Sometimes I feel quite lonely even around some of my friends and family. I guess the reason is that the things I find exciting, fun and a valuable way to spend my time somehow seem foreign to them. The fact that I can spend most of the day at my computer, reading or just going for a walk or sitting on the back porch thinking seems to baffle them. It even seems to make some people uncomfortable. “Why don’t you move? Or DO something?” They don’t realize that my mind is traveling far away and actively wrestling with problems, examining ideas from different points of view, and that this is challenging and worth while for me. The dirty dishes and the messy desk and bookshelf don’t bother me because I’m somewhere else. I’m looking right through them. I almost feel I can stretch out and lay on the grass near the river bank with the fellow who thought up the compact that became the Iroquois Nation. Now I have no illusions that my mental wanderings will lead to such an impact on the world, but I do think they enrich life somehow. I feel these journeys are necessary and profitable. They are my life, far more than the mundane tasks that I perform or the work that I do in an office cubicle.

How I do wish that they could see through my eyes for I can not articulate the beauty of the places that I go. I can not impress upon others the reality of these places. Nor can I explain the feelings that these journeys create in my Heart. The warmth of compassion, the overflowing joy, nor the sorrow, nor the sufferings are shared. The loneliness comes from this inability to share these voyages with anyone. The beauty of a sunset, as our Mother reaches out her subdued rays to gently caress the freshly mown grass for one last time before they are separated by forces beyond their understanding and control. To only be able to explain the importance of this event and how it can instruct us to lead better lives! “Wherefore art Thou Romeo?” is but a faded echo of this event, of this eternally recurring event.

It seems that far too many remain unaware of the places they have yet to visit. This shouldn’t surprise me I suppose. How few of us have the leisure to tread these paths? Most of us are caught up simply trying to survive, and not a few are forced to spend their time looking for ways to pay the mortgage or get the car repaired. And still I hope that with time more will be able to see what might be, rather than spend all of their energies on what is.

You see, Clarksville is a place that might be. A home that we all might share. A place where we have the leisure to pursue dreams.

Hello world!

Welcome to Clarksville! I hope the train ride in was pleasant as can be. I seem to remember that the door to the loo kept coming unhitched whenever we went round a bend. Could have been embarrassing if I’d not been so involved in my reading materials at the time. Don’t go myself unless I have a book or magazine or two. I wonder if they’ve fixed that? Well, anyway at least the seat is heated for those cold winter nights. The privy can get a bit drafty too, as I recall. Still it’s a fine old train. Gets ya there fast enough without being in too much of a hurry.

Hurry, hurry, hurry! That’s how things seem to be these days…not at all like when I was younger and things just couldn’t come around fast enough. Well I’m trying to fix that here in Clarksville. I’ve just installed a new leisurely paced recreation center out back. You should really come on over and give it a whirl. Well, perhaps a spin as a whirl sounds far too rapid? No spinning makes me dizzy, and the doctor said that being dizzy is not helping me maintain a stable state of mind. Well, just come over and park yourself on the deck with me then and enjoy the show. The action is pretty good now that we’ve had a bit of rain. What kind of show? Oh, well, watching the grass grow of course. And listening. Listening carefully. The orchestra plays through the trees, and is spiced up by a few birds that make guest appearances.

Today I read that dirt cures depression. Specifically some bacteria in the dirt. Imagine that! This little bacteria is well on his way to becoming a doctor and making the big bucks. Soon the movie stars will be rolling in the mud like an old hog. Maybe that’s why pigs seem so unhappy when you approach and they have to pull themselves out of the sticky wet muck? Always thought they took too much offense, I certainly didn’t mean them any harm. And I was more afraid of them than they of I , I reckon. But it now appears I was interrupting their therapy. But I digress.

I was just about to tell you how well my baby grass is doing. Some of it’s up to an inch and a half or so and a sprightly spring green. Of course if I’d known how therapeutic dirt is I might just have left the grass seed in the garage and made me a woller. MS word doesn’t seem to understand that a woller is the noun form of the verb: to woller. As in,” Look at that big ol’ sow a wollerin’ in the mud.” Or “ I’s as happy as pig in a woller!” Gonna hafta write Microsoft, this program seems to have problems with American words.

Well anyway. I suppose I should point out a few things about Clarksville before we get all caught up in the grass growing. You see, having carefully considered the issue from enough different positions I’ve discovered that reality isn’t what it may seem to be. It would seem to be rather concrete and tangible. Almost measurable even. But it’s not. There, there don’t choke on a grape. You see, often folks mistake reality for the stuff that is solid, that you can touch and feel like the bottom of a lake squishing through your toes on a summers day. But that’s just one part of it you see? There are also ideals and forms and thoughts and feelings riding about on the wind and rolling in the grass like an excited puppy. And there’s this thing called Mind. It’s just as important as the soft sweet mud that Mr. Bacteria makes his home in. And then there’s millions of little minds a bouncing around like fireflies over a damp, dewy field or lawn. And here’s the thing you need to know. In Clarksville all these things come together and flow apart. Like the way waves receding from a beach leave a bit of something here or there and roll back in mix the stuff up into a new and different pattern. Do you understand a bit of what I mean? A bit is fine, that’s how we learn in bits and pieces. And sometimes the pieces come apart but then come back together again. And that’s why we like it here in Clarksville, you see?

Maybe I’d better start you out with a physical example. See sometimes I head down this road, turn left then take a right and I arrive at the Shell station. But another time I head out and turn in just the same way and end up at Yummy-Chan’s pottery studio. And sometimes when I head down Old Farmer’s Road I end up at an interstate highway overpass, but sometimes I end up standing near Hikake-bashi being greeted by a giant red crab in a hurry to go nowhere.