Blogs come and go. They’re easy to begin, and easy to end.
I’ve had several blogs. I had a personal blog on my website, when I had a website (a travesty of design done mostly in Microsoft Publisher), on which I tried to write a few clever travel logs.
I had a second blog called “The Ring of Scribes,” where I tried to write about my intense and headachey musical projects. That blog died a slow death. In fact, I didn’t really bury it until last week. It got a lot of hits because of some technical posts I did about music equipment, but there was never really much substance to it.
I had a third blog called “Admon Adaia,” a name which I made up by combining Hebrew names and was supposed to mean something like “the red earth is a witness of God.” It was part of a story I had been writing, and still work on occasionally, about a person who is so old that he can’t remember anything at all about who he is or where he came from. Eventually, when he finally faces death, he travels across the desert to find the secret of his near-immortality and gains some education and perspective along the way.
All these blogs are now dead, buried in some HTML graveyard in Asia no doubt. They’re mostly gone because, as so many others have, I’ve realized that you have to write about what you know. And what I know has never seemed worth writing about to me.
My days are mostly the same. I get up around 6:30 a.m., shower, and download the latest news and tech podcasts to my iPod nano. I get dressed in jeans, button up shirts, and a brown blazer, and drive to the historic Utah County Courthouse in my fading maroon 1996 Toyota Tercel (“Juliette” I call her) while listening to the podcasts.
I step into my office at about 7:30 a.m., a beautiful room with high ceilings and rich brown moldings left from the days when craftsmanship in architecture was still in demand. There I am surrounded by the few things of worldly value I have collected or been given. My grandmother’s uncle’s bar admission certificate, dated April 1911, hangs on one wall in its museum glassed frame, the one thing in my office that says “lawyer.” On the desk is an antique cigar box, circa 1950, hand-enameled in a brilliant burnt orange, which I purchased down the street at the Cat’s Cradle antique shop for finishing my first year of law school.
Overhead on the hutch, leaning against the wall near the ceiling, is a 3D poster of John, Paul, George, and Ringo marching across Abbey Road in a funeral procession. A few white shirts and a gray suit hang on a clothes rack against the back wall, and an ornamental globe is perched on a chest of drawers.
All this frames a large hardwood desk, which is the real thing of value in the office. I spent a couple of hours polishing it up when I moved in, so impressed was I with its beauty. Two weeks after I moved in it was almost destroyed when water mysteriously started pouring in from the ceiling, but I was quick enough to move it out of harm’s way (no easy feat) and dry it off before any warping occurred.
It’s a plain office, but it suits me. I start my days off with prayer and meditation, and then move quickly on to my work as a public defender. That part of my life is not plain, and is flavored with many secrets I will take to my grave. But I am of course prohibited, both legally and morally, from discussing them here, and will have to leave my professional life alone on this blog.
I spend the evenings with my family, eating my wife’s delicious cooking and playing with the kids, and then about 8:30 I give the kids their baths, we read to them, sing with them, pray with them, and put them to bed. At about 9:30 or 10:00, I have time to do what I want (it’s 11:26 p.m.) now. Finally, it’s bedtime.
It’s not the romantic life of a traveler, and entrepreneur, a journalist, a musician, or an author. Which is why I’ve always thought that it wasn’t worth writing about, at least not directly. But I think I’ve realized that the spice of life is in finding the beauty in ordinary, everyday experiences.
So that’s why I’m starting a new blog. To help me find the beauty in the commonplace. To help me suck the marrow out of life, even when life is busy and seemingly monotonous. To ponder and reflect.
I’ll end this post with a poem I wrote about plain, ordinary things, which I entered into the Utah State Poetry Society’s annual competition this year (it didn’t win). I nicked the title from a Pink Floyd song, but not the concept, so I hope Roger will forgive me:
~Two Suns in the Sunset~
I asked for a room with a west-facing window
because I knew you would want to go
in the gentle glow
of a last summer's evening.
You always liked the sun-kissed colors best.
Fifty-three years ago
I promised I would never leave you alone
And now your breath is still
Your soul is at peace
And I have kept my promise.
In a moment I will break the news
to Winnie and Luke
Our two babies who are all grown up now
waiting at home for my telephone call.
But let it wait one more minute.
This is our last chance
to watch the clouds turn sunbeams into memories
and I want to keep it
just the two of us.
I will miss you, my love.
On warm sunlit evenings like this
I will miss you most of all.
In the restful July twilight
my aching will be greatest.
But I know you cannot stay.
