What is remembered lives.  ~Norwegian proverb

It isn’t grief that has arrived...not yet.
It’s something quieter and stranger. As if a hidden projector has clicked on inside my mind and begun advancing slides, one by one. Each image settles into place, luminous and precise. Each one carries a story. And all of them lead back to Ken.

The first slide opens in a cafeteria line on the very first day of college. Two freshmen, trays in hand, surrounded by noise and unfamiliar faces. A private college. Students from all over the world. And me—an earnest country bumpkin suddenly deposited into a much larger universe. Somewhere between the clatter of dishes and the smell of institutional food, Ken and I met. No ceremony. No effort. Just that instant recognition that sometimes happens when two lives quietly click into alignment. Friendship, immediate and unannounced.

Ken came from a broken family. I came from a sheltered one. Somehow, that difference didn’t separate us...it stitched us together. We found our footing side by side. Same major: European history. Same advisor: Dr. Dalton. Same curiosity about how ideas, faith, and people shaped the world. We didn’t know it then, but we were beginning a conversation that would last a lifetime.

By sophomore year, we were living off-campus. A rambling house with four of us inside...two rooms, two Davids. One was Stewie. The other was Carlson, named not out of affection but necessity. Carlson woke every morning to blaring Sousa marches, an alarm clock that announced itself like a parade invading the bedroom. We played practical jokes with the devotion of artists: water dumped from an upstairs window onto an unsuspecting passersby...sometimes us...resulting in soggy clothes and laughter before class. A tape recorder hidden in a closet, wired to emit haunted-house sounds late at night. And once, infamously, a greased toilet seat that backfired spectacularly when Judy...already then the love of Ken’s life...had to use it. She never said a word about the greasy butt. That silence, in hindsight, was an act of grace.

Money was always short. Nights were long. Study breaks meant McDonald’s or Mr. Donut and endless conversation. There were broken-down cars, too...mine especially. An old Dodge Coronet that refused to start one bitter evening. In frustration, I managed to break one of its windows. Ken laughed...tried not to...but failed. I took two aspirin and went to bed. Friendship often looks like that: shared disasters, shared laughter, and the quiet understanding that tomorrow we’d figure it out together.

The summer after our junior year, Ken married Judy. The love of his life. I stood as one of his best men, alongside Tom, a childhood friend who had known Ken long before I did. It felt right...Ken’s life already forming a circle that included past, present, and future. My parents loved Ken and Judy as if they were their own children. They were family long before anyone needed to say so.
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After college, life did what life does. Ken went on to seminary. I followed, briefly, then left...my faith unraveling in ways I couldn’t ignore. Our paths bent in different directions, but the thread between us never broke. Years later, when my father was dying, Ken...now a minister...stood in a hospital room and prayed for him. That moment remains one of the great quiet kindnesses of my life.

Time passed. Decades slipped by. We all grew older. And then, many years later, Ken and I found our way back into conversation. We discovered something surprising and deeply familiar: our journeys of the soul and the mind had been remarkably similar. Questions wrestled with. Beliefs lost, reshaped, reclaimed in new forms. We promised we’d talk about it all someday. Promised there would be time.

There wasn’t.

Now Ken is gone. And the slideshow keeps advancing. The memories are warm, absurd, vivid, alive. And yet I feel diminished. Not broken...just less than I was before. That is the cost of a lifetime friend. Someone who knew you early. Someone who witnessed who you were becoming. Someone whose presence shaped the person you are, quietly and irrevocably.

Ken left an indelible mark on my life. Judy did too. Their thread runs bright through my story, through the laughter, the faith and doubt, the long years and the sudden passing of time. This is not a goodbye. It is a recognition.

Once upon a time, way back when, two young men met in a cafeteria line. And somehow, without either of them knowing it, that moment never ended.
​
What is remembered lives.

​~Wylddane

​The Mystical Potential of a Shifting Reflection

On a quiet March afternoon, after a few hours spent raking the yard, I sat down on the front porch to rest. A glass of wine sat beside me, untouched, and I found myself drawn to its surface, to the way it held the world within it. The glass, filled with wine, was more than just a vessel—it was a mirror, reflecting the trees and the neighborhood in its depths. The light, the shifting shadows, the details of the familiar street were all captured in its curve, each subtle movement of the glass altering the image it held.

