About a month to go

Julia and I are moving to Raleigh, North Carolina in about a month.

Of course, when you have a month to get ready to move from a house you have lived in for nearly 11 years, a house with a full basement and a family with a slight tendency toward accumulation of stuff, you need to stay busy with sorting (this goes with us, this is trash, this is...oh, look! What is this? I better spend an hour paging through this material which has had no importance to me at all for the last ten years!) and boxing for shipment or tossing into the trash/recycle/giveaway piles.

And, if you are the Hamricks, you take a two-week break right in the middle and drive 1350 miles to the cottage on the lake.

We have a perfectly reasonable explanation: there is work to be done in the house to make it ready for renting to some loving family who will take care of our home by making it their home for as long as they want. The work can happen more efficiently if we aren't in the way.

Any reasonable explanation for heading to the lake (Lake Michigan, really an inland sea) is one we accept and dutifully act to align with.

It means we need to be really productive between now and head-for-the-lake day, and we will need to be really productive when we get back, but we both know that the break will do us a world of good.

We invested a tremendous amount of energy in launching Choosing Easy World, Julia's new book which was released a month ago today and is doing very well (thanks for asking!), and to go straight from that project to the moving-prep project was looking a bit too much like not-easy to us.

So, we will do all we can do until it is time to leave for Michigan, take our break and enjoy it just as if every day there is one which offers us all that is nurturing, fulfilling, and refilling of the reservoirs of energy, then come home and pick up stakes.

It is an exciting time. Julia is going home, as she has lived the majority of her life in North Carolina, and I'm going to my ancestral home--I was born in Chapel Hill, but have lived 95% of my life elsewhere, most of it in Denver--where both my dad and mom's families of origin put down roots.

I've been a Denverite since I was junior-high age, and giving up the familiarity and comfortable feeling of a place I have called home for more than 40 years is worth it, but it is also scary. It is sad to be moving so far from my mom, too, but that's why God made Skype. My kids are already gallivanting the globe, so us living in NC is just another stop for them as they travel all over.

We are very lucky to have found the ideal place in Raleigh for us, and that's what prompted the move to take place now. Julia found the house, I said no--too much money--and she called the number anyway.

After instantly bonding during that phone call, she and the owner's son started working to figure out how to make it possible for us to rent his mom's home. They got it figured out well enough that I was able to get on board, so now we have a signed lease and a home in Raleigh! (as you can see from the not-great photo grabbed from the Google street-view images, we are in a grade A location [groaning and rolling of eyes okay])

The house is in a beautiful, tree-filled area which has no through traffic--the enclave has one way in, and you exit right back that same way--rural-feeling streets with no curb and gutter, just asphalt and grass, and a pretty little lake only a block from our place.

The house is bigger than our Denver place, although without a basement we won't be able to stash nearly as much stuff. This is a good thing, if adding to our current challenge a little.

This new chapter is one we have been anticipating for a long time, and now we are turning the page to see how the chapter starts. I know it will be filled with adventure, joy, thrills, and satisfaction in all ways possible. There will be opportunities to grow and chances to learn more of our own courage and determination. All in all, it will be one more chapter in the book we started writing about the middle of last century. Julia and I each wrote many chapters, and only since 1998 have we cowritten them. This means our shared chapters have an interesting flavor of new mixed with experienced, still learning about each other mixed with the "here I go again...how many times does this lesson need to revisit my life?" feelings which come with the stuff we find to be our companions. Maybe this chapter, we learn some of those life lessons and move on to the next level!

Allowing, allowing, allowing

Anyone who stops by here more than once a year is aware that my delightful and exquisitely beautiful wife, Julia Rogers Hamrick, finished writing her second book quite some time ago. Through the quiet auspices of the very reality matrix which is the subject of the book, we found an agent, and then a publisher, and both in record time and without drama or angst.

Tomorrow is the culmination of the long journey from "We're under contract!" to "Look! You can buy the book at that store, right there, that very store!!"

August 3, 2010 will be a date which will be deeply embedded in our memories forever.

Choosing Easy World.

It's not only a book title, it is being in the very heart of an action, of choosing. Easy World is our phrase for being in the zone, being in the flow, being your Self and shining your light full-on. Choosing Easy World is deciding, consciously, to go to that place where flow is normal and miracles are everyday occurrences.

That's the coolest part of what Julia discovered three years ago, when she heard Easy World whisper to her at 4 in the morning as she tossed and turned. We can consciously choose to be there!

