Shish kebab on the grill

Items consigned, donated or thrown away: 15

Doctor’s appointments for my son: 2

Driving tests taken (by my son): 1

Operator’s licenses received: 1!


Cups of coffee consumed: 14

Lunches with friends: 1

Hours spent with Tank: 5 1/2

Baseball games watched: 2 (Kathy: Johnny Damon tied Ted Williams’ hit record on Wednesday!)

Sketching sessions: 2 (two more than last week!)

New puppies at the barn: 1

Oh, yes, I AM all that!

And how was your week?

Photo courtesy Kathy Ricca

Some of us are fortunate to find companions among the other creatures, and in this poem by T. Alan Broughton of Vermont, we sense a kind of friendship without dependency between our species and another. [Introduction by Ted Kooser.]

Great Blue Heron
I drive past him each day in the swamp where he stands
on one leg, hunched as if dreaming of his own form
the surface reflects. Often I nearly forget to turn left,
buy fish and wine, be home in time to cook and chill.
Today the bird stays with me, as if I am moving through
the heron’s dream to share his sky or water—places
he will rise into on slow flapping wings or where
his long bill darts to catch unwary frogs. I’ve seen
his slate blue feathers lift him as dangling legs
fold back, I’ve seen him fly through the dying sun
and out again, entering night, entering my own sleep.
I only know this bird by a name we’ve wrapped him in,
and when I stand on my porch, fish in the broiler,
wine glass sweating against my palm, glint of sailboats
tacking home on dusky water, I try to imagine him
slowly descending to his nest, wise as he was
or ever will be, filling each moment with that moment’s
act or silence, and the evening folds itself around me.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2010 by T. Alan Broughton from his most recent book of poetry, A World Remembered, Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2010. Reprinted by permission of T. Alan Broughton and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

If I’m honest, from now until about November, I am pretty unhappy about living in Florida. Summers here are brutal—heat in the 90s with matching humidity, giving us heat index ratings in the 100s for days on end. And there are no cool mornings or evenings to offer a break—mornings and evenings may be a teeny bit cooler, yes, but just as humid which is what bothers me the most. It’s like having a hot, wet towel thrown over your head.

Anyway this post is not supposed to be a long complaint about the weather (see: title). It’s supposed to be about what I love about Florida—things I will concentrate on when the humidity makes me wish I never set foot in this state. Here are a few:

Florida skies. Whether they’re bright blue or swirled with soft-serve clouds, Florida skies are breathtaking. I moved here from Southern California, where the sky was usually a flat gray or even white with few clouds to liven up the expanse. I know there must have been plenty of blue-sky days, but they were nothing to the daily show Florida’s skies put on.

Birds. I never paid much attention to birds until I moved to Florida—but having Sandhill Cranes in your back yard will get your attention. In addition to the cranes, which raise babies all over town every year, I’ve seen pileated woodpeckers, roseate spoonbills, and great blue herons in our subdivision, along with countless other species. We have a long, rectangular retention pond not far from our house, and I keep meaning to walk down there with my camera and bird book and see how many birds I can identify. We’ve had Carolina wrens build a nest and raise a batch of babies in our garage and another at the base of a potted bougainvillea. When I walk the dog at night, sometimes I hear an owl.

Sandhill cranes (not my yard, though!)

Other wildlife. Our subdivision backs up to conservation land, so we have the occasional wild visitor. In addition to regular alligator sightings, we’ve seen deer, foxes, rabbits, gopher tortoises and bobcats in our neighborhood. Wild boars regularly wander in and sometimes have to be trapped if they begin to tear up too many yards. We’re infested with squirrels, as well as frogs, toads, skinks and (gulp!) snakes. (I could really live without the snakes, but I guess I have to accept whatever nature throws at me!) We will not discuss the abundant insect life because this is about what I LIKE about Florida…


Thunder—if I’m safely inside*. I love the rumbly, grumbly sound of rolling thunder from a summer storm. Our wimpy California storms had nothing like Florida thunder, which can sometimes shake the windows. Few things are cosier than lying in bed listening to thunder and the patter of rain drops. *Unfortunately, I’m terrified of lightning!


I know there are more things I could list that I love about Florida if I thought about it harder. Ask me again in February, and I’ll come up with a whole new list!

What are some things you love about where you live?

One of the beauties of Kaizen is that the steps can be so small that you don’t mind doing them over and over again, until they become habit. Once established as habit, you don’t have to think about them anymore. Kaizen encourages the practice of starting with something easy so you’ll see immediate benefits to encourage you to continue. I’ve got several ongoing projects/issues that are not going as well or as quickly as I’d like. In addition to trying to keep myself from feeling overwhelmed, I’ve been casting around for ways to make some small changes that I hope will jump start me. For example, I want to get back to sketching, and I’d like to take off a few pounds. My plan is to replace some of the time I spend watching TV at night with doing yoga, or with sketching. Not for hours, and not every night—maybe just 15-20 minutes three times a week to start with. To make it easy, I’ll keep my yoga props handy in my bedroom, and a few sketching supplies in a basket in the family room so that I don’t spend time searching for what I need to get started.

I find Kaizen comforting. Changing small things doesn’t scare me, and I believe I’ll make more progress by doing a little every day (or most days) than if I become too harsh a taskmaster for myself. I already regularly use a kitchen timer for short timed-writing sessions (it’s amazing how much you can write in 15 minutes if you just keep the pen moving), so I know this can work.

What small, incremental steps can you take on your way to your dreams?

For a much more thorough and inspiring exploration of Kaizen in regard to goals and dreams, visit Kaizenvision.com.