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The Human Balance
I recently found myself in multiple conversations about how to strike a balance between recognizing times when we need to be alone and the moments when we need nothing more than to be with others. Needless to say, I didn’t get very far, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized there wasn’t a recipe to strike the balance. That could be because the balance is innate, engrained within the fabric of our beings from the beginning. The very nature of being human is to be ourselves within the constructs of community. Therefore, the truth lies in the paradox. Life has a way of dictating our needs.…
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Beyond Croatia’s Beauty
Living in Switzerland has allowed us to travel to many places in the world that we may not have otherwise been able to see. However, seeing is one thing; experiencing these places is something else. Some places can give you an aura or feel about them beyond that in which the eye can see. Sometimes, their natural beauty may point to and radiate something more to life than what we can visualize. Other times, it might be the architecture that can tell the stories of their past in ways only our subconscious can fully articulate. And then there are the places still wrestling with their own identities as a country,…
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Back to Reality
There are times when the desire for beauty is all that you can identify with. A real beauty that transcends your ego and insecurities into something pure. Something real. During these times, the superficial and the projections of reality become tiresome and even can provoke anger. For these times, I have been so grateful for the beauty of the mundane. The beauty found in architecture. These are the cracks found in the walls of a beautiful building. The beauty within the plant blossoms after almost dying. And the beauty found in those who don’t feel the need to project a false version of themselves onto others’ egos or insecurities. You…
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A Friend to Man
(Image: Bruce Fountain, Falkland, Scotland) The House by the Side of the Road by Sam Walter Foss (1858-1911) There are hermit souls that live withdrawn In the peace of their self-content; There are souls, like stars, that dwell apart, In a fellowless firmament; There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths Where highways never ran;- But let me live by the side of the road And be a friend to man. Let me live in a house by the side of the road, Where the race of men go by- The men who are good and the men who are bad, As good and as bad as I. I…
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Cold as Stone (3 Years Later)
Three years ago, our lives changed. We blindly boarded a plane with a few suitcases and a one-way ticket to live on the other side of the world. It’s hard to fathom that we have now called Switzerland our home for this long. There are days when it seems surreal, and there are days when it is very real. There are days when we feel grateful, and there are days when we feel the grind and we complain (A lot). This past Sunday, the exact date we left 3 years prior, I sat and tried to come up with something to think about, write about, or at the very least…
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Merry Christmas
The crisp, cold air surrounding the house had no bearing on my two boys’ excitement and smiles as they paced the hallway at the top of my parent’s stairs. The same hallway that I once paced, waiting for my father to give us the go-ahead to stumble dangerously down the stairs in haste to attack the presents waiting for us under the tree. The same butterflies in our stomachs. The same unknowing. The same anticipation that gave birth to uncontrollable smiles. It is and was the heart-wrenching surprise and expectation of it all. It is Christmas morning. Christmas through the eyes of my two young boys. Then, there comes that…
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High School Sports Hall of Fame
There is an underlying reality to our lives that is always present but can only be seen clearly through the eyes of time. No one else can claim this reality because it is our responsibility to grasp it. It is the individual story of our lives. For no one has breathed the air meant for us. No one has walked in our footsteps. Although there will always be similarities in the experiences of our lives, there will never be complete symmetry. Our lives are exclusively ours. They are ours to learn from. To own. To live. I recently went home for a short but humble visit back to my hometown…
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Bonnie Scotland
Over the course of the last two and half years, we have been very fortunate to have traveled a part of the world that we have never seen before. And I think we can all agree that these experiences are not to be taken for granted. Mainly because every time you have an opportunity to experience a new place, a new culture, or a new landscape, it brings you out of your own ego, your own perceptions, your own narrow reality. And for this, we are very grateful. We have been to many different countries and cities over the course of the last few years and each one has left…
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Turning the Big 4-0
They say that when you turn 40, you enter a new stage of life where you begin to see things more thoroughly—or, better put, as they are rather than as you want them to be. Ideology and theory become less of a focus, and the messiness of life becomes more of a comfortable norm. Maybe it is about being content within the “grey” areas of our lives, where we seem better suited to hold two opposing things together without discounting either. This has undoubtedly been the case for me as I reflect upon the immense beauty and suffering in my own life. Both of these are constantly present, but when…
