Lessons in Gratitude Day 352

Posted on June 30, 2012 by mtchamblee

Today has been a really good day, even though it started at 5:30 this morning (and I thought 6 a.m. was hard…) I had agreed to teach a class for a friend who’d had a death in her family and was unable to meet with her students. To make matters more interesting it was the first class meeting of the semester. She’d asked me on Monday if I could teach it and as the week progressed I stressed out a bit about it. I was relatively comfortable with the subject matter–multicultural issues in counseling–but I felt tired, stressed, and underprepared to teach it. (Anyone who’s been reading my blog over the past week knows I hadn’t been having the best week of my life…) Still, as I prepared my class outline, created the powerpoint presentation, and designed exercises–most of which happened after 4 p.m. yesterday evening–I felt pretty good about the class going into today.

I had asked my daughter if she wanted to come with me, partly because I said I needed her help, but mostly because I wanted her company. I tried not to pressure her to come, but when she told me this morning that she thought she would “stay put” at home I must confess I was a little disappointed. She later changed her mind and decided to come with me and the adventure was on. We grabbed a quick coffee and breakfast sandwich and headed off to the campus. As I got revved up and into the flow of the session (it was scheduled to last all day, from 9 a.m. until 4 or 4:30 p.m.) I felt more and more at ease and I was reminded of some very important facts:

  • I really enjoy teaching–which in this case was more an exchange of ideas and information than it was me imparting a bunch of facts and concepts and my own brand of knowledge and wisdom.
  • Because I enjoy it, I put a lot of myself, my energy, my enthusiasm into it and it often goes well. I am good at it. When I know my subject matter and have time to prepare, I am a good presenter/teacher/facilitator, etc. and people respond well to me. It’s really cool!

I am grateful to have agreed to take over the class today. Initially I was nervous and a bit cranky about the whole thing (it was one more thing I had to get through and get it over with…) but as the time approached I tried to improve my attitude about it. And in the end, by taking the opportunity and putting myself out there, I remembered that I do in fact have skills. It’s an unfortunate side effect of having been unemployed for a long time–one starts to wonder if they have any skills or competencies left. I’ve had moments of wondering if I was good at anything any more, and that many of my accomplishments felt far away and unreal. Contributing to the class today made everything real to me, reminding me “Yeah, you know how to do this…” And when I add the additional benefit of being able to come back to life in front of my daughter, that’s even better.

I’m not always clear about what I want to do, what I’m “supposed” to be doing, about my “what’s next.” But I do know that I am a teacher at many levels, not just in the classroom, that I have wisdom to share in a variety of venues and with various modalities. I am grateful to have had that zoom into sharp relief today. It’ll sure help me moving forward. I’m reminded of the quote from educator John Dewey, to which I’ve referred and spoken about many times. It was written nearly 90 years ago (1923): “To find out what one is fitted to do and to secure the opportunity to do it is the key to happiness.” I believe that each of us has inklings, indications fairly early on of what we’re “meant” to do with our lives. For various reasons some of us never discover or fully live into those inklings to become who we were meant to be, doing what we were meant to do. That makes my rediscovering my love of teaching, sharing wisdom, guiding, even leading individuals and groups a very important part of my reclamation/transformation process. I continue to look forward to seeing how this unfolds.

I am grateful to the group of engaged, interested doctoral students I was interacting with today. I am grateful for the presence of my daughter in the group, both contributing her own wisdom and experience (she more than held her own with the much older doctoral students) and in witnessing me in one of my elements. That was, as Rachel Maddow puts it, “the best new thing in the world today.” Amen!

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 351

Posted on June 29, 2012 by mtchamblee

Today I am grateful for family and friends. They have been a boon to me during challenging times. Just today I spoke with two of my sisters, my BFF from college, and my good and patient friend Nancy. All in one way or another encouraged me to stand strong and know that things will get better soon. My daughter has been encouraging me today as I worked under deadlines to get ready for a class that I am teaching tomorrow. Even at this late hour she is preparing materials for the class session. The teaching opportunity came up unexpectedly and I have had little time to prepare for it. But I’ll go in and do the best I can to engage the students in stimulating and thought-provoking conversation.

