We live out in the woods, not the sticks(sticks are small) of New York near the Catskills, and every winter I covet other people’s wood piles. Often I drive by homes with neatly stacked rows of beautifully cut hardwood. The land we have is not great for cut wood. It’s mostly pine, which is good for starting a fire, but burns too hot and because of the creosote gases inside, is often blamed for chimney fires.

For some time now I’ve had fantasies of other people’s wood piles.

Because we like to burn fires in the fireplace, I ordered my first cord of wood, ever. Cords of wood are hard to find right now. Last year’s winter was so bad many loggers sold out or are behind this year. I’m a city and suburb kid. So buying a cord of wood is quite foreign and exciting.

The cord is $225 but should last a few months. It took me a while to find this logger with split dry wood.

Update: My wife was on her way to the kid’s school when she called with urgency.

“Doug there is a sign with free wood. Free wood!” She shouted into the phone. “Beautiful big rounds stacked up. Free wood honey. You dreams are coming true.”

I sat dumbfounded as the words went around my cerebral cortex. “Free?” Better words were never uttered. “Free wood, honey?”

“I had to call or you would’ve killed me if I didn’t.” We hung up as I sat in my home office surrounded by work and piles of paper.

Twenty minutes earlier I’d gotten off the phone with my boss and knew he wouldn’t be reaching out to me again today or at least for a few hours. I contemplated the pile of work on my desk and imagined having to fight others off for the free pile of wood, fighting them off with a stick. To the death!

Hmm, free wood. I will no longer have to covet other’s piles. A whole tree had been cut down, cut up, and is waiting for an anonymous taker. That taker could be me.

Plus the cord, we will be burning as many fires this winter as we like.

I grabbed my work phone and grabbed the keys to our big truck, and burned rubber ten minutes to get over there.

The sign said in big bold letters FREE WOOD with an arrow pointing down a small grass hill to a large field. At the far end of this field sat the untouched pile towering like a small wood pyramid. No one was there to fight off. No Egyptian warriors were defending this sacred ground. Large wood rounds sat glistening, each one two feet long, waiting and inviting. Wood fuel. Wood fires in the large living-room fireplace will crackle and heat as the snow flies and cold chills.

I drove the truck fast across the grass field and loaded up the back quickly, while looking from side to side. I got almost all of it.

I brought the chunky rounds home, laid out a tarp, and stacked ‘em up. I stared proudly. I’ll let them dry a few weeks in the sun then split them using a log splitter. Others may now covet my wood pile. But sorry folks, it’s all mine. There will be no signs of free offerings.

Update: I just spoke with another wood guy, $180 a cord. Even better. This was a tip from a friend. Get in line people. But sorry, I can’t give you his phone number. I’m loading up this winter and selfish.

South I headed alone on my motorcycle. I needed to clear my head of this world and had enough cash for two weeks.

I was a left leaning non-practicing New York Jew. I was heading to Georgia where my father lived, then after, I’d be riding through other “southern” states like Alabama and Kentucky as I headed up through the Ohio River valley to my sister, then back home.

To be honest I was a little anxious about some of the areas I’d be riding through and sleeping in. “Man alone is easy prey.” Clint Eastwood said in one of his movies. And man alone on a motorcycle is even easier. Perhaps I would be indoctrinated into a clan or found dead in a farmer’s field or simply run off the road. These things have happened to others in the past. So I didn’t know what to expect.

After the visit with the old man in GA I headed northwest on state roads. It was raining in Kentucky and I parked under an overhang at a gas station to wait out the storm. I paid the forty-something skinny counter guy with the heavy southern accent. I nodded and didn’t want to give myself away.

I stood outside under the overhang sipping my hot coffee. He came out to smoke a cigarette and saw the license plate on the back of my loaded bike. I wanted to be anonymous riding through, but was no longer.

“You from New York?” I got tense at his inquiry and nodded slowly.

“No shit?” I guess they don’t get too many New Yorkers down there.

We started talking and the tension in my body eased.

I must’ve had four cups of coffee standing there talking to him.

“Git yurself some more.” He’d keep saying.

He told me about his family, gave me solid directions, about the upcoming town and some routes to avoid.

We weren’t northerner and southerner, just a couple of guys talking.

I learned on this trip that people generally just want to help, learn about others, and share about themselves.

Our conversation wasn’t political, or agenda based, and that is what I often find on the open road – people interested in each other. We are Americans, yes. But we are humans first. And humans are concerned with others, interested in who they are, where they came from, and well, where they’re going…

Softball and Zen are two ideas most would think are mutually exclusive – fat guys drinking beer and flowing meditation. Sure the waistlines aren’t what they once were, and reaching down to grab a grounder isn’t easy, but we still play with spirit. Running is definitely harder. There is no gliding down the base path gracefully. It’s more like, “Is that guy walking? He looks like he’s in pain.”