As I gazed at the reflection, something struck me: the world inside the glass wasn’t fixed. It wasn’t a perfect, static representation of the surroundings, but a fluid, dynamic interpretation of them. As I shifted the glass in my hand, the reflection changed. The trees bent at new angles, the shadows shifted, and the entire landscape seemed to come alive, evolving with every movement. It was as though the image was not simply a passive reflection but an active, living thing—constantly changing, full of possibility.

In that moment, I was struck by the profound question: What is real? The world around me—the trees, the yard, the sky—was tangible and immediate. But the reflection, with all its distortion and fluidity, seemed just as real, if not more so. It felt less fixed, less constrained by the boundaries of physicality. The shifting reflection became something mystical, as if it contained infinite potential. With each change, it hinted at new possibilities, new ways of seeing the world.

The experience brought to mind a deeper philosophical truth: that reality is never static. It is always in motion, always unfolding, just like the reflection in the glass. What we see at any given moment is a mere snapshot of an ongoing process, a glimpse into a world that is constantly becoming. The reflection was a reminder that the world is not simply a series of fixed objects, but a dynamic dance of light, perception, and interpretation. It was a moment of profound transformation, not just in the world outside me, but in my own awareness.

The fluidity of the reflection—its continual change—felt like a symbol of potential itself. It suggested that reality is not something we merely observe, but something we participate in, something that shifts as we do. The more I moved the glass, the more it revealed different versions of the world—each one unique, yet all connected. There was a sense that the reflection was not just a passive mirror but a conduit for possibility, a bridge between what is and what could be.

In that still moment, I realized that my own life, too, was in a state of constant flux, filled with untapped potential. Just as the glass of wine held the reflections of trees and sky, my life—my choices, my thoughts, my experiences—was a fluid, shifting thing. There was no single, fixed way to be; instead, the world, like the reflection, offered endless possibilities. Every shift in perspective, every change in direction, held the possibility of transformation. The reflection reminded me that life is not a single, unchanging reality but a series of potential realities, each one just waiting to be revealed.
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That moment on the porch became a meditation on the nature of reality and our place within it. The reflection, in all its movement and distortion, was a reminder that the world around us is not as fixed as we might think. It is always in a state of becoming, always shifting, always full of possibility. And just like the glass of wine, we too are reflections of that larger process, constantly changing, constantly moving, always filled with potential.

~Wylddane

Dancing to Thelma Houston

John and Maryann had been friends longer than either of them cared to admit. Over fifty years, their lives had drifted in different directions, yet there was one thing that always anchored them to each other: their love for Thelma Houston’s “Don’t Leave Me This Way.”

It was the early 70s when it all started—two twenty-somethings, brimming with energy and no sense of limits.

They were inseparable then. He, a gay man with an eye for fun and adventure and a smile that could light up the room. She, a straight woman with a laugh that sounded like a bell and a taste for fashion, music, and dancing. Together, they had found their haven at the Gay 90s, a gay disco and bar that thrummed with the pulse of disco beats and the sound of freedom.

They didn’t know it at the time, but those nights at the Gay 90s—where the music was loud and the glitter on the floor was just another part of the magic—were the nights that would define their friendship for decades to come.

Every weekend, they would practice the dance moves they’d seen the other couples perform on the floor. Thelma Houston’s record spun endlessly on John's turntable at home, its soulful beats echoing through the small apartment where they spent hours perfecting spins, dips, and fancy footwork.

“Again, from the top!” Maryann would yell, already in position.

“Hold on, hold on. I can’t get my platform shoes on right,” John would respond, struggling to keep his footing.

They’d laugh. A lot.

One evening, as they practiced a particularly ambitious spin, Maryann’s heel caught the edge of the coffee table. Without missing a beat, she tumbled right across its surface, sending everything on the table crashing to the floor in a symphony of chaos.

