Peter M. Hunt's Blog, page 12

Groceries

I feel it thick in her overly casual glance in my direction. She’s worked at the store for long enough that she probably remembers my last descent, my first Parkinson’s stumble into the abyss, but the reality is that I have no idea whether she has a clue about my story.

I carefully unload the shopping cart onto the checkout conveyer belt, taking great care not to break anything. Ambushed by a wave of familiar emotion, I twist an already overworked expression into an unbalanced confusion of pa...

Round two (or was that 200?)

Life sometimes travels in circles, compelling us to confront similar challenges over and over. Maybe the core problem with breaking free from these recurring themes is that the goal—whether consciously or unconsciously considered—has not been met; perhaps the necessary life lesson has not yet been experienced.

Parkinson’s progression serves as a good example. Even before successful Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) surgery, I knew that my increased capabilities would be temporary, waiting for who ...

Serving up ritual

We all develop habit patterns that make a routine out of potentially uncomfortable tasks. One of my habits is to get up early—usually between 4:00 and 5:00 am—let the dogs out, feed them, and then bring coffee to my wife.

I had just sat down on the front porch to watch the sunrise when a distant baying permeated the northwest quadrant of my senses, a banshee-like screeching in unison that spoke to an innate wildness. Coyotes.

For those who have not heard coyotes before, they can sound dist...

Radical acceptance.

I recently learned from a friend of a term that gave a label to a concept I had been practicing for the last fifteen years: radical acceptance. The definition is, in short: when one stops fighting the reality of the day, letting go of bitterness and its cycle of suffering.

For me, Parkinson’s disease guided me to the concept. I fully accepted early that Parkinson’s was incurable, it would affect me both physically and psychologically, and it would get progressively worse until I died. For som...

Dawn

Dawn’s ray tickles sentience, warming animation to being, heralding the day’s welcome home. The tapered beam flickers, defining form, before merging with the infinite wave.

Watch the birds twirl from limb to wire and back again, dancing to love’s grace. Listen. Feel. Live.

The post Dawn appeared first on Books by Peter M. Hunt.

Freedom

First, I wanted happiness, permanent and sincere, a glimmering fantasy from an ivory tower of perceived wholeness.

Then, I wanted peace, to be at ease with some unnamed demon yet to emerge from my shadow.

Now, the image forms absent the brambles of reason, that creator of illusory confusion: Freedom from attachment; ultimately, freedom from myself.

The post Freedom appeared first on Books by Peter M. Hunt.

Breakwater

Breakwater

As a young lad, I felt compelled to “run the jetty” whenever I came across a breakwater. No matter where I was—New York, Massachusetts, or Greece—if there was a jetty of giant cluttered boulders jutting out into the open ocean, it called on me to take its silent challenge.

Approaching the jig-saw strewn boulders with eyes down, I chose to take each step as it came, an immediate decision requiring perfect foot placement and balance if I was to avoid a bone-breaking spill. During ...

So, this is how it’s going to be

Last summer, my daughter, son-in-law, and their two adorable, rough-housing black labs joined us in Washington State for an extended visit. When our two golden retrievers first met the black labs, they immediately started playing, eventually taking their melee of snapping jaws outside.

It wasn’t long after that a sharp yelp motivated a group run outside to investigate. The larger of our two retrievers, Baker, was cowering in confused silence while the other dogs still darted around him. A clo...

Naked truth

One of the final short pieces in my latest book, Beyond Identity, is titled Puddle Sprayed. It is a fun essay that speaks to being sprayed by the business end of a seagull after exiting a grocery store. At its essence, the piece is a reflection on reaction.

I was entering the same store this morning, passing the exact spot where the gull nailed me on the head and shoulders 15 months earlier, when I was struck by deja vu. A sudden rush of air a second later and, sure enough, a massive load of ...

The perfect time

I received an instant message the other day from a college friend, John, living in Massachusetts and not spoken to in years. Sometimes such “out of the blue” communications are initiated for no articulable reason; other times, the break in the information darkness is not routine. John’s contact was of the latter sort.

John got to the point—our mutual college buddy, Dan, had stage four metastatic melanoma. Dan had visited me in Texas to attend my navy pilot winging ceremony in 1987. Was that t...