Day 1253: How to improve the moment

How to improve the moment?

1. Access your wisdom, from past experience, about how to improve the moment.
2. Be as present as possible in the moment.
3. Let go of fear and worry about future moments.
4. Take a deep, cleansing breath.
5. Let in the love that’s around you.
6. Share your joy in the moment.

 

 

Music also improves the moment for me. Here’s some improve-the-moment audio I recorded yesterday at my son’s graduation from high school —  the Belmont High School a capella singers performing  Billy Joel‘s “And So It Goes.”

 

How do you improve the moment?

Thanks to all who helped me improve the moments in this blog post and to you — of course! — for sharing them with me.

 

Day 1230: Boys and Their Families

This is my boy, Aaron, expressing appreciation for his family:

Aaron’s mother took many pictures of her boy last night as he appeared in a Shakespeare play about a boy and his family, Henry IV, Part 1:

Many members of my boy’s family were there to see my boy perform as the boy prince, Hal.

One member of my boy’s family expressed pride and well wishes for her boy, in the play’s program:

Earlier in the day, somebody at work sent me this, about a boy and his family:

I assume some purr boys and girls with families might now want to sing this song:

Certain boy’s family members like to take photos. Here’s the rest of my family of photos from yesterday:

Since my boy was a little boy, he has spent a lot of time with his  talented “roguish, onion-eyed” friend Cameron, who has a lovely family. Cameron has appeared with Aaron in  previous posts, including Day 833: Be Kind and  Day 1093: What are you eating/What’s eating you.  Here’s Cameron, heavily padded as Falstaff, from last night:

Aaron’s blogging family member now wishes to express her gratitude for all those who helped her create this “Boys and Their Families” post and to all the boys and girls reading this, here and now.

Day 1222: Be proud of who you are

Yesterday —  on another cold and rainy May stay-cation day — I saw my old friend Ada. We shared many memories, hopes,  and a cup of tea.

Be proud of who you are, even if

• you forget to take a picture of your fabulous friend Ada,
• you fall asleep before answering all the comments on your blog,
• the universe conspires to give you miserable weather throughout your long-awaited May stay-cation,
• you make mistakes every day,
• your memory and your endurance fade as you age,
• you go for walks when other people have the good sense to stay inside,
• you dance and sing out loud in public,
• you sometimes forget the words,
• you let your childhood piano go untuned for over 15 years,
• you’re living with a guy who collects snow globes,
• you haven’t done any of the cooking, cleaning, or laundry since that snow-globe-collecting guy moved in,
• you make messes,
• you have trouble making some decisions,
• you get impatient sometimes,
• you show and express all your feelings, including fear, anger, sadness, and joy, and
• you can’t always explain why you snap and share the photos you do.

 

I’m proud of who I was yesterday, dancing  and singing out loud to this:

Be proud of who you are, no matter how you respond to this post.

Proud thanks to all who help me blog every day and to you — of course! — for being proud of who you are (I hope).

Day 1182: Be great, feel great, act great

 

Be great — like my son creating this video for his friend Clark’s birthday yesterday, using found footage and videos he shot with my iPhone:

Feel great — like I feel about my son (and all the people who agreed to be in that video).

Act great — like the people in that video.

Let’s see if we can all be great, feel great, and/or act great — here and now — about some other things I saw yesterday:

Be great, feel great, act great by having a wonderful Easter, everybody!

Day 1156: Someday I’ll look back on this and ….

Someday I’ll look back on this post and …. what?

• Laugh?
• Cry?
• Have other emotions?
• Be proud?
• Wish I’d written something else?
• Be content with it?
• Remember exactly what was happening when I wrote it?

Someday I’ll look back on this cartoon …

… and remember how I found it, yesterday, in a copy of The New Yorker.

Now that I’ve returned to work after my winter vacation and I’m telling people about my  try-out for “The Voice” (among other adventures), I have yet to say …

Someday I’ll look back on this and laugh.

Why?  Because I’m already laughing.

Some day I’ll look back on this whole experience with “The Voice” and remember how it inspired me to:

• take risks,
• build my confidence,
• improve my singing, and
• express more of myself.

Someday you’ll look back on this post and remember some photo I snapped yesterday at work. I wonder which one it will be?

Someday, I’ll look back on “Whip It” by Devo, inspired by those last two photos.

Today’s the day!

Today, I look back on all this and thank my co-worker Susan (who has great stuff at her desk and also sends me more great stuff through interoffice mail) and you — of course! — for looking back on my blog, here and now.

Day 1146: My voice

I’m trying out for “The Voice” tomorrow, so I’d like to write about my voice today.

