I’ve been taking regular walks in the woods. There’s nothing better than light cardio exercise to help with grief, except perhaps heavy cardio, but that sure makes it harder to relax afterwards. I discovered there’s a beautiful trail that goes from Mount Misery in Lincoln near the Nine Acre part of Concord, all the way up to Walden Pond, skirting the border between Lincoln and Concord with barely any sign of habitation along the way. I’ll often do a five-mile loop around the pond, taking a break in the middle for a dip at my favorite secluded spot along the bank under a big shade tree. I’ll swim around for a bit, then relax, sitting and meditating in the warm shallows with the water up to my neck. It’s therapeutic. One time over the summer, a heron walked by me in the shallows, very slowly with its long thin legs, completely tame and not caring about my presence one bit. Then a couple of yards away, it came to a halt. It waited, completely still. Then almost as quick as a blink, it l
Too bad! Now that you’ve encountered that unlikely phrase, you can no longer concatenate those words into an uncrackable password. It actually means something important to me. Years ago, I read a strange news account. One day, a man was frying up some salami for breakfast, and he noticed the burn marks formed the image of the face of Christ. He interpreted this as a miracle, a sign from God. Reading the full news account, you learned further that his family ate fried salami for breakfast every day for the previous 20 years. Aha! This immediately brought two thoughts to mind. First, as a matter of basic math, that means over 7,000 instances of serving fried salami, and unclear how many servings for how many different family members. But after that many iterations of frying salami, it stands to reason that eventually you’ll encounter a burn mark that resembles a face, possibly resembling Jesus Christ as popularly conceived. Second, basic intuition tells you this. Anyone who eats