Day 1263: Voices

Here’s what my voice wants to voice about “Voices” today:

1. I’m trying out for The Voice in New York City this weekend.
2. When I’m in New York, I shall hear the familiar voice of my son Aaron and also the new voice of a blogger whose voice I cherish on WordPress.
3. 49 beautiful voices were silenced, too soon, by gunfire in Orlando last weekend.
4. This week, I’ve heard many voices in therapy discussing the mass shooting in Orlando.
5. Many voices joined together on the U.S. Senate floor yesterday, crying out against gun policies in my country.
6. On September 21, I’m having open heart surgery in Minnesota, which will most likely interrupt my voice here on WordPress. However, my boyfriend Michael’s voice will continue my unbroken streak of what will then be over thirteen hundred consecutive daily blog voicings.
7. Today,  there will be a phone call containing the voices of my long-time cardiologist Dr. Deeb Salem and the Mayo Clinic cardiologist Dr. Carole Warnes — both of whom hold my heart in their hands.
8. Yesterday, I heard Dr. Salem’s voice say this at Boston’s Tufts Medical Center: “You’ll feel like you’ve been hit by a truck” after September’s valve replacement surgery — a voicing I appreciate much more than all the voices I’ve heard lately downplaying how invasive this operation actually is.
9. Sometimes I’ve judged my own voice as too soft, too loud, not strong enough and not good enough. I feel more secure in my own voice, every day.
10. Judgment squelches voices.
11. I value authentic voices.

Yesterday, I heard many voices at two different hospitals, near Fenway Park,  and at a PetSmart.  Can you hear any of those voices in my photos?

 

Do any of those voices resonate with you, here and now?

Here are some voices evoked by this post (on Youtube here and here):

WTF!  I hope I hear many of your voices in comments about my blogging voice today.

I shall now voice my gratitude towards all those who helped me bring together all the voices in this post and to you — of course! –for your valuable, authentic voice.

Day 523: A Day in My Life

Woke up, got out of bed,

Saw a cat there at the head,

Found my way downstairs, and had a bite,

Looking up, I thought I might be late.

Found my coat but not a hat,

Made my car in seconds flat.

Found my way up there and saw these things:

 

 

Somebody spoke …

When Death Comes – A Poem by Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

~ Mary Oliver ~

And I went into a dream.

Thanks to the Beatles, to Mary Oliver, to the Longwood Medical Area of Boston (including Children’s Hospital, where I spent many days in my life), to my workplace, and to all the participants at the Northeast Society for Group Psychotherapy’s yearly 3-day conference in Boston (for which I arrived five hours early, yesterday). Many thanks to you, especially,  for glancing and observing, on this day in your life.