A new page...

The sunrise of February 10th 1990 certainly brought a new phase of my life into being. I didn't know it at the time but I was to find peace for my restless heart. This morning I could not sleep so I rose early and took my first cup of coffee outside to the pergola. What a treat! Candlelight, my grandson's Golden Retriever for company, and Saint Francis in the shadows among the shrubbery telling me I have come a long way. My days are not all the way I would have them to be, but if I do the things I should enough of them are to make a very good life. I wanted to start this blog to record some of my thoughts from this morning's interlude but soon I will return to for a bowl of cereal in the sunrise "concert hall".
Prior to the profound change in my life that was to begin on that fateful morning I did a lot of incredible things in places my family of origin could only read about in books or see in the movies. Some of these adventures still percolate to my awareness and I remember them differently now than in times past. I drank to much, sought the good life through pharmacology, and didn't always do the right things. This brought a bit guilt and regret....well o.k. then maybe a little more than a bit.
But, to the task at hand....
The memories that came to mind in the early morning candlelight were of the billowing shades of green dancing across the frozen January Alaskan sky as I strode the desolate tundra. The air so cold it would freeze the moisture in your lungs if you didn't wear a mask to protect yourself. Canteens needed to be carried inside your parka or the water would freeze and you would dehydrate. Now this was an adventure...
I actually had the opportunity to make a significant contribution to someone's life....but this is a story for another day.
Another memory was of a romantic gondola ride through canals of Venezia with my first ex-wife. Music floated on the salt breeze from the Adriatic as we drifted between centuries old palaces. Strolling through
Il Piazza di San Marco feeding the pigeons we could stop and listen to the musicians perfoming classical pieces in the outdoor cafes. How I wish I could repeat that experience with Roxanne...
I have driven through blinding rain in Spearfish Canyon of the Black Hills while lightening stabbed the bluffs above me over and over and over. Smelled the smoke from the fire on those mountains caused by those lightening strikes. Stopped and listened to the lonesome cry of coyotes across the tumbleweed landscape somwhere between the mountains of either Wyoming or Montana while the sun poked it's golden eye over the peaks and turned the morning reddish-purple. I lived my version of being a cowboy. Riding steel horses I drifted from cow town to cow town playing the honkeytonks and taverns. Singing and playing the songs of Willie, Waylon, and Hank I tried to live out all them country songs.
Well enough for now. Daylight is breaking and I must go about my appointed rounds. First, I will secure the homestead. Loose the hounds, set the guard, and arm the intusion detection system.