...
Mistakes and Intrique
Mistakes are essential to change and intrigue will change your life.
The Bell Still Tolls
My father was a mechanic and taught me many things--not the least of which was to fix things. Growing up, he worked very hard to provide me with what I needed to live but also to play. One of my favorite toys was a toy fire truck that I could peddle. One of the most...
Season of renewal
This is the season of renewal. In many religions, this is a time when people pledge a commitment to deepen their relationship with their god, their family and their community. They seek inner peace through these rituals. The rights of spring, throughout history, have...
Aunts
My mother (second from left) had 8 brothers and sisters. 5 of these were half-sisters and a half-brother. In this picture mom is seen with (left to right) Virginia, Mom, Sadie and Laverne (her full sisters). Mom was 16 when this picture was taken. Only Virginia is...
Of dogs, gasoline and Coke with peanuts
From 1953 until I graduated from high school, we lived in a house (2 different ones) behind my father's Texaco service station in Fort Smith, Arkansas (at the corner of 56th Street and Rogers Avenue). Dad had begun his service station career after WWII in Bakersfield,...