I don’t have time to write much more than this as I am still behind in my preparations. I do know this: I am moving forward. My legs are powerful, strengthened by the effort of wading through waist-deep mud of loss, sadness, anger, and fear. My arms are strong from pulling myself up out of the abyss of despair and depression. My heart is softened with compassion, connecting my own suffering with that of others; I can empathize and relate in ways I could not have before. My mind, though weary, is keen and sharp from thinking through scenarios for keeping my family moving forward individually and collectively. My spirit is buoyed by the knowledge that I can begin to see the light of dawn after the long night. I will keep speaking the words of faith and positivity as best I can; and when I fall back into patterns of negativity and self-sabotaging speech, I’ll recover and get myself back on track.

I am grateful to be standing strong. I will keep standing strong. And by and by, we’ll all rejoice together at the great things that unfold. May we all know happiness and enjoy the fruits of happiness. So be it!

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 350

Posted on June 28, 2012 by mtchamblee

I am grateful for a lot of things today. The challenge today, unlike some days I’ve had this past week, is how to figure out which one or two I’m going to focus on for tonight’s blog. Sometimes I struggle to find one I can feel good enough to write about. Tonight I have too many things to focus on with a brain  that is too tired and distracted to string sentences together with laser sharp coherence. I will do my best.

I am grateful as I have been many times recently and throughout this past year for the gift of perseverance and it’s close cousin resilience–the abilities to stand strong and bounce back. Related to those is persistence. Here is how the New Oxford American dictionary defines these three oh-so-important characteristics.

  • Perseverance: steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.
  • Resilience: able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions.
  • Persistence: firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition.

If there’s one thing I now clearly know about myself based on how the past 18 months have unfolded it is that I possess these three qualities in no small measure. If I didn’t know before I faced the challenges of this time in my life, I sure know it now. I am grateful for these qualities–that inner fortitude that keeps me getting up in the morning and moving forward. This is not bragging, it is simply the truth. Given the choice between having my butt kicked so that I could determine how strong a person I am and living blissfully ignorant of my inner strength and living a placid, easy life, I’d go for blissful ignorance. But as it didn’t quite work out like that I am grateful that when the going got tough, I dug in, hung on for dear life, stood in the face of the balrog† and planted a flag declaring “You shall not pass!” Which is a fanciful way of saying that I looked my fear and anxiety and depression and sadness in the face and determined that it would not get the best of me. And, it hasn’t.

Persistence got me out of bed this morning at 6 a.m. when I sooooo didn’t feel like it so I could write in my journal, do my morning ablutions and hit the road by 7:30 for a nonprofit career conference that I really didn’t feel like going to. Even when I signed up for it and paid the fee I didn’t want to attend. But, as a job seeker who is thinking about working for a nonprofit organization, it seemed like a good idea. This was my first foray into interacting with other nonprofit jobseekers. It is not necessarily the kind of venue an introverted grumpy person does real well in, particularly when they didn’t feel like going, but I persevered and persisted and went. And as is often the case when I push do something, I find value in it. Two of the four workshops sessions were particularly helpful and thought-provoking and made it worth the getting out of bed, the traffic into Oakland, the parking and registration fees, etc. I credit the success of the day mostly to the power of persistence.

The rest of the day went pretty well, including a fun Facebook chat this evening with my sister Ruth (about whom I’ve written a few times in this blog–she’s one of my favorite people in the world.) I am truly grateful. I will close now–I have to go play my guitar for a few minutes per my new mini-habit. Perseverance, resilience, persistence: three of the many important qualities sprinkled with a healthy dose of gratitude that I hope to continue to cultivate and grow. May it be so!

