Author: Mike


  • The art of Ramen

     A bowl of ramen. It is a beautiful thing. When you find an excellent one, the appreciation in your heart can overflow like the flavors that bowl delivers. There was a movie starring the late great Brittany Murphy called Ramen Girl. In it, there was a ramen that would make people cry, as if the… Continue reading

  • Who doesn’t love a good story?

     I sure do! In fact, stories happen to be how I communicate regularly. It is interesting though that back in the 70s when my Mom would take my sisters Brooke and Amy and me to the library on a midweek night, I would always choose reference books. My pre-digital need for the internet I suppose.… Continue reading

  • Period of silence

    What is a period of silence, when you expect something else? Many years I have sat beneath the trees with a tattered notebook in my lap. Letters becoming words, finding their way through a sacrifice of ink contained in a small plastic tube. The words trickle and pour in unpredictable volumes, and that is okay.… Continue reading

  • In plain sight

     Within me lies a great desire to allow people to take back their lives. Since the end of the Second World War, there has been a war of a different kind and we as individuals, families, and society all together are losing. The OP4 whispered their way into the kitchens of women like Margaret Anderson,… Continue reading

  • Sleeping on the edge of an open window 41 years above the world

     I went to bed that night. I was young, I was in the final days of independence, and approaching the final departure into the unknown. Outside the crickets sang loudly. I drifted off instead into electronic bliss. I did not really know the impact of the sounds I was listening to, but I did know… Continue reading

  • The game in me

     You want to make a difference, but old habits die hard. We live in a world full of templates placing us in constant obscurity. When we do not have the time to meditate on the person we are, the person we want to strive to be gets washed away into being a person others want… Continue reading

  • The parting of ways

    I cannot find the words to say about a fine friend who I have lost. You could not put labels on him, because he encompassed so much more than one person typically does. He walked the earth for many years, and he wore many hats during that time. His focus was always on his family… Continue reading

  • Late arrival

    Late arrival  Our stories eventually mold the hours ahead, days, and decades. Seeing through a dirty glass of yesterday marred with the inexperience of youth, the impulse of withdrawal, and the winds of change, how could we make one right turn? It is more than just wrong turns. It is a misunderstanding of self and… Continue reading

  • The ashes of yesterday

    The ashes of yesterday  A younger person, one with a mind that is closed might think that there is nothing more to learn. This of course means that there is everything to learn. In the afternoon he toiled in rusted cities which 25 years earlier were mighty and unstoppable. The disease that brought the mighty… Continue reading

  • There is no way out of here

    There is no way out of here  I took on a writing project recently that I thought would be easy to casually write out over a few months. I later ran into what is often referred to as “the elephant in the room”. That thing was the presence of a person intrinsic to the events… Continue reading