AMTIFY™

≈ 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. ...