Reasons

I truly believe that things happen for a reason. I think I am the person I was meant to be. I think we make choices in life that make us who we are. I am the product of my choices and my ponderings. Every thought, every action and every reaction, every feeling from those thoughts, actions and reactions, every insight from them, they all served to make me into the spiritual being that I am today. I am the sum total of my thoughts, insights and memories. This is who I am...today. I may become someone else tomorrow.

A little story about shoes…

When my son Tim was 5 he played tee ball. During his first season he was at bat in the final game of the season when time was called. A member of the opposing team, the pitcher, needed to tie his shoes. As I stood on the sidelines and noticed the lull in the game, I thought to look at my son to see how he handled the break. He stood there intent on the pitcher, watching the player tie his shoes. Looking at my son, I noticed a thought process in his mind. What was he thinking? Was he concentrating on the ball, thinking about meeting the ball with the bat? Was he thinking about his swing, 'keep it level, elbow up, watch the ball', all the instructions that his coaches and myself had told him? He was really concentrating.
When play resumed, Timmy put the ball in play, where it went by two infielders and he ended up on first base with a "hit".
Later that day, I decided to ask my son about it.
"Tim, what were you thinking when you were batting and that other player was tying his shoes?" I asked.
"I was thinking, 'I wish I could tie my shoes'."
And there you have it. Parents. We have this perception of who and what we think our kids are. That perception can be way off base. I was really expecting a baseball answer. I was thinking that all the knowledge we instilled in him had taken, but he had just turned 5. He was still just a baby. Caught in that middle ground of being thrust into school, wanting to be like the older kids. Wanting to know and learn.
That summer we worked on tying his shoes. This year we are working on Algebra. Time flies.

"Things to do while waiting in traffic".

There was a recent news report about time spent in traffic for the daily work commute. While watching that report I thought about the time I spend waiting in traffic. It occurred to me that we all have to face the traffic and I thought it would be nice to come up with a few ideas to kind of kill time during those idle moments. In searching for those ideas I went to that trusty source of information, that trendy dictionary and encyclopedia, the Internet. I ran a search on several engines for "What to do while waiting in traffic". Unfortunately, the only information that I could come up with was from a guy named 'Mr. Traffic'. He essentially said "keep your eyes on the road." Well I wanted a little more than that. It is good advice but that should be done all the time. I figured that I would have to look elsewhere. I racked my brain and came up with a few ideas of my own.

I figured that we didn't want to waste our time so the time spent should be productive. It is not practical to read a book or the newspaper, but you can get books on tape or listen to news or talk radio. But I don't know about you but talk radio gets my blood pressure up. Audio books are great. I listen to motivational books or tapes. They help to keep my spirits up. And they teach me good habits for living in the today's world. I find this very relaxing. Listening to music is also a very good occupation for the automobile. It soothes the soul and helps fight road rage.

I find all of these to be worthwhile pursuits but if you are really pressed for time and need to kill two birds with one stone there may be something else that you should consider. It is very easy to cook dinner while you are waiting in traffic. All you need is food and a piece of foil and, of course, a hot engine.

In one of my other lives I used to be a chef. One of my specialties was cooking fish. Some of our specials for dinner were called en papillote, or cooking in paper or a pouch. This can be easily adapted to the automobile. It may mean taking the food into work in the morning and having it ready but the cooking time is done away with because it is the commute time. This method works very well. All you really have to do is to put a piece of fish or chicken (pork and beef work okay) on a piece of foil. Top with your favorite vegetables and seasonings. Roll the foil around the meat and make sure that the seal is tight. You want to keep the air and juices, the flavor, inside the pouch. The next step that you have to do is choose a good safe spot in the engine compartment of your car. A lot of people have suggested right on top of the air filter. All cars are different so I think that a bit of study is needed to properly determine a safe spot. And by the time you get home dinner is ready. Just think, all you have to do then is set the table and open a nice bottle of wine-a nice romantic dinner. You really won't believe it.

Don't take my advice on this. Do your research before you stick the food in your engine compartment. I don't want to be responsible for you missing dinner. Just check it out and have some fun with it.

Thanks for reading.

Dreams

I was looking through my notes for something to write about tonight. I found something that I was working on about 7 years ago and stuffed away into a corner. It brought to mind why I am doing this.

We all have dreams. Dreams are created and die everyday. They really take nurturing to make them productive and fruitful. I stopped nurturing my dreams a few years ago. Well, no. I stopped nurturing some of them. I traded one dream for another. Now I want them both.