It is a good juncture at which to mention that Julia makes no claim to having created this stunningly joyful and peaceful reality. She simply rediscovered it. It has existed forever. In fact, it is the very infrastructure which supported the Garden of Eden.

When the Garden was no longer available to men and women, it was not gone or lost. It was waiting patiently for us to return. In Julia's first book, she discussed exactly how we can do that.

Now, with Choosing Easy World, we are given the tools and techniques, simple ones anyone can use, to facilitate that return.

I'm happy to point out that you can still sneak a peek at the book. For a few more days, you can read the first three chapters for free by giving us your name and email address. If you want to sign up, get the free chapters, and remove yourself from our mailing list, we're fine with that! Just click the link which we include in every message we send which allows you to remove your info from our list. We will be sad, but we will get over it.

It's up to you now. You can choose Easy World, even doing so at no cost whatsoever, or you can choose to keep doing things the way you have been doing them. If that's been working for you, great! If not, give Easy World a shot.

Yes! We have a volunteer

A bit more than two years ago, I wrote in this space about a pansy, one we had not planted but which sprung up on its own. In fact, I made that essay one I pointed to in my email signature ever since.

If you are interested, feel free to visit that post. You will see why it is that I am so thrilled that, only yesterday, my wife discovered just under the protective branches of the big evergreen in our backyard another pansy volunteer.

This year, circumstances prevented us from putting out the half

dozen or more pots of pansies which we normally display in our yard from April through the beginning of the summer heat when the flowers give up and expire. Of course, this only made the volunteer that much more surprising to find.

The celebrated volunteer from two seasons ago was right up against the edge of the concrete patio, a spot which was very hot in the afternoon as it baked under the unrelenting Colorado sun. It survived, though, for weeks after its tame cousins in pots had gone.

The one we just found is also vulnerable to the sun, but not nearly to the extent the earlier one was. In fact, it would not surprise me if this volunteer makes it to August. It is partly sheltered by the lowest branches of the tree which it found itself under when it poked its head up.

All in all, it has a better situation than did the pansy two years ago. That doesn't change the lesson one bit. It's still, "Start where you are."

Today is the day

Every so often, I take a few moments to realize how amazing it is to be a sentient being on this great big ball of dirt and water hurtling through space. How incredible that life came to the planet at all, and then that it developed in such a way that this species of which we are all members is capable of understanding what the heck is going on here.

I'm not going to wax philosophic this morning, just express my gratitude.

It is wonderful to have awakened this morning, to see the day begin to bloom, to be alive.

Lost in our hustle to complete the next errand or dash to the next event, an awareness of just this moment and how precious it is can only bring an immense feeling of awe.

So, this morning, I salute today. It is the only day I have, this one, and I plan to enjoy it to the hilt. No, I don't know what it will bring, at least not yet. Uncertainty in what will unfold need not be cause for concern. Instead, I'll let it be potential for wonderful surprises ready to spring themselves on me.

Anticipation is far more fun if what you anticipate leaves you with a small smile on your face.

What's she up to, anyway? (thoughts on Mother Nature)

(I still have not managed to get this robin to fetch the paper for me in the mornings. He just looks at me like I'm crazy when I am encouraging him to drag the thing if he can't pick it up.)


Before Spring ends here in the northern hemisphere, I want to show you a couple of shots taken when our crabapple tree, which is the focal point of our front yard, began to drop the millions of petals it bursts forth with every year.

It's a big show, one which opens and closes within a matter of a few days, and one we enjoy every year. Some years, a late freeze will make the blossoms less numerous. Not this year.

That's not what I'm talking about today, though. Today, I want to show you a concrete (pun accidental but left in) example of how Nature is capable of healing.

Here is part of our driveway, and as you can see, a whole bunch of blossoms accumulated.

Here's the fun part. This next photo is of a small (maybe four-inch-long) gash in the driveway, a wound which the driveway suffered at some point before our moving in 11 years ago.

As you can see, Nature has filled the tiny canyon with crabapple petals.

Of course, this is not a case where the repair is anything more than cosmetic, and it probably was blown away later that same day, now weeks ago, by the wind.

But I was impressed by the metaphor, of Nature as the healing entity. Just as these so-temporary blossoms came to beautify the gash in the driveway, Nature does all manner of softening of the rough edges.

Events take place which expose sharp and painful edges, and then time and Nature soften and eventually erode them to nothing. Father Time, Mother Nature. Their children are we all.

The perfume that's way over the top

It is that time of the season, one week every other year, when our ornamental lilac tree bursts forth with beautiful bouquets of off-white blossoms.