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†The balrog is a fictional demonic creature found in J. R. R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy. In a classic scene from the film the wizard Gandalf, seeking to protect his fellows from the monster confronts it on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm in the underground region known as Moria. Gandalf plants his staff in front of the Balrog and declares, “You shall not pass!” I have used this metaphor many times in encouraging myself and some of my coaching clients to take a stand against their fears. Try it next time your Balrog shows up.
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Lessons in Gratitude Day 349

Posted on June 27, 2012 by mtchamblee

I am cranky and overwhelmed this evening. This has been one of those days, no, this has been one of those periods when virtually nothing is easy or happens without struggle or drama. Somewhere in the midst of this tumult I manage each day to glean some lessons, find some meaning, discover some grace and beauty, uncover some nugget of truth and end the day on a note of gratitude. There are some days that are bad from start to finish. Today, fortunately, was not one of those. I spent my afternoon as I have most Wednesdays for over a year now: volunteering at the Berkeley Food Pantry. I am grateful for the Pantry. It has become almost a haven of sorts for me and on this Wednesday it saved the day from being a complete disaster (relatively speaking, of course.) Having my daughter there helping out over the past few weeks has made something I already enjoy and appreciate that much more enjoyable. I am grateful to her for her willingness to come with me each week, even when she hasn’t felt well or had other things she could have chosen to do.

So thank goodness for the afternoon at the pantry. It is something good in the middle of the day in the middle of the week. I am grateful to have spent another good Wednesday in the company of a terrific group of people. The end of the day, however, is proving to be a bit more challenging. The most recent frustration occurred about 30 minutes ago when my daughter’s car wouldn’t start AGAIN–for the third time in the past month. Nevertheless, I am determined to do something, take some small action, to redeem the last part of the day. Perhaps I will play my guitar, if I can work up the energy for it. This is in fact just the time when I really need to do it.

Several months ago I challenged my daughter to play her guitar every day for 21 days; I knew it would help her manage some of the stress she was under at school and give her a little mood boost each day. In a gesture of solidarity I offered to join her so that she could be motivated by knowing she wasn’t in it by herself. I played for 48 straight days–long after she’d stopped–and when I realized I’d missed a day and had to start back at day 1, I got right back on it and played for another 30 days or so. I can tell you there were nights I didn’t feel up to playing. But I had made a commitment to doing it, so I played, even if it was only one song and only for five minutes. Now I need to reissue the challenge to myself.

In response to yesterday’s blog about music, one of my friends wrote on my Facebook wall, “Sing!” and when I replied that I didn’t have the energy to, that I was too overwhelmed by the pressures of my life at the moment. He wrote back and said, “I understand. I do. Sing for yourself. Sing while you are folding laundry. Sing while you are washing dishes. Just sing . . . do a deer, a female deer, re a drop of golden sun . . . mi, fa, so, la, ti, do. Then do it again.” He’s right, of course. That’s what I remembered when I was in the car yesterday driving to work–sing. Sometimes at the top of your lungs past the lump of tears in your throat for all you’re worth. There’s no time like the present. I believe I’ll start tonight.

I look forward to better days, starting this evening and on into tomorrow and the day after that. In spite of the ongoing struggle, I will keep seeking and finding reasons to be grateful. As I’ve said many times, there is always something to be grateful for if you’re willing to look for it. The only thing lacking at times is my energy to express it. But even with that my stubbornness usually wins out over exhaustion and I figure out a way to say it. I just did. Now, off to play my guitar and sing…

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 348

Posted on June 26, 2012 by mtchamblee

I am grateful once again for the incredible healing power of music. How is it that I forget this–constantly? This morning, I listened to a CD on my way to work. Usually I listen to an audiobook, but I finished the most recent one and I can’t get a new one until the first of the month. So, I decided to alternate between music and listening to an audiobook on Buddhist teachings so as to refresh myself about all the areas I need to be working on. Today, music won–I blasted the CD the whole way to work, replaying a song called, “Hold On, Change Is Coming” over and over again so I could let the lyrics settle into my bones. The song talks about being in the midst of a struggle and learning to hold on, have faith, be strong, soldier on, because change is coming. I sang at the top of my lungs as best I could over the lump of tears that caused my voice to come out more croak than harmony. It wasn’t my finest performance, but then I wasn’t performing. I was encouraging myself through song, something I did a lot of in my earlier life. I realize the extent to which I’ve let that go.

