Day 672: Care

I care to start this way, today:

What are your associations with the word “care”?

I often think about caring for others and caring for self,  and yet I’ve only cared to feature the word “care” in three previous blogs posts:

• Day 195: Self care, wisdom, and kindness
• Day 482: Who cares? 
• Day 578: I don’t care

If you  carefully look at those titles only, you might assume this blog is written by somebody who is care-less. I don’t care to see myself that way.

In yesterday’s post,  I elaborated about two things I care about:

1. Friendship and
2. Work

In addition, I care for what I see in the world around me. Here are some images I cared enough to capture with my iPhone recently, but haven’t taken the care, yet, to show you:

   

Yesterday, I was at a day-long retreat with people who care about group therapy and how it can improve lives. During the morning, we talked about ways we can slow down while trying to take care of everything that needs taking care of, in our lives.

During lunch, despite the care I take during eating, I started choking on the very excellent and spicy bouillabaisse Marc (appearing previously here) had taken great care to prepare for us . My instincts — about caring for myself and others — caused me to get up, leave the room, and go into a corner of the kitchen by myself, as I waited for the choking fit to stop. Joe — who was hosting the retreat at his home (and who has appeared, dancing, in this blog post) — cared enough to notice me and asked:

Are you okay? Do you need anything?

And in case you care to hear the ensuing dialog, here it is:

Me: I’m okay. Something went down the wrong way, and I’m one of those people who, when I’m in pain, I go off by myself, like a wounded animal.

Joe: You mean, kind of like bunny rabbits that go under the porch to die?

Me: No. I mean, kind of like a tiger that’s not dying.

And because writing this blog every day is part of my self-care, I was picturing this:

Who cares?  I do, as best I can.

I guess I learned something from the retreat yesterday, because I am allowing myself to slow down, now, and think about songs, poems, and other memories I have about the word “care.”

I remember this poem that my late, funny father told me about somebody in his high school:

Jerry is a drummer rare.

If he didn’t play, we wouldn’t care.

When I allowed myself to think about songs with “care” in them, this was the one that came to mind:

(Carmen McRae singing “Bye Bye Blackbird” found here on YouTube)

I care enough about that tune to include another version, here:

(YouTube video of Julie London singing “Bye Bye Blackbird” found here)

There are so many great versions of that song on YouTube! If you care, you can click on the link in that previous sentence.

Does anybody care if I include one more favorite —  Miles Davis  — here?

That song reminded me of this: When I left the retreat yesterday, somebody cared enough to say:

Bye, bye, blackbird.

Thanks to those I saw yesterday (and all other days, too) and to you — of course! — for caring enough to visit today.