Happy Birthday!!!! July 18

Stick to the Plan

 

When walking over a bridge, say, a rope bridge that sways in the breeze, it’s much less difficult (and more fun) if you aren’t concentrating on each step or on getting to the other side.  You could check out the view.  If you are questioning your balance and calculating the distance you might fall, you’re tormenting yourself with real and imagined failures from the past.  This makes it both difficult and painful.

Stick to the plan.  Bring yourself back to the plan.  Don’t require success at every moment or demand that your state of mind always be at its highest pitch.  That will signal (convincingly, but falsely) irreparable inadequacy.

Do what you can, when you can.  Conserve the dazzle for when it’s really needed.  Ask for and seek help from wherever it may be available.  Don’t succumb to destructive and distracting fatigue and fear.  None of that will or can help you.

Exercise the strength and knowledge you’ve developed through hard won experience.  Remain grateful and sensitive to what is happening at this moment.  Be aware of what’s around you as you take each step forward – each breath that sends you energy, the line of the horizon where green meets blue, the distinct sound of the bird perched somewhere nearby.  Breathe with conscious recognition of the magic involved in this accustomed act.

Rest, eat, move.  Don’t give aid or comfort to the fears that are begging for your company.  Stick to the plan.  Study the plan.  Add to or adjust the plan.  Expand it.  Refine it.  Realize that this is what your soul, your unconscious, your solid self has assembled as what is needed, what is essential to move you forward.  Trust it and make use of it. 

Live long and prosper, Earthling.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Tesla!

Happy Birthday!!!! July 6.

Wednesday

Every two weeks I go to the cancer place.  Up two flights to the infusion center.  As far as I know, it’s like that flavored vodka or tea, except that they infuse me with something that comes out of a needle. 

I’ve been doing this for eight years.  There are others there who also just walk in, but then they have to stay there, connected to tubes infusing something much more potent than what I’m getting.  Their situation is infinitely more serious than mine and, often, they don’t have one year, let alone eight.

I’m kind of a drive-by in that I sign in, wait a couple of minutes until Lisa or Michelle or Don come by and poke me in the arm.  Then, I’m free to go.  Everyone is as nice as can be and they have even provided snacks for the patients to tide them over and to settle their stomachs. 

I’m usually there around lunch and, sometimes, I see the snack cart with its goodies and check out the selection.  Most of it is of no interest, but this week I saw the shiny blue wrapper of a pack of Oreos.  I looked around and put one of the packages into my pocket, unseen.  I’m both six and about sixty when I do this. 

Out in the car, once I’ve left the parking lot, I read on the blue wrapper that this is America’s Favorite Cookie.  That’s certainly true in this moment. 

I separate the halves to better enjoy the filling, as I wonder what else I can learn to love like Oreos.