I used to pour myself into my music. It was an avenue for me to express some of the pain and sorrows I faced in my life as well as to celebrate the simple things that I spend time writing about in this blog. My music, like my garden (as I wrote about a few months back), ceased to be a focal point in my life the busier I got with the business of living. My most prolific songwriting happened during my college years, and it was during those pivotal years that I decided not to pursue a musical career. At the time it wasn’t a driving passion in my life so I sort of turned from music to more practical academic pursuits rather than live the life of a starving artist. My mother (God rest her soul) discouraged me from pursuing a creative course of study in college (I wanted to be a fiction writer/novelist) and encouraged me to pursue a field “you can get a job in.” I studied animal science and agricultural education and the rest, as they say, is history. Singing in the car on both ends of my commute today reminded me of the importance of music in my life. I’m not sure I’ll ever really get back to it like I did when I was young, but it’s at least worth thinking about.

I am grateful for the reminder. I really do need to be singing much more often. I’ve little doubt but that it releases some of those endorphins they say flow into our systems when we exercise or do other enjoyable things. For me there’s nothing quite like the power I feel sometimes when I close my eyes and sing, or when I rest my cheek against my guitar as I play, reveling in both the sound and the thrumming vibration of the strings and wood. It is very calming and comforting–two things I could use a lot more of these days. Music has the power to transport me from where I am to a totally different realm of consciousness. I am grateful for the sound, grateful for the capacity to hear the different tones, to have a voice that allows me to speak and sing and whisper. I am grateful for the dexterity of hands and fingers that allows me to play my guitar and the aptitude to be able to put things together and have them magically transform into a song. I am deeply grateful for these things. But even if I sang off key or had no voice at all and could not manage to play any instrument with any skill whatsoever, I would still be grateful for the gift of music to the world.

I may never again be a prolific songwriter as I once was and it’s likely that I will not perform before hundreds of people (perhaps not even dozens), though playing for an appreciative audience is a wonderful feeling. But I can still play for myself, an audience of one who is also very appreciative. Perhaps I’ll begin again tonight.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 347

Posted on June 25, 2012 by mtchamblee

I am grateful for many things this evening, many of them so small that they are almost missable amidst the noise and tumult that whirls around me at any given time. I had, as might have been apparent to people who regularly read this blog, a really difficult weekend. My blog expressed it, my morning journal described it, my “crying towel” by the side of my bed witnessed it. But as so often happens, I had a new day today, a fresh 24 hours during which I could continue to rally myself and have a better week. What I love about resilience is that it provides this sometimes sudden, often mystical burst of energy that, in my case, brought me from the edge of despair and sadness back into the realms of hope and possibility even though virtually none of my external life circumstances changed. I love that. There is some measure of grace that enters in at that low point and then this ridiculous sense of “everything’s going to be alright” flows in even when it shouldn’t be there. I am speechless with gratitude about that.

I have written about this before, of course. Over the course of these 347 days I have repeated some themes quite a bit; they bear repeating. Certainly perseverance and resilience have been big ones because I have called upon them so frequently in this past year. Still, there is something miraculous about getting to the end of your strength–“I just can’t take another step. I am going to sit here and die. I give up. I can’t do this anymore. I have nothing left in the tank…” You get the idea. And then you wake up the next morning and not only are you not dead, you find that you can in fact take another step, you can make some movement, you can, in fact, get out of bed and get on with the day. Wait, where did that come from? It wasn’t there last night, but darned if it isn’t here this morning.

