Since so many people are telling me that they are avoiding the news these days, I’m hoping to provide some news you can use, here and now, including these headlines:
My panel discussion of providing therapy groups remotely during the pandemic went very well yesterday.
How do we work together? That seems to be an important question these days.
How do people at Mount Auburn Hospital’s Cardiac Rehab work together? Based on all the hours I’ve spent there over the last few years, I’d say they work together beautifully. Kathy — the head of that department who has worked there for many years — is retiring and her last day was yesterday. I was invited to a surprise party to say thanks for all her years of working together so well with so many people.
Here are some photos I took at Cardiac Rehab yesterday:
I loved working together with Kathy, Danise, and Carla all those hours I spent in cardiac rehab. I worked out what I wanted to write to Kathy beforehand.
If you can’t work out what I wrote there, it says
Dear Kathy,
Thank you for your beautifully kind and caring heart, which has helped heal and strengthen so many hearts, including mine.
Is there any evidence of how we work together in my other photos from yesterday?
There were donuts at the party celebrating Kathy’s working together with others at Cardiac Rehab, but I couldn’t get it together to take a photo of them.
“How do we work together?” is also the question that inspires this incredible number from Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along:
How do we work together without gratitude? I don’t know. So, thanks to all who inspired this post and to you — of course! — for working together with me.
“Fun to Know and Easy to Love” (because people in my life are fun to know and easy to love), or
“1 in a Million” (because we’re all one in a million).
What do YOU think the name of this post should be?
That’s the Halloween costume my son, whose name is Aaron, wore many years ago. Carrying a spray bottle, Aaron asked people to name what he was, spritzed them with water and said, “I’m partly cloudy with a chance of showers.”
I’m thinking that the title of this post should be “1 in a Million” because, on a 1 in a million chance, I reconnected with an old friend yesterday, who is a 1-in-a-million musician and a 1-in-a-million friend, David Smith, whom I first met at the Berklee summer program in 1969.
Here‘s my old friend Dave conducting the Clarksville Middle School Wind Ensemble:
Actually, perhaps the name of this post should be “Reverberations.”
No matter what your name is, what do you think the name of this post should be?
As always, the name of today’s post could be “Thanks,” because that’s what I’m feeling, here and now.
Earlier this year, I attempted to explain The Meaning of Life. Thanks to my niece Julie’s lovely Christmas present to me last night …
… I am choosing to revisit this topic today.
Because I’m a group therapist, I usually like to go to the group, first, about any important topic. Therefore, my esteemed group of readers, what would YOU express in a journal called “The Meaning of Life”? Might you fill that journal with:
thoughts?
feelings?
the past?
the present?
the future?
hopes?
dreams?
disappointments?
yourself?
other people?
lessons?
warnings?
the facts?
imagination?
words?
images (like these, from yesterday, Christmas eve 2015)?
Your meanings will give more meaning to this meaningful post.
Happy Christmas, love, and peace to all my readers. And I mean it.
When people describe progress and other positive things — at work and elsewhere — I often hear myself saying
Great.
If you think puns are great, we might say I’m great-ful.
Last night, my great boyfriend Michael and I saw this:
I thought that was great that this great cat
has overcome great fear to believe that people are great.
Which of these photos do my great readers think are great?
All this greatness makes me think of the great Alec Baldwin impersonating Tony Bennett (one of the greats) and singing “I Like Things that are Great.” I couldn’t find that great song anywhere on great YouTube, but I did find this other great Saturday Night Live skit:
If any of my great readers finds “I Love Things That Are Great,” that would be great if you could post it in a comment below. Actually, any comment would be great.
be a thousand times grateful, every day, for this blog.
There are a thousand different ways I could celebrate this thousandth blogging day. For example, I could write a post that contains exactly a thousand words. Or, I could share a thousand memories from over the last 1000 days of blogging. Or, I could include a thousand links to past posts. Or, I could quote a thousand favorite comments from you, my readers.
However, after a thousand thoughts and feelings about this, I’d like to use my tried-and-true formula, here and now.
Therefore, today’s thousandth day post will include sharing less than a thousand pictures. Yesterday, I took almost a 1000 (base 2) x 1000 (base 2) photos, when I went into Boston to see a matinee of A Little Night Music with my son Aaron and spent the evening with Aaron and my boyfriend Michael.
I hope this thousandth post doesn’t take a thousand seconds to load, with these all these images:
Perhaps you have a thousand things you might say or ask about those photos. No matter what number of words it takes, consider leaving a comment to celebrate this thousandth post.
I bet if you took a thousand guesses, you wouldn’t come up with the song I’ve chosen for this “A Thousand Days” post.
Should I wait a thousand seconds while you guess?
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Times up! I’m sure you didn’t get it, because it includes a much higher number than a thousand.
“A Hundred Million Miracles” is the song that was in my head, yesterday, as I was thinking about this thousand-day post.
As that song says, a hundred million miracles happen EVERY DAY. Infinite thanks, to each and every one of you, for sharing some of those miracles with me.
First thing, yesterday morning, I snapped three photos of a honey of a cat:
Then, on my walk to a honey of a job, I captured a honey of a Fenway Park mascot:
At work, as busy as a bee, I met with people — in individual and group therapy — trying to change unhelpful thought and behavior patterns (which can be sticky, like honey).
During my walk away from work — through a warm and humid afternoon — I heard a honey of a song:
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I couldn’t copy that amazingly sweet, wonderfully beautiful honey of a poem perfectly just now, with my iPhone keyboard.
Because of the work I am doing with a honey of an EMDR therapist — where I am letting go of my own sticky-like-honey, unhelpful thought patterns — I know that sweet Maria F. will forgive those imperfections.
Here are more Heart’s-desire photos I captured, during my day:
Most of those photos were taken at the honey of a home of my honey of a classmate, Darlene. Several of us gathered outside, yesterday evening, planning a 45th high school reunion — protected from mosquitoes, ants, and other non-honey-producing insects by some fresh basil on the table (not pictured, my honeys).
Our honey of a class president, Peter, was there at the reunion-planning meeting, visiting from the land of Michigan — 877 miles away, as the honeybee flies.
Here’s some honey-tinged memorabilia — a 1967 photo of the officers of our 9th grade class:
I’m hoping that my honey of a friend, Lawry Siskind, who lives in the Bay Area of San Francisco (3000 miles away, as the sweet honeybee flies) can attend our high school reunion in September.
Okay! Are you going to leave a honey of a comment about this post? Bee yourself, please!
Sweet thanks to Maria F., Fiona A., George S., Lawry S., Darlene B., Peter M., all the other reunion planners from last night (including Peter B., Butch B., Tom O., Karen E., Maria C., Janice P., and Sandy T.), cats and dogs (with or without last-name initials), and special, honeydew thanks to you — of course! — for buzzing by here, today.
The Year(s) of Living Non-Judgmentally 