Day 2673: Messages of Encouragement

Thank you, dear readers, for all the messages of encouragement you’ve given me for my blog posts, my photos, my original songs,  my work, my sense of humor,  and my various adventures, through sickness and in health.

The messages of encouragement people left about yesterday’s post, featuring my t-shirt and song “Left the House Before I Felt Ready” were incredibly profound. I am now thinking about ways I might market my t-shirt and song, encouraging people to share those messages and also support a worthy charity.

My long-time and encouraging reader Maureen (a/k/a Sitting on my own Sofa) left this message about my “I Left the House Before I Felt Ready” song …

Sitting on my own Sofa

I think that you also stayed at home before you felt ready. 😊

… which encouraged me to write this additional verse:

I stayed at home before I felt ready.

The virus has made us all scared and unsteady.

I caught it in March and then flattened the curve

Even though isolating gets on my last nerve.

To protect other people and save my own heart

Staying home before ready was just doing my part.

I encourage you to listen to “I Left the House Before I Felt Ready,” imagining those new messages at the end:

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I am now encouraged to start writing songs again, ignoring and otherwise overcoming any messages of discouragement from myself or others.

Do you see any messages of encouragement in the images I captured yesterday?

 

If you want to see the messages in any of those smaller pictures, I encourage you to click on them to expand.

Messages of encouragement and gratitude to YOU, here and now.

Day 2672: Incredibly profound

My incredibly profound friend Deb, who is social distancing in Florida, sent me this text yesterday:

I found it incredibly profound that Deb sent me that photo of her wearing her “Left the house before I felt ready” tee, which I created after publishing Day 166: The Year of Living Non-Judgmentally Merchandise: T-Shirts.

Is it incredibly profound that I texted back “That’s going in the blog tomorrow. If I had any energy I would market it”?

It’s incredibly profound that

• we’re all experiencing this coronavirus pandemic together,
• there are so many unknowns about the virus,
• the news is frightening, and
• nobody knows what the future will be.

Are any of these other images incredibly profound?

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Is it incredibly profound that I wrote this song based on the t-shirt Deb is wearing?

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I LEFT THE HOUSE BEFORE I FELT READY

I left the house before I felt ready.

I’m wrinkled, distracted, a little bed-heady.

Don’t know where my phone is, one glove, or umbrella.

My water bottle’s probably somewhere in the cellah.

Here on the outside I’m sort of unsteady

When I’ve left the house before I felt ready.

 

I left the house before I felt certain

What clothes to wear, should I tuck my shirt in?

Should I eat a banana, a cookie, a peach?

Do something productive or go to the beach?

With indecision I’m strugglin’ and hurtin’

Because I left the house before I felt certain.

 

I left the house before I was sure

Of what I could tolerate, face, or endure.

Should I stick to what’s safe or try something new?

Taking risks — tsk tsk tsk — not the right thing to do?

I might meet someone sweet or step into manure

If I’ve left the house before I felt sure.

 

I have left the house, I can recall,

To work, to sing, to shop at the mall.

If I waited until I was sure not to fall

I’d never leave the house at all!

 

I left the house before I felt ready,

I’m vulnerable, present, and reasonably steady.

I’m glad to be here even if it’s not home.

Even if my hair needs a brush or a comb.

I’m not totally sure or secure, this it true.

But I’m certain I’m ready enough to meet you.

© Ann Koplow, 2018

 

I look forward to your incredibly profound comments about this blog post. Even if you don’t think your thoughts and feelings are incredibly profound, I do.

Incredibly profound thanks to all who help me create these daily blog posts, including YOU.

 

Day 2666: What’s hard to say?

Yesterday, when I was facilitating an online Zoom meeting with other group therapists, I asked people, “What’s hard to say?” after sharing my poem “Hard to Say.”

Hard to Say

Some things in life are hard to say,

Like “I want you to go away.”

Or “Despite what you did, I forgive you, okay.”

Or “I need you, my love, to stay.”

For me, I find it hard to say

A different kind of communiqué,

Two words you’ll see in a candy display,

Ferrero Rocher.

Ferrero Rocher, Ferrero Rocher.

That gets stuck in my mouth along the way.

Ferrero Rocher, Ferrero Rocher.

So easy to eat and so hard to say.

Ferrero Rocher, Ferrero Rocher,

Those chocolate orbs wrapped in gold lamé.

Whether I’m home or going away.

So easy to eat and so hard to say.

© Ann Koplow, 2019

What’s hard to say is

• what people really thought about that poem,
• when this pandemic will be over,
• how much chocolate I’m going to eat during this pandemic,
• WTF is going on in the world, and
• when we’ll all feel safe enough again.

It’s hard to say what I loved most about the charming 2012 French movie “La Fée (The Fairy), which I watched yesterday, so I’ll share these quotes from reviewers:

“Its appeal is … in watching people who have devised their own original style of comic performance and have taken it to a rare level of refinement.”

If you like Tati-esque japes, Francophone clowns Abel, Gordon and Romy should be just up your alley.”

“It’s simultaneously a very knowing and strangely innocent film.”

“A little bitty movie with a great big heart that is nearly impossible to resist.”

“It’s often a lot of fun with some dance numbers thrown in.”

It’s hard to say what would be better, for me,  than “a lot of fun with some dance numbers thrown in.” I also loved that somebody who was granted three wishes found it hard to say what his third wish would be, even when “I want us to be safe!” was an obvious choice to me.

What’s hard to say about these images I captured yesterday?

 

It’s hard to say why our cat Oscar tried to steal Michael’s pasta primavera, which was completely vegetarian.

What’s hard to say about this dance number from “La Fée”?

 

What’s hard to say is how I’m going to express all the gratitude in my heart, here and now.

Day 2533: It’s hard to say

It’s hard to say why

• greed is such a force in our world,
• we’re not coming together over climate change,
• people don’t care about the actions of their leaders,
• we do things that make ourselves feel worse,
• it’s so difficult for our minds to stay in the moment,
• we judge ourselves and others so harshly,
• it’s so difficult to speak up,
• ridiculous prejudices linger,
• we’re so afraid of people who are different from us,
• the negative sticks and the positive fades,
• awful people often outlive wonderful people,
• I have trouble making decisions,
• I stay in New England with all the snow and cold,
• I keep starting new songs and not finishing them, and
• I take pictures of so many things.

Hard To Say

by Ann Koplow

Some things in  life are hard to say,

Like “I want you to go away.”

Or “Despite what you did, I forgive you, okay.”

Or “I need you, my love, to stay.”

 

For me, I find it hard to say

A different kind of communiqué,

Two words you’ll see in a candy display,

Ferrero Rocher.

 

Ferrero Rocher, Ferrero Rocher.

That gets stuck in my mouth along the way.

Ferrero Rocher, Ferrero Rocher.

So easy to eat and so hard to say.

 

Ferrero Rocher, Ferrero Rocher,

Those chocolate orbs wrapped in gold lamé.

Whether I’m home or going away.

So easy to eat and so hard to say.

© Ann Koplow, 2019

 

It’s hard to say why I haven’t gone viral yet.

Here’s the late Dan Fogelberg with “Hard to Say”:

I knew somebody who must have found “Dan Fogelberg” hard to say, because he always called him “Dan Fogelberry.”

What’s hard for you to say?

If you’ve read any of my other blog posts, you’ll know that “Thank you” is not hard for me to say.