August Musings

August has nearly flown by this year, due in large part to the rapid pace of life these days for me, but also by virtue of the daunting blank page that has been staring back at me these past several months. There have been lots of ideas and thoughts and musings percolating in my heart and mind all the while, but for reasons that are difficult to explain, they haven’t been able to find their way to the blog lately, and it has been a bit gut-wrenching for someone more accustomed to having the words pour out like a flood over a broken levee.

The good news is that several of these ideas and musings are beginning to come forward, and I have begun to feel hopeful that the levee will soon overflow yet again. Chief among the reasons for this outlook is the scheduled actual vacation coming up next week. For reasons too numerous to mention, this will be the first real vacation that has been possible to schedule in years. It almost doesn’t seem real to me yet, and I doubt it will seem completely real to me before I actually find myself sitting by the campfire in woods near the border of West Virginia at a local Maryland state park. Those of you who have been following along here know well the restorative power the forest and lakes and natural settings have always had for me, and I fully intend to recruit people to pinch me periodically so I will be sure I am not dreaming.

I recently traveled to nearby West Virginia to visit my daughter and her family, who are still celebrating the recent arrival of their daughter, Autumn, who is my seventh grandchild, and there is a fair amount of inspiration contained in attending to the privilege of being a grandfather that has sparked some of the creative juices lately, and how could it be any other way?

My previous post to acknowledge my admiration for Dr. Oliver Sacks marked a moment of contemplation about all of the contributions he made to the understanding of the brain and consciousness and many other subjects, and I hope to contribute something a bit longer in the coming months to enlarge upon the one I posted today. There are a number of important contributions to be acknowledged in the scientific and philosophic realm these days, and I’m hoping to provide some insights that I’ve gleaned from these authors and scientists as they come up in the flow of my own research and reading.

Chief among them will be a tribute to one of my favorite authors from my younger days, Richard Brautigan, who wrote some very popular books back in the early to mid seventies, and whose influence is still being felt by those of us whose formative years included his unique viewpoint and provocative style. His life was extraordinary for a time, and there was a funny coincidence related to my writing inspirations as a young man that only recently came to light for me, and I’m looking forward to spending some time on my vacation rereading some of his work to spark the memories which surround this amazing time in my young life. Parts of the story of his rise to popularity, his astonishing good fortune in riding the wave of those times, and his eventual decline into near obscurity, are both inspiring and sad in some ways. It will be interesting to see how the piece turns out. So stay tuned!

I’m very much looking forward to seeing nine days worth of sunsets at the campground and reconnecting to the forest muse who nearly always joins me on these journeys. I will be reading and writing and relaxing and reconnecting in a beautiful natural setting in what Emerson described as “the plantations of God,” and I hope to bring back lots of material and insights to share with you all when I return.

Thanks for your continued patience and understanding as I work to get back to the flow!