First tracks in a snowstorm!
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How many of me?
If there are more of me, maybe one of them can kick in and write some blog posts 🤣
National Kindness Week
We are celebrating National Kindness Week at our school. Today’s theme is “Tied Together by Kindness”. Students and staff are asked to wear a tie to show how we are all connected.
Realizing that many people wouldn’t have ties, I cleaned out my closet last night and brought in a bag full.
The bag is now empty, and the halls are full of people with my ties on.
What is hilarious about this is how this links to my past. In high school, I was labeled a nerd. In the 1980’s being a nerd was like having a target on your back.
Continue readingBozeman Belt Buckle
My brother likes to collect everything Bozeman. And sometimes I’m the beneficiary.
My First Radio Show
How exciting to participate in a radio show! I was able to read the poem that will be in the collection Hidden in Childhood. Thank you to Gabriela Marie Milton for this amazing opportunity! Great poets and great poems 🙂
Cleaning up in the Forest
I have often entered the woods carrying my burdens like a heavy backpack. The first part of my hike is spent thinking, pondering, stressing. Replaying problems or anticipating future roadblocks. Sometimes my thoughts are in a tangle, others they are firmly focused on the issue I am dealing with.
Yet, as I step along, Anna trotting ahead of me, my worries begin to dissipate. Sometimes I have arrived at the solution, but many times my concerns are tread into the path, taken in by the trees. Like they turn carbon into oxygen, the leaves filter my thoughts until I am left with peace.
I have brought some pretty serious problems with me into the forest, but I can’t remember one time that I left without feeling some relief, some belief that I will figure it out and things will be OK. At times, I am even given an epiphany.
The woods come with many gifts, but their ability to soothe, to take me in and change me, is one that I reverence always. I often say my thanks out loud to the trees: the best I can do to repay them for this free service. Â
If you like my writing, you should check out my book: Tao of Thoreau
First List
I remember when I made my first list. I was probably 7 or 8 years old.
It was actually a budget. I might have had 5 dollars to my name. There were two items on the list: “comic books” and “savings.” Naturally, comic books took up most of my budget. Â
I was very proud of this list. I felt like I was on my way to being a grown up, and the longer lists that went with adulthood.
I excitedly showed my mother. She couldn’t have been more uninterested and dismissive. This was unusual for her, and as far as I know she was having a tough day that I was completely oblivious to.
I went back to my room, deflated and confused. I lost interest in making lists. (Shows how much grit I had when faced with setbacks.) I really could have used this organizational skill, and it took me a long time to make lists and be responsible for following through.
I’m not placing blame. It was a childish notion, and I shouldn’t have been so easily defeated. But it is interesting to think about how many positive ideas are crushed in this way. What would my path have been if my work was met with encouragement and advice? Of course, I will never know. And, spoiler alert, I turned out OK.
Milestone!
I’ve reached another milestone on my publishing journey!
Four-hundred books! (That felt good to write out.)
Strangely, I have to force myself to celebrate this accomplishment. Part of the problem is that my publishing dreams have been so huge since I was a child, that it is hard for any reality to measure up.
What I’ve been doing is imagining them stacked up in forty piles of ten. Picturing this gives a geometry, a mass to what it means to have this many books out in the public.
This has been followed by, I think, a better visualization: 400 people actually owning and reading my book. That was what the dream was always about, if I strip away fantasies of amazing stardom and best-selling status.
People reading my words. What I have always wanted. What I am finally achieving.
Need a copy? Buy yours here: Tao of Thoreau – just 2.99 Kindle and 4.99 paperback.
Enjoy a nice buck rub
Waterfall in the Ruins
Two of my favorites: ruins and waterfalls. I’ve always loved ruins, whether they are colonial like this or ancient and magnificent like in Italy. There is an echo of the past, evidence of labor and construction, and the ghostlike essence of those who once lived and worked in a place that is now abandoned.
Mark Bozeman 