Day 3341: My son’s birthday

My son, Aaron, turns 24 today! He is in Europe with his girlfriend right now and we had this interaction earlier:

People who have been regular readers of this blog for years know that my son is creative, hilarious, smart, and honest. They also know that he gets along really well with his step-father Michael.

I have a tradition of including in my blog on Aaron’s birthday this YouTube video he made twelve years ago:

When Aaron reads my blog (which he’s told me he will after I’m gone from this earth), I imagine him rolling his eyes when he sees this. He made this sooooo long ago, and he’s done so many wonderful things since then. I’m a sucker for a tradition, I guess, and this video still cracks me up.

Here’s what I tweeted last night, on the eve of my only child’s birthday:

Aaron has given me many memorable words of wisdom and I can only hope I’ve done the same for him.

I remember this exchange when I was having a bad time:

Me: Is the universe conspiring against me?

Aaron: No.

I can’t tell you how often I’ve thought of this when life has been difficult. Aaron is a man of few words but all of them count.

Happy birthday to my son, happy banana bread day to all, and thanks for being here, now.

Day 2976: What do you see?

What do you see, here and now?

Do you see how what you see is affected by your

• mood,
• formative experiences,
• assumptions,
• habits,
• perspective,
• fears,
• hopes, and
• awareness about what other people might see?

What do you see in today’s images?

What do you see in that photo of last night’s dinner? What you DON’T see are the little pin-bones Michael could not remove from the sablefish before cooking it.

What do you see in this old video created by my son Aaron, who turns 23 today?

What will I see in the comments section, below? Perhaps comments about what you see.

What do you see at the end of every blog post from me? Gratitude.

Day 2427: Incredible

Honestly, my incredible readers, it’s incredible to me that I have never before published a post titled “Incredible”  in all the two thousand, four hundred, and thirty-six incredible days I’ve been blogging.

Yesterday, on my travel day back from incredible Edinburgh to incredible Boston, I saw these two incredible signs:

I had an incredible time at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe (described in incredible detail here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).  Here are some of the incredible highlights:

• Spending time with my son, Aaron Fairbanks.
• Attending Aaron’s and Tom Joyce’s Fringe show The Mail Room.
• The Greatest Theatrical Event …in this place at this time for this price … EVER!
• Vincent Van Gogh Find Yourself.
• Ransacked Black Oven and Cafe Grande (for incredible food).
• Getting to do my own show at the Edinburgh Fringe three incredible times and receiving this incredible feedback from people who attended:

“Lovely group experience! Great to feel included during the Fringe, and to feel heard.”

“Enjoyed feeling comfortable with a group of strangers.  Thank you.”

“Great, very interesting, and unique.”

“The show should be longer.  Also be my therapist please.”

“You need some more time for your show, but I really liked your idea of making a show of this. It was like a calm moment in the middle of the Fringe chaos.  Fringe = outside.  Ann show = inside.”

“Created a safe and relaxed space to feel open to express myself.”

“More shows like this.”

“A welcome sharing space well interspersed with activities and songs to make everyone feel included. Thanks.”

“I would 1000% recommend this since it is truly something different from anything else on offer at the Fringe. I feel a lot happier after the show and had some big revelations.”

Here are my latest photos, which I took when I was feeling incredible:

It’s always incredible to be home.

It’s incredible to me,  here and now, that I can’t share the incredible Tom Joyce’s portion of The Mail Room which I recorded on my iPhone during my incredible Wednesday at the incredible 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.  I think it’s credible that I’ll be able to add that recording to this post after I publish it.

Here is the incredibly kind and talented Tom Joyce in The Mail Room:

I look forward to your incredible comments, below.

Incredible thanks to all  who help me create these posts and also to my incredible readers, including YOU.

Day 2426: Expanding the View

On my way to Edinburgh Airport to catch my fight back to Boston, I expanded my view to notice this:

After attending the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for seven years with my son (who is now a student at University of Edinburgh and a well-established local comedian), I would say that the Edinburgh Fringe is all about expanding the view.