The tree is quite demure, understated and shy most of the time, but right now, she is a French whore. Well, not really, but she smells like one. Um, so I've been told, anyway.

The overwhelming nature of that perfume, coupled with the fact that the tree is right by our front porch, makes any passing through the front door an invitation to being knocked over by the powerful olfactory experience which is the lilac right now.

I've discovered that the perfume is at its strongest in the middle of a sunny, hot afternoon such as we had yesterday in Denver. Then, it is take-a-step-back, shake-your-head strong.

As you can see, there are lots of blossom groups on the tree. And, as you can see here, the individual blossoms are tiny. Every single one of them is giving off that “come to me, little bee” aroma, too.

If only I had the smell-my-blog plugin.

December, and the Ice Man (My Sacred Life, Sunday)

My wonderfully expressive wife and I had a discussion yesterday about the fact that Mother Nature has learned to read a calendar.

We both noted how, as November ebbed, we saw daytime temperatures in the 60's--I'm sure there were Denver-area golfers taking advantage on Thanksgiving Day if they could sell the idea to their families--and some plants beginning to think their long nap was already over. Then, right on the button which was the first day of December, Denver was thrust into mid-winter conditions and temperatures.

Of course, anecdotal evidence relying solely on human memory of weather conditions from one year to the next is notoriously suspect. That's the nice way of putting it.

[Geek alert: if you are made sleepy by discussion of numbers as if they were both interesting and enlightening, exit now. No further warning will be provided. Do not operate heavy machinery while under the influence of such discussions]

The National Weather Service tells me that November this year was about five degrees above average in our daily high temps and a good bit below average as far as precipitation goes. I would have bet that we had at least average snowfall, and probably above average, and I would have lost that bet. Certainly, we knew it was warm, although not as warm as last year. On November 18th, 2008, the high in Denver reached 78 degrees F, a gasp-inducing four degrees higher than the previous record for the date. Be still, my heart.

We had two significant snowfalls (almost a foot each time) this year in November, so that skews the memory. A typical November would involve five or six storms, each smaller than our storms this year, but with a precipitation accumulation which was much higher than this year's. Plus, this year's November storms brought snow with a lower moisture content per inch than is typical.

While we are less than a week into December, the numbers so far are telling and in complete agreement with what our sense of it was before looking up the data.

Temperatures are running more than 11 degrees below normal for daily highs, and we have had lows below zero twice already. The temperature numbers are not likely to improve soon since we are expecting cold and snowy weather the next few days. It's almost as if Mother Nature is trying to show off, as she is offering stock-show weather almost a month before it is due. For those of us with long memories, stock-show weather equates to brrrrrrrrrrr.

Denver hosts the National Western Stock Show every January, a more-than-two-week-long, deep dive into what are the real roots of this part of the country. It is an excuse for the national media to think of Denver as a cow town even as Denver recognizes and honors the hard-working folks who come from hundreds of miles away to celebrate and educate all us city-dwellers on what it's like to be a rancher, farmer, or llama wrangler.

To avoid getting too far off topic, I'll tie the stock show to weather remembrances of Januaries past.

In the days of yore, I was working as the night assistant manager of an Arby's restaurant in southeast Denver. As best I can triangulate, it was January of [year redacted] when I closed the store 17 times in a period of three weeks, and 15 times, my car would not start when I tried to depart for home at 3 a.m.

I know, I know...how silly of me not to get the problem fixed. In my view, the problem was that it was way too cold--about 15 below at closing time--and I knew that the problem would take care of itself soon enough. It's the attitude of the person making two bucks an hour (think slightly above minimum wage): either it takes care of itself, or one adapts. I learned to nap effectively inside the store until the manager arrived about 6 a.m. and would help me by jumping my battery.

We had a December-January weather pattern not all that different only a few years back, as the snowfall in late 2006/early 2007 was at near-record levels even as the temperatures were ridiculously low. It translated into a winter unlike any other I can recall in Denver: ruts in the icepack on our streets which lasted into March, and a deeper understanding of the lifestyle of the Minnesotan. It inspired a respect for the people who deal with it every year and an intense desire never to move there.

The bottom line today is, our memories are usually close to the truth, but they are unpredictably inaccurate. As I recall the Donald Rumsfeld lecture on known unknowns versus unknown unknowns, the corollary of unpredictable inaccuracies is one to note and avoid in real life when possible. Don't bet the next mortgage payment on something you swear happened ten years ago.

Opening to a New Dawn (My Sacred Life, Sunday)

Opening to a New Dawn

All that cynicism and world-weariness,

the many layers of grime we accumulate over decades here on Earth,

falls away when we awaken with fresh eyes.