Yesterday I stormed around my house for much of the afternoon (as I was heaving boxes of books into my car to take to the storage unit.) I was raging against God, as I often do. Mostly I was recounting all the reasons why I no longer believed that God exists, fussing and swearing and having a right good tantrum about the whole God thing. (Someday when I finally meet God we’re going to have a right good laugh about the whole thing.) I can’t tell you  much in the way of specifics about God–I was born and raised in a faith tradition that taught me one particular view of God that I have modified several times over the years. And I frequently get into these one-sided shouting matches at God–after all, God has some explaining to do. But whether or not I believe in the God that my faith tradition introduced to me or have some other spiritual twist on the Supreme being is irrelevant. Somehow that grace, that strength, that energy showed up this morning out of nowhere. Poof, like magic. I didn’t do it. I didn’t really even ask for it (wait, I guess I did when I was sobbing into my crying towel saying, “Help me, God!) And yet, there it was. I do not take for granted this well of grace that bubbles up through the cracked and parched soil of my heart just when I need it. I feed it, as best I can, by trying to live as honorably as I can offering what I can for the good of others and for the planet. It’s not an even exchange by any stretch of imagination–my ROI (return on investment) is incredible.

So here I am again, grateful. And I take these moments as they come. I might feel awful again tomorrow (though I’m planning on feeling terrific), but I know that there is a grace that is beyond my comprehension that shows up no matter how grim the hour. No, my external life circumstances have not changed appreciably over the last few days, but internally things are percolating and I find myself remarkably calm. Thus is life riding on the mechanical bull. Sometimes there’s peace and stillness, whether it’s when the bull stops moving or the quiet moment of sailing through the air when I’ve lost my grip on the virtual reins. Either way, I enjoy it.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 346

Posted on June 24, 2012 by mtchamblee

I am grateful to be at the end of the weekend and looking hoping to starting a new week from a better space than I ended the last one. In spite of my difficulties, I did manage to get some work done today. One thing I’ve learned is that when I’m feeling bad I have to keep myself moving, because once I sit down it’s all too easy to park myself for the rest of the day. I have a lot of work to do, organizing and packing and preparing for a move. Even though I don’t know where I’m going, I do know that I’m going, so it pays to get busy. And when one is chasing the blues, getting busy is just the thing.

I may not write much tonight. I am a bit tired from my exertions–moving dozens of boxes around my storage unit today was exhausting–and, my energy level is still a bit low. Still, I am grateful for all the little things that kept me afloat today. The beautiful sunshine that penetrated the gloom of my mood this morning, the audiobook that kept me entertained off and on throughout the day, and my own sheer determination to keep putting one foot in front of another, loading one box after another, put my shoulder to the wheel and work. It wasn’t an easy day in what has been a string of tough days, but as much as it sounds trite to say it, I’m still standing. For that I am grateful, after all, one can’t do a whole lot sitting down.

I am less than three weeks away from reaching 365 days of writing this blog. I think about it from time to time as that time approaches. I’d like to move strongly toward it; it seems like I’ve been dragging of late. But I look forward to celebrating, both when I hit the one year mark as well as when I write the 366th blog entry. They won’t happen on the same date. Regular readers of this blog know that after 227 straight days of writing, I took a brief hiatus from daily blogs. I only missed a few days before I got back to it, only missing one or two more since then. Periodically when I feel like I don’t have anything to say I wonder if I can keep writing. But as I think about it further I realize that I started writing this blog because I needed to remember that in the midst of turmoil and tumult in one’s life there are always things for which I can be grateful for. I needed to express that gratitude in a way that brought others in with me, both to keep me company and, to a certain extent, hold me accountable.

