Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Michael Munas' LiveJournal:

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Friday, May 18th, 2012
10:37 am	Wild Sweet William I think it must be wild phlox that blooms near the road in shades of purple, lavender and white. It always leaves more quickly than it appears -- but for me, it is a reminder of all life. Sometimes when I am in a patient's room with family and when there isn't much time left, it makes me feel good to be able to laugh and listen to the stories of just what makes them more human than me. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 10th, 2012
9:01 am	You know you're loved... when someone gives you a telephone booth as a gift of adoration. So sayeth Clark Kent. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012
4:20 pm	For the short time we have I think most people have experienced a 'best last day' with someone. I've written about them before so I won't go into detail, but with my wife, it was a New Year's Eve about a month before she was gone, when we drank fake champagne together and played Parcheesi. For a small window of time she felt pretty good but was tired so I put her to bed at 10:30 and simply smiled and cried until midnight. With my dad, it was when I accidentally tipped his wheelchair in the soggy grass and fell over him as it rained and we laughed and laughed. Of course, I didn't realize what sort of fortunate days they were until later. I'd like to think that everyone has the opportunity for such a moment and it makes me curious about the experiences of others. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 30th, 2012
11:14 am	An Afternoon On the Montour; around milepost 11 In the places where strip mines once were, reclaimed meadows fill with scrub brush and this brings evidence of the incessant determination and renewal of life. Many of these shrubs have tiny yellow and white flowers that look like a smaller version of Honeysuckle -- but with a spicier fragrance, in a somewhat butterscotch way. I am reminded of you, as the scent of your skin on mine and all the mornings we may find together. If were king, I would save all the half-popped popcorn in the bag just for you because of you. * * * (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 18th, 2012
4:19 pm	January The shape of beauty is in the way hands move for others, willing and without recompense. My dad painted trees, especially bare ones and when all leaves fall as our thin skin turns gray I will forever see this form of you in brittle limbs. Age takes the body, but never its supple intention. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 12th, 2012
3:00 pm	A Hopeless Place Now and then I'll listen to pop music and some of it I enjoy, but recently there is one I hear fairly often that just gives me that screeching "nails-on-a-chalkboard" feeling. I guess everyone has a preference and while some folks may really like this song as well as the artist, I simply do not. Rihanna's We Found Love has intensely repetitive lyrics, comes replete with jerky organ music that reminds me of what you might hear at a major league baseball game (but not as good), and in several parts of the song there is another synthesized buzzing that sounds a whole lot like someone randomly blowing into a toy kazoo. I'm obviously in the minority here as I'm sure this song gets lots of airplay, hits on YouTube, and downloads. Of course, I felt about the same for one of the most downloaded songs ever -- The Black Eyed Peas', "I've Got a Feeling". So if you ever want insightful recording industry critiques, please do not look my way. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 10th, 2012
1:49 pm	Humus and Humate I remember you by such small things like spring beauties in the deep woods which flourish next the death of great trees knowing always that this is a part of life necessary and healing for all to follow (Comment on this)
Monday, April 9th, 2012
2:59 pm	El Camino A gentle reminder that life forever changes, as it brings grief and happiness, in letting go. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012
2:02 pm	The getting out is the release and birth of a thousand stars and a thousand more after Orion Nebula, NASA, Hubble Space Telescope Folks sometimes wonder why anyone would want to expose themselves to the sadness, pain and suffering of others. Really though, I think if we forever turn our cheeks, it still will wholly exist and certainly will never miraculously languish into nothingness. Surely good comes well-shaped and defined by sad, always in contrast but never as its overlord and to learn this constantly, is to bring a better life into your own heart. I promise. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, March 26th, 2012
10:22 am	A half of life gone, with the hope of half to go In some passing afternoon, with arms covered in paint, you apologized for being tattered, bare-legged and t-shirted. Yet beauty comes from places wrapped with your effort and not some shiny display or a fine-feathered hat in a window. I yearn for added years, but the now never empties into then, and only more and gloriously hopeful into will. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 21st, 2012
1:34 pm	Except maybe frogs, or something On Saturday, I rode forty-one miles along the Ohio River on a rail-trail that extends from the southern portion of Wheeling north to Wellsburg, WV. Near the northern end of the trail, there is a large tree that is purported to be the largest American Elm east of the Mississippi -- over 20 feet in circumference and a mere 382 years old. There are a few islands in the river and I like to imagine the peace one might find there. Once or twice of a night we would see a steamboat slipping along in the dark, and now and then she would belch a whole world of sparks up out of her chimbleys, and they would rain down in the river and look awful pretty; then she would turn a corner and her lights would wink out and her pow-wow shut off and leave the river still again; and by-and-by her waves would get to us, a long time after she was gone, and joggle the raft a bit, and after that you wouldn't hear nothing for you couldn't tell how long, except maybe frogs or something ~ From: "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", Mark Twain * * * Near the Pike Island Lock and Dam, is this sign (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, March 16th, 2012
