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A Worrisome Thump

          What is that noise?             I’m jarred awake by a noise in the dark. Down the hallway—a bump or a thump. My action thriller brain, sharpened by my latest choice of book genre, evaluates and calculates. The thriller part of the brain reaches out and estimates the time as half-past five as I hear the neighbor’s jeep crank to life and head off to work. The action part of the brain halts right before demanding action, so I will not be reaching under the pillow for a weapon. Half an hour from now, what’s left of my brain will still be musing… “What could that noise be?” If there were an actual threat and I had to rely on reflexes. I’d be trussed up like a turkey in no time.   But, my mind is really stretching and it wonders, “Should I wake the husband?”            I’ve attempted that before--waking the husband--with poor results. This is not my first experience with...
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The Moving Minimalist

  I’m moving. Again. I know, I know, after the last move I promised myself, “Never again!” But I’m moving just 200 feet away, within walking distance. That means I’m shifting all my belongings one house over, box by box. Do you remember that I wrote about this idea when I last moved just three years ago? Do you recall the question I pondered? Why doesn’t the whole world embrace the idea and just pick up and move one house over every year or two?  I'm doing it.   I hate to deprive you all of the joy of moving.    Quebec does it—the whole country picks up and moves all together. Every July 1st, they have a national moving day and every vehicle is press-ganged into acting as a moving van. Admittedly their national move is not as comprehensive as I envision, only 250,000 people participate, but I’ll bet it would accomplish my original goal and that is to rid myself of most of my life-long junk and re-home it to a better place.   We could all j...
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To Be – Hiker, Swimmer, Writer – Just Me

          I am a hiker. Or Am I? I have hiked for forty years with a hiker—a real one—who likes it, and while I’d like to think that hiking three or four times a year and complaining about it the entire time, grants me bone fides, I suspect that it’s a lot like my skiing. While some people ski off-piste, enjoying the sloosh through the trees. I ski piste-off--angry and fighting the entire time. Reason says that if grumpy skiing doesn’t make me a skiier, then reluctant hiking can’t make me a hiker. Yet a recent women’s hiking podcast 1 called me out by name and described me as just that! A hiker. So, now I’m reconsidering my status because the internet said so. What happens next? Will my hiking attitude suddenly transform and I will begin to yearn, love, and call myself a hiker? Again, the internet said yes. A 2003 TeD talk 2 suggests that attitude and confidence are so important to success that if you learn to fake it, you can become it. ...
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