1: a station set between principal stations on a line of travel (such as a railroad)
2: an intermediate stopping place
Synonyms
station, stop
Examples of way station in a Sentence
a way station for truck drivers
Recent Examples on the Web
The house became a gathering place for an indelible cultural moment, a way station for Andy Warhol, Terry Southern, Ike and Tina Turner, and Black Panthers.
— Mark Rozzo, The New Yorker, “Dennis Hopper’s Quiet Vision of Nineteen-Sixties Hollywood,” 22 Dec. 2019
In my way, I tried to make that definition of “way station” a way station (an intermediate stopping place) within today’s post.
I think it’s helpful, here and now, to think of every thing we experience — alone and together — as way stations on our way to where we are going.
Do you see any way stations in my photographs from yesterday?
As I’m moving among way stations, I often listen to The Way Up by the Pat Metheny Group. Here’s one performance of The Way Up from the way station YouTube:
On your way today to other way stations, I hope you spend some time listening to The Way Up and also in the way station of the comments sections, below.
No matter what the way station, I am grateful to be there and grateful for YOU.
I wrote a short post titled “Life is short” about 1,200 days ago. (My calculations may be imperfect, but — hey! — life is short.) But … is that the end of the story?
Apparently not.
Life is short …
… stop and smell the roses.
Life is short …
… eat mindfully.
Life is short …
… try to get your act together.
Life is short …
… accept that people will disappoint each other.
Life is short …
… learn the important differences.
Life is short …
… expect the unexpected (like those three photos on my iPhone). Also accept the light AND the dark.
Shocking confession. I often steal the titles for these posts.
I’m wondering if this shocks my old friend Lawry, a lawyer who specializes in intellectual property and who used to read this blog every day. Shocking confession: Lawry and I are both attending our 45th college reunion this weekend.
Shocking confession: I keep rewriting the first paragraph of the five-minute “Ted Talk” I’m giving at the reunion, which includes shocking confessions.
Everyone in our class, I’m sure, remembers where you were on November 22, 1963. I’m different from you. I have no memories of that day, because I was having heart surgery to get my first cardiac pacemaker. While the world was being traumatized by the assassination of President Kennedy, my family and I were being traumatized by that unexpected surgery, by hospital rules preventing parents from staying with their children, and by medical staff not knowing how to answer the questions of a frightened 10-year-old girl, like “What’s that coffin on the TV screen?” and “What’s this giant thing sticking out of my body?”
It’s shocking how many mistakes people made back then. Unless I’m mistaken, giving this speech in front of my classmates will be a reparative experience, even if I make mistakes in my presentation.
Shocking confession. I’ve made mistakes every day of my life. Let’s see if I’ve made mistakes in my other photos from yesterday.
Shocking confession. I like to make up stories based on what I see around me. What story might you make up using the photos in this post? Don’t worry about making mistakes.
Shocking confession. One of the people pictured in today’s blog played the role of Ursula in a local production of “The Little Mermaid.” Can you guess who that was? Here is a song Ursula sings about mistakes being made:
Shocking confession. We’re all poor unfortunate souls who make mistakes. Ariel makes the mistake of giving up her voice in the Disney version of “The Little Mermaid,” but she recovers it in the end.
Shocking confession. I’d love to see your comments about this post and I’m grateful to all who helped me create it.
Yesterday, somebody in a “Coping and Healing” group suggested that we share thoughts and feelings about “It’s okay,” especially since the week before we had focused on “It’s NOT okay.”
I hope it’s okay that I share what I wrote in that group:
It’s okay that my “It’s okay!” poem is on its side.
Here are more photos residing on my okay iPhone:
It’s okay that I missed last night’s spectacular sunset, because I was facilitating the Coping and Healing group. Yes, somebody else took that much-more-than-okay last photo.
When I search for “weirdness” in this blog, Weird WordPress tells me that weirdness exists in 2 out of my previous 2414 posts, a weirdness percentage of only 0.08%.
Since I look for weirdness (in addition to looking for love), I would have expected a much higher weirdness percentage. Nevertheless, as always, the weirdness in me honors the weirdness in you.
Today, we’re looking for love AND weirdness in my photos from yesterday.
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!
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.
Yesterday, at a Coping and Healing group where we were practicing reframes, forgiveness, the serenity prayer, acceptance of ourselves and others, and some new perspectives, one of the group members spoke about the concept of practicing happinesss — much like one practices a musical instrument. We practiced that by going around the room and naming specific ways we could practice happiness, starting now.
One of my named ways to practice happiness was listening to music I love.
I’ve also been practicing happiness daily by blogging and by taking the photos I share here at The Year(s) of Living Non-Judgmentally. Can you see any examples of practicing happiness in today’s pictures?
Voila! When you practice happiness, just like when you practice anything else, you get better at it.
I look forward to practicing happiness later by reading comments, below, about how you might practice happiness, here and now.
Practicing happiness includes expressing gratitude, so thanks to all who helped me write this practicing-happiness post and thanks to you, for reading it.
