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Cameron Miller

Cameron Miller

Finger Lakes Times

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DENIM SPIRIT: Neil Young and the earthquake

I was a sophomore at a very small college, sitting in my dorm room on the third floor of a 19th-century building, when my world began to shake....

13.11.2024 10

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: The complexity of crows

06.11.2024 6

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Seeing through the darkness

It was dark this morning when Rabia and I left the house. We walked our usual path toward the lake tunnel, a concrete barrel vault under Routes 5&20....

30.10.2024 5

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Writing among the tall pines

I am cold. I can’t type with gloves on, so I have them laying flat underneath my palms on the laptop because its metal surface feels freezing. Of...

16.10.2024 10

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: The voices in our heads

Well, I struck pay dirt with last week’s column and heard from a number of you in support of unadulterated gratitude for the abundance of our lives,...

10.10.2024 10

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Wake up and smell the roses

It is raining again. Gray and overcast. That weeks-long stretch of blue sky and dandelion sun seems farther away than it should. But, then again,...

07.10.2024 7

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Wake up and smell the roses

It is raining again. Gray and overcast. That weeks-long stretch of blue sky and dandelion sun seems farther away than it should. But, then again,...

02.10.2024 4

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: The heartbreak of green slime, HABs

25.09.2024 5

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Remembering as imaging

The Erie Canal was the first infrastructure project in the United States. Built in spite of mockery from Thomas Jefferson, it ran 360 miles and...

19.09.2024 40

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: A split screen on the morning show

It began with a butterscotch sun. A carpet of white diamonds spreading across the water from east to west still retained a slight strand of pink from...

11.09.2024 4

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Dogs and cats, a kind of a parable

04.09.2024 4

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Your neighbor’s house is on fire!

True story. When I was a newly minted Episcopal priest, not yet 30 and serving as a solo pastor of a congregation, I did as many things wrong as...

28.08.2024 7

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Ordinary sacred

“I love you,” my daughter said to her husband in the kitchen as she left for work one morning. It sounded as sincere as it was casual, and I...

21.08.2024 5

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Try asking

14.08.2024 3

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: This is not about politics, so keep reading

I was on the National Organizing Call for the Harris campaign last week after her Atlanta rally. While I have already made up my mind who I will vote...

07.08.2024 4

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Sharing ... or not

Our children went to a fabulous preschool in which “play” was the primary curriculum. The idea was that play could be the medium for preparing...

17.07.2024 10

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Still spry enough the second time around

Okay, I am writing this while lying in bed on my back, propped up just enough to type. No, I’m not injured or in pain. My wife just took my two very...

10.07.2024 6

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Deeper than microbes

Microbes are single-cell life forms visible only through microscopes. It has only been discovered recently that 90% or more of microbes live...

03.07.2024 4

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: It was the trees

It was 95 degrees in Columbus, Ohio, when we were visiting last week. I hear it was pretty hot in Geneva too. Unfortunately, climate change wraps us...

26.06.2024 9

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Our loneliness grows

Friday morning, the weather was spectacular: stark clean light, a cornflower blue sky hosting pristine clouds billowing overhead, and a steady light...

19.06.2024 9

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Not (only) about ice cream

There are so many good, locally produced ice cream spots in the Finger Lakes, and my diet keeps me from going on a mad tour of them all. Spotted Duck...

12.06.2024 4

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Watching lone herons and the herd

I have read that throughout human history the heron has been an emblem of divinity and good fortune. In addition to representing William Smith...

05.06.2024 10

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Through the eyes of a 5-year-old

I had the good fortune of two grandsons visiting over Memorial Day weekend. They are 3 and 5 and love to come to Geneva. They live in a big city and...

29.05.2024 8

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Old joy

This is going to come as a shock to you, but sometimes I receive hate mail. I know, right? As sweet, thoughtful, and frankly irrelevant as I am? A New...

22.05.2024 40

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Is that real – I mean, really real?


15.05.2024 40

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Picking at the knot

08.05.2024 10

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Managers and leaders

Some people like management and thrive at it, but there is a big difference between leadership and management — and woefully few people seem to have...

01.05.2024 60

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Small, simple things

We have a rectangle of grass in front of our house that is just big enough for a picnic. But why would we want a picnic in our front yard? The bigger...

24.04.2024 30

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: It’s safe to keep reading!

Well, the last two columns have been rather serious, what with the decimation of the Earth at our fingertips and the existential hazards of me-ing and...

17.04.2024 30

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Cheeseburger, cheeseburger!


Had a cheeseburger lately? Maybe you had a celebratory cookout on Monday in the shadow of the eclipse? Or maybe you took the night off from cooking...

11.04.2024 10

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: We all do it …

We all do it. The only question is whether we recognize it when we do it, and then, what we do about it. I am speaking of me-ing and other-ing. Some...

27.03.2024 10

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: All because of the dog

If I had recorded it on my phone the video would have only lasted 15 seconds. It happened near the tunnel by the lake. An atomic, blood-red orb rose...

20.03.2024 10

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: The light and dark sides of our choices

With all the frenetic hype seeking to commodify the solar eclipse, the vernal (ver, Latin for spring or youthful) equinox has been forgotten. I always...

13.03.2024 10

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: The struggle behind the curtain

I wonder if you share my dislike of poems about poets, novels about authors, and movies about actors. Often the subjects are a privileged class of...

28.02.2024 20

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: No more hating on gulls

Although it is a poor reflection on my character, I’ve admitted this before: I just do not trust them. I never met one I liked and I won’t be...

21.02.2024 20

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Did anybody say, ‘Taylor Swift?’

Taylor Swift, really? I just wrote that to get in on the glory of a transcontinental mega-star. Actually, I am a little starstruck myself because just...

14.02.2024 9

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Consulting the dead

Sometimes I wake up with lines of poetry in my head that are streaming across the bridge from sleep into wakefulness. That’s probably more than you...

07.02.2024 4

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Minnie Mouse

My mom had a neighbor friend who spent most mornings sipping coffee at our yellow linoleum kitchen table. They often disagreed about things and...

31.01.2024 20

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: The eyes to see it

Did you know this column appears in what is called the “Opinion” section of the newspaper? That means I get to share my opinion about things....

24.01.2024 8

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: A form of healing

17.01.2024 10

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: A sense of foreboding

It was 24 degrees the morning I wrote this, the sky a gunmetal gray tinged with ragged ribbons of nearly black clouds. The flags on the Long Pier...

10.01.2024 20

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: ‘The Blueberry Principle’

Aren’t you relieved to get past the annual flurry of media bites that drag us through a retrospective of the past year as if we hadn’t lived...

04.01.2024 50

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: Together, as we look for what’s hiding in plain sight

It is Christmas Eve and there are so few cars in my neighborhood it feels like there’s a plague. Surely everyone has purchased any gifts they are...

27.12.2023 9

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: What we know

The guilty pleasure of a sunny, warm Ides of December. Forty degrees on an early, sun-drenched morning, Roger riding his bicycle along the lake as if...

21.12.2023 20

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: This is about nothing (but you might want to read it anyway)

Remember the comedy series “Seinfeld,” often described as a show about nothing? Well, this is a column about nothing in case you want to stop...

13.12.2023 10

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

DENIM SPIRIT: A birthday and ‘early elderly’

There are things they never tell you about getting older. I am not certain who was supposed to tell us, but it seems like someone could have without...

06.12.2023 10

Finger Lakes Times

Cameron Miller

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