2:41 pm	It is easy enough to walk by or ignore the needs of another But it is a successful way to live? What if everyone felt this way? Would you ignore the suffering of your neighbor, of the suffering of your pet, or of your mom? How about the guy down the street? Or what about some miscellaneous child you've never met suffering in another country? Should or would anyone care if you broke your leg in a foreign city, and further since no one knows you, would it be better and simply more practical and expedient to drag you off to the gutter along the side of the road in downtown Mogadishu? Heck sakes, for sure no one in Somalia knows your name or the sound of your voice. Would you matter there? Should you matter? Is it efficient to do so? After all, you tripped on that curb and why should anyone have to expend energy or resources for something that is apparently your fault. There is little in the way of logic I have to explain this, but there is something more than the practical which intimately surrounds all of our lives. I meet many new folks every week -- some healthy, some sick, and some dying. I may never see these people again but their lives matter to someone or someone's family, so they matter to me. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 7th, 2012
2:33 pm	Value (of memory) There are so many things to lose (tangible, warm, and living things) at a pace faster than perception allows yet there is great value in the hand that you held when small, or the shuddering shy release of yearning or the closeness once touchable in the scent of another * * * "I can feel you're still around and the dream overtakes me" ~ From: "Persistence of Memory", Afro Celt Sound System (Comment on this)
Thursday, March 1st, 2012
9:34 am	J. Wellington Wimpy "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a leftover restaurant oyster cracker today" (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, February 27th, 2012
4:52 pm	Isopsephy It isn't the dates, numbers or anniversaries that embrace grief in the highest sense, but it is certainly the vastly unique experiences and feelings of those taken together, that are emotive of the value in such numberings. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
2:59 pm	It is humbling and probably even healthy to at least know, that I know very little My mom used to recite these lines about an owl: A wise old owl lived in an oak The more he saw the less he spoke The less he spoke the more he heard Why can't we all be like that wise old bird? It seemed silly at the time, but even though somewhat hackneyed, was probably more sensible than I realized. * * * Study is like the heaven's glorious sun, That will not be deep-searched with saucy looks; Small have continual plodders ever won, Save base authority from others' books. These earthly godfathers of Heaven's lights That give a name to every fixed star, Have no more profit of their shining nights Than those that walk and wot not what they are ~ From: "Love's Labour's Lost", W.B. Shakespeare. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 19th, 2012
8:01 pm	Collection There is a section of bike trail leading to the airport that opened recently. It consists of two connected and paved (or somewhat paved) closed roads which lead through the remnants of where people used to live. Here and there are overgrown pines or the vague shape of something that might have been a driveway or foundation. I imagine this roadway has been closed for decades as there are old turnpike-style cable strung guide rails -- which are mostly overgrown with weeds, deslacked and broken. It is a relatively safe place to bike on the road without the danger of cars so it's easy to find yourself drifting in Walter Mitty fashion. This place makes me feel happy but also sad - the same kind of sad when I see a singular collection of old tools at a flea market. * * * In junior-high, I carried the Martin's Ferry Times-Leader. The route number was St.C.#6, averaged 56 papers and was $2.17/month. I had one of these to do the monthly collections: The pennies per push was adjustable and I, feeling very automated, had it set for three cents. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, February 17th, 2012
2:59 pm	So Most of the deaths I encounter in the emergency room are due to heart disease. In one moment, a man my age is routinely taking out the garbage at home and in the next all there is for the family to see is the stub of an intubation tube in the mouth of a lifeless body. If there is one thing I could say to folks, is to please do not wait until someone like me leads your grieving wife and family into a treatment room. It's really hard and really really sad. I promise. So please make yourself a promise -- to eat better food, and to start to make exercise a regular part of your life * * * I wake up and feel us entangling even when you are not there, I do. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 14th, 2012
11:29 am	Nine and Ten This was ten years ago. It doesn't seem so long ago, but then again, it does. Well the stars still have not fallen from sky and nine years ago today, I lost you. I am luckier than anyone imagines. * * * I depart as air—I shake my white locks at the run-away sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles. "You will hardly know who I am, or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged, Missing me one place, search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you." ~ From: "Leaves of Grass", Song of Myself, Walt Whitman (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 7th, 2012
11:19 am	How would you know if the touch of the world was in your hand? So often, I took for given, the comfort and safety of my dad snoring at 4:30am or even the scent and sound of hot soapy Tide-water churning in the wringer washer. They didn't seem so important then -- simply part of an every day everyday. It wasn't really the snoring or the washer -- rather it is why they were there that substantially defined their value. Sometimes when I get caught up in my own selfishness, I begin to miss those things immensely but then realize that the prints, scents and voices of others today may ultimately echo around my head in quite the same fashion. It's just hard sometimes to tell a green field from a cold steel rail but I sure am trying. (2 Comments |Comment on this)