The Good

Just a little over a year ago I snapped a photo of Conor loading wood into the house in preparation for the coming winter. The next day I left for Thailand. So here I am, back at it, this time loading it in for Monica, participating in the cyclical routines of New England once more, all those last year logs gone up the chimney. It feels good hauling wood, purposeful and sane. Now some two months home, I have many blessings to count. The weather has been lovely. The leaves have turned a million fancy colors. I have seen a Met opera production in HD, soccer and field hockey played by exuberant teens on manicured green fields under crisp blue skies.

      I reside in an incredible condo perched on the Rockland Harbor, so I wake up to the ferry and the fishing boats heading out and grill freshly caught seafood on my deck in the evening as they return.

When I need a bit of a walk I can saunter in moments to the breakwater .

I find it difficult to take in the landscape and views- they are overwhelming in their immense perfection and loveliness. Granite. Pine. Seaweed and saltwater. Too, there are old friends. Well, face it, I am not great in the friends department. Mostly there is Dwight, who ditched me by taking his own year leave of absence to run a start up business. There's Tomas via a virtual connection in Portland. There is tennis and great gobs of good beer and dark chocolate. There are my cholesterol numbers- WOW! One year saw my level drop from a borderline Uh oh 231, to a you are going to live forever  183. There are many habits and consumables which have lost their luster all together- fodder for the next Negative Nancy post. There is my classroom and all the funny and endearing and tear-my-hair-out students, new and old. I like teaching, and it means I am getting to read some interesting new books, like The Devil in the White City and The Emperor of All Maladies, and revisit some old chestnuts, like Fahrenheit 451.

There is reuniting with the Triumph. That is more than good. That is a buzz on the balls that brings me one hundred percent into living in the present moment.

There is singing again with Voxx. That brings back the exquisite possibility of tuning into a group harmonic.
But the best of the best of the best thing about being back? An easy one- the chance to see and reconnect with my trio of wild sons. Each has grown in my absence, becoming increasingly interesting and independent beings. What a lucky father I am to know such rambunctious free thinkers.