The Power of Joy

With the red of the maples and most of the other leaves gone, the green doors of summer open into the valley behind the house I grew up in. In the bewitching hour before sunset, I walk through the doors into a vast cathedral lit by the warm glow of  the yellow and gold leaves that remain. I roamed these hills and got lost here before I even went to grade school. I damned the stream and the caught a trout with a bright red leaf in this valley. I made my first fire, cooked my first meal, and slept on the ground for the first time in these woods. This is where I began becoming who I am. Before they were mine, these woods were farm fields. They have continued to become forest in the 35 years I’ve been gone. The irritating thorn trees and sticker bushes of my youth have been replaced with miles of impenetrable multi-flora rose strung through the understory like barbed wire along the front lines of war. The old dirt road has been a muddy mess since city sewage lines wer...

Huge, elaborate crystal chandeliers hang over the wooden bar like upside down wedding cakes flash frozen just as they began to melt in a hot wind. One wall is covered with shimmering glass mirror tiles, hand painted on the back but in front of the sliver, matched and mounted perfectly to create a 20' x 10'  Mediterranean scene. Vince was at the piano with sax, bass and drums sitting in. A black cowboy hat and black shirt with a red bandanna around his neck made a perfect spaghetti western costume for the still dashingly handsome and very Italian proprietor of the Italian family restaurant in town. (There’s one in every town in the east south of Vermont and north of Virginia, isn't there?) His rock covers were well played and well sung, if a little ponderous, but the jazz interludes in between betrayed his true gift. The real treat was the costume contest. Contestants came onto the stairs beside Vince as he noodled around for a song that fit their get up. Ther...

I’ve found a new love – riding the backroads of Bulter County, PA (35 miles north of Pittsburgh). Since April I’ve spent over 3 months here and logged at least 1500 miles over the hills, through the hollers, and along the cricks of Western Pennsylvania. Challenging terrain. Achingly beautiful farms and forests. My bones came from this soil. Flying and floating through the fields, farms and forests along these quiet rural roads is like discovering a symphony written just for me and being able to play all the instruments in the orchestra like a virtuoso. I came from these rocks, woods, cricks, and sky. As fall fades into winter, the mother that bore me into this land lies in the county home fading towards death. I’m  blessed with the time to grow closer to her as she moves farther away from everything she’s known. My daughter’s Waldorf education introduced me to the concept of head, heart and hands experience. Seeking those experiences has shaped and lead me thr...

A beautiful star filled night, head out the window of the gondola the whole ride home after skiing down to the village with torches in hand, watching the tops of frosted pine and aspen trees glide by in front of white and craggy peaks. A walk through town past restaurants full of smiling diners looking into each other's eyes and excited to be exactly where they are. Blessings to a beautiful life shown and voiced to the stars and red rock and shining snow surrounding me before walking into my condo to find a stocking that magically appeared while I was gone. Gratitude and contentment and passion for my life and this world and all who are in it on this very special night - a night as special as every one that has come before and has yet to come

I spied this bike in my sister's garage. A little air, a bolt and a right pedal from the local bike shop's spare parts bin, and I have a ride! Western PA is full of cricks and hollers - those are creeks and the small drainages they create to the rest of you - and there is a road through every holler and another one up and over every hill in between. That's the good news. The bad news is that there's almost never any shoulder and they've built giant shopping complexes in areas still served by the country roads created for farmers who tilled the fields beneath the Wally Worlds and Targets that displaced them. However, once you escape (or avoid) these slices of traffic-clogged panic, the road riding here is fantastic! Quiet roads through hill and holler with a mix of corn and fallow fields stretching out to the hazy horizon. Navigation is a bit tricky, as the roads follow the cricks and don't necessarily go where you think they would. I relied on the remn...

I jumped on a flight from Seattle to Pittsburgh after seeing Jackson Browne at the Ste. Michelle winery last Friday night. He opened with an acoustic set with David Lindley, his guitarist on his classic hits and a stringed instrument virtuoso. David played with the band as well, showcasing his talents throughout the night on what appeared to be a lute, a lap steel, a dobro, a fiddle and maybe even some sort of sitar (we did not sit close and I am not an expert on acoustic instruments). The acoustic set, capped off with a solo performance by David about head cheese and rotten sandwiches served to the musicians backstage at a Marin County Health and Wellness Festival, was my favorite. Jackson came back with a stellar band and delivered what the crowd wanted, showcasing their true talents with an encore set of the blues standard 'Buy me a Mercury' and his own reggae-vibed song of hope. His values, songwriting, voice and authenticity...

The Chuckanuts may not be wilderness, but they are mountainous, wild, and just outside my door. Wednesday I rode a good chunk of them on a pretty good 9 1/2 hour tour on an absolutely perfect summer day. Riding from home on the south side of Bellingham, we headed to the Chuckanuts on the Interurban Trail, turning left to ascend through Arroyo Park . A new set of switchbacks on the lower part enabled my first clean ascent of the connector to the Hemlock Trail . The first 'summit' was the intersection of Hemlock and Pine and Cedar Trails, 1400' and 3.8 miles from Arroyo Park, followed shortly by the lakes themselves, the first of six lakes on the tour. When I don't have all day, a quick left at the intersection to descend Pine and Cedar Trail to Old Samish Way and back to Arroyo makes a great 75 - 90 minute tour and workout. But we did have all day, taking a rather faint right just before the main trail descends to Cedar Lake. This connector was a bit overgrown, as i...