Do you agree that the coronavirus makes oddballs of us all?
Earlier in my oddball day, somebody in a Coping and Healing group said they felt like an oddball until they expressed their feelings and realized they were not alone. Oddly enough, I’ve seen this happen hundreds of times over my 20-odd years as a group therapist.
Later in my oddball day, several Oddballs in another remote Coping and Healing group did a scavenger hunt in our oddball homes, finding and sharing oddball things that were important to us. One of the oddball, important, and favorite items shared was this:
Oddly enough, this oddball item was not shared by me during the scavenger hunt but by a different Oddball.
Are you ready for some other recent oddball images captured by this Oddball during these oddball times?
That last oddball photo shows an oddball item I retrieved and showed in yesterday’s oddball scavenger hunt. Does anybody have an oddball guess of what that entertaining item was?
This Oddball has oddly been having trouble writing oddball songs lately, but I did write these recent oddball lyrics:
Now more than ever
We need to be together,
But now is the time we need to stay apart.
Because people are contagious
New behaviors seem outrageous
And each of us is holding lots of worry in our heart.
Here and here are two oddball original songs I performed in August 2019 for lots of oddballs at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, one of the biggest yearly gatherings of oddballs in the world (which has been cancelled during this oddball year):
This Oddball had planned to perform that second oddball song at a gathering of other social worker oddballs at the hospital where we work, but that annual party was also cancelled during this oddball year.
During oddball times like these, we have to remember to grieve our losses and to realize that we are not alone.
I’m looking forward to lots of oddball comments, below, and here’s some oddball thanks from one oddball to another!
goes on adventures with me these days. That chair is where my patients usually sit as we go on, in therapy sessions, about many important issues. Yesterday, the hospital-based primary care practice where I go on practicing individual and group psychotherapy was closed down, due to all the snow that had gone on the day before.
We go on with the support of competent, caring people, don’t you think? Where I work, one of those people is Chris.
Chris is one of those people who cares so much that she’ll go on into work even when the practice is closed. In that photo, you can see her hands going on about their business, as I went on taking that photo in her office.
Soon after I took that photo, I told Chris I had to go on to a scheduled cardiac test at Children’s Hospital, across the street.
I’ll go on, briefly now, about that scheduled cardiac CT scan. My doctors — who I tend to go on about in this blog (like here, here, and here) — prefer to go on solid data about my very unusual heart, as we make some difficult decisions about heart surgery. The cardiac CT scan, going on at hospitals near me, should help with that (especially for a heart like mine, which goes on despite a backwards design).
Here are some photos of me going on to the cardiac CT scan at Children’s Hospital, yesterday:
It takes courage for me to go on through those doors, since scary and painful things were going on around me in that hospital, when I was growing up.
We go on healing, throughout our lives, from painful experiences when we were younger. For me, returning to old places, in a new way, helps, as does taking photos as I go on:
Kind and competent people helped me go on through that unfamiliar test, yesterday.
Melissa and I are going on, there, about a new device that helps her find a good-enough vein for the CT scan. Because Melissa did not believe that she was photogenic (even though I went on about how untrue that was), I used Penny as a stunt double for her:
Melissa and Del (not pictured) got the needle and the IV to go on through my vein like it was supposed to.
Ouch!
Shall we go on, in this story, to the cardiac CT scan room?
We Bostonians — whether we’re adults, children, patients, or treaters — do go on about the Red Sox.
I shall go on, now, and introduce you to Kara
… who is standing next to her portrait in the CT scan room’s giant mural. Kara’s story about that mural reminded me that we go on, despite tragedies in our lives. The mural was designed by a man whose sister had died young, and he used her huge vinyl record collection to create the images on the wall.
Kara showed me how one co-worker, because of where she’s located in the mural, gets teased about having a split personality:
I could go on and on about the kindness of Kara and Melissa, who took care of me with heated blankets during the CT scan procedure and ginger ale and snacks after it was all over:
That was my first ginger ale in about 50 years! When I was a kid at Children’s Hospital, ginger ale was the only drink they had going on there, and I haven’t been able to stomach it since … until I decided to try it again, yesterday.
We go on, when we try things with a new perspective. That ginger ale tasted delicious.
After the cardiac CT scan, I had to go on to more tests at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, nearby.
Before I go on too long about my Day of Tests yesterday, here’s a photo I quickly snapped of the Pulmonary Functioning Test (PFT) Lab at Brigham and Women’s Hospital:
After that test, I went down to the lobby of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and saw this:
I then went on home, as Pat Metheny’s “We Go On” played in my headphones.
(“We Go On” is going on at YouTube, here and now.)
As usual, music I love helped me go on, and I saw all this:
Many thanks to Chris, Melissa, Del, Kara, Dr. Nadas, Dr. Michael Davidson, Pat Metheny, and all the kind people who have helped me go on in my life — including you, for visiting me here today.
The Year(s) of Living Non-Judgmentally 