Month: June 2017

Play, Create, Explore: What My Dad Taught Me

By Angela Noel

June 29, 2017

Some dads teach their kids how to fish, or how to play backgammon. Other dads teach baseball or carpentry or cooking. Since a peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich served as my father’s specialty–it’s safe to say his skills weren’t in the kitchen. Also an excellent handyman, he tackled work around the house as one would a science project. He’d carefully form a hypothesis of what needed to happen, then experiment until he found just the right way to fix whatever needed fixing. But I didn’t learn much from him on that front either.

My dad taught me skills of a different sort, like how to play, to explore, and to create. I remember few of the many nuggets of advice he offered, his words passed over my younger-self like water. Yet my quest to understand the world in new ways, my curiosity, all stem from the lessons of my youth. Who he is, rather than anything he said, shaped me. Continue reading “Play, Create, Explore: What My Dad Taught Me”

The Most Creative Man I Know: My Dad

By Angela Noel

June 15, 2017

My father isn’t a “guy’s guy.” He’s not a hunter, sports-fanatic, beer-drinker, or back-slapper. But, he can grill things and fix other things. He can build decks, waterfalls, and walls. When my dad wanted to go price a boat or a washing machine, he let me tag along. He called me his “lucky charm” because we always seemed to find a good deal whenever we went shopping together. He told me he was 99.4% perfect. I believed him. Continue reading “The Most Creative Man I Know: My Dad”

The Secret Life of Trees and What It Means for Humans

By Angela Noel

June 8, 2017

When we first moved into our house I sat in my backyard gazing up at the canopy of tree branches overhead. Two trees, their trunks big enough around that two adults with arms outstretched couldn’t encircle them, blotted the sun. For reasons I cannot explain two names popped into my brain: Erin and Bertie. I told my husband and son the trees had names. Not that I had given them names, but that they already had them–like they’d accepted me into their community as one of their own. (Weird, I know.)

Among the oaks and cottonwoods that dot the rest of my little wooded lot, Erin and Bertie are special. A fact, Suzanne Simard, noted forest ecologist, professor, and TED speaker would find not-at-all surprising. Her work, and those of other researches around the globe, has opened up a greater understanding of the complex and beautiful world of tree interdependence. How trees communicate and contribute to the common good of the ecosystem in which they live has a lot to tell us not only about nature, but about ourselves as well. Continue reading “The Secret Life of Trees and What It Means for Humans”

Mechanics of Art and Poetry of Work

By Angela Noel

June 1, 2017

The man works on a car–fixes its engine, buffs the exterior–long hours of loving pains.

Maybe he smokes a cigar. Maybe he drinks a light beer. Or maybe it’s Pellegrino.

Maybe he has a family–a son, a wife. Or maybe a daughter, the apple of his eye.

Maybe he writes sonnets that touch the infinite in a journal hidden among the tools in his garage. Or maybe he listens to mixed tapes of Madonna and Beethoven on an old, grease-stained boombox.

Every day . . . every hour . . . he loves the car more. Each bead of salty sweat escaping his brow is a tear dropping. Continue reading “Mechanics of Art and Poetry of Work”