{"id":445,"date":"2007-02-15T08:02:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-15T12:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/2007\/02\/15\/valentines-day\/"},"modified":"2007-02-15T08:02:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-15T12:02:00","slug":"valentines-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/2007\/02\/15\/valentines-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Valentines day"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We woke to the most beautiful snowy morning. The kind Sam would have loved. It was a snow day from school so everyone slept in.. including me which meant I missed my first 2 teleconferences .. oops ! 
   <\/span>Once everyone woke up, we had a really great  <\/span>valentines day celebration. We gathered in Sam’s room and lit his candle to invite him in. We then opened a few small presents.. Diane gave me some cool books (one called True Love by Thich Nhat Hanh who I love)  <\/span>Max, Gabe and I had welded a set of five hearts together for Diane to stick in the garden. . Max even baked a cake  <\/span>Gabe made a cool  <\/span>still life with one of his hats, my screw drivers,  <\/span>one of Max’s green Hulk gloves, Sam’s sombrero, one of  <\/span>Chai’s dog toys.. some of our late bird Gabbi’s bird seed  <\/span>and a few red bull cans. It was a nice way to put lots of thing he loves in one space.  <\/span>It all felt very good. 
<\/span><\/p>\n

    <\/span>After that, Diane and Gabe headed up to the  <\/span>mountain mid morning and left me to work. Max and his friends were outside playing in the snow like little kids.. it was great to watch. I managed to  <\/span>have a pretty productive day just sitting on the bed with my laptop.  <\/span>It was fun watching the snow pile up. It reminded me of the big storms we used to get in the early 80’s.. it also reminded me of Sam.  <\/span>I realized as it was getting dark around 5:30<\/st1:time>  <\/span>that I hadn’t even been outside once during the entire day.. now that I think of it, I only even went downstairs once. I had an instant attack of cabin fever so I rallied Chai and headed out for a snowshoe. Chai made it just about to the garage before she decided the snow, which was over her head,  was too deep for her.  <\/span>She slunk back to the house with her tail drooping..   <\/span>That left me alone to battle the elements. I  <\/span>headed out with the intention of doing our lower loop trail.. which is about 30 minutes when I’m really pumping..    <\/span>I realized when it took me nearly 5 minutes to get out of our yard that that plan  <\/span>was too ambitions for this evening. The snow was about mid thigh deep even with snowshoes.. at some places it was waist deep. I decided to lower my sites and head for the rock in the high meadow which overlooks the house. I started shuffling through the deep snow thinking of Sam and how he would have dug this..  <\/span>The further I went,  <\/span>the sadder I got. I saw a deep connection between my walk and the pattern of our lives now , slow plodding. hard going, seemingly endless.. but at the same time.. beautiful.  <\/span>I tell you, this walk was the most strenuous exercise I can ever remember doing. By the time I cleared the ridge in the high meadow my heart was pumping so hard that it was all I could hear\u2026 a good sound on Valentines day, It felt so good to be outside. There was absolutely nothing moving  <\/span>down in the valley, no cars, no people.. just deep snow everywhere you could see.. it was beautiful  <\/span>I got to the top and looked towards our house.. hoping to get a good view  <\/span>of our house through the snow.  <\/span>maybe even a picture. That’s when it all kinda feel apart.
The snow was coming down too hard to see the house clearly <\/p>\n

I called home  <\/span>to ask Diane  <\/span>to turn on all the lights.. Though it turned ou tthat they were already on.. <\/div>\n
Once my cell phone was out, I couldn’t help checking my email. 
<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span>Which got me thinking about a work phone call. <\/p>\n
then I got the camera out and started fussing with that.. <\/p>\n
I messed with the exposure . the flash, the shutter speed. all trying to get a picture of the house through the snow..  <\/span>no dice.. it was just too dark. <\/p>\n
My exposed hands started freezing as I futzed  <\/span>with the camera.. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

and before I realized it.. I was all tied up in phone calls and emails and cameras and\u2026. Then it hit me like a dope slap.. . the voice in my head said ‘you iiiiiiidiot’ (in a cartoon accent).. ‘why don’t you just enjoy where you are’ .. I laughed ot myself.. put away the gadgets and sunk down in the snow.Here’s me just before my ‘aha moment ‘. <\/p>\n

\"img_0165\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A few mintues later I started the trudge back to the house.. It was much easier in that direction because I’d been kind enough to break trail for myself on the way up.. There’s probably a deep message there to that I’m to dumb to appreciate. Anyway.. the walk back was fun and I came back to a busy household. <\/p>\n

<\/a>\"img_0176\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The family was all home along with Mason, Abbott and Scot all snowbound in the house.. it felt pretty festive   <\/span>We’ve just heard that school has already been canceled  <\/span>for tomorrow so it will be another fun day for the kids..  <\/span>I just hope that tomorrow night’s State Radio show at Higher Ground is still on.   <\/span>Their last show here was the last live music we all saw with Sam.  <\/span>I think they may play a song for him tomorrow night..  <\/span>State Radio is a GREAT band..socially conscious, amazing, and fun music.  There are still tickets left.. so check it out<\/a>.
   I  think I’ll close with an excpertp form a State Radio song.. Keepsake.. I know that I posted it once several weeks ago.. but it’s a great song for today
<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span>Expert from Keepsake by State Radio (sung here<\/a> by Jane and Avery at Sam’s Memorial)<\/p>\n

 <\/o:p>\u2026.<\/p>\n

One gonna heal my body another gonna heal my pain
One gonna settle me down then bring me back up again
I‘<\/span>m gonna put my family back together again <\/p>\n

One gonna hold my woman another gonna hold my job
One gonna help me get up, another gonna help me stop <\/p>\n

One gonna help me talk right, one gonna lay me down to sleep<\/p>\n

””<\/p>\n

See you at the show tomorrow Sam.. Happy valentines day my boy<\/o:p><\/p>\n

-jc <\/o:p><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We woke to the most beautiful snowy morning. The kind Sam would have loved. It was a snow day from school so everyone slept in.. including me which meant I missed my first 2 teleconferences .. oops !     Once everyone woke up, we had a really great  valentines day celebration. We gathered in Sam’s … Continue reading Valentines day<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}