Never ask 8 kids what kind of ice-cream you should buy!

Instead buy Neapolitan, that way at least most of them will find something to like.  Alternatively buy a gallon of vanilla and two liters of root beer. Pull out the punch dish and special cups, and make root beer floats. That way everyone will be happy.

© words by Dan DeMarle 2017

There are no holes in the blue bottle, reflections making mirages.

2/1/17 words and pictures by Dan DeMarle 2017

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People think of Democracy as a solid construct reinforced with steel and concrete. Like a large monolith impervious like stone. In reality, Democracy is an idea planted in fertile soil, like a seed over 2000 years ago.   It thrived briefly then, but then the plant faded. A  seed of that plant was found and replanted over 200 years ago on this continent. It found fertile soil, but like any plant, time changes things.  There are periods of flood and drought. There are times of pestilence and disease.  There are times it grows with over abundance, and then times it must be cut back and pruned, as it has grown into shadows or into shapes that threaten to topple the plant as it leans to far in one direction or another.  Democracy unlike stone is a living, breathing thing.  You can not leave it unprotected and it must be watered and nourished. While it once grew with abandon, the soil around it, the water it uses, and the air around it, all change over time.  Even the people around it change over time. Some generations over water, some cut of limbs, and some even attempt to burn it back at times.  You are now the gardener, you have ignored it for some time, and thought merely watering it every four years was enough.  You now see it is threatened. What will you do?

1/1/17

© words and pictures by Dan DeMarle 2017

What will you do when the wind blows hard against the wood of the house you live in?

You thought because the wind had been so quiet for so long, that you were safe.

Instead once you had clear cut the timber,

once you had cut down the mountains for coal,

once you had warmed the earth with your industry,

you had simply just removed all the barriers that had stopped the wind before.

What will you do when the wind blows,

blows so hard it levels everything and everyone you ever knew?

“People cited violation of the First Amendment when a New Jersey schoolteacher asserted that evolution and the Big Bang are not scientific and that Noah’s ark carried dinosaurs. This case is not about the need to separate church and state; it’s about the need to separate ignorant, scientifically illiterate people from the ranks of teachers.”
— Neil deGrasse Tyson

12/25/16

© words and pictures by Dan DeMarle 2016

We all know that moment, when we are going in a certain direction,  or on a certain path, when either quickly, or slowly we say,  that’s far enough, time to turn around. It’s interesting to see it reflected in physical reality.   What happened? Why the change? The mystery abounds.

1-29-17

© words and picture by Dan DeMarle 2017

There’s a message here. Yesterday we had just a very light dusting of snow.  Our bird feeder is near our driveway.  All the snow was removed from around the car, but left under the car. The birds love to hide under the car as they dart back and forth to the feeder. After I moved the car, I found they had left lots of prints. I think there is a message here, but I don’t read bird.

1-29-17

© words and pictures by Dan DeMarle 2017

My wish. I live in a neighborhood and in a City where I am surrounded by people of every color, race, creed, and religion. I am able to spend time and benefit from daily interactions with people of all faiths and races. Just yesterday, I was able to buy beef from my whole grass farmer, honey from a farmer in the Finger Lakes, travel to buy bacon from my German Butcher, get lunch from a Spanish restaurant, sit with my rainbow colored neighbors to hear two RPO cellists at my local library, and celebrate the lunar new year with neighbors at a neighborhood Asian restaurant. Today I was able to protest with Rochesterians of all colors, races and religions, and hear my black female Mayor talk about how my city will stand together and continue to embrace all of our residents. This diversity does not weaken me, or my City, it strengthens it and me.

As Americans we have so much, but we let people make us feel so afraid. Maybe we are afraid because we don’t want to share what we have. Maybe we have been sold a vision that we must have more and more and more. But really and truly in America we have enough.  It is certainly not evenly distributed, and it should be.  The problem is because we have it, and because so many of us don’t travel, we don’t appreciate what we have.  The vast majority of us, have things that many, many people in the world do not have. We have housing, and public housing, we have roads paved and otherwise, we have running water, we have public schools, we have a functioning government, and we have a court system.  

But we also have this fear.  Between this fear and the fact that most people don’t live in communities like mine, we have become soft as a nation and we have for to long let politicians and others tell us to be afraid.   Too many of us live in communities that are monocultures. It is as if we live in a giant field of tulips, just tulips everywhere.  While that is beautiful, a garden, a rich, and varied garden is healthier and ultimately more beautiful. No matter what the season, there is beauty and growth.   My wish is that my fellow countrymen could spend a week with me, and see what I see everyday, and not be afraid.  Not be afraid to be with others that do not look and believe just like them. Not be afraid to not have what others have. Just not be afraid. If we could, then you would see my world, and your world, as the beautiful garden, that it really is.

“But it is growing damp and I must go in. Memory’s fog is rising.”
― Emily Dickinson, Selected Letters

1/22/17

© words and pictures by Dan DeMarle 2017

“Jim said he believed it was spirits, but I says: no, spirits wouldn’t say “dern the dern fog”.”
― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

1/22/17

© words and pictures by Dan DeMarle 2017