Rough Patches

If I speak plainly about what I do to earn my monthly paycheck, I will tell you that I work day in, day out, with folks who are on parole. They are all felons. I try to teach them remedial reading and math skills so they can move their lives forward.

They are the people with failed lives. Failed relationships, failed ambitions, failed life choices, failed vocations. Some have been incarcerated for as little as 18 months. Others have served more than 30 years for murder. The latter are the tenderized ones who have very little fight left in them. They want to simply live out their lives peaceably in some sort of decent housing; they can’t know where those resources will come from.

No Garbage In; No Garbage Out

During dinner overlooking San Diego Bay, it was impossible to know what thoughts Dad filtered through his ninety-nine years of life experience. He reminded me that the old computer axiom “garbage in—garbage out” need not apply.

With each passing year, bitterness need not take root. Instead, by choice, life can grow sweeter.

Window Dust Memories

It’s Sunday, and the sun’s rays heap onto the coffee table. There would have been more rays, but the grit from the long-procrastinated window washing routine blocks them. In their place, the desert dust captures recent history, plastered to the glass and screen. The dust grasps tight the Yule days packed with expectation and the celebrated joy with family. It holds savored evening chats around the table. It’s soaked with laughter, forming a joyous rivulet streaking down the glass. The dust settles quietly, gathering peacefully, day after day. Soon I’ll clean the glass, making way for new layers of dust, and new dust, like new Sunday mornings, will return.