My voice is:

• loving,
• soothing,
• delicate,
• strong,
• shaky,
• powerful,
• modulated,
• emotional,
• high,
• low,
• joyful,
• mournful,
• complicated,
• simple,
• focused,
• all over the place,
• affecting,
• affected by what’s around me,
• affectionate,
• authentic,
• intentional,
• sincere,
• haunting,
• soulful,
• mature,
• hesitant,
• certain,
• pleasing,
• imperfect, and
• unique.

How would you describe your voice — singing or otherwise?

I hope my voice comes through in today’s photos:

If you could hear my voice now, you’d hear this:

Day 961: Pareidolia

My son Aaron, who has a very nice face, tells me that “Pareidolia” is the word for our tendency to see human faces where they do not exist.

For example, when I faced this car, yesterday, in Edinburgh, Scotland …

… it looked, to me, like it had a human face.

We probably see human faces, where they do not actually exist, as a way make the unfamiliar more reassuring.

It’s also reassuring to see actual human faces, especially if they look friendly.

That’s Joanna, who reassured us that the unfamiliar Scottish custom of including white AND pink marshmallows on hot chocolate was actually practiced widely across Europe.

That’s Fearghas, with whom we swapped recommendations about what shows to see at the Festival Fringe.

That’s one of the faces of the terrific improv group Men with Coconuts, whom we’ve faced several times this year and during the Festival Fringe in 2014.

One of the first friendly faces we saw in Edinburgh, when we arrived a week ago, was that of an imposing redhead, named Marc,  from an original play called STYX:

While there are SO MANY choices at the Festival Fringe, we knew we would eventually face STYX, because we kept seeing the faces of Marc and his fellow STYX performers on the streets of Edinburgh. Also, STYX has a really stand-out poster, which our faces have been seeing everywhere. AND, we’ve been facing these neat give-aways in our hotel room, since we first saw the STYX players’ faces:

So, yesterday, we finally faced STYX. Here are two familiar faces I saw, before the show:

Here are faces I saw on stage:

  
  
  
  


Those are the faces of some amazingly inventive comic actors. I also faced some ridiculous synchronicities with my life in that hilarious play, including :

• A character with heart problems,
• Several plot points involving a DEFIBRILLATOR (installed in a phone booth) and
• A woman hobbling around with a cane.

After we saw STYX, I took these photos of some friendly faces responsible for that fabulous and funny production:

      

Now,  please face another photo of faces that were on stage AND off stage at yesterday’s great performance of STYX:

There were a lot more faces I faced yesterday, in amazing and beautiful Edinburgh. Let’s see what faces you notice in these photos:

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
That last photo includes the face of a performer my son Aaron and I have admired since last year’s Festival Fringe: Dr. Professor Neal Portenza,  who also faces the real word as Joshua Ladgrove.

  
There’s our friend Josh performing on a bus last night, facing another enthusiastic audience. Face it, my dear readers, it was great seeing Josh perform, especially since he asked if any of the people facing him on that bus were able to be in the moment and — when he noticed my face nodding “Yes” — he told the whole audience that he READS THIS BLOG.

You can just imagine my face, when he said that.

Well, we now need to face our last full day in Edinburgh, including an 11 AM performance by this beautiful face we saw on our first day here:

Because I need to get ready to face Sanctuary and the rest of the day, I am going to ask you to face a post here today without any videos. Perhaps somebody who faces this blog can provide some Pareidolia -appropriate music?

Thanks to all the faces that make my life worth living, including yours!

Day 953: If you want to find the good in anything or anybody …

… look for it.

Most likely, you’ll find some good.

If you can’t find the good now, you probably find it later.

Now that we’ve gotten the good wisdom in this good post out of the way (whether or not we were looking for it), let’s look for the good in some photos I snapped yesterday:

I took this first good photo when I was on my way to the talk I gave yesterday about my therapy groups  to staff at the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health. I was looking for something good and familiar to bring with me into the unfamiliar room, and I found Van.

Next, I focused on the Ness-ness in that sign, which reminded me of my  trip today to Scotland (home of Loch Ness). That was also good for my pre-presentation jitters.

Then, I could easily find the double dose of good in this good sign:

When I looked for the good in this:

I found it in the ChickPea.

That building holds good memories for at least one of my good readers.

When the person who was meeting me in the lobby of Massachusetts Mental Health Center (where I was giving my good presentation) texted me that she was running late, I found the good in that by eating this good-for-me lunch.

That good sign was on one of the good doors of the good conference room where I gave my good talk. I saw it after my good demonstration of how my good therapy groups do their good work.

My good eyes saw this good statue in the good Longwood Medical area of the good city of Boston.

I took this good photo a good minute after I snapped the previous good one. Do you see any good in that?

