Manic Frustration “If I do not write to empty my mind, I go mad.” ~Lord Byron

Additional photos from the January 25th show in Philadelphia

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The words have not ripened. They're still growing within the fields of thoughts sprawling through my mind. I've spent the year gazing over the endless acres of memories. Taking a broad look. Watching the growth. Now, as the year ends and the snows near, it's time to look closer.

Now, I'll look at the pebble and not the mountain. Trace its subtle curves and grooves.  I'll gaze into the puddle, not the storm, and watch each drop of rain expand through ripples. Concentrate on the minute and not the hour. It's time to focus in on the details. Harvest my words and prepare them with great care.

Pages turn as I catch up on my reading. Patience sets in while I wait for submission responses. And my pen, my typer and the keys of my laptop begin to chisel away at the granite. It's time to sit before the blank, white expanses of what could be and create. Time to roll up my sleeves like Hamsun's Isak, dig in and bleed.

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With the new year closing in, many things have been running through my mind. The holiday season is a time of interaction, not only with family, friends and disgruntled shoppers, but with thoughts and memories of the year passed.

I look at the soles of my boots to see where I've been. Toward the mountains to see where I'm headed. I never look too far ahead anymore, though. One lesson I'm walking away with this year is that the future is never guaranteed. Right now, where my feet stand, is the only moment promised. And even that can be fleeting.

I've been remembering back further and further to past holidays. Joyful and miserable. Times spent in the company of family or good people. Times spent alone. Times spent grieving.

All of the memories have a way of  whittling down the excess of the season leaving me with a clearer view of the core. Instead of seeking shinning wrapping paper and disposable like I did as a child, I look for a smile. A laugh. Warmth.

During winter, moments seem to hang suspended like photographs. Maybe we all just slow to take it in. Remember it better. Etch the seconds into our mind to relive time and time again.

Here's to another year. Here's to experience. Here's to life.

It's been a long, stressful, busy and, most of all, wet month(s). On the surface, in Tunkhannock, everything seems back to normal since the flood. The roads are clean and clear of mud and people go about their normal business.

Look closer.

Brick's Market is "Closed until further notice". There's still a drooping barrier of caution tape strung across the parking lot of Gay's True Value. In small corners, I find caked mud. Stains of oil. Ghosts of the flood remain on stalks of corn and trees in pale shadows left by the water.


While driving around, I've felt I've been sailing. Waterfalls are still pouring down the side of Avery Mountain and the Susquehanna runs muddy and high along its banks. Route 92 was closed for a second time just last week.

The weather sways like an erratic pendulum taunting me with shining, beautiful days only to pull blankets of dark, miserable clouds across the sky dumping sheets of rain down over hills and across my face.

Leaves are beginning to change and fall, covering my lawn in speckles of reds and yellows. I find myself closing my window at night to keep the chill out and, in the morning, it's harder to leave the comfort of my blankets. Even the sun finds it hard to come out. I smell winter coming.

Jack, my niece's horse who stands quietly behind the weathered wood of the old barn, will grow thick with a winter coat. Snow will fall, clinging to the lashes around his dark eyes. His breath will billow out in gentle clouds around his snout.

Watch the trees grow naked. Feel the crisp retreat of another summer. Another year. Unpack the jackets and mittens and store away the memories created in the passing months. Pick pumpkins from the field and cut character into their face while you drown in cider. This is the winding down of time.

The deep slumber of the land is coming. The hollow winds of winter. Blank canvases of land lit by the moon and pinpoint stars.

Another year is just beyond the banks of snow to come. All is reborn when the last bits of ice melt away and hearts begin to beat faster.

This Packard has been sitting silently all winter long in the driveway and smiling the whole time. Bearing the chill and the cold of the outdoors in serene patience. I stopped to look at it today before hustling indoors to my typer and a beer.

Yes, I still use a typewriter. It carries me away from the plugged-in and tuned-out, fast-paced world of technology to a simpler time. A time when getting from point A to point B was enjoyable and not a deadline. Are we there yet? Who cares. Enjoy the scenery. It may be slower, but the typer is a lot easier on the eyes and music to my ears compared to the sterile hum of the computer.

Back to the clacking of keys and scribblings of my pen.

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