Midday / Early Afternoon, Tuesday, July 1, 2025 – Miami, Florida
“Time is passing: not leaden stepping
But sprinting on winged feet,
Quick silver slipping by.” — Richard L. Ratliff
It’s difficult to grasp, here on this sweltering South Florida afternoon, that another July has arrived. A year ago, my life looked completely different—geographically, emotionally, and in terms of what lay ahead.
On Monday, July 1, 2024, I was living in the Eidelweiss District of Madison, New Hampshire—a rural community nestled about seven miles west of the Maine border. Eidelweiss reminded me, in its quiet, self-contained charm, of places like Fish Hawk near Lithia or East Wind Lake Village in Miami-Dade—neighborhoods that hover near larger towns but remain distinctly their own.
I rented two rooms in a three-bedroom house just off Huttwil Drive, a dirt road that meanders through a serene forest tucked in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. One room served as my bedroom, a personal retreat where I might drift off to sleep or, once in a while, watch movies on my Samsung 4K UHD television. The other was my writing room—my creative anchor. That’s where I penned daily blog posts and worked on Reunion: Coda, the novel I’d begun back in March 2023 in Lithia, the Tampa suburb I’d been forced to leave behind. That space also kept me tethered to friends beyond the state line, a digital lifeline to familiar voices and encouragement.
According to my blog entry from that day, I was preparing to begin Scene Three of Chapter 18 in Reunion: Coda—about two-thirds into the manuscript. After my customary Weekend Update and a few comments about trying (and failing) to watch The Acolyte on Disney+, I wrote:
“My goal for this first workday in July is to start Scene Three in Reunion: Coda’s Chapter 18. I know I won’t write the whole scene today. I’ll be happy to make a detailed outline by the end of the afternoon shift. I wish I could finish the scene draft today and only do edits and revisions tomorrow, but that’s very unlikely.”
As it turned out, I didn’t get far with that scene that day—but I kept going. That writing room in the Eidelweiss house served me until mid-October, when I had to leave New Hampshire and return to Florida.
Now, a year later, Reunion: Coda is complete. It was published in three formats on Amazon this past April. While it hasn’t taken the literary world by storm—no surprise beachfront homes or early retirements to report—it’s a solid book. The reviews have been kind, both on Amazon and across a few WordPress blogs. I’ve reread it once, trying to slip into a reader’s perspective instead of my old copy editor shoes. That helped me enjoy it. I won’t pretend it belongs in the same sentence as Hemingway or Fitzgerald—my style leans more toward Stephen King when he’s writing about real people instead of killer clowns. But I’m proud of it, and I hope you’ll visit the product page, browse the reviews, and maybe pick up a copy.
And today? Today marks the official release of the paperback edition of Comings and Goings: The Art of Being Seen – A Jim Garraty Story. It’s a short story I never planned to write, but it practically wrote itself in under two weeks. It debuted on Kindle June 22, and now it’s out in print. While it stands alone, it also connects deeply to the Reunion Duology, offering a new lens on Jim Garraty’s journey. For longtime readers, it adds dimension to a character they already know. For newcomers, it’s a gentle introduction to the emotional landscape of this world.
I hope you’ll pick up a copy, leave a review, and become part of the evolving conversation around these stories and the lives they touch.
A Certain Point of View, Too 
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