AMTIFY™

  Manhattan, New York Musings on a Trip to "The City" In the old days I took the train into Manhattan and back. Every day. I drove to the station, parked the car, walked to the platform, and got on the train. An hour and twenty minutes in, an hour and twenty minutes back. Rain, snow, heat, cold. Every day. I read the paper and some stuff in my obligatory briefcase, took a nap. No devices to play with, this was back in the dark ages. I never liked it much, but it was part of the price of rural living, so I traded time for woods and gardens. I wasn’t alone, many of my friends did the commute, and between them, the train friends created on the 6:18 every morning and then on the 8:28 every night, the routine went by fast, invisibly, leaving only a deeply entrenched dislike of traveling into Manhattan by any means whatsoever. A few weeks ago, I took the same train into The City, (not the 6:18 am, but it might  literally have been the same train…), but without carrying the planned ...

≈ May is Mental Health Awareness Month ≈ ∞ It’s Important  ∞        This Blog is really late, and I apologize. As I mentioned in my last Blog, we hosted a "Big Chill" at our home, pretty much a week of very old friends (literally and figuratively) all tied in some way to a small private college in late 1960’s Vermont. We didn’t party quite like we used to, but I think we delivered a respectable performance that honored the old days… (Checkout the soundtrack, one of the best) Rain dominated most of the week. It kept us inside together playing various “highly competitive” games, talking for hours, together and individually, walking the woods between storms, essentially a week-long reunion of longtime friendships, aging bodies, memory lapses, and stories that somehow improve with time.   Missing a week of blogging is hardly a crisis, but May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and that matters. The Month exists to emphasize the importance of mental well-be...

≈ ONE PERSON’S WALK IS ANOTHER PERSON’S STUDIO ≈ ∞ A Rock Is Not A Rock ∞ About a five-minute walk from my home sits roughly forty acres of open woodlands, stitched together with a quiet network of asphalt paths. They wind past a meadow that looks suspiciously like it’s waiting for someone with a canvas, a paintbrush, and talent. This small gift of nature exists thanks to a nearby rehab facility that owns the land and allows local residents to use it. The paths were built with intention, so recovery could include fresh air, steady movement, and the tranquility as important to health as the rehab. Without the pavement, it would be a proper woods trail, roots, rocks, potential ankle-twisting steps. The paths make nature way more accessible. I walk there often with my dog, who has far more pressing woodland concerns, primarily squirrel chasing. Along the way, I pass a rotating cast of residents. The stays are short, a week or two, so the faces change often. But the conversations don’t. ...

  ≈ The Dirt on Spring: A Philosophical Guide to Gardening and Life ≈ ∞ Because Every Important Life Lesson Starts With Dirty Fingernails ∞ Spring isn’t officially here, but for gardening, it’s here There is something deeply meaningful about the start of gardening season. Every year, particularly up in the Northern parts of our Country, we begin again. In a world that’s often looking for perfection and penalizes mistakes, (“I can’t believe I didn’t clear the water”), gardening is refreshingly forgiving. It expects catastrophic shots, hands you a shovel and says, “Go ahead. Fix it, no strokes applied”. This is the time of year a garden begins to reveal itself. When the Forsythia are “good morning” yellow, and the periwinkle’s purple flowers join the plants natural bed of green, and the daffodils daffodil and the hyacinths hyacinth in so many shapes and colors, that's all telling us that it’s time to get back to work, sorry, fun… The Audit. So, let’s get down to business. The ...

  ≈ Dogs. Can’t Live With ‘Em, Can’t Live Without Them ≈ ∞ The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same ∞ I was born in Doctors Hospital in Manhattan, which opened in 1929, a year that carries a certain… reputation. It was a small 14-story private hospital known as a "fashionable treatment center for the well-to-do." Sitting across from Gracie Mansion on the Upper East Side, overlooking Carl Schurz Park and the East River, a beautiful oasis in a busy city. Elegant, historic, and, judging by its patient list, Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Gleason, Clare Boothe Luce, and then me, pretty good company for a newborn. Gracie Mansion. If you visit NYC, visit Gracie Mansion, take a walk along the Hudson River My parents weren’t of the “well to do”, but the baby doc there served with my Dad during WW II and were fast friends, and friendship, it turns out, can occasionally outrank income brackets. So, I made my grand entrance into the world with a spectacular skyline ...

≈  An Interesting Four Week Stretch of Lunar Influence on Our Lives  ≈ ∞  A full-blown spiritual medley of religious traditions  ∞ The “just before Spring” Season isn't only about finally being warm enough to start yard work , this year happens to host an accompanying full-blown spiritual medley of religious traditions that speaks to togetherness. And honestly? The timing feels… helpful. From mid-March through April multiple major religious holidays overlap in a way that feels less like coincidence and more like the universe over booked humanity to force a fundamental gut check.  In order, in that period, Ramadan, Passover, Easter, Vaisakhi and  Ridván  are observed, including many other meaningful observances woven into the season.  Different faiths. Different beliefs. Different histories. And yet… oddly familiar. If you step back just a little, it starts to feel like everyone brought a  meaningful  dish to the same basic table. Th...