When I was a kid playing baseball, the game flowed for me with spirit and ease. I never thought about hitting to right field or left as I stood in the batter’s box. I just did it.

I now play softball in a forty and over league. I’m a little, a lot, slower, and I think, a lot more. Playing left field the other night I dove for one that though my mind thought I was moving fast enough to catch, my body knew I was not. I came up about two feet short with only grass in my glove. As the ball skipped by me to the fence, I wondered what happened. Age is what happened. Deteriorated skills. Ego. The center fielder close by laughed and enjoyed that we are all moving slower as he picked up the ball and threw it in.

Errors are a given in this league. Laughter a must.

My instincts used to dominate my fielding and hitting. I never judged what I was doing. I just did it and did it well, moving like a cat to my left or right in the field. At the plate I swung the bat like a Titan. Emotion and ego weren’t involved in the process.

Now the ball comes fast and I wear glasses and sometimes guess where the ball is going. Many I get. Some I don’t. I have to learn to let go and be in the moment. Because when I worry about missing the ball, I do. However, sometimes I miss it anyway.

My ego is demanding that I do better. It wants me to be as good as I was.

I try not to think too much about the pitch or what field I’m hitting to, not to be in the past or worry how I will look if I strike out or miss a catch. I have to get up to the plate, wait for the right pitch, and swing the bat hard. I shouldn’t play fearing mistakes, but play for the joy, camaraderie, and laughter. I will try playing for the Zen and flow of the moment, the way I always did.

Hi Mom, it’s me.

We haven’t spoken in a long time. But I got married. I know, I know, who would have thought, huh?

Yes, I even have kids now. Yes, they’re sweet kids. You’re very kind saying that they wouldn’t be anything else. You’d like Jessica. She’s the little one and is filled with love and laughter. She is pure light that kid.

And Jennifer, my wife, oh you’ve seen her. I think you would get a kick out of your daughter-in-law. Oh, you already do.

Well I wasn’t sure what you could see from over there. More than I realize. That figures. I know, I know, I never thought I wanted kids or a wife for that matter. But I guess things change. You’re glad I changed my mind? Thanks, Mom.

Oh by the way, happy birthday. I’m sorry I can’t be there with you to celebrate. Hopefully dad is with you and made you a cake. Though cooking was never his forte. I know, I know, he liked everything burnt.

Hard sleep comes in waves

Troubled men and events

Confusion and repetition

These dreams and events repeat

Until I wake

Nothing horrible is happening

Other than loss and waiting

The men with gnarled faces are waiting too

I wake not scared

but empty

There is an emptiness in waiting

I can scream and wake Jennifer next to me

and the kids down the hall

Instead I cross my hands under my head

not drowsy or tired

But awake in my emptiness

Awake in the clarity of this moment

I know nothing

Yet the clarity is filled with confusion

I am clear about what confuses me

I am clear about the present

It is a hard sleep when I wake with the alarm for work

It is not restful

I am not rested

For tonight I will have these same dreams of waiting

Of wrestling with these men

And there will be no answers

There is no escaping death. No one here gets out alive, as the saying goes. Tragedy is everywhere we live and breathe. The news media harp on it as if tragedy and corruption are the whole of our worlds and thoughts.

In my book Max Johnny, the main character Max is a powerful and famous writer. The love of his life is ripped away which sends him into a tail spin. It is this tragedy and test that shapes or destroys. It is killing Max. The lessons and experiences we have are never easy ones. But as Bukowski said, ‘It is how we walk through the fire that matters most.’ Because there will always be fire.

Max Johnny wrote about possibility, never defeat. In his personal life he appears defeated yet knows to keep fighting.

– – –

Near my home there is a large reservoir. I go there to think. It is a massive lake, quiet and serene, that inevitably spills over into a waterfall. The opposing forces of the placid lake so close to the chaos of the falls remind me of the push and pull we all live and fight with. It is our daily battle between the light and dark of our lives and which direction each day will take.

Last Sunday two swans at the reservoir paddled up to the drop off where the water picks up speed heading over the edge. I stood watching from the platform above. The water fell spraying and thundering two-hundred feet down onto jagged rocks. Yet the graceful swans calmly swam only inches from each other while moving slowly forward. The swans appeared to be no match for the sheer speed of the rapid falls pulling everything towards it.

They paddled at arms length from doom then turned with one foot to go as water rushed around their curved bodies. They sparkled in the sunlight with their white shining feathers unruffled as to what was happening all around them.

There is always doom on the horizon pulling at us: sickness, war, fools to endure, bills, political shills and hacks. There is always fire to walk through that rages in our thoughts and world. But in the end all that matters is how well we walked through that fire and how close we dare paddled to the falls on a sunny afternoon.