You’re on a beach, beneath a coconut palm, sipping a cold juice, as you watch the antics of a pudgy naked baby digging in the sand and splashing at the water’s edge. It’s not your baby, but the pureness of the scene delights you at your core. I was that baby. Frolicking in the buttery waters of a small protected lagoon called Matheson Hammock in Miami. That joyful memory burned itself into my psyche, and I always dreamed that one day my own child would be that baby, shrieking

What’s the thing you wish deeply to do well, but just can’t nail? When not dreaming of flying like Peter Pan, I dream of surfing. Not just surfing, but ripping, Kelly Slater style. Deep, stand-up barrels. Cutbacks that thwack, as my board smacks the lip. I can surf enough to maintain my dignity in the lineup … but just. I’ll never be good. That’s just a fact. Still, each time I paddle out, I see in my head, bright as day, me doing what you see Slater doing above, balletic sla

We all need to escape our lives and disconnect every now and then. Change the scenery and the pace. The color blue alone made it all worth it. The Kingdom of Tonga sits far from everything, awash in turquoise lagoons, aquamarine shallows and cobalt reefs care-taken by the bluest eye sky. It is the only monarchy never colonized in the South Pacific, populated by a gentle people, notwithstanding their club-wielding, brain-bashing, cannibal lineage. One tranquil sunset, in one o

Easy reading is damn hard writing. N. Hawthorn Stuart Sheldon, Follow It Home, acrylic and Chinese funeral paper on panel, 24″x24″, 2004 My dry heart drinks … A National Book Award winner and Oprah Book Club selectee recently thought enough of my debut manuscript,  A LONELY FOOL’S MASTERPIECE, to share it with her powerhouse editor. This generous best-seller acted wholly of her own volition. And her seal of approval ladled cold fresh spring water into me after five years toil