John dropped to his knees, unable to catch his breath from laughing. “I’m never going to be able to look at that coffee table the same way again.”

Maryann straightened up, dusting herself off with an exaggerated bow. “I meant to do that.”

It was these moments that bonded them even more deeply. The more they practiced, the more they laughed, and the more they understood each other without saying a word. It was a rare thing, finding someone who didn’t just understand you but could laugh with you at the world’s imperfections.

Then came that night at the Gay 90s that would become their most cherished memory. The dance floor was packed with bodies moving in time to the beats of the latest hits, but when “Don’t Leave Me This Way” began to pulse through the speakers, the entire room seemed to pause. Everyone on the floor knew what was coming.

John took Maryann’s hand, and they moved toward the center. The crowd parted, as it always did, giving way to the familiar duo—their favorite song setting the rhythm for their practiced steps. There was something magical about the way they moved. It wasn’t just the flashy spins or the complicated choreography; it was the joy in their faces, the way they seemed to float across the floor, lost in the music, lost in each other’s company.

As the song reached its peak, they executed a perfect spin-and-dip combination, landing in perfect unison, gasping for breath with wide smiles plastered on their faces.

“That was it, MA,” John said, wiping his brow dramatically.

Just as they caught their breath, a young man appeared at the edge of the dance floor. He was handsome, tall, with a wide smile and an effortless style that made him stand out even in a crowd full of striking characters.

“You two really get down,” he said, nodding in approval.

John and Maryann exchanged a look. The compliment was simple, but somehow, it felt like the most important thing anyone had ever said to them.

“You think so?” Maryann asked, her voice laced with a happy smile.

“Hell yeah,” the man grinned. “You’re killing it out there. Makes me wanna learn how to dance like that.”

John and Maryann beamed. They’d been dancing in the shadows of the Gay 90s for years, but in that moment, the world—if only for a second—had truly noticed them. They carried that compliment with them through the decades. It wasn’t just a compliment; it was a badge of pride, a reminder that even after all this time, they still had it.

Now, more than fifty years later, they were sitting on the phone reminiscing, the soft hum of the past playing in the background of their minds. John, sitting on the couch in his home, was gazing at the framed and autographed Thelma Houston LP (a gift from Maryann) hanging on the wall in a place of honor. The Thelma Houston record, an image representing decades of love and friendship, still held the same magic it had all those years ago.

“Do you think we could still pull it off?” John asked, half-seriously.

Maryann laughed, a sound as familiar and comforting as ever. “I don’t know about you, but I’d need some serious practice. These knees aren’t what they used to be.”

John smirked. “Yeah, but we’ve got the moves. Always will.”

They sat there for a long moment, letting the silence wrap around them like an old, warm blanket. There was no need to say much more. They’d danced their way through life together, through ups and downs, through triumphs and losses. They’d laughed at their mistakes and celebrated their victories. And through it all, “Don’t Leave Me This Way” had been their constant.

Because no matter how much time passed, some things never changed.

~Wylddane

On a still December morning, when the world seemed to hold its breath, the woods lay beneath a blanket of snow, muffling all sound. The trees stood like ancient sentinels, their branches heavy with frost, catching the light of a pale sun that barely broke through the low-hanging clouds. The air was sharp, biting, with a scent of pine and earth that had settled deep in the cold.

Through this wintery silence, a stream wound its way through the forest, a quiet ribbon of water that had long since begun to freeze. At first, it was only a thin layer of ice at the edges, like delicate lacework, but as the night grew colder and the days shorter, the ice spread, inch by inch, over the surface, until the entire stream was a glossy sheet of frozen glass. Here and there, cracks and fractures marred its surface, whispering of movement trapped beneath, but to the untrained eye, it seemed still, as if time itself had stopped.

The stream, once a lively rush of water in warmer months, now lay frozen in perfect stillness, as though it had turned to stone. Small ice crystals clung to the rocks along its bed, shimmering like tiny stars in the winter sun, and the occasional gust of wind sent a flurry of snowflakes drifting across the surface, softening the hard edges of the ice.

