Glass half full, that’s me. Lots of good folks out there doing good things. We had a couple of gentle reminders of this on Monday. 

I’m hunkered down on a drizzly day in the cabin of our boat, which is docked at Duck Creek Marina in Bridgeton, North Carolina. That’s just across the Neuse River from New Bern for those familiar with the Carolina coast. 

After reading the point-counterpoint last week from David Lawson and Tom Powers, I was inspired to offer a third path forward. Having moved here last October from the suburbs of Atlanta, my husband and I have been blessed with the culture and kindness of everyone whose paths we have crossed. Having come to Lake Junaluska since the 1960s and 1970s, this place has always been my spiritual home, “Halfway to heaven.” 

In the midst of the most important and crucial presidential election in my 39 years of existence in this country and, perhaps, also that of my now elderly parents and long-gone grandparents, I decided to order a New York Strip Steak, medium with sautéed onions. 

A true mark of an artist is how well they age. 

Not simply by the passing years on the calendar, for that’s a privilege in itself to experience.

Peter Conti seemed destined for a life of chronic pain. 

For nearly two years after a devastating motorcycle accident left him with a shattered pelvis and nerve damage in his leg, Conti battled depression and suicidal ideation while struggling to manage his debilitating, demoralizing condition with dangerously addictive opioids. 

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep. 

— Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” 

If 2024 were a table laid out before you, how would you imagine it: a beautiful, feast-laden smorgasbord of rich and tasty dishes with succulent sides, or an after-dinner wreck piled high with crusted up dirty dishes, overturned wine glasses and already eaten carcasses of dead birds and picked-over porcine bones?