This year, my view was expanded by doing my own Fringe Show — Group “Therapy” with Ann — and also attending The Mail Room, the Fringe show my son shared with one of our long-time favorite comedians, Tom Joyce. Tom expanded my already favorable view of him by showing up yesterday, unasked, to help me expand the audience for my two shows yesterday by passing out flyers outside the venue.

Which ones of the many other photos in this post are expanding the view?

Expanding your time spent with this post, I will tell you that ONE of those views is NOT from Edinburgh, but rather from back home in Boston. If you can guess which one, that will expand my view of you.

Soon I’ll be expanding my view on a plane flying over the Atlantic Ocean. As usual, my gratitude for all who help me create and who read my posts is expanding. Here’s today’s final view:

Day 2425: Here we go again!!

Yesterday morning, after publishing Day 2424: Missing, I heard that I am going to get another go at performing my Fringe show Group “Therapy” with Ann.

Here I go again, doing two groups on a Thursday, which is how it goes for me back home at work in Boston.

It may seem like a risk to do two shows in one day with very little time to convince people to attend my show — among the thousands of shows and performances at Scotland’s Festival Fringe — but here we go again!!

When I go again today, I may sing different songs, like “I Left The House Before I Felt Ready” or “Hidden Thoughts.” Here I go again, having trouble making decisions. If necessary, I can always go again to the “coin flip” app on my phone.

Here we go again — with the rest of my photos from yesterday.

Here at the Bar Bados Fringe venue last night, my son, Aaron Fairbanks (a/k/a as “The Jail Mailman”) and one of our long-time favorite comedians, Tom Joyce, did their show — The Mail Room — again.

Here we go again with a video that Aaron’s proud mother recorded at last night’s performance of “The Mail Room.”

Here I go again, apologizing for the mistakes I made recording that. Here I go again, letting go of worry, perfectionism, fear, and self-judgment before my two performances today.

Here we go again with yet another request for comments, below.

Here we go again with gratitude, for all who help me go again, every day!!!

Day 2424: Missing

Today is my boyfriend Michael’s birthday and I’m really missing him.  He’s missing another Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year because he’s back home with the cats.  Michael claims that he’ll attend his first Edinburgh Fringe Festival next year but if he does, our cats will likely be missing him then.

In the photos below, my son Aaron (shown during the first night of his Edinburgh Fringe show) is missing his beard.  If you haven’t been missing any of  my posts over the years, you’ll be amazed to know that Tom Joyce — a comedian whose shows we would never miss — is sharing the bill of my son’s Fringe Show.

So you won’t be missing any of my other photos from yesterday, here they are:

 

 

When I see a cat outside my son’s flat in Edinburgh, it helps me deal with missing our cats.

What’s missing from those photos?    And what’s missing from this post?

Gratitude, of course.  Thanks to all those who helped me create this “Missing” post and to all those who are reading it (including YOU).

 

 

 

Day 2419: Get in touch

Get in touch with your reactions to these two notifications I recently received from Facebook:

It’s not easy for me to get in touch with Oscar right now. Why? Because I’m at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Oscar’s back home with Michael and Harley.

I’m getting in touch with my excitement about my son Aaron and I both having shows at the Fringe.

Get in touch with these other new photos on my phone:

Get in touch with this YouTube video of Aaron performing a version of his Mail Room show.

Get in touch with me through a comment, below.

Every day, no matter where I am, I’m in touch with appreciation and gratitude for you!

Day 2385: I Need Your Help.

Yesterday, in a therapy group, we talked about how difficult it is to ask others for help.  I wrote this up on the white board to remind people about how to ask for help:

Today, I need your help.  I have to submit a 340-character blurb and a photo about  my Edinburgh Free Fringe show — Group “Therapy” with Ann — tomorrow at the latest, so it can be included in the published version of the Wee Blue Book, listing all the Free Fringe shows. (Here‘s a link to the current listings in that book.)

Here’s what I’ve got, so far, for my blurb:

If you want a taste of group therapy with a trained professional who writes songs like “Everybody’s Somebody’s A**hole,” don’t miss this ONE TIME ONLY show. Find out just enough about yourself and others to feel better. “This could work.” – Scottish comedian Raymond Mearns. “That’s my mother.” – award-winning comedian Aaron Fairbanks.