So I gaze out the window frame
as you fade into the western sky
Radiant hope of humankind
and best friend saying goodbye
Two suns in the sunset~
I’ve had several blogs. I had a personal blog on my website, when I had a website (a travesty of design done mostly in Microsoft Publisher), on which I tried to write a few clever travel logs.
I had a second blog called “The Ring of Scribes,” where I tried to write about my intense and headachey musical projects. That blog died a slow death. In fact, I didn’t really bury it until last week. It got a lot of hits because of some technical posts I did about music equipment, but there was never really much substance to it.
I had a third blog called “Admon Adaia,” a name which I made up by combining Hebrew names and was supposed to mean something like “the red earth is a witness of God.” It was part of a story I had been writing, and still work on occasionally, about a person who is so old that he can’t remember anything at all about who he is or where he came from. Eventually, when he finally faces death, he travels across the desert to find the secret of his near-immortality and gains some education and perspective along the way.
All these blogs are now dead, buried in some HTML graveyard in Asia no doubt. They’re mostly gone because, as so many others have, I’ve realized that you have to write about what you know. And what I know has never seemed worth writing about to me.
My days are mostly the same. I get up around 6:30 a.m., shower, and download the latest news and tech podcasts to my iPod nano. I get dressed in jeans, button up shirts, and a brown blazer, and drive to the historic Utah County Courthouse in my fading maroon 1996 Toyota Tercel (“Juliette” I call her) while listening to the podcasts.
I step into my office at about 7:30 a.m., a beautiful room with high ceilings and rich brown moldings left from the days when craftsmanship in architecture was still in demand. There I am surrounded by the few things of worldly value I have collected or been given. My grandmother’s uncle’s bar admission certificate, dated April 1911, hangs on one wall in its museum glassed frame, the one thing in my office that says “lawyer.” On the desk is an antique cigar box, circa 1950, hand-enameled in a brilliant burnt orange, which I purchased down the street at the Cat’s Cradle antique shop for finishing my first year of law school.
Overhead on the hutch, leaning against the wall near the ceiling, is a 3D poster of John, Paul, George, and Ringo marching across Abbey Road in a funeral procession. A few white shirts and a gray suit hang on a clothes rack against the back wall, and an ornamental globe is perched on a chest of drawers.
All this frames a large hardwood desk, which is the real thing of value in the office. I spent a couple of hours polishing it up when I moved in, so impressed was I with its beauty. Two weeks after I moved in it was almost destroyed when water mysteriously started pouring in from the ceiling, but I was quick enough to move it out of harm’s way (no easy feat) and dry it off before any warping occurred.
It’s a plain office, but it suits me. I start my days off with prayer and meditation, and then move quickly on to my work as a public defender. That part of my life is not plain, and is flavored with many secrets I will take to my grave. But I am of course prohibited, both legally and morally, from discussing them here, and will have to leave my professional life alone on this blog.
I spend the evenings with my family, eating my wife’s delicious cooking and playing with the kids, and then about 8:30 I give the kids their baths, we read to them, sing with them, pray with them, and put them to bed. At about 9:30 or 10:00, I have time to do what I want (it’s 11:26 p.m.) now. Finally, it’s bedtime.
It’s not the romantic life of a traveler, and entrepreneur, a journalist, a musician, or an author. Which is why I’ve always thought that it wasn’t worth writing about, at least not directly. But I think I’ve realized that the spice of life is in finding the beauty in ordinary, everyday experiences.
So that’s why I’m starting a new blog. To help me find the beauty in the commonplace. To help me suck the marrow out of life, even when life is busy and seemingly monotonous. To ponder and reflect.
I’ll end this post with a poem I wrote about plain, ordinary things, which I entered into the Utah State Poetry Society’s annual competition this year (it didn’t win). I nicked the title from a Pink Floyd song, but not the concept, so I hope Roger will forgive me:
~Two Suns in the Sunset~
I asked for a room with a west-facing window
because I knew you would want to go
in the gentle glow
of a last summer's evening.
You always liked the sun-kissed colors best.
Fifty-three years ago
I promised I would never leave you alone
And now your breath is still
Your soul is at peace
And I have kept my promise.
In a moment I will break the news
to Winnie and Luke
Our two babies who are all grown up now
waiting at home for my telephone call.
But let it wait one more minute.
This is our last chance
to watch the clouds turn sunbeams into memories
and I want to keep it
just the two of us.
I will miss you, my love.
On warm sunlit evenings like this
I will miss you most of all.
In the restful July twilight
my aching will be greatest.
But I know you cannot stay.
So I gaze out the window frame
as you fade into the western sky
Radiant hope of humankind
and best friend saying goodbye
Two suns in the sunset~
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