Daily writing prompt

Do you need a break? From what?

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Yes! From the barrage of bad news and angst and manufactured drama and loudness that often accompany news reports and newsfeeds I check. I need to take a break from checking them, find a good book or a hobby, walk away for a while. Or just take a walk.

Of course, I lack the discipline to refrain for very long, so the stress and frustration are mostly self-inflicted. Gotta stay informed, though, so I guess anyone who takes the world seriously just picks their poison and guts it out, looks for ways to make sense of whatever can be made sense of.

There’s probably a better way to explain that.

Daily writing prompt

The most important invention in your lifetime is…

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It could be a lengthy list, but beyond the advent of the computer and the internet, I’d have to say advancements in medicine– vaccines, surgical techniques, other pharmaceuticals. Honorable mentions go to lasers, fiber optic cable, satellite and wireless communication, and advancements in auto safety.

Daily writing prompt

Describe your most ideal day from beginning to end.

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Should have taken a peek at this one yesterday, so I could mull it over for a bit.

Let’s see… on a day predicted to be sunny and in the 70s, with family visiting, arise at 5am, pour myself some cold brew, write for a couple of hours, get dressed, go out for breakfast somewhere, then just take a leisurely drive to places we’ve never been, take some pictures, maybe poke around in some local shops where my wife could get ideas for her next sewing and embroidery project. Then we’d find a nice spot for lunch, linger there, and take our time driving home, where we’d have an invite for supper at our son and daughter-in-law’s place and we can visit with the six of them and their loveable pooch. Then we’d finish the day, if it was a Tuesday, with a snack–maybe some popcorn or something– and a new episode of Finding Your Roots, or maybe a movie we’d been wanting to watch. Then, before retiring, we’d step outside and take in a rare planetary alignment and a highly visible comet.

An alternate ideal day, from a more personal perspective, would start the same way– with cold brew and writing and breakfast out– but would include time at our son’s outbuilding, working with him on some woodworking venture, or maybe, if the weather was good, playing 18 at our favorite local golf course, lingering at the 19th hole for lunch and a cold beer, then heading home to mow the lawn and work on the yard for a while, finishing with some sort of meal on the grill and a leisurely evening sitting in the back yard, maybe reading for a bit, just letting the day wind down, and topped off with an ISS sighting– traveling 275 miles overhead at seventeen-five mph.

OK. With apologies for the length of this… a third scenario, and maybe the closest to being the most honest and realistic: getting up early, pouring myself some cold brew, writing in my journal and in here, and having the rest of the day be a blank slate, where I call the shots, totally unencumbered by anyone’s expectations, and my choices for how the day unfolds are left totally to me. That sounds ideal.

So, a day that involves some autonomy, solitude, food, drink, visiting, satisfying activity and maybe a change of scenery.

Daily writing prompt

How do significant life events or the passage of time influence your perspective on life?

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Sometimes it’s a reminder that our time on earth is fleeting, and it passes relatively quickly– that there’s no time like the present. In other moments, something happens that prompts a word of thanks or a feeling of gratitude. And still other times, things happen that induce rage and make one wonder how the human race has survived for this long, makes me think that we can do and be better.

One’s life experiences inform one’s perspective. On the balance, life can be blessing and curse, mysterious and mundane, joyous opportunity and endless slog. A journey of discovery and exhiliration, of love and warmth, or bleak coldness and senseless suffering.

One is blessed if they are curious and teachable, given the space to experience and react and assess, then to change when necessary and move on, armed with more knowledge and filled with better questions. This earthly life generates more questions than answers, which keeps things interesting and pushes us toward some sort of… enlightenment?

Daily writing prompt

Something on your “to-do list” that never gets done.

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We often talk about replacing the somewhat unsightly shed in the back yard– maybe a bigger one that would hold the usual shed stuff and maybe even a lathe… I won’t push the lathe. Cost has been stopping us, but also the prospect of running up against local zoning rules that would push a new build further out into a relatively small yard. I’m sure we’ll continue revisiting this.

My personal list that garners occasional lip service: practice piano, dust off the guitar, get back to learning Spanish, find part-time work, build shelving in the basement, remove a hornet nest before it gets warm and they’re back building it again, find places to volunteer, work on a generally rosier outlook.

Daily writing prompt

What’s your favorite thing to cook?

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Simple things, mostly– sausage gravy, or a really healthy oatmeal recipe with banana, blueberries, cinnamon, an apple, etc.

In terms of a more involved prep, I’d have to say Chicken Wild Rice Soup, a recipe we found in the 2001 edition of a Taste of Home holiday cook book. I’ve made it so many times that I stopped referring to the recipe years ago. And I seldom use actual wild rice by itself–too expensive. I cheat a bit with two boxes of Uncle Ben’s Original Wild Rice mix, using only about half of one of the included seasoning packets.

I occasionally like to spend time preparing meals. It’s enjoyable, in part because I sip a glass of red or white along the way– like Julia Child always did.

Daily writing prompt

Write about your first computer.

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A step up from a Commodore 64, I guess, a bit before Apple and Gateway and the rest really exploded onto the scene, or were within reach of our pocketbook.

It was the late ’80s, maybe 1990, and the thing was pieced together with the advice of a friend who had some knowledge of what to us was a whole new wondrous technology. The CPU was housed in a rectangular, low-rise box, kilobytes of storage, a dot matrix printer that used paper with the perforated guideholes on either side, a tiny CRT with amber text. I can’t remember if this one had internet capability. If it did, it was dial up modem. And by today’s standards, it was relatively expensive.

Primitive beginnings, but there was no going back.

Daily writing prompt

What’s the thing you’re most scared to do? What would it take to get you to do it?

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Hmm… the first thing that came to mind was parachuting from an airplane. I can’t conceive of any amount of cajoling or trash talk that would push me to do that. Maybe the promise of a large sum of money, but even that might not be enough.

Thinking a little longer, it’d be suspending retirement and returning to part-time pastoral work. It’s pretty much all I know, and we could use the extra money, but I have serious doubts about being able to re-engage with any sense of commitment or belief. I’m not sure there’s anything anyone could say that would convince me to reconsider.

Daily writing prompt

What do you complain about the most?

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The state of the world and how humans can’t seem to rise above certain base instincts and tendencies. Evolution is a painfully slow process.

That and the white screen that just happens out of the blue when I’m doing something in Word. Aggravating as hell.

Daily writing prompt

What are your favorite sports to watch and play?

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To play? Golf, and throwing a ball back and forth. To watch? Mostly just PGA golf; an occasional college football or NFL playoff game; NHL hockey, and the beautiful game, i.e. actual football.

I grew up, and still am, a faithful Boston fan– Red Sox, Bruins, Celtics and even the Patriots, when they played their games at Fenway Park. Anymore, though, professional sports, and even the Olympics, don’t much interest me. Except golf, for some reason.

And though I occasionally have difficulty thinking of it as sport, sitting or standing in a boat with my brothers, angling for small- and largemouth bass, northern pike, and muskies.