I have been blessed through the years with sound health and understanding friends and family.

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My travels have taken me near and far where I hope I have left more than I have taken.

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I’ve written and taught for a living, shoveled asphalt, driven a bus and worked as a teacher’s aide for Headstart, pumped gas, repaired fence and guardrail and worked at a beach store.

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My belief in the essential goodness of (most) human beings and the support of my brothers and sister, my mother and father, the niece and nephews and friends has sustained me through difficult times. The good times as well.

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I relish skiing through the woods, climbing rock walls, floating down rivers, hiking, biking, running, immersed in the tranquility of the forest and mountains and desert, worlds familiar yet unfathomable, a spiritual realm, the sublime, the divine.

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Writing and thinking and reading, to my mind, are indistinguishable from one another.

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I agree wholeheartedly with the notion that “I learn more when I listen than when I talk.” I take strength from James Russell Lowell’s idea that “All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.”

And I also like Julia Cameron’s thoughts: “Leap and the net will appear.”