from a mountain bench

  • it’s just three pages

    Some of you seeing this know that I write “Morning Pages” every morning. A practice I began June 2011 and have continued every day since – three pages in a (wide-ruled) notebook. Again today,…

  • mama said there’d be days

    Last Wednesday I found my way into the Pacific Shores Dermatology and Skin Cancer Institute down the highway in Arroyo Grande. Following a full-body, amazingly detailed inspection, my PA informed me I had all…

  • we’re older

    “All trees wither and die in time, But the cypress in Zhaozhou’s yard flourishes forever. Not only does it defy the frost, keeping its integrity; It virtually sings with a clear voice to the…

  • cloud nine when I want to

    Picture this. I’m in my Oldsmobile 442 , cause why wouldn’t I own one, it’s summer, it’s Sunday, me and my brother Chuck Berry – “No particular place to go.” I’ve just trimmed my…

  • not knowing, most intimate

    Monday morning, my car blocked in by my landlord/housemate’s, who’s regularly out and up later than me, I left around 8:30 on a crazy long walk all the way to the downtown library, and…

  • time has come today

    One of the things I have come to love about San Luis Obispo is the way time takes its time here. I guess I notice it most often when I’m driving — I’m there…

  • a trail of bread crumbs

    A month or so before I moved from San Diego to San Luis Obispo I went to the post office and completed a ‘change of address’ form. Additionally, I verified it on-line, as directed.…

  • both sides now

    Though it’s always my intention not to, every once in a while in the blog I stray into my Zen practice, using that particular language, being all yakety yak about it. When I see…

  • it’s like this

    I haven’t yet discussed here in ‘from a mountain bench’ the special gratitude and bigger heart I feel and have for somehow creating a new space in which I can appear Mondays through Fridays…

  • Lula’s kid

    Long ago, when “couch surfing at 70” was still a thing, I offered a post about how grateful I was to live in a world that included Stevie Wonder. Yesterday I heard The Beach…