New perspective, sensitivity restored

New, empty vessels ready to experience awe

New vision cleared of old worn-out expectations

Opening our hearts to a new day in a new way

Offers us a rebirth to simply being with rather than interpreting,

Allowing us to see with no filters and no preconceptions

As a child would, just like a baby

We can be awed by the simplest and most-common sight

Because we are seeing it as if brand new

And enjoying it as if for the first time.

It is.

It is the first time we have lived this day.

Low expectations vs. a negative attitude

More often than not, I think of myself as an optimist. Not really the blue-sky, everything-is-going-to-be-rosy kind, but more the pragmatist who is convinced that people are usually motivated toward a good outcome for others as well as themselves, and that the universe is set up to steer toward the furtherance of our cause. That cause, by the way, is survival of the species.

I come to the game with an odd mix of beliefs. I hold to the concept of a universe of infinite plenty and endless kindness. At the same time, I'm grounded in my scientific training to know the truth of action/reaction and known outcomes when particular ingredients are combined.

To boil it down to the essence of it, I hold low expectations as to the outcome of any endeavor even as I have high hopes. Is this the right way to work toward the fulfillment of my dreams? I don't know, but it feels right to me.

The distinction between low expectations and having a pessimistic attitude is an important one to make. The pessimist expects things to go wrong, and in some ways relishes the poor result.

The mildy optimistic person, in contrast, takes the same result, figures out what small portion of the outcome was in the right direction, and seeks to repeat the effort with knowledge of what worked the first time.

My friends and mentors Patti Digh and David Robinson use an exercise which wonderfully illustrates this contrast. It is called, "Yes, but..."

Here's the way it works. Two people exchange statements. After the first one speaks, and let's create a sample conversation: "We are going to invent a vehicle to fly to Saturn" the partner is to respond with a statement addressing the intent, beginning with 'yes, but' like this: "Yes, but it will cost too much money to try to develop this crazy idea."

Now, the first person responds, also with 'yes, but'. "Yes, but we have the brain power to do it." and the second person, "Yes, but lots of those people will abandon the project for higher-paying jobs before we are done."

You get the idea: it is a game which gradually reduces the playing field for the first, wildly creative suggestion. Sooner or later, the inevitable conclusion is to give up.

Right after that exercise, Patti and David offer the salve for the wounds created by 'Yes, but...'. It is, 'Yes, and...'.

Watch how differently it goes, starting from the same place:

"We are going to invent a vehicle to fly to Saturn."

"Yes, and once we get to Saturn, we can improve it and make it faster, and investigate even farther out from our home planet."

"Yes, and as we learn more and search farther, we will become better at caring for our home, even as we find new places we could live."

Clearly, what is happening is an expansion of the playground, a growth in the energy of the conversation, a creation of a dynamic of cooperation which is the opposite of the earlier scenario.

"Yes, but" is a competition to see who can hit bottom first. It is adversarial.

"Yes, and" is a cooperative effort to kick the energy up and expand the creativity of a relationship.

The exercise is illustrative of the difference between being cautiously optimistic--in other words, hopeful of a positive outcome even while holding low expectations--and being a glass-half-empty believer.

Let's spell it out: my stance is one which allows for a less-than-ideal outcome yet positions me to continue because I never expected to receive all I asked for. Thus, I am not disheartened. I learn what worked, discover what did not, and I go for the goal again with greater information to help gain a better result.

The negative-attitude people will declare "victory" (if one can declare it a win when everyone loses) because the negative outcome was what came about, and quit. They predicted the worst, it happened, their individual ego needs are met by the result, and they are done.

The person like me says, "I learned a lot from that experience, and I'm ready to try again!"

The one with a negative attitude says, "See? I told you there was no way that would work."

Here's what I have noticed: my attitude promotes further pursuit. The other attitude actually discourages any further action, as further action might prove a different eventual outcome, one which the negative ego did not predict.

I'm having fun digging into the work of Bernie DeKoven, a man who has made it his life's work to find the fun. He teaches us what fun is about, how it benefits us in all arenas of our lives, and he lives what he teaches. He teaches that it is a participatory sport, not just one where you sit on the sidelines. This post is dedicated to Bernie and his good (and fun) works.

Change: what do we expect, anyway?

We had an unusually mild late winter here in Denver, with February and March temperatures regularly 10 to 15 degrees above the average for the date.

In fact, the warmth fooled lots of our beloved trees and bushes to think it was time to go, when it was not. Not at all.