That’s the first line of the good group exercise I did with the good people at Massachusetts Mental Health Center. Because my handwriting isn’t very good, it says, “What is your personal experience of making yourself vulnerable?” I think that exercise did some good, for everybody there.

Somebody has left a perfectly good stethoscope on the floor. How can that do anybody any good?

The nurses where I work have apparently received an award. I knew they were good, but I didn’t know they were THAT good.

That sign is trying to do some good for dirty cars.

I will leave it to my good readers to find the good in the rest of these photos:

  
  
  
  
  
  

If anything in this post is NOT good, it’s good that I know — on this good day — that people will forgive me, out of the goodness of their hearts.

How might you find the good around you, here and now?

Here’s a good song:

It’s just a good guess, but I think that duet of “For Good” was good for everybody.

Good thanks to everybody and everything that helped me make this a good-enough post and especially good thanks to you, my very good readers!

Day 952: Red I’s

Red is a color I look good in, by most accounts.

However, I don’t think this is a good look for me:

That red I cannot change. Red-eyed I just needs to wait, patiently, until that red eye fades away.

Red eye is helping Red I make some decisions, though, about what to wear:

Red I wonders if those reds are making my red eye less, or more, obvious.

Red I might not care so much about that red eye, especially since well-read I am on vacation. However, you may have read I am giving an important talk today about the therapy groups red-white-and-blue I have created.

Red I will just have red-eyed faith that other things will be more interesting at my talk than my one red eye.

That one red eye noticed lots of reds and eyes, yesterday:

  

  
  


  

      
That redhead — whom red-eyed I photographed yesterday — is my favorite (and only) son Aaron, who is the red apple of his mother’s red eye. Yesterday, after the final red-white-blue-and-green performance of Green Day’s American Idiot, somebody said to me, “Aaron looks exactly like you!” I’m sure that red I blushed even redder with surprised happiness  (making even more of a match with my red eye).

Here’s something else my red eye read among all those reds and eyes I snapped yesterday.   Whole Foods Market in Cambridge seemed not at all red-in-the-face that so many of their green vegetables

… look exactly like green onions.

Red I now needs to use my red eye to prepare for my talk today and also for my and my redhead’s red-eye flight to Scotland, tomorrow.

I wonder if any eyes will focus on my red eye at my talk or during or after that red-eye flight to the Festival Fringe in Edinburgh? Red I will let you know, when ready.

Is red I ready to choose a Red I song for this Red Eye post?

Red I could use “Green Onions,” but I’ve all-red-y done that, in a previous post.  Red I chooses “Favorite Son” from Green Day’s “American Idiot” (which my favorite redhead was singing, pictured above).

Red-eyed I hopes to have read  comments — left here by red, blue, brown, green, or black-eyed you  — before my red eye sees all those Boston psychotherapists attending my talk,  this afternoon.

Red-white-and-brown eyed gratitude  to my green-eyed red-headed son, to all the eyes I saw at Green Day’s American Idiot performance by the Arlington Children’s Theater, to the oh-so-green-and-red Whole Foods Market in Cambridge, and to you — of course! — for casting your eye here, today.

Day 883: Be Kind

Yesterday I saw this sign, at work:

Okay, folks, we’ve got a great blog post for you all here today. I can already tell that you’re gonna love it.

I’d like to be kind, right now, and explain how that last paragraph kind of quotes the introduction my 17-year-old son Aaron speaks  in the one-act play “Serious Economics.”

If you know nothing of “Serious Economics” — which Aaron wrote and directed and kind of starred in with his kind and good friend Cameron —  please be kind enough to read my blog posts from two and three days ago.

Now I shall be kind enough to show you the other kinds of photos I took, yesterday, from the office of social worker Erin, who seems to be kind to everyone:

     

Erin and I both know that being kind to others is very important, but being kind to yourself is just as important. Therefore, I shall now be kind to myself and do what makes my heart sing:

Be kind enough to take a look at “Serious Economics,” taped by a high school senior Aaron barely knows, who was being very, very kind last weekend.

I shall kind of conclude today’s kind post with one more “be kind” story.

Two days ago, Aaron sent the video of “Serious Economics” to N. Gregory Mankiw, the real Harvard economist featured in his play. Was N. Gregory Mankiw being kind when he quickly emailed Aaron back the following?

Thanks. But how did you know I keep a large nuclear warhead under my dining room table?

If you have thoughts about that or anything else I kind of presented in this post, please be kind enough to leave a comment below.

Kind thanks to all the kind folks who made this kind of post possible, including Erin, Aaron, Cameron, Luke (who was kind  enough to put “Serious Economics” on his smart phone Saturday night), and  N. Gregory Mankiw. And kind thanks to you — of course! — for being kind enough to visit, today.