Some days, writing this blog is the one thing that gets me through a day because no matter how trying and challenging it’s been, I can always find a spot of gratitude and grace that keeps me going. Someone asked me if I will stop writing a daily blog after I reach the one year, 365 day mark. I am not sure what I’m going to do. My guess is that I’ll keep writing, as much to strengthen and encourage myself  as for any other reason. I’m grateful to have regular readers along for the journey, but I think I will be writing whether I have readers or not. Thank you for reading these words on a regular, semi-occasional, or once-in-a-great-while basis. If these writings cause you to think about all the things in your life for which you are grateful, that is a really, really good thing. What are you grateful for this evening?

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 345

Posted on June 23, 2012 by mtchamblee

Sometimes there are no more words to say. You have a conversation that you’ve had a dozen times with a person and it is as though one of you is speaking Greek and the other is singing in DNA sequences C-G-A-T-C-G-A-T…You not only are not on the same page, you aren’t even in the same library. And yet the desire for the other person to understand not only what you are saying, but to really see it from their perspective and that suddenly some light of awareness will come on…that desire is so strong that you try to present the same case again and again and again. In the end, of course, nothing is resolved and often both parties feel worse for having tried and failed yet again. This is why revisiting (and rehashing) the past is futile. Somehow you have to let it go and move forward. This is a lesson I would do well to learn.

Tonight I am grateful for the robin’s song. I didn’t realize that robins sang at dusk; I don’t know that I’ve experienced it and if I did I sure don’t remember it. But a robin sits in one of the trees outside my window and sings. I’ve known the robin’s song my whole life. It is familiar and comforting. When I moved to California from Michigan I left behind the much-loved song of the cardinals and blue jays–they don’t range this far west. And while I’ve grown accustomed to and have learned to appreciate them in their own right, particularly for their funny “eeping” calls to one another, listening to the scrub jays has a different impact on me than the comfortingly familiar song of the robin. She’s quiet now that it’s full on dark, but I thank her for her song nonetheless.

In times when little else seems to make sense, the wonderfully normal beauty of nature still brings me a measure of comfort. The robin’s song, so simple and normal, was a salve for my soul tonight at just the right time. I am truly grateful for that.

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If you’re a fan of birds, the ornithology lab at Cornell University has a great website called All About Birds. (You can visit it at http://www.allaboutbirds.org/Page.aspx?pid=1189) You can search for birds by name, listen to their calls and songs, watch videos of them and learn interesting facts.
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Lessons in Gratitude Day 344

Posted on June 22, 2012 by mtchamblee

It’s been an emotionally bumpy day or two, I must confess. I sort of knew from the moment I woke up this morning that today might be a bit rocky–I wrote about it in my journal. It wasn’t so much that something in particular happened, it’s really more that nothing did and that my circumstances remain unchanged. I realize that I am weary of the struggle. I have stood up after having been knocked down a number of times now. I have buoyed myself as best I could through physical activity, volunteerism, healthier diet, meditation and spirituality, traditional therapy, etc. I have lost heart, then found it again. I have saluted back at my father through tears, anger, fear, and depression and soldiered on. I have offered prayers of lovingkindness and compassion, practiced forgiveness, worked on equanimity and joy, studied the four Noble truths, the Eightfold Path. I’ve prayed and cried out to the God of my parents. And now, I am weary.

It’s not that nothing has changed (how do you like them double negatives); I believe I have experienced some significant internal shifts in mind, heart, and spirit. At the moment, these changes are too subtle to have much of an impact on my weariness. My vision of myself, of my life before my personal tsunami of 2011 and after is markedly different. While I was never brimming with self confidence, events of the past 16 to 18 months have been dramatic enough to pull the plug on the little bit that I did have. It all makes me want to either shout and curse and swear at the top of my lungs and let out all the anger and emotions that I’ve stuffed down over the past year (longer actually) or curl myself into a ball under my desk. I won’t do either, unless I decide to engage in some watered-down, morphed version of the two choices in which I bury my face in my pillow and howl while curled into a ball under my desk. It has its appeal.

