Pouring Music From a Cup

         Yes. We met on a popular dating site that I won’t name because it’s a nonsensical name that begins with Z, and I’ve had it with romantic nonsense. She called herself “J” which I soon convinced her to reveal stood for “Janna.” And of course she was pretty. At 57 she’d obviously taken very good care of herself. Imagine my delight when I read her profile story and saw how closely it mirrored my own: New to all of this dating experience so I’m a bit skittish and shy. Divorced in 2015 after a twenty-five year marriage … I’m looking first for someone I can trust, someone who enjoys going places but also enjoys a quiet night at home, and someone who is authentic. I retired from education after teaching for 34 years in the public schools. I couldn’t wait to send a message to her! I too was fairly new at the online dating scene, or if not exactly new, patently naïve. I too had been divorced in the not-so-distant past after a two- decades-plus marriage. I ...

Originally published November 5, 2012 The year is 1967.  The Summer of Love: The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band which Rolling Stone called "the most important rock & roll album ever made ... by the greatest rock & roll group of all time," and followed it with Magical Mystery Tour;   Jefferson Airplane gave us Surrealistic Pillow and turned on a dime in the fall with their blistering psychedelic second album After Bathing at Baxter's; The Doors stunned the musical status quo with their iconic debut album The Doors and doubled down later that year with Strange Days ; and Steppenwolf exploded with "heavy metal thunder" when they delivered the all-time motorcycle anthem Born To Be Wild which featured prominently in "Easy Rider" and on their debut album; a little British trio calling themselves Cream put together a powerhouse album called Disraeli Gears which featured Slowhand himself, Eric Clapton, along with le...

First published   December 14, 2013 The first story I ever read by Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull , Illusions (The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah) , and a half dozen other visionary books of metaphysical wonder fiction, was a piece titled “It is said that we have ten seconds.” Bach was and remains one of my favorite writers, and when he claimed to have “received” the short manuscript of Jonathan Livingston Seagull in a vision, that in essence he merely took dictation, I not only believed him, I knew exactly what he was talking about. This was back in the early 70s, and Bach caught a lot of grief at the time for saying a voice from the Other Shore had whispered in his sleeping ear the words to what later became a national bestseller. Jonathan became for many the literary gateway to a whole new set of thoughtful introspective discussions, the kind best shared before a roaring fire in the deep, quiet hours of a cold night. My old man and I were two of thos...

First published.   October 4, 2013 A lonely violin plays behind the snowdrifts, and a sad three measures later a finely tuned piano fills the empty spaces. Her sweet fragrance wafts across the winter dusk, and every breath comes out as a pale vapor cloud that hangs in the air between him and the vacant place next to him on the bench. Noisy crowds interrupt his reverie and explode like Christmas fireworks: daughters and brothers, uncles and wives, dearest friends, punks and families, thieves and distant professors from nearby schools, all of them occupied and looking down. He looks up and thinks about her . . . . . . oh, God, how he thinks about her! Nearby a happy girl and clever boy huddle in each other’s arms, blind to strangers, to the glassy barren branches and icy paths before them, and plan to take a ride under blankets in a carriage. The night lights of the city look like heaven the way he used to dream it, and a plane overhead scatters angels. Skaters glide to organ t...

Originally published December 24, 2013 My path has been a long time missing. Or, more honestly, I have been lost for a long time. Twenty years, in fact.  Oh, there have been times when I’ve wandered back out of the woods and trod that old familiar trail again, but it seems there was always something- or somebody -calling to me from the shadows of the forest, and I, far more willing to be the pleaser than I cared to admit, too often left the path to satisfy my belief that I was supposed to do this, supposed to do that. To settle a score with my past and negotiate a deal with my future. I didn’t consciously choose the adventures I’ve had in my life, but on some level choose them I did. Passionate to discover what colors lay beyond the rainbow, I overshot opportunities and missed summons; ran from those who loved me and ran after those who didn’t. Ran just because there were meadows and skies and roads to run. Ran reckless toward the cosmos, let my spirit free fall and tumble w...