Nothing is Wasted

 Nothing Is Wasted

“We work in the dark—we do what we can—we give what we have.”
—Henry James

The first sentence
is a worn trail marker,
leaning where two paths divide.
I follow it.

Miles later,
it leads me across a stream
inside a story
I didn't know I was walking.

A trail map fades.
Rain freckles its pages.
A route I crossed out
waits beneath the pencil's ghost,
still pointing.

Nothing is wasted.

The dust of the trail
settles into my boots
with yesterday's miles.

The ridge ahead
imagines tomorrow's weather.
Both leave a mark
no stream of consciousness can fully wash away.

Inside the data centers,
machines map every switchback
without ever feeling thin air,
without the weight
of a tired friend
leaning on your shoulder.

Meanwhile,
we climb one more rise
though daylight is thinning.

The summit is still ahead—
a small ambition
lifting its face
against a crag of silence.

Still,
the peak borrows our footsteps
to reveal its paths.

The trails we abandoned,
the wrong turn,
the loose stone,
the single weary step,
becomes the way forward.

We wander.
We blister.
We wait for one another,

exploring new twists and turns

in our boundless quest

to rewrite the world.

 

 

The Trouble with Plastic Buckets

 The Trouble with Plastic Buckets

 

My bucket list keeps changing shape, which is rude, honestly.

One day, it’s a pilgrimage to the Panama Canal, provided the sky can act right—no hurricanes, no tornadoes, no weather auditioning for a lead role.

Another day, it’s next season’s theater tickets, because hope, apparently, comes with assigned seating and a service fee.

It’s my health, and the creaking parliament of my joints.

It’s losing ten pounds, though vanity and gravity remain in active negotiations, and eating less with all the glamour of a hostage situation.

It’s drinking less, though certain evenings still make an excellent closing argument, hiking more, putting one stubborn foot in front of the other, and learning that solitude can be both a map and a compass—plus cheaper than therapy.

It’s planning future travel because waiting around is rarely an itinerary, and keeping old friends close, tending the small bright fires that still know my name.

I spend less, though I still browse as if hope were on sale. I clean out the closet, since only half of what I own still fits, and the other half is apparently waiting for my comeback tour.

I take a writing class for inspiration, just in case the muse needs a syllabus and a firm deadline. I read poems aloud in public, lending my voice to the room before doubt can grab the mic. I send my writing out like small paper boats into larger waters, then make new lists as if stationery alone can save me.

I listen to other voices rattle the furniture in my head. I read more books in this new YA fantasy phase of mine, because dragons, frankly, have better boundaries than most people.

I spend extravagant amounts of time with family, the truest luxury I know. I get a new bucket because even metaphors need better hardware, then carry forward what still holds water and quietly retire what leaks.

And then there are the things no checkmark can settle: being kind to myself, speaking up more, drawing the map of my boundaries in bolder ink, naming my priorities before the noise names them for me.

And always: hug Mom—because some things are not a goal, they are the whole point.