Michael Munas

Something new

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 18:42:02 GMT

I'm attending a cross-country skiing workshop next week at the local REI store.

I am a little bit afraid, but willing to give this a try. In spite of the numerous unknowns, old geezers like me, need to be brave.

* * *

Some folks seem to be nourished by infractions. It's as if they want someone to violate their character in a way that justifies the gluttony of empty calories

Continuous Welded Rail

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 20:46:11 GMT

When I lost my balance, I'd jump from rail to rail
while the sun baked liquid creosote from the ties.
This scented the air as did the drying cinders and slag.
Bent spikes and broken knuckles littered the siding
and frog's eggs floated in the ditches to each side

I still lose my balance now and then, but I'm not there now.

As inflexible as it seems, track rail is pliable in great lengths -- and so can you.

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.
~ Albert Camus

Of

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 19:32:21 GMT

I had a great bike ride yesterday with my son (Andy, but I call him Jowe).
Actually, it wasn't so much the ride as it was the company and conversation.

We talked about fear and how it plays into our lives.

There is so much anyone can do, but may never experience simply because of fear:

Of change
Of passion
Of adventure
Of risk
Of capability
Of choices

Even though Hamlet had much information, he still struggled with decisions and even his own heart. He anguished over choices as we all tend to do.

Near the end of the ride, I felt like my legs could go no more, but I managed with his encouragement.

If the boy in me can be half the man that my son is, I'd be a pretty lucky guy.

Two things Fred Rogers said:

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 02:12:32 GMT

1) Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.

It finally snowed, so I got the chance to use my new hydraulic snow blade on the John Deere today. Even on slippery grades it pushes pretty well with four-wheel drive and tire chains. If my toes and pants didn't freeze, I would stay out there for hours.

2) If only you could sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.

I feel better now.

Anchors Aweigh

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:05:33 GMT

I visited with an elderly patient the other night and even though he was in his eighties, he was quite sharp -- a one time lawyer and Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas justice.

He spoke about missing his deceased wife and ultimately we agreed that in spite of all the king's horses and all the king's men, one of most healing things imaginable, rests simply in our own hearts. It has much to do with discovering certain qualities of honor and perhaps living life in a way that we imagine might make them proud.

Everyone has lost someone they've loved. Yet, some folks choose to wear grief like an anchor, while others ultimately learn to flourish because of it.

And this is for you, my friend:

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: "Song of Myself",Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman

How do you allow the speckle of stars?

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:50:54 GMT

There is something to learn from anyone when they are getting what they want and expect, but there is much more to learn when they are not. If the polite and mannered become foul and vitriolic when denied, were they ever really?

Sisyphus forever pushed a rock forever back up the mountain, but as Camus described, we could be more than okay with such a tragedy -- If we allow it.

Soon as it was night out we shoved; when we got her out to about the middle we let her alone, and let her float wherever the current wanted her to; then we lit the pipes, and dangled our legs in the water, and talked about all kinds of things -- we was always naked, day and night, whenever the mosquitoes would let us -- the new clothes Buck's folks made for me was too good to be comfortable, and besides I didn't go much on clothes, nohow.

Sometimes we'd have that whole river all to ourselves for the longest time. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the water; and maybe a spark -- which was a candle in a cabin window; and sometimes on the water you could see a spark or two -- on a raft or a scow, you know; and maybe you could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from one of them crafts. It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened. Jim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened;

~ From "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", Mark Twain

Green Pepper Walls

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 02:40:48 GMT

When someone asks me what my favorite color is, I vacillate and ultimately stumble. But when someone asks what my two favorite colors together are, it's easy.

I had a really great ride today. The clay and stone banks along the old railroad right-of-way were crisp against a clear sky. With the sunny cold, I felt more invigorated, so rather than strength, I worked more on rhythm, breathing and balance. It was fun and it felt good to be alive, to have warm clothes and to have the opportunity.

I can't say it is one color over the other, or even both -- but the sharp interface between that fascinates me.

The Montour Creek is frozen at the edges where it gradually transitions into a milky sheet and further towards the center of the flowing water, where it is a wet, glass-clear crisp of what I like to think of as water-ice. Not simply water or ice. It may be one of the reasons this song will always be warm in my hand.

When someone dies, there is a transition that I can't begin to explain. At the instant, I don't feel sad. When each of my kids were born, I was momentarily stunned and couldn't speak.