I dreamt of getting married and having a family. Then I met this girl. And we got married. There is a long story there, but I will save that for another day. I have been married for almost twenty years now. I wouldn't trade those years for anything. Through the good times and bad times we have been together. She is my soulmate. We talk everyday. About silly things, about important things. We have two beautiful kids.

My family has absorbed a great amount of my time and love over the past twenty years and now that my kids are growing I am finding that now I have time for those forgotten dreams. Tonight I found my notes from the week before my brother took off on his dream vacation -- two months in Alaska. These are my notes:

(I used to have plans like my brother. But then I got married. Settled down, got sensible about life.)

" A poem about forgotten dreams.

I had a list of places to go.
So many years ago.
In a moment of despair,
I buried my list somewhere
Packed away the maps.
Closed all the windows
and sold the car
Don't get around much anymore."
David Normand, C. 1999

There you go. The life of a poet. We write more notes than real poems.

I am 49 years old. Over the last three months my health has gone from fair to less than fair. I said good bye to a well respected boss, a person I admired, who was six months younger than myself. I spent a weekend in the hospital. All of these events have taught me that the time is now. You don't get a second chance. I have spent my life waiting for... just about everything. Waiting for the time to be right. I never really understood all of the inspirational quotes I have read. I read them all differently now.

I am not sure who said it originally, GB Shaw?, but to paraphrase: The real winners are not the ones with easy success but the ones who go out and, not finding the situations that they need for success, they go out and create their own situations.

I guess that is what I am doing here. I am creating my own situation. Creating my own success. I guess I will find out how well it works out. If it is a mistake, so be it, or a waste of time...No it could never be a waste of time. I do remember one quote from GBS that mentions that:
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
George Bernard Shaw

I hope everyone is doing well. Take care. Follow your dreams.
David

Squirrels

Several months ago I read an article on the squirrel problem in Santa Monica and how the authorities were giving out squirrel birth control pills to control the population. It really hit home.

When I worked in the Sierras my rental home was in a neighborhood with an abundance of tall, old pine trees. I was sitting on my deck late one summer afternoon, when I heard a noise coming from a neighboring vacant summer house. Something was falling from the trees. Tap. Tap. Tap. Significantly spaced and almost melodic. I could not figure out what it was. I was transfixed on the deck. It just kept going on.

I scanned the trees and noticed a little squirrel about 3/4 of the way up. He had a pine cone wedged on the branches. He was gently stripping away the scales of the cone to get to the pine nuts. The cherished nut he either ate or stuffed in his cheek and then he let the unwanted scale fall. Tap. Tap. Tap. I must have watched him for twenty minutes.

This gentle episode has been etched in my memory for nearly 25 years. I find great pleasure in it. I hope that, perhaps in the future, when Santa Monica's squirrels have all been eradicated that maybe someone will cherish their memory as much.

My first blog

My name is David. I consider myself a poet. Whether you consider me one is part of this question. I have wanted to post a blog for some time now. I think I have something to say. We shall see.

As I was putting together these words, I asked myself "who am I?" I must say that I was at a loss for description. Because I do consider myself, and everyone else, too, a work in progress. I was torn between talking about my life as purely Chronologically, letting you know where I have lived and why I moved around, or telling you about who I am or rather what makes me, me.

I decided to do both. I will not bore you with the details of everyday life except to tell you that I have lived all over this country. I was born and partly raised in Sacramento, CA and moved to the mountains when I was 7 years old. At that point my dad realized that his entire family was allergic to the pollen in the air and he moved us all to the foothills of the Sierras to the fresh air. It was there that I learned to love nature and the mountains. I didn't stay there very long. Two years later my family moved to Buffalo, New York. We spent two frozen winters in Buffalo before moving to the humid deep south in New Orleans. I loved New Orleans. I loved the history, the old forts and the battlefield. Finally, when I was about 20 my family moved back to California. I was not doing anything in New Orleans at the time so I moved here with them.

I grew up in New Orleans. And somewhere I learned to write. But I was never as good as I truly thought I had to be. I don't know where the pressure came from but I felt that I had to be the best. After high school I wandered about. Searching for something.

Let me know about your searches. Maybe we can get a great discussion going.

I have lived in the mountains of California (1960's and 1980's) , through the winters of Buffalo, New York (1960's) , through hurricanes in the New Orleans Ninth Ward (1970's) , and in the paradise of San Diego, California (1990's to present) . I have loved and lost, and loved and won. I continue to savor that victory.