Three things from DAH. 

DAH is me, David Anthony Hance. I'm sure the instructions are around here somewhere.

First up this week, Visage …  
I'm working on setting my visage for 2022. It's taking me a few days, I'm afraid, to perfect. An appropriate appearance could make all the difference. My face to the world! Even if I'm wearing a mask. Even if I'm seen by few or none. Even if it's only me in the mirror. "Just smile! You'll feel happier!" We've all heard some version of that mini-homily. It works, mostly, for me. And I know from my years on stage that the face I present colors how my words are received. So, my visage for 2022: I'm trying to look hopeful and a little bit eager, friendly and approachable, without a silly grin. It's mostly in my eyes, truthfully, since I'm wearing a fabric mask in public places. It's easier to share my visage without the mask, but, hey, we do what we have to do.
Hiding Emotions - How to Remove the Mask

Second up this week, Venture …  
Beginning this new year feels more a venture than an adventure. Venturing holds a greater sense of risk. A venture is a gamble. Adventuring, on the other hand, might be a jolly lark. I know, our choices other than just getting on with it are limited. I could hide out, keep my visage to myself and my mirror. Nothing ventured. Safe, sort of. "Life is a gamble at terrible odds; if it was a bet you wouldn't take it," says the Player (in Act 3 of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, by Tom Stoppard). So, might as well venture since a gamble is guaranteed. For my next trick: Deciding some specific whats and hows and whens to venture. 
Erasure Practicing Self-Love Bravely Takes a Chance and Covers ABBA

Third up this week, Voyage …  
Now I've got my face figured out, ready to risk, where shall we go? The Accidental Tourist has been coming up in conversation recently (novel by Anne Tyler, film directed by Lawrence Kasdan). Macon Leary, the tale's protagonist, writes travel books aimed at those who prefer not to leave home. In two years of semi-house-boundness due to pandemic, armchair traveling is mostly how I trip. I'm fortunately a fan of wine provenance … anything provenance, honestly. Knowledge of where wine comes from, who made it, why it tastes the way it does, well, that transports me. Enjoying that which is very specifically of a place can be a voyage. A voyage from my armchair. I research wines before I drink them. A sip initiates the trip. To California's Gold Country, to the foothills of the Alps, to the greenness of New Zealand. Lucky me, and a special thank you to Kermit Lynch for early-on manifesting voyages for me.
Kermit Lynch's Adventures on the Wine Route Is Still Forging Tastes, 30 Years Later

And a bit more:

Wild Geese, by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.


And that's all for this week.
From Mary Oliver’s poem Sometimes …  

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it. 

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