If you saw that amongst hundreds of other show descriptions, might you attend that show?

The accompanying photo has to be small and square, and I’m considering one of these, taken last year during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival by my son Aaron’s friend Camilla:

Photo 1:

Photo 2:

Photo 3:

Photo 4:

Photo 5:

I need your help in deciding which of those photos might be best.

When I have lots of choices and am under a deadline, sometimes I feel like this:

Here‘s an appropriate song for today:

Many thanks to all those who help others, here, there and everywhere, including YOU!

Day 2372: Accepted

Yesterday, I got this message from my son Aaron:

Hi, my fringe show has been accepted. There are shows from the 20th to the 24th.

Since Aaron and I both applied many months ago to perform our own shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival  (which starts in August), we’ve accepted the ever-growing possibility that neither of our shows would be accepted.

My son and I accepted the process of waiting to hear about our shows  very differently — I kept holding out hope (until  very recently) that we would both be accepted and Aaron very quickly accepted the stance of assuming that both of our shows would not go on.

I hope Aaron accepted both of my responses to his wonderful news:

Great!

What can we learn from this?

I hope you’ve accepted my intent there: to invite Aaron to hold on to hope in the future.

Personally, because I’ve accepted years of uncertainty dealing with medical issues from birth, it helps me to hold onto hope.  I’ve accepted that other people deal with uncertainty very differently. (It’s accepted that I sometimes say this in my Coping and Healing groups: “Different strokes for different folks.”)

I’ve also accepted that I probably will not get a Fringe show, which was titled Group “Therapy” with Ann. However, if I do get accepted, I’m ready!

In the meantime, YouTube has accepted a two-minute version of Free Therapy with Ann.

Aaron was accepted to teach English in Jordan this month, so when he gets back here on July 20th, we’ll make sure that YouTube accepts a longer version of that.

Also, I applied yesterday to join a panel in September for my 45th reunion at Harvard on “Picking up the Pieces: How Did You Embrace Life and Find Happiness Again?” In my application, I offered to talk about dealing with conflicting medical advice and finally getting a mechanical heart valve in 2016 (a process well documented and accepted on this blog). I wonder if my application will be accepted, especially since I offered to perform my original song “Shameless Appeals for Applause.”

Five years ago, I applied to be on a “Voices of Our Class” panel at my college reunion, and my application was not accepted.  I’ve accepted that often you have to try, try again.

In other “accepted” news, I’ve been accepted by the “Heart to Heart with Anna” podcast to be interviewed about my life with congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries (cctga).

I hope that my photos from yesterday are accepted by my readers:

I’ve accepted that my boyfriend Michael doesn’t like to be photographed for this blog, but I think he can accept that last photo, above.

As always, your comments are accepted, below.

I think it’s accepted here that I’ll be ending my posts  with thanks to all who help me create them and — of course! — to YOU.

Day 2064: Kose seg

Yesterday, when I was sitting on an airplane, thinking about promoting emotional well being in cozy settings, I saw this:

When I am experiencing and promoting emotional well being, I often take one photo that somehow applies to all the other photos I want to share in a blog post. I hope you are in a cozy (or cosy) setting as you look at all these other promoting-emotional-well-being pictures.

What helps you experience Kose seg?

My boyfriend Michael often says, “It’s not the place, Ann,  it’s the people.”  Here’s a closer look at a person with whom I’ve been hopefully  promoting emotional well being in cozy settings for over twenty years:

That’s my son Aaron, looking out the window of Edinburgh’s Beehive Inn while he was in the middle of his stand-up routine yesterday. When he noticed I was sitting outside in the cozy setting of Edinburgh’s Grassmarket with my suitcase, he had the entire audience yell, “Hi Mom!”

Now that I’m experiencing Kose seg back in my home south of Boston, it would promote my emotional well being to share two videos promoting Iceland and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (here and here on YouTube).

 

I shall now await your comments promoting emotional well being in the cozy comments section, below.

Emotional-well-being-promoting thanks to all who helped me create today’s “Kose seg” post and — of course! — to YOU.