There must be a purpose and healthy notion in the manner and way such things bubble to the surface. Lack of understanding notwithstanding, instants of transition, whether life-changing or trivial, seem to teach you something good. Like Oatmeal.

So convinced was I that I was in motion...

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:45:41 GMT

One of the most challenging yoga asanas or poses is Savasna. It is a basic relaxation which seems simple enough, but it really isn't.

I often carry tension in my mouth, jaw and neck and as I do, I ruminate about this or that, and find myself forever drifting away from the moment. However, on occasion I have been able to fall deeply into this -- so much so, that I literally begin to feel like I'm chemically high.

I like to imagine that I'm in a state much like this:

Once, in this same mineral Sahara, I was taught that a dream might partake of the miraculous. Again I had been forced down, and until day dawned I was helpless. Hillocks of sand offered up their luminous slopes to the moon, and blocks of shadow rose to share the sands with the light. Over the deserted work-yard of darkness and moonray there reigned a peace as of work suspended and a silence like a trap, in which I fell asleep.
When I opened my eyes I saw nothing but the pool of nocturnal sky, for I was lying on my back with outstretched arms, face to face with that hatchery of stars. Only half awake, still unaware that those depths were sky, having no roof between those depths and me, no branches to screen them, no root to cling to, I was seized with vertigo and felt myself as if flung forth and plunging downward like a diver.
But I did not fall. From nape to heel I discovered myself bound to earth. I felt a sort of appeasement in surrendering to it my weight. Gravitation had become as sovereign as love. The earth, I felt, was supporting my back, sustaining me, lifting me up, transporting me through the immense void of night. I was glued to our planet by a pressure like that with which one is glued to the side of a car on a curve. I leaned with joy against this admirable breast-work, this solidity, this security, feeling against my body this curving bridge of my ship.
So convinced was I that I was in motion, that I should have heard without astonishment, rising from below, a creaking of something material adjusting itself to the effort, that groaning of old sailing vessels as they heel, that long sharp cry drawn from pinnaces complaining of their handling. But silence continued in the layers of the earth, and this density that I could feel at my shoulders continued harmonious, sustained, unaltered through eternity. I was as much the inhabitant of this homeland as the bodies of dead galley-slaves, weighted with lead, were the inhabitants of the sea.
~ From: Wind, Sand and Stars, Antoine de Saint Exupéry as translated by Louis Galientiere

Over the weekend, I took a reading of my blood pressure after a successful relaxation, and it was 87/55mmHg. A few years ago before I started any sort of biking or exercise, I was typically in Stage 1 hypertension (around 140/90 or greater). I exercise now and try to limit my sodium intake to well under 1500mg/day and consequently I usually hover around 120/80.
My goal is to avoid taking medication, if possible. Both my parents had extreme Stage 2 hypertension and so I guess I'm genetically disposed for that sort of thing.

* * *

One of my aunts died yesterday. I spent many summer weeks at her house when I was young. She was a wonderfully sensitive lady and always so good to me. I know dying is a part of life, but still it makes the feeling of alone just a little larger. We used to get together with so many bits of family and now so many of those folks are gone.

This is me in her yard with her dog (I think I still have those glasses stuffed in a drawer somewhere):

"Weight" Until

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:41:49 GMT

If I wait until I have the time, I may never have it.

Accomplishment is tough. My axiom is that things usually take about six times the effort you first envision.

I remember sitting in dark smelly bars in my twenties, listening to folks that were sincerely going to do many grand things with their lives. It seems that it is just fine to dream about the big picture, but if we choose to ignore the small or mundane daily routines/tasks, nothing much in a larger sense ever gets done.

When my workshop in the garage is cluttered, I don't really want to be there. It's tough stepping over the mess and it drains my enthusiasm quickly. But if I spend a little time to organize and make it a bit neater, I miraculously find tons of hidden energy -- energy which is almost always rooted in and founded by motivation.

It has little to do with how much sleep I've had or if I've already expended a gagillion calories that day.
* * *
"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
~ Albert Camus

Nineteen seventy-something or another

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:27:55 GMT

Even though you may have never been, I'd spend hours trying to imagine you into life -- or at least,
enough so that I could feel the softness in your shoulders.

Real men pour over 401k's, deer hunts, and fantasy-football picks; but those scores, like cuneiform, have never meant anything to me.

This is the scent that I cannot describe which forever marks me.