Three hundred words in and not a single use of the “G” word. I will use it before the blog is finished, not to worry. I get mad at God about that too. Even when I am righteously pissed off and splashing around in ill-tempered renunciations of my basic, lifelong belief in a supreme Being, some wonder will catch my ever-wayward attention–the call of the turkeys, a flitting ruby-throated hummingbird, a wandering butterfly, a snatch of my favorite song, the clash of surf and rock, and the many wondrous things–and all my mutterings are silenced, even if only temporarily. It is enough to break the grasp that those less noble emotions had on my heart and I am able to once again drag myself back from the edge and keep climbing. It’s what I do; it’s what I’ve always done. It’s not that big a deal. So very many other people around the world, even in the small suburb where I live have faced challenges worse than mine. It’s also what they do.

I am grateful. As I prepare to lie down in my clean, comfortable bed in my warm, secure shelter having eaten a small but relatively healthy meal, and review all the times over the course of this day that something made me smile or reminded me that I am blessed, I can do so knowing that I have the power to change my perspective all by myself in an instant. That at the end of a emotionally bumpy day I can go to sleep with the hope that I will wake in the morning and see better things ahead. That, as Julian of Norwich said back in the 14th century, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” And so it shall.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 343

Posted on June 21, 2012 by mtchamblee

Today I find myself simply grateful to be at the end of a very long day that commenced at 4 a.m. as I rose to drive my daughter to the airport. Although I took an all-too-short nap when I returned from the airport around 5:30, it was too brief to really be much value. So here I sit nodding off at the keyboard, the computer resting somewhat precariously on my lap (though I’ve never dropped it) pondering the many things I am grateful for today. I remain grateful for my friend who had been in a terrible car accident yesterday. This afternoon I spoke to him about his ordeal, hearing details about just how bad the crash had been and that although he was sore and stiff, he was quite grateful to have escaped more serious injuries. On the one hand it was sobering and a bit frightening just to hear about how the accident unfolded (and how the woman who was at fault has lied about her role in causing it), but on the other it was relieving simply to be talking to him and knowing that he’s essentially alright.

I also continue to be grateful for creative inspiration. At times I have thought it a curse to be an idea person–I can scarcely sit down to work on one idea before another has popped up in its place. It reminded me of a quote I’d thought I’d heard somewhere about several good ideas before breakfast. When I went to “the Google” and searched for it, I found what I’d been looking for and it was only mildly applicable. It came from a conversation between Alice of Alice in Wonderland fame and the White Queen:

Alice laughed: “There’s no use trying,” she said; “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

I’m not sure I’ve practiced believing six impossible things before breakfast, but I often suffer from the production of three to six really good ideas before breakfast. Given that I write in my journal every morning, sometimes the good ideas emerge rather naturally from that daily practice. Now if I can begin to turn one or two of those good ideas into  a useful activity or a productive project, that has been time well spent. I am grateful for the creativity that invites me to see possibilities everywhere: a handful of words that form into a song lyric, the sculpture that peers out from a piece of uncarved wood, the garden that takes shape from a barren patch of landscape, the story that follows the words “once there was…”

Sometimes, like this evening, I am too tired to bring the creations to life, but it’s fun to envision them nonetheless. This is why writing daily haikus throughout the month of May was so cool–no matter how tired I was, I could write a haiku–a brief burst of creativity which I also wrote, coincidentally with this blog, at the end of the days. I kept writing a blog a day (the daily haiku was part of a challenge issued to the online creation group I am part of to do something creative every day in May) right on into June and only missed one day since I began writing on May 1. It’s been a lot of fun and has inspired other members of the group to write haikus as well. Some pretty good ones have emerged.

Inspiration and creativity are wonderful things. Even in the midst of drama and trauma, we can be inspired by what’s happening around us. If we are fortunate, our inspirations can find expression through some action or artifact that we are able to produce. I am looking forward to getting back into some of the creative pursuits I used to engage in: songwriting, woodcarving, wire sculpting, fiction writing. In the meantime, I can content myself with a haiku per day, joined in time by another small expression of creativity.

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