Endless Summer Creations

Carpenter Park at Thanksgiving my home state i have not forgotten you fireflies in the dusk the hill stretching away down Rockford Park which became a Fourth of July theater a playground where dogs ran free in bliss the tower which i've always longed to ascend my feet carried me through the cross-country trails at Carpenter Park through all seasons even through the still of winter where i had to bound like a deer to jog through the snow drifts when green returned I would see startled bunnies scatter in front of me the theater of trees at turns redolent in deep summer greens then slowly set afire breaking into golds, reds, bronze until the cold would always claim the last of the leaves I remember hay rides through the nipping October nights which ended round a fire the centerpiece of hot apple cider melty s'mores of all the natural beauty i've ever seen i love yours the most your nature takes me home

There was a time we lived off in the woods.  As I lie here in the comfort and security of my bed, listening to the rain fall outside my window with the blinds drawn, I can almost imagine that we are in the middle of that forest again. It was a good place to rest.  A good place to escape the life that had been imposed upon us, and to redefine life according to  our terms. No need to dress up or look a certain way.  I mean, who really cared?  There was no pressure.  The residents were mostly down-to-earth, unassuming people living in a rural Pacific Northwestern town.  Some of them were retirees.  Some lived on Social Security like us.  For others, the RV park was just an in-between place.  One guy had been in the process of building a house on his own land for about a year. I even worked for the RV park for a while doing bathroom maintenance.  But it wasn't really a job....

This is the post I wrote on Facebook in early September 2015 when I realized we needed to return to Florida.  I wrote these words with a very heavy heart because in coming north, I had just wanted to come home.  But I had to eventually face the reality that the places which had always been home to me no longer were.  I came to realize that home is wherever Jim, Carl and I may be.  Even if it's in a hotel room.  Or an RV.  We learned to cling hard to each other.  Like hikers lost in a snowstorm, we kept each other warm to survive. There's a part of me that wishes I could just wash my hands of my old home.  It is no longer the source of comfort, companionship and merriment that it once was. However, I would not take back our time up north.  There was so much beauty there.  I saw it when the heavy snowfalls descended outside our motel room window, and Carl looked out to sights he had never seen in his life.  I saw it when Ca...

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack And you may find yourself in another part of the world And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife And you may ask yourself – Well, How did I get here? “Once In a Lifetime,” Talking Heads And you may find yourself living in a 1978 Champion motorhome in an RV park in the Washington forest.  And you may find that the family you thought would always be there was gone.  And you may find yourself in a life which makes no sense, in which the train jumped the track long ago and continues to hurtle helter-skelter through the wilderness heading to destinations unknown, leaving behind a family that once was.   Carla used to wish so badly that train could be stopped, turned around and returned to the life that made sense, in which Carla knew who she was and didn’t have to keep adapting herself anew just to survive.. ...