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Author Archives: John Swinburn
Lessons Too Late for the Learning
The ‘lesson too late for the learning’ is the hardest one. And it’s not alone; it runs in herds that, if one lets them, will consume a person until all he sees are his mistakes, the ones that cannot be unmade. But if … Continue reading
Posted in Just Thinking
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Mining My Brain for Thoughts and Secrets
I’ve been awake for more than an hour and up for half an hour. And it’s only 4:30 a.m. This is not what I planned for Saturday. I planned, instead, to get up around 5:30, have a couple of cups … Continue reading
Posted in Creativity, Insomnia, Ruminations
3 Comments
Self-Help
I am in the midst of a transformation, but I don’t know just what I’m transforming from, nor what I’m becoming. I know only that the man who inhabits my body is undergoing a metamorphosis of some significance. No longer do … Continue reading
Posted in Frustration
3 Comments
Independence Days Ahead
I feel like I’m outside myself, watching a transformation of my political beliefs. I watched the Independent ticket town hall on CNN this evening, with Governors Gary Johnson and William Weld. I agreed with so much of what they had … Continue reading
Courageous Conversations
I’ve accepted an invitation to be a guest host on a web and telephone conference call/conversation on August 21 at 7:00 p.m. Eastern time. The program, a component of a series entitled “Courageous Conversations About Education,” will last two hours. … Continue reading
Posted in Communication
2 Comments
Calamity without Forgiveness
By the looks of it, the end times have come. The sky is attacking the ground and everything using the ground as a foundation for the future, with a vengeance unmatched in modern times. Trees—whipped into screaming children attempting to … Continue reading
Dove, as in Soap
When he looked in her eyes, he gazed into the soul of a sorceress, a woman so practiced in witchcraft that she made him believe a woman like her could love someone like him. Of course, he later came to understand, that was impossible. … Continue reading
Posted in Fiction, Writing
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Support
When people who matter go through difficult times, time slows to an excruciating crawl. That slow-motion experience emphasizes the importance of “being there.” Even if one’s support or assistance is not needed, one’s availability matters, I think. That’s what’s on … Continue reading
Posted in Just Thinking
2 Comments
Today is Dad’s Birthday
Today is my father’s birthday. He was fifty years old when I was born; were he still alive, he would have turned 113 years old today. But he’s not. He died when he was 81 and I was 31. It’s … Continue reading
Dream-Shaming
I couldn’t shake the dregs of the dream off my mind. It was as if they were clinging to the ridges in my brain like dried food clings to a skillet left too long on a hot burner. So I’ve … Continue reading
Posted in Dreams
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An Old Illusion
I am afraid there is no home. Not anymore. Home was a place in our minds that protected us; protection is, today, a fantasy. Protection is a wish drowning in reality too ugly to call it by name.
Posted in Philosophy, Regret
1 Comment
Should I Die in New Zealand?
When we lived in Dallas, fierce thunderstorms were not strangers. They swept through the area with some regularity, sometimes bringing with them astonishing hail that ruined roofs and left cars pockmarked with evidence of Mother Nature’s fury that simply could … Continue reading
Posted in Philosophy, Travel
3 Comments
Blood
Some words occupy spaces only they can fill. Those words are like surviving twins; they are incomplete pairs that cannot be repaired, no matter how much energy is expended to that end. One such word is blood. Oh, one might … Continue reading
Posted in Just Thinking, Language
1 Comment
When We Do Not Exist
It would help if we would rely more on our reason than our wishes. It would help if we recognized fantasy for what it is. It would help if we recognized our failings and owned up to our flaws. It … Continue reading
Posted in Poetry
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Losing Hope
I’m looking out the big windows in my “tree house room” into a sky washed in muted blue and grey and white clouds. Huge limbs block pieces of the sky. Leaves that will, a few months hence, fall as brown … Continue reading
Posted in Just Thinking
1 Comment
Musings on the Day After the Fourth
Last night, I sat on my deck watching explosions of fireworks in the deep distance and hearing the faint percussive thuds of the remote blasts. The air was hot and muggy, defining July in central Arkansas (and much of my home state of … Continue reading
Posted in Depression, Frustration, Independence Day, Philosophy, Politics, Rant
2 Comments
Practical Sorcery
Meniscus Plevens rolled his eyes. His sister, Cleopatricia, shot a dark, menacing glance in his direction, a glare hot enough to melt the bacon-grease-saturated smile off his face. Every time she started to tell the story about her conversation with President Roosevelt, Meniscus rolled … Continue reading
Posted in Fiction, Writing
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Brexit
My fears about the Brexit vote came to fruition when, in the middle of the night last night, I woke up and checked the news. I don’t pretend to understand the full breadth of the vote’s ramifications on the world economy, … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
2 Comments
Wisdom in Nonsense?
Last night, during a break from watching the CNN town hall with the Libertarian candidates for President and Vice President, I wrote a bizarre post on Facebook, expecting it to generate a flood of comments questioning my sanity. Sadly, only … Continue reading
Posted in Just Thinking
2 Comments
Missing Pieces
Other people remember their seventeenth and eighteenth and nineteenth birthdays as milestones, landmarks of adventure to be remembered longingly as they glide through their senior years. Not I. Even when prompted by hearing stories of someone else’s ‘coming of age,’ I don’t … Continue reading
Posted in Memories, Philosophy
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Ill and Alone
My friend, Myra, wound up in a Lexington, Kentucky hospital emergency room yesterday. I don’t know just what led her there, aside from intense pain. I spoke with her last night from her hospital bed (the hospital admitted her) after learning of … Continue reading
Post-Solstice Apothegm
“We all make mistakes.” That phrase acknowledges error with the gift of forgiveness. But it provides only a single absolution of transgression; it is not a coupon valid for repeat offenses.
Posted in Just Thinking
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Wishing as a Lifestyle
Yet again, I arose far earlier than I intended this morning, getting out of bed about 3:30. A couple of cups of coffee and too much web-surfing later, I sit at my computer wondering why. Not just why I woke up … Continue reading
Posted in Essay, Philosophy
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I Borrow
I borrow from what I read, what I hear, and from what I previously wrote about the world around me. I borrow ideas, opinions, and emotions. Hell, I borrow sensations of pleasure and pain from people who, intentionally or not, share them … Continue reading
Posted in Just Thinking
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Early Morning Ruminations on the Return from France
How charming, my belief that I had—with virtually no effort—overcome the jet lag of returning home from France. I thought getting up at 6:00 a.m. Saturday, staying awake for the entire series of flights from Marseille to Little Rock, and … Continue reading
Posted in Just Thinking
2 Comments