Our crabapple is the centerpiece of the front yard, a tree planted by the only prior owner of our home, a man who loved that tree. It is now about 45 years old, and it has seen its share of challenges. We had massive snows several times in the last five years, one of which hit while the tree had much of its foliage still on its branches. It lost its crown--the top-most portion of a tree--that year, and in the years since, it has recovered pretty well, but as with any living thing in the later portion of its lifespan, the recovery has been less than total. Still, the tree normally puts on her crinoline every spring and parades to the ball, a vision in pink.

We planted a forsythia in the narrow grass border between our driveway and our neighbor's a few years back. Each year, the bush has become more effusive, waving longer and more-plentiful limbs in ever-more-dramatic patterns.

This year, both the crabapple and the forsythia were set up and then ambushed.

After the early warmth convinced the two to bud, we had a very cold couple of days and a foot of snow. The snow actually protected the only-barely-awake garden perennials, but the forsythia flowers and the crabapple buds were quietly terminated.

This is the first year since we moved in ten years ago that we have not been blessed with the crabapple show. The forsythia is not nearly as old, but it has never been so badly treated, either.

Of course, plants do exactly as I described the determined little pansy volunteer doing last year: they start with whatever the current situation presents to them, and move on from there.

The photos accompanying today's post are from this year, carefully taken shots to show a couple of the forsythia's very, very, sadly very small number of brilliant yellow flowers. In fact, you can see the green leaves trying to crowd out the few flowers which were opening so late that the frost didn't get them.

And, because I wanted to see what she looked like in her prime, here is an undated (of course! a lady never reveals her age) shot of the crabapple from seasons past (with a supporting role from the forsythia).

There's no big lesson today, just an observation. Change is not an aspect we can choose or decline, but central to being alive. Expectations, though, are completely within our control. When we expect the same as we have seen before, reality can seem harsh and cruel. When we open our eyes to what is and harbor few expectations, though, change can feel refreshing, new, exciting, and invigorating.

I'll still be looking for the show from the crabapple next spring, even as I try to be more tolerant of nature's vagaries.

A Forsythia farewell

No, my beloved young forsythia is not going anywhere, don't worry. I've just decided that today's post featuring said forsythia is the last one for this year.

In the last nine months, I have likened the forsythia to the young learning (or not) from the elder, played by the 40-year-old crabapple in our front yard. Less than a month ago, I took a companion shot to go with my earlier post, this one showing the youth growing past the outstretched limb of its elder.


I have shown the lovely and very sturdy little plant throwing yellow flowers with glee, even as the snow gathered around her ankles.

Today, she is again in transition. Slowly, the yellow flowers are falling as the new green leaves take their place on the many arms of this plant I love. Those splayed branches, curving however they wish regardless of gravity's influence, show an elegance which is wild and free. It troubles me when, as I drive around the neighborhood, I see forsythias which have been trimmed and pruned to look like some prissy little, proper plant. These are plants who know no boundaries if we allow them to be what they are.

You can see in this photo that my little one is not shy about throwing open her arms wide to the universe. For today, given her mixed colors, I have nicknamed her Succotashia.


You can see what I foresee of her future, and what I hold in my mind's eye as her dream. This is what I wish for her. This, for each of us in our own dreams, this knowing of a day of fulfillment, this insistence on a life full of promise and joy, this, my friends, is why I keep coming back here and doing my word doodles. I know there is magic yet to be performed and plenty of miracles yet to be created as if out of nothing. I know I will be right there in the middle of it all, not sitting idly by in the audience! Won't you join me? The stage is as big as all outdoors.

This dream I dream for my forsythia is a magnificent, 50-year-old plant in Maryland. It is a single forsythia, and what a beauty to behold.

Blossoming into Spring

Okay, let's say you start with a little bouquet like this one.


Very pretty, isn't it?

Next, let's take this little bouquet and multiply it by, oh, how about ten thousand?



Yes, we counted every single bouquet of a dozen beautimous blooms, and there are exactly 10,000 of them in this photo!

I'm afraid that there is some slight bending of the truth going on, here, as I have no idea how many blossoms are on our crabapple tree in our front yard. I can testify, though, that the tree is large enough that I could only capture a large fraction of it in this photo. And, it would not be all that surprising to learn that there are many thousands of bouquets contained on her branches.

Fortunately, Denver has a blossom-bouquet counting service which is free to Denver residents, so as soon as I can get them out here, I'll provide a more-accurate count.

Yes, I am smirking now to avoid busting out in a quite unflattering snicker at my own joke.