Somewhere around licking the beater, mixing bowl and spoon

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:30:14 GMT

When my mom would make pies, she would usually cut the leftover pie crust into strips, sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on them, and then roll them before baking. They weren't particularly soft or chewy -- actually rather dry and crumbly, but they were delicious.

My Serbian grandmother (Baba) used to take her leftover bread dough and make fried bread for us. It was as close to heavenly as food can get.

The Edge of a Field

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:18:58 GMT

We drove into the gas station and heard the familiar ding-ding as we ran over the signaling hose. I remember going inside and how it smelled of curing enamel, Go-Jo hand cleaner and motor oil. My dad gave me a dime for the candy machine. The well-worn dispenser had a hammered-metal muted green finish and a mirror on the front with the word "Candy" written in a deco-script on the face.

I miss the mechanical sound it made when pulling the handle and the dropping thud as the bar fell into the tray.

More, I miss the tangible feeling of that love I knew and to this day, I never learned why the mirror was there. I once thought my dad knew and could do everything. I was safe with that comfort but, in reality, he was just as frail as me. It didn't matter though, because the distance drawn on my chest is carved into my skin like fence posts at the edge of a soft field.

"Ploughed Field", Caspar David Friedrich, c1830

Golda and Lyndon

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:02:40 GMT

Could they have been brother or sister...or even one-in-the-same?

I'm showing my age here.

The Snows, Then

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 04:00:36 GMT

I've been noticing more hornet's nests this year. This one I saw on a bike ride yesterday and there are many more scattered everywhere. Maybe it is simply that I haven't been paying much attention. I don't know.

If I've learned a new word that is interesting, it seems to pop up everywhere -- in books, magazines, on the internet, etc. With all my senses and very often, I cannot remember ever seeing it before then.

What I'm missing now and were the snows really deeper?

Maybe, if I want them to be.

What was it that Ram Dass wrote?

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:53:27 GMT

Wearing my dad's army coat and a straw hat, I'd sit for hours alone in front of the Corner Deli or on the steps of the Belmont County Courthouse, simply watching cars pass and usually wondering about a girl.

In 1977, I smoked Vantage cigarettes (and other things) and ate as much "Home Pizza" with extra cheese as often as I could.

And then you end up growing into a whole new life -- actually, several of them.

I'd like to say, I miss how it was but not so much as to debase what is, in any substantial way.

I like being here.

A Perfect Circle

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:59:51 GMT

When I was younger, I craved an ever-evolving set of interests. I wanted to be the best at so many things -- now I yearn more for balance in my life.

I realize I cannot master or even pursue every notion that passes through my heart or head. Instead, I know I must choose which ones to develop to some level of proficiency and temper these personal interests with the needs and interests of those around me. I am not alone in this world and nor do I ever want to be.

So many folks wait for what they perceive to be the optimum circumstance, person, material, brush stroke, or word -- as if there is going to be another lifetime that will magically present itself.

If I had a No. 2 pencil, if I had the best lighting, if I only had the time.

When it never arrives, what happens?

No one cannot draw a perfect circle and though it is close, even this fellow is not able to do so.

Thanks to what I learned from my father, I know will never achieve anything in perfection.
In balance, I want to be somewhat good at several things, and strive to be a wee bit better at a few.

It's not so much what is actually in the box

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:46:58 GMT

My mom would carry me to the living room couch on mornings before school. For breakfast, she usually made cinnamon toast and a cup of scratch cocoa. It didn't matter that it was practically all sugar. She always made my school lunch and then when I started working in the coal mine, she packed my dinner bucket.

In my mind, it was a delicate tether to home and a tangible reassurance of her love. When I drank the dusty chlorine-flavored municipal water from the bottom compartment of the bucket, I felt it.

* * *

"The perfect gift for me will always be a box." ~ Concrete Waffer

Do you still have your pants?

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:10:12 GMT

I went to the dentist for a cleaning/exam on Thursday evening. I cleaned gutters and used my Cyclone-Rake on Friday. I worked 8-1/2 hours at the hospital and then did grocery shopping on Saturday. I bicycled 20 miles with two intense climbs and raked more leaves/mowed on Sunday. I've been doing yoga every day for several weeks now but my knees still don't want to straighten in a forward bend. Even though I am addicted to it, I have limited my cheese intake substantially as my total cholesterol count in September was 197. Cutting down salt and exercise has helped lower my blood pressure -- it now is typically 120/75. I'm 53 and still not on any medication and I can bore the pants off just about anyone.

