Tag Archives: self-care

Gratitude List 1865

(1) In an act of unprecedented mercy toward myself, I gave myself permission to sleep in for three extra hours. Though groggy at the moment, I sense it will be a productive day (barring the unforeseen).

(2) My former spiritual director of five years (between 2004 & 2009) now lives in Spokane, the city that hosts the Faith and Values website, uniting people of different religions from all across the globe. Now a retired Episcopal priest, Fr Rick has agreed to have a candid conversation concerning certain changes that may be in the works.

(3) The Courtyard Cafe is now fully open at the hospital where I was born, having been closed for medical reasons throughout the pandemic. They’re still giving me the volunteer discount on the best home-cooked breakfasts in town.

(4) In the past ten days, I have now made three times the amount of money in Turbulence sales than I made in an entire month teaching Piano and Voice at the Academy last year. Moreover, the commute from my house to the grand piano is about a mile and a half. The commute to said academy was eleven miles.

(5) Grateful for the happy tunes that have sailed through my head lately, inspiring a new piano album where catchy old ditties will be played in a ragtime style. So far, I’ve got “King of the Road,” “What a Day for a Daydream,” “Won’t You Come Home Bill Bailey,” “Henry the Eighth,” and “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” I’m always thankful when new beginnings embrace a love of good things old.

“The direction you choose to face determines whether you’re standing at the end or the beginning of a road.” — Rachel E. Goodrich

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Gratitude List 1842

(1) Just logged on after running, push-ups & shower. I’m grateful for all three, but I feel especially thankful for the shower at this moment. There have been so many times in my life when, in order to take a shower, either I had to wait in a line for hours, or I had to share a shower with about 15 other guys in a residence hotel, many of them being intravenous drug users. I would often find cigarette butts carelessly tossed on the shower floor. That for five years now I have had my own shower less than 20 feet away from where I sit is not something to be taken for granted.

(2) Similarly, it’s nice to have my own kitchen, food in the fridge & in the cupboard, with positive liquids to be consumed after exercise. Right now I’m having a Gatorade. How many times did they ever serve us Gatorade? Coffee at feeds was awfully good and usually dished out profusely. But I think I must have drunk nothing but coffee & water for many years. Grateful for the option of good nutrition and the power to choose what I will eat, what I won’t, and when.

(3) Moreover, how many times when I was homeless did I have a closet full of clean clothes? And not only clean clothes, but clothes of my own choice? The types of clothing I like to wear? When I get around to making piano vids again, hopefully you will agree, I have a fairly reasonable wardrobe now.

(4) Unfortunately, I learned over the weekend that this thing they call PTSD is not going away. However I can honestly say I am grateful for the insights I have been receiving since the immediate storm has passed. I never realized before yesterday how many of the “triggers” have parallels in the themes engaged in my activism. My writing has taken off since the episode. So in a very weird way, I am grateful I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

(5) The Sound of Music closed yesterday to sold houses, standing ovations, and people being turned away at the door. It was an amazing group effort of total teamwork and trust. Also, may of the values uplifted in this iconic show are such as we could really use in today’s society. Maybe that’s why it sold out. I hope so, anyway. Cast party at 3pm today & looking forward to what’s next.

“It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.”
— Babe Ruth

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Gratitude List 1548

(1) A lady from my church came over two days in a row, helped me clean the house, and showed me how to fix the toilet too. I learned all kinds of things about housecleaning that my own mother never taught me. As a result, I’m enthused about maintaining a nicer, cleaner place.

(2) After wrangling over it for three days in a spirit of merciless self-criticism, I have completed the first draft of my fourth column for the five-week series on Spokane Faith and Values. I submitted it to Kurt, the retired linguistics professor (and the man with the beret whom you see in Microcosm.) His edits on my second column were very helpful, and I look forward to more of the same.

(3) Looks like I’m losing weight again.  Haven’t been running so much, but have been enjoying long brisk walks in the morning and at night.  I use them as a time for prayer and reflection.  They also help to deflect the fact that I’ve got a lot of food in my cupboard these days, and that I’ve a tendency to munch.  Grateful, however, not to be going without.

(4) Mixes are starting to come in from our studio session Sunday before last.   New versions of “Hunted,” “Oracle,” and “Turns Toward Dawn” are available.   The last of these three clips is by far the best, earning us a wonderful commendation from the head of the jazz department at the Conservatory.   

(5) Our church met indoors for the first time yesterday.   We still wore masks and social-distanced.  It was well-coordinated and well-attended, and it made me feel warm inside.   I keep getting a sense that something really positive is in the works.  I can’t quite put my finger on it — but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real.   

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Tuesday Tuneup 51

Q.  What’s been bugging you lately?

A.  The Tuesday Tuneups.

Q.  Why?

A.  They’ve lost something.

Q.  How so?

A.  I think it started around about the time it would be a nice “game” to ask my readers to select a question for me, rather than me selecting one that I knew would work.

Q. How would you know?

A. Because I’ve been doing the “tuneups” since 1987, though not online, and not always on Tuesdays.   So I’ve accumulated a compendium of questions that do work.

Q. So are you going to select a new question for next week?

A. No.  I’m going to discontinue them for a while.

Q. Why?

A. Overloaded.   I’ve been dealing with what I call “Mainstream Stress” and it’s affecting my sense of integrity.

Q. Mainstream Stress?

A. The kind of stress one gets only in the Mainstream; that is, when one has multiple commitments, and has to show up at many specific places at specific times, prepared to conduct oneself according to an expected fashion.

Q. Are you trying to say you’ve been working too hard?

A. Something like that.  But I’ve always worked very hard.  I just haven’t done it to deadlines, or under pressure, in recent years.

Q. Why not?

A. Because I don’t believe that deadlines and pressures are good for the human spirit.  I also believe that my not having operated according to these Mainstream values is what has kept me generally happy and healthy over the years.

Q. And you are not happy and healthy now?

A. Still healthy, though at risk.

Q. And happy?

A. That depends upon what is meant by happiness.

Q. Why are you evading the question?

A. Scripture equates happiness with God’s blessings.  I have definitely been in receipt of God’s blessings.

Q. Then why aren’t you happy?

A. Because, apparently, I have been seeking happiness from a source other than God.

Q. What source is that?

A. Art.

Q. You have a friend named Art?

A. Um, no — I do know one guy named Art, but he’s only a casual acquaintance.   I’m talking about Art — as in Music.  Writing.  Singing.  All the things I have turned to in order to give beauty to an ugly situation.

Art


Q. What situation?

A. I can’t answer that.  I am sorry.  It’s too deep and too personal.

Q. May I then therefore be excused?

A. Not just yet.  Let’s decide when the Tuneups will recur.

Q. When would you like them to recur?

A. October 1, 2019.

Q. Deal?

A. Deal.

Angel and demon deal Vector Image #131294 – RFclipart

 

The Questioner is silent. 

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