Oswego
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Everyday awe and enchantment in Daydreaming on the Porch
There is enchantment right in front of you, waiting for you to notice. Janet Luhrs Come forth into the light of things. Let Nature be your teacher. William Wordsworth We do not see Nature with...
Of eclipses and dementia in Daydreaming on the Porch
August 21, 2017 It’s been almost three months since I retired, and my working years now seem like some distant past life. Even though I go back to visit my friends where I worked for the last 21...
Yearning for escape in Daydreaming on the Porch
It’s been two months now since I retired and yet I really can’t go anywhere or plan anything ambitious in the way of extended road trips and travel. My caregiving duties are now all concentrated...
Rest in peace, Ginger in Daydreaming on the Porch
We had a wrenchingly sad week as we had to put to sleep this past Friday our dear and deeply loved cat, Ginger, who was 20 years old. She slept all day next to Mom on the sofa and gave us such a...
Flowers in Daydreaming on the Porch
Flowers… are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world Ralph Waldo Emerson If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would chang...
Escape to Magnolia Gardens in Daydreaming on the Porch
The kiss of the sun for pardon. The song of the birds for mirth. One is nearer God’s heart in a garden than anywhere else on Earth. Dorothy Frances Gurney I have four places that are my favori...
Dementia Journal, June 22, 2017 in Daydreaming on the Porch
Dementia Storm and Transformation, June 18, 2017 The past couple of months Mom has been in what I might describe as a state of equilibrium, even, dare I say it, improvement, although that’s not s...
Retirement realities in Daydreaming on the Porch
The past two weeks have been an incredible transition period, really difficult psychologically as I’ve struggled with second thoughts and bouts of depression and anxiety. Retirement is liberatin...
New beginnings in Daydreaming on the Porch
In another week or so, I’ll just have one full-time job: caregiving. After May 31, I’ll have retired from the job I’ve held for 22 years. I made the decision a couple of months ago, but now i...
One of life's biggest transitions looms ahead in Daydreaming on the Porch
I’m facing one of the biggest transitions in my life – one everyone faces – but one which, in my case, I really haven’t had to even think about until recently. After 22 years of coming to the s...
Books and gardens in Daydreaming on the Porch
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. Cicero I must have several thousand books upstairs in my living quarters at the family home in downtown Charleston. Most have be...
Dementia Journal, March 15, 2017 in Daydreaming on the Porch
Mentally and emotionally it’s been a tumultuous couple of months. It starts to all seem like some sort of never ending story of an aging parent deteriorating more rapidly now from her dementia...
Azaleas, Spring 2017 in Daydreaming on the Porch
Study Nature, love Nature, stay close to Nature. It will never fail you. Frank Lloyd Wright This has been a glorious Spring, although early, and how we needed it after the Fall and Winter just p...
Dementia Journal, Jan. 30, 2017 in Daydreaming on the Porch
This week revealed such startling contrasts in Mom’s condition that it’s literally mind-boggling. Over the past two months her condition has deteriorated significantly, but with oasis moments of...
My favorite house in Daydreaming on the Porch
I think most of us have ideas about what our “dream” house would be if we could perfectly imagine it, find it, or or even build it . That’s because embedded deep within us is a rather ancient y...
Dementia Journal, Dec. 17, 2016 in Daydreaming on the Porch
“… Family caregiving is a profound and deeply personal experience. It touches on our mortality and our vulnerability, who we are as humans, as sons and daughters, husbands, wives, fathers and mo...
Camellias: the wondrous winter flower in Daydreaming on the Porch
I have a beautiful little book published in 1870 entitled “Flowers: Their Language and Poetry.” I can’s remember where I bought it. I think it was the used books place I used to frequent a lo...
Essential mysteries of photography in Daydreaming on the Porch
Photography is fascinating to me because it’s both descriptive and symbolic at the same time. Descriptive because it shows you something that looks like the world and symbolic because the best ph...
Questions in Daydreaming on the Porch
October 26, 2016 I dreamed a thousand new paths. I woke and walked my old one. Chinese proverb I sometimes find myself thinking about the future when I am no longer a caregiver and I have the n...
Hurricane madness in Daydreaming on the Porch
Hurricanes are elemental, monstrous forces of Nature. We rode out Hurricane Betsy in 1965 when it attacked and flooded New Orleans with 100 mph winds. I’ll never forget that long night of seem...
Worlds within worlds in Daydreaming on the Porch
I’ve been in the mood for digging back into the past today, having had a day off from work and a few rare and precious hours to myself to think and reminisce as I went through some folders stuffe...
Dementia Journal, 9/5/16 in Daydreaming on the Porch
I’ve been in some of the strangest and most introspective moods lately. Sometimes sad and depressed, but mostly rather stoical. It seemed to start when I crossed a very significant psychologica...
You'll never walk alone in Daydreaming on the Porch
Lately, I’ve been going to YouTube and listening to favorite old songs from the sixties. I guess as I get older, I get more and more nostalgic for that seemingly simpler time in my life. Certa...
Look up and behold the wondrous clouds above you in Daydreaming on the Porch
A nice lady at Colonial Lake Park saw me pointing my camera up at the sky and clouds at Colonial Lake Park yesterday and said, “Until I saw you, I never would have thought to look up and see thos...
In praise of trees in Daydreaming on the Porch
For me trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone…They ...
