I was born in Buffalo, New York during a not uncommon snowstorm. After seven (7) tentative days in an incubator, doctors released me to my parents and two (2) older brothers. Together, we experienced a post WWII, baby-boomer, suburban upbringing that etched deeply in many ways positive, and other ways less so.

Always an inquisitive child, “That’s just the way things are,” or, “Because I said so,” did not cut it against my constant stream of questions. Mom, an elementary teacher herself, once told me, “You would never just be quiet. You’d ask about everything. Sometimes you were so exhausting.” I entered kindergarten then grammar school from the age of three (3).

I loved the classes and teachers and all they shared. Together with a strong grounding in the Lutheran tradition, one can gratefully argue that my childhood reflected  strongly the family, church and school happenings that shaped and scripted my life. 

Junior and senior high school experiences aimed to embrace what was good. At the same time, I muddled through personal and social challenges common to everyone undergoing adolescence. To my questioning mind, potential answers  -real truths - to family challenges and personal desires aroused unvoiced fears , actions and inactions.

By 19, my parents and brother had moved south for employment. I remained in Buffalo to navigate living and working independently while obtaining my Bachelors degree in Interpersonal Communication. A Masters in Speech Communication Theory followed.

In 1988 at 23, with degrees in hand, I went abroad for a holiday to Australia and returned stateside for living, 18 years later. There was no real plan to it all. My heart and mind simply remain opened to  all of life’s infinite potentialities and I worked to choose wisely.

Tokyo, Kathmandu, Hong Kong and Sydney became my home cities as Asia teased an extraordinary playground of peoples, places, smells, sounds, spirituality, professional and personal growth.

One day in 2006, my parents hinted, “Peter, please come home,” and I lovingly complied. After all, I had been away for a very long time. 

For years since, in all sorts of settings, friends have commented, “Peter, write that down.” And, one day, time availed.

Life in Tens: stories shared to spark insights & conversations, and its’ companion works Life in Tens: Your Turn: activities shared to spark memories & storytelling, and, Life in Tens: Ponder This: a private journal, are the end and start products of two and one half (2 1/2) years of passionate intensity. Filled with stories, ideas, photographs, travel journal entries, and assorted other literary surprises, Life in Tens is for us.

We are all swept up in the streams of our experiences whatever their levels of rage and saturation. Some streams are swift and strewn with boulders to re-direct the currents – challenges to integrate and transform. Other streams are trickling and tranquil, gently swirling eddies where we relax, refresh and reconnect.

We all thrive and survive in this state where being is the constancy of change. As we grow and mature, a boundless variety of life experiences ebb and flow. Lessons are learned, and re-learned; often and only to be learned yet again, until we more fully understand.

I shares my stories so that you may dive deep and re-surface to breathe life into your own tales.

“For a life examined,” some claim, “is a life well lived.”