Sometimes, it's easier to see when you're not looking directly

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:00:42 GMT

When I was little, I didn't really know anything about the Doppler Effect. I only knew that it made that sound when something like a car, train or truck went by me.

I couldn't even begin to identify the variation in pitch or any of the mechanics but I genuinely felt its nature and this became imprinted in me -- without concept, words or explicabilty.

I suppose we don't always have to know.

For a reason akin, this has always been a treasure to me:

Study is like the heaven's glorious sun
That will not be deep-search'd 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: "Loves Labours Lost", Act 1 Scene 1, W.B. Shakespeare

Mostly the Lesser

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:46:09 GMT

I have arguments with myself and seldom win
mostly the lesser person never does.
It takes entanglement to realize
that I will know much less
than more him
forever.

Push

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:34:01 GMT

I was listening to Lilias Folan the other day and she mentioned several of the important things which the study of yoga had brought into her life. She said that rather than her giving up cigarettes when it all began, that they instead gradually gave her up.

It seems like we forever are actively trying to push the bad from our lives, and we fail more often than we'd like.

I thought, at first, that I would begin this to improve my bicycle handling and flexibility but I believe there may be much more here.

* * *

I love my life: the opportunities and what it has brought to me. I have more energy than I would have ever expected or imagined possible. Nearly every day I feel this.

I've been called manic but I can't find a slot where I'd fit into the classic DSM-IV. I really don't know what I am in this regard.

The Country Kitchen Buffet

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:03:31 GMT

I hope in my writing that I never settle for simple documentation on what I've eaten in a day.

When we are young, we seldom make a fuss or express concern over who has the best green beans or mashed potatoes, but with age our lives become more sedentary and often can quiet to such a point that what we can easily become consumed by the ritual of eating.

I suppose in the coming days, I'll be tempted to revel in a menu, but for now the foraging sounds of shuffling feet and scraping teeth will keep me at a safe distance and I will continue to rage, rage...

* * *
"I think about this moment and what I am going to do." -
-- Jack LaLanne

Where folks go

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:52:00 GMT

I wrote this several years ago and it reminds me of the precious times I spent alone when I was young. It could have just as easily been a cardboard box I once had or a hideaway shelf in my mom's linen closet(or "press" as she called it).

Where the boughs of the pines hang so low
to reach the almost-touching carpet of needles
I lay for hours, safely between two quiet horizons
singing my wishes to tinder-dry blackened twigs
and whitened pine-sap, dried in graceful contrast

Silly boy, what are you thinking?

There are things we wish
There are things we miss
But in wishing and missing
We are yet and always:
Almost touching

I like this poem

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 01:27:04 GMT

First Gestures
by Julia Spicher Kasdorf

Among the first we learn is good-bye,
your tiny wrist between Dad's forefinger
and thumb forced to wave bye-bye to Mom,
whose hand sails brightly behind a windshield.
Then it's done to make us follow:
in a crowded mall, a woman waves, "Bye,
we're leaving," and her son stands firm
sobbing, until at last he runs after her,
among shoppers drifting like sharks
who must drag their great hulks
underwater, even in sleep, or drown.

Living, we cover vast territories;
imagine your life drawn on a map--
a scribble on the town where you grew up,
each bus trip traced between school
and home, or a clean line across the sea
to a place you flew once. Think of the time
and things we accumulate, all the while growing
more conscious of losing and leaving. Aging,
our bodies collect wrinkles and scars
for each place the world would not give
under our weight. Our thoughts get laced
with strange aches, sweet as the final chord
that hangs in a guitar's blond torso.

Think how a particular ridge of hills
from a summer of your childhood grows
in significance, or one hour of light--
late afternoon, say, when thick sun flings
the shadow of Virginia creeper vines
across the wall of a tiny, white room
where a girl makes love for the first time.
Its leaves tremble like small hands
against the screen while she weeps
in the arms of her bewildered lover.
She's too young to see that as we gather
losses, we may also grow in love;
as in passion, the body shudders
and clutches what it must release

Fifteen-Minute Recess

michaelx56@yahoo.com — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:37:45 GMT

With rust-smelling hands on the cold, rough bar
here settled wishes for a lasting hand of warmth
reflected and cast from the sunshine of her in late winter
(long shadows wound around the howling metal)
I wonder if she, would remember the yearn
or would it matter that a favorite flannel and faded denim
were the whispers of desire without ever knowing