Like anyone else, I fulfill many roles. In my role of blogger, I publish a post every day which, I hope, includes entertainment and information.
What roles do you see in today’s post?
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Because I am still in the role of COVID patient (my fever came back yesterday), I am fulfilling my roles as group and individual therapist safely from home today.
Here’s what I find when I search for “roles” on YouTube:
This morning, I asked Google the question, “Why do we care about celebrities?” I found several online answers as I read this article and this one, too. As I expected, the articles cited empathy, the need to connect, and an antidote to loneliness. Both mentioned positive and negative aspects of caring about celebrities.
Personally, I’ve noticed my caring about celebrities ever since I cried uncontrollably at my school locker when Bobby Kennedy was shot in 1968. In retrospect, I think that sobbing was
a collective response to all the assassinations in the 60’s,
empathy for his children (I remember that being my main thought at the time), and
a “safer” and more distanced way to feel my grief about some personal losses, including my many hospitalizations, operations, and unexamined traumas due to my heart problems.
Since then, I have deeply cared about other celebrities, including Gene Kelly, the Beatles, Davy Jones, Mel Brooks, Pat Metheny, Bonnie Raitt, Jackie Chan, Prince, Clay Aiken, Stephen Sondheim, and many more. I have theories about why I’ve cared about each one of those people, who are all musical, funny and/or underdogs and who somehow speak to something in me. For example, I “figured out” my obsession with Jackie Chan — who often creatively uses common props at hand as he fights off many people with his martial arts and acrobatic skills — when I realized that I had an image of myself grabbing an I.V. pole when I was a kid in the hospital and fighting off people there to escape from the pain I experