Pooling reflections of years past

This concludes my three-part series of looking back at eight years of columns. Today I focus on reflections and meditations I’ve written.

• “Every time I feel the wind coming down and see the stars stretching up toward where life began, I know Dallan Sanders is speeding through the universe on the wings of the next dimension.”

• “Like a rooster crowing, the sound of my blind neighbor’s mower awakened enough guilt in us to redeem our own machines from winter sleep for that first summer haircut.”

• “For those untraveled in death, sadness is a bottomless well — sunlight a forgotten memory.”

• “Summer or winter, king or pawn, life seems equally important to everyone.”

• “Lost chances are evanescent ripples disappearing into the forever nothingness of what might have been.”

• “Alienated from technology, I am intimate with winding mountain roads framed by snowy evergreens; camping in scented piney woods and being awakened by companions sizzling fresh eggs under a fresher sunlight; walking barefoot on the warm, shallow quicksand of an early-morning beach.”

• “Towering oaks carpeted the endless, undulating yard in a potpourri of fall foliage — with deer and squirrels sniffing around like they owned the joint.”

• “A blind man wearing sunglasses was swaying as gently to the muffled music as a wheat field’s silky ripples. Losing his sight as an adult was especially cruel because he knew what he was missing: a woman’s smile, snow-capped mountains, a New Mexico sunset. But, at least in his mind, he could be anywhere he wanted.”

• “In an east Texas forest, gentle breezes brushed dancing sunlight on the peek-a-boo canopy of nature’s humid canvas.”

• “The cemetery trees were a billowing canvas of evergreens, crimson foliage and brittle branches.”

• “I love getting up at the crack of 10 a.m. and strolling beaches while battling seagulls for the remains of the night — flip-flops, pop-tops, bikini tops and, of course, lost shakers of salt.”

• “Cruising in Davey Jones’ locker in the wee hours, I nervously walked the mammoth decks in solitary company as salt-mist winds drowned out all man-made clatter. The sky was a splash-canvas of celestial lights — many of the silent beacons’ birthplaces extinguished eons ago during their fathomless travel to stipple the white-capped watery cradle of life below.”

• “I knew a slippery fall would metamorphose my body into the evolutionary dance of birth and death playing out beneath the primitive abyss.”

• “Walking barefoot past lonely shrubs on shifting curtains of sand, infinite waves and distant ships unveiled like powerful strangers importing intrigues from mysterious worlds.”

• “As incessant tides recede in white-froth battles with incoming ones, reflective puddles kidnap treasures quickly ransomed by chattering, mesmerized children — under watchful eyes of nesting parents.”

• “Canopies of squawking seagulls compete for their daily bread.”

• • •

• “Wading into the deep — vaguely uneasy about the infinitesimal threat from unseen creatures patrolling their murky world — reward vanquishes risk as I leap into a thunderous wave that skims me underwater in weightless fury, then deposits me like a discarded ragdoll at the feet of amused children.

“In that exhilarating moment — spitting out salty grit through echoes of an ancient smile — death has been drubbed on the warm, retreating sand.

“Kids, unaware of the battle, continue to play.”

Contact Wendel Sloan at:

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