Words, Music, & Outdoor Adventures

Saw this article today. Substitute Missoula with Steamboat, Bethel, Killington, or any small, outdoorsy town.**

http://www.newwest.net/index.php/main/article/11628/

He published a book of poems and two relatively conventional novels, and then he met the writer Sherwood Anderson, who advised him to write about his hometown. So Faulkner began observing Oxford, Mississippi, more closely, and he began to invent an imaginary version of Oxford he called Jefferson, located in an imaginary county he called Yoknapatawpha.

He later said, “I discovered that my own little postage stamp of native soil was worth writing about and that I would never live long enough to exhaust it, and by sublimating the actual into apocryphal I would have complete liberty to use whatever talent I might have to its absolute top.”

The Wild Places

I was walking alone through the lofty San Juans
With a heart full of light and a head full of songs
I was thinking of time and how much it will cost
To recapture the souls that we surely have lost
…
There’s a heaven on earth that so few ever find
Though the map’s in your soul and the road’s in your mind
So many mountains before us, so many rivers to cross
Where is the wisdom to bring back the vision we’ve lost
…
When you sleep on the ground with the stars in your face
You can feel the full length of the beauty and grace
In the wild places man is an unwelcome guest
But it’s here that I’m found and it’s here I feel blessed

Dan Fogelberg - The Reach

It’s Maine… And it’s Autumn The birches have just begun turning
It’s life and it’s dying*The lobstermen’s boats come returning
With the catch of they day in their holds and the young boys cold and complaining The fog meets the beaches and out on the Reach it is raining –
It’s father and son It’s the way it’s been done since the old days
It’s hauling by hand ten miles out from the land where their chow waits
All the days get so lonely and long and seas grow so stormy and strong but
The Reach will sing welcome as homeward they hurry along.

The wind brings a chill There’s a frost on the sill in the morning

It creeps through the door At the edge of the shore ice is forming

Soon the northers will bluster and blow

And the woods will be whitened with snowfall
And the Reach will lie frozen for the lost and unchosen to row –
And the morning will blow away As the waves crash and fall

And the Reach like a siren sings as she beckons and calls

As the coastline recedes from view And the seas swell and roll

*

I will take from the Reach all that she has to teach

To the depths of my soul –

*

*

Funny post: http://www.triathlete.com/msg.php?id=41407

*

“The triathlon is our playground. Training is our playtime. Training partners are our playmates. Now the challenge is up to each of us to remember that this truly is a sport based on play and leisure, and avoid turning it into a daily, must-do drudgery.

Because drudgery is what grown ups do. Not us children.”

“Ultimately, itis about the journey that takes place. Itis what happens to you as soon as you click iSubmiti for your entry into the big show. A year out, you donit fully understand what youive gotten yourself into and really have no idea what lies ahead…**

So, for those thinking about one day doing something that youire not sure you canOe or that are too scared to commit because you fear the known, jump in head first. The truth is, youill never know. Others have posted on their blogs that they donit know if theyill even finish on Sunday. HellOe this is my third and I donit really know if Iill finish on Sunday - stranger things have happened. But ultimately, it doesnit matter what your result is at the finish line, be it first, last, or even DNF. What matters is the refinement that happens to you along the way.”

http://www.trifuel.com/triathlon/endurance-files/becoming-iron-001587.php

*

I left home when I was seventeen I just grew tired of falling down
And I’m sure I was told*The allure of the road Would be all I found

And all the answers that I started with Turned out questions in the end
So years roll on by And just like the sky The road never ends

And the people who love me still ask me When are you coming back to town
And I answer quite frankly When they stop building roads And all God needs is gravity to hold me down

“Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.

I am haunted by waters.”