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Field Notes

I’ve heard it said that the best musicians are those who must sing or must write music. I guess it follows that I write because I can’t not. It only recently dawned on me that my inner muse demands that I open up a notebook or my laptop to capture thoughts. Many are pure musings—slightly self-satisfying and frequently foisted on my wife for her reaction.

All said, perhaps some of the pieces below will contribute to your deeper insight or another way to think about the world. You will find published pieces interspersed with my own regular observations. Enjoy!

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{#23} What Negative Space Reveals

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There’s a flowering crabapple outside my window that tells me something I can’t see—when the wind is up. No sound, just motion: spring petals and leaves shimmering all at once, an ivory-green murmur against the sky.

The wind itself is invisible. But I know it’s there because I can see what it moves. So much of life is like that. We don’t see the force—we see the shift.

This is the gift of negative space. Not absence, but presence through invisibility. Like the silence between notes that makes music. The margin that makes words legible. The pause that gives a sentence shape. Whitespace. Horizon. Void. Shadow. Pause. Gap. Silence. Ambiguity. Waiting. Each a different name for what’s not there—but deeply felt.

Robert Frost once wrote, “Good fences make good neighbors.” Often misunderstood as a call to isolation, it’s really about clarity. A fence doesn’t keep people out—it shows where I end and you begin. Without it, there’s confusion. Drift. Collision.

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{#23} What Negative Space Reveals

{#23} What Negative Space Reveals

There’s a flowering crabapple outside my window that tells me something I can’t see—when the wind is up. No sound, just motion: spring petals and leaves shimmering all at once, an ivory-green murmur against the sky.

The wind itself is invisible. But I know it’s there because I can see what it moves. So much of life is like that. We don’t see the force—we see the shift.

This is the gift of negative space. Not absence, but presence through invisibility. Like the silence between notes that makes music. The margin that makes words legible. The pause that gives a sentence shape. Whitespace. Horizon. Void. Shadow. Pause. Gap. Silence. Ambiguity. Waiting. Each a different name for what’s not there—but deeply felt.

Robert Frost once wrote, “Good fences make good neighbors.” Often misunderstood as a call to isolation, it’s really about clarity. A fence doesn’t keep people out—it shows where I end and you begin. Without it, there’s confusion. Drift. Collision.

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