Why wait for the dust to settle? Here are 10 bullets from my end.

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1. For two weeks each year, those of us who have annual passes to the city’s indoor pool laps are shifted to the Olympic-size outdoor pool instead. At 50 meters, it’s more than twice as long, a length that can be intimidating. Just eight laps outside equals my 18 laps indoors – a half-mile routine. Already there’s a feeling in the air that summer’s over. Yes, most of the flowers have already gone by. Evenings are cool; nightfall, definitely earlier. But the water’s crisp, and it’s fun anticipating the contrails of a jetliner-a-minute headed in or out of Logan down in Boston – even before you get to the soaring eagles.
2. Reviewing photos of our first years in our house, I find it painful to see how ugly the place was and how much progress we’ve made, still far short of our vision.
3. What would I be doing if I weren’t blogging?
4. In Genesis 3 (the second half of the Eden story), mankind loses its connection with (1) each other, (2) the earth, and (3) its God. One more dimension I’ve overlooked in my monograph!
5. Scratched my arms picking crabapples along the street. They seem to be public property.
6. A possible title, The Echo to Michigan, comes from overhearing, “We could take the Echo to Michigan.” Even that works better than “Toyoto Echo.”
7. My oeuvre, written on the run, on the fly? Catch as catch can.
8. I haven’t really retired but rather switched careers more fully to Quaker and writer. Though it seems there’s still not enough time for either.
9. Sugar Shoes. (Wherever that came from. Wherever it goes.) Pump up the Prayer Flags.
10. Just what kind of economic future are these kids facing?

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Being mindful of what’s right in front of us can always be a challenge. Here are 10 new items from my end.

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1. One definition of high summer for me: going to the beach for a swim at low tide and then stopping at the commercial fish distributor on the way home to pick out three lobsters followed by a stop at a farm a bit down the road for a dozen ears of corn picked just that morning. We’re soon feasting in the Smoking Garden, no problem making a mess. You know, the one-pot cooking thing for starters.
2. Someone’s cell phone goes off during worship, insisting “Please say a command.” On the page of the open Bible next to me is an answer, “That your joy be complete” (Jesus, in the gospel of John). Who’s to argue? Not a bad command, is it?
3. Falling walnuts hit the roof of our kitchen and sound like falling limbs or falling wooden boxes. Just where are our squirrels?
4. The joys of a sharp black fountain pen, excising a draft to lace.
5. There’s a restless in the core of our Seed. Usually, we try running from it. In silent worship, we stop to face it.
6. As a writer, I’m an orphan. And yes, so is the Lone Ranger, once unmasked at the mirror.
7. How deeply productivity is built into my psyche!
8. Inspired by Richard Brown Lethem’s painting “Wink/Blue Table,” I like the idea of a poem or story being its own table rather than representing something else. Even as its own Table of Contents. (Where he’s a monkey, I’m a squirrel – rather than the hawk I’d envisioned.)
9. “Closure victimizes thought” – Donald Revell on John Ashbery.
10. Step on a nail in the garden. What a sore sole the next day! In contrast to sore soul.

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