FootprintsintheWind.com

My stroke was gentle, and then it left me.

:- Doug.

Slip under hope.

:- Doug.

Looking at and to one another keeps our attention and intention on her. Now we feel the need to pull us to others, holy OTHERS.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2518

I chose to name my stroke “Beneficent.” It is good for me. I take it as part of my life—integral to me, same as the day after a child is born, the new parents cannot imagine, cannot remember, a time they were not a three. Indeed, in some real way perhaps, they were always on that trajectory. So I have always been headed for my stroke, and my life after. And you and your friend have always been leaning into one another.

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© c 2026, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

I have not lived there. It comes upon me as a happy accident, but I could hope to live as if letting go of one bar of the jungle gym going from momentarily happy accident to momentarily happy accident.

:- Doug.

It could be that those who come after and after us may be the downtrodden, the poor, the defeated. Be them, with them, thro’ them.

:- Doug.

Here we have a letting go of fear, letting be of death, of catching what they have, of being different, of living oddly, publicly for all to see.

:- Doug.

Generations before are our fear of death; generations after fear of new, unexplored life—it’s not that we don’t know about them—we think little of them because we fear.

:- Doug.

In together we can bolster one another’s trust in mystery and the simplest not knowing, to move into the generations fore and aft, port and starboard.

:- Doug.

You, reader, don’t do as I did. Let at least one of us be un-stupid.

:- Doug.

God Christ Jesus Buddha are simply codes to say you are alike to me in this.

:- Doug.

Allow yourself to be touched thro’ your heart, thro’ your common humanity, thro’ your common beingness.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2517

[Note: Friends, you have experienced an interlude in Footprints in the Wind^sm because, on January 15, 2026, I had a stroke. There have been few if any lasting problems. The main reason for the break in publishing them has been all the tests and appointments after! So I am back and trust you will enjoy these posts. As always, I welcome your responses and comments week to week. Thanks for reading and conversing with me!]

A writer needs to be a meanderthal.

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© c 2026, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Like the CPAP secret dark controls—on/off and selector at once—but well known.

:- Doug.

It starts with letting your hearts go out. Linda, my wife, is better at this than I. I could join her in this. I could go “ooh” at the news.

:- Doug.

Our winds
turn and billow your veils
renewing your secrets

:- Doug.

All to ourselves
we have all generations
and they us

:- Doug.

This reflection is not inside the glass nor outside. Where then?

Conversation is a looking glass
showing us free of our isolation
and its loads to carry
without taking from us
our quirks runny nose and scar

We too are mirrors one to the other. As these three mirrors turn, as images play and blend, this theater of relativity, it begins to dawn, plays out for us our malleability in the face of the grandchildren of our grandchildren, the next of the next—and theirs.

:- Doug.

In your conversation
do you sleep
or do you dream?

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2516

It’s not that I realize time is short and I need to cram in more trips and more hot chocolates. I do realize the value of moments lost or thrown away with the word, “Later.” I do live the life I want and it is filled richly with persons. Every person I chance upon is important to me and I am curious. They might just be a person with whom I can find our one face—and let’s act upon it when the opportunity shows up.

In the same way, I want to finish the book in the next three weeks, my “high risk period,” my “high rich period.”

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© c 2026, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2515

We are not so afraid of AI
as of ourselves
unexplored

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© c 2026, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2514

Trees do not live so very long
not so long a’ tall
if one counts their day
as one trip around old Sol’
their sleep time when earth leans away
their work day when it leans in
and we the little
two-legged ants
scurrying about
oblivious
because trees do not snore!

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© c 2026, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2513

Is it good we don’t have words for some things?

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© c 2026, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/274-5353, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com