At the edge of the frozen stream, a young boy appeared, his blue and green plaid scarf wrapped tightly around his neck, and his breath rising in puffs of white vapor in the chilly air. He had wandered into the woods, drawn by the quiet beauty of the winter day, and found himself standing on the bank, staring at the stream. He knelt down, brushing the snow from a large rock, and placed his dark blue mittened hand gently against the cold, smooth surface of the ice. Beneath his touch, the faintest ripple seemed to run through the frozen water—just an illusion, perhaps, or the memory of movement in a world that had grown still.

For a long while, he sat there, watching the play of light on the ice, and listening to the silence around him. The woods seemed alive in their own way, breathing with the slow, steady rhythm of winter. It was a peaceful kind of quiet, the kind that makes you feel as though the world is holding its secrets just beneath the surface, waiting for someone patient enough to listen.

Eventually, he rose to his feet, his boots crunching in the snow, and turned away from the stream. The ice had a certain mystery about it, like a story waiting to be told. And though he didn't know it yet, he would return again to this spot—perhaps in the spring, when the ice had melted, in the warmth of summer, or in another December, when the stream would once again be frozen in its timeless slumber.
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But for now, he let the winter woods embrace him, the frozen stream a quiet companion in the midst of the cold, and the world seemed perfect just as it was—still, silent, and full of possibility.

~Wylddane


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It was not an epiphany arriving with trumpets, clanging cymbals and beating drums.  Rather it was a quiet moment consummated with gratitude.

While sipping on my morning mug of coffee, I was staring out of the kitchen window at the bird bath.  Splashing around and creating their own fountain effect were the usual robins and bluejays.  Then as I watched, birds would leave and new birds would arrive:  Baltimore orioles, bluebirds, purple finches, a catbird...one and all stopped at the bird bath to play, bathe and refresh.

I found my heart smiling with happiness at their antics and that smile spread to my whole being.  As I watched, I purposely and restfully kept my mind clear. While experiencing that moment, I realized the blessing of being at a time in my life where a simple moment could bring so much joy.

Rest assured that the birds were living in the moment.  They were not consumed by memories of yesterday nor thinking about a tomorrow.  Quite simply they just were.

Those birds have much they could teach all of us.

~Wylddane

Actually I should say that this snowfall is what I will remember rather than something that I remember from the past.

It started snowing around 10:30am on Sunday.  It is now nearly noon on Tuesday and it is still snowing.  We have had bouts of freezing rain as well as a few hours of rain during the night which has reduced the volume of snow on the ground.  However, my guesstimate is that by now we've received nearly 20" of snow.

The snow is supposed to continue until 5pm today.

Many, well maybe most, places are closed because of the dangerous driving conditions.

It is with deep gratitude that I've hibernated in the wee cottage in the woods during this storm.  I've read, watched TV, and napped.  Yesterday I finished William Kent Krueger's book "Fox Creek."  Now I am reading Steve Berry's book "Atlas Maneuver."

It is my thought that this quote best sums up these days of snow:

“the comfort of reclusion, the poetry of hibernation”
~Marcel Proust

~Wylddane

On this quiet snowy March afternoon I find my thoughts drifting down Memory Lane.

The other day I came across this picture of Tom and I...from a Christmas many years ago.  To be honest, I had forgot that I even had this picture so coming across it was a pleasant surprise.  I believe it is the only picture that I have of Tom.

Tom had an acerbic wit and that is how he got his nickname of Tacky Tom.  The nickname had rather humble beginnings that came about because I had three friends with the name Tom.  So to differentiate the Tom I might be talking about, I would add a description.  Eventually that description would be shortened to one word.  "Tom, the Tom that can be kind of tacky at times" became "Tacky Tom."

Tacky Tom was one of the first friends I made when I came out as a gay man...and started building a new life with new friends.  He'd studied music at the University of Indiana...and when I met him, he was working as an accountant.  We kind of had that fit because I had studied history at Bethel University yet I was working in banking.  Majors that did not quite translate into our careers.

He had a tiny apartment in south Minneapolis way back then.  The reason I mention the apartment is one of my memories is of an "after bar party" that he had there one Saturday night.  Because Minnesota is very prudish, the bars are only open until 1am.  Consequently, when you are young, 1am is the start of the night...and after bar parties were common back then. For instance if you were at the Gay 90s and it was around midnight, rumors would begin to fly through the place about various "after bar parties" and their locations.

One Saturday night Tom decided it would be fun to have a party at this place.  OMG!  It was a wild success...his tiny apartment was so jam packed with people that it was nearly impossible to move!  Of course, at that these parties everyone brought their own booze.  The drinks flowed, the music was loud, the crowd fun...and Tom was scared that the police would be called and/or he would be evicted.  LOL

Thankfully neither happened.

Another fun memory was of me helping him decorate his Christmas tree at a small (tiny?) house that he was then renting in south Minneapolis.  It was a big tree in a small stand in a small living room.  We were in the process of hanging ornaments when I realized the tree was starting to fall in my direction.  Well, I turned and ran from the room as the tree crashed to the floor behind me...as if it were chasing me.

I turned around to view the damage...the tree on the floor, Tom standing there with his mouth open.  There was a moment of dead silence before we burst into laughter...tears in our eyes type of laughter.

Precious memories.

The years flew by and then Tacky Tom and I lost contact.  I was living in San Francisco and he remained in Minneapolis.  And then the AIDs epidemic hit along with all of its turmoil and we both disappeared from each other.

Every time I think of Tacky Tom my heart smiles because of the good memories.  Wherever he is, I hope he is doing well...and I sure hope he has not lost that acerbic tongue of his!  LOL

God bless you Tacky Tom.

~Wylddane

Let me be very upfront and say that I am not a fan of "Daylight Savings Time."  From the first time I experienced it when I was nine years old...until now when I am olde, it does not make sense to me.

As an American Indian once said:  "Only a paleface would think that cutting off 2 inches on one end of a blanket and sewing it on to the other end would make it longer."

Many of us experience symptoms not unlike jet lag during the first few weeks of Daylight Savings Time (DST).

I quote the NIH here:  "Circadian rhythms are the physical, mental, and behavioral changes an organism experiences over a 24-hour cycle. Light and dark have the biggest influence on circadian rhythms...Most living things have circadian rhythms, including animals, plants, and microorganisms. In humans, nearly every tissue and organ has its own circadian rhythm, and collectively they are tuned to the daily cycle of day and night.
Circadian rhythms influence important functions in the human body, such as:  Sleep patterns"

Personally, my body tells me that when it is light outside, then it is time to wake up.  When it is dark outside, then it is time to go to sleep.  So, suddenly, when I am thrust into DST early in the year, it is very dark in the morning and too light too late into the evening...and it only gets worse during the summer as twilight lingers until nearly 10pm.  I am trying to wake up in the dark and go to sleep when it is light...and my body clock is not agreeing to any of this!  LOL

Today I am now on day six of DST driven jet lag.  Trust me when I say it is not fun.  Over my many years I've tried lots of things to mitigate the effect of DST...and nothing really works.  The lesson learned is that it takes time to adjust and in a few weeks I will be mostly ok.

As any good metaphysician would tell you, "I can't wait to see the good that will come out of this."

Meanwhile, I know that in the fall when we finally return to standard time, my body clock will let out a big sigh of relief and all will be well.

~Wylddane

One year ago we were in what seemed to be the winter that would not end.  Snow gathered on top of snow.  Piles and drifts of snow surrounded our homes like fortress walls.  Gazing out the window left one feeling trapped.

This year winter did not happen.  Christmas day, which can easily and normally be -20(F) was 54(F) with rain.  Temps all winter have run 20 to 30 degrees above normal...and now it seems like spring is arriving early.

According to many forecasters this has been the warmest winter recorded.  El Nino is one of the culprits; and, global warming only accents the effects of El Nino.  Lastly, this has been an extraordinarily dry time too...with little to no snow and little to no rain.  It is a dangerous dry time and outdoor fires and strictly forbidden because of the wildfire danger.

This olde man is praying for rain...sending positive thoughts into the Universe of rainy days outside filling the lakes and rivers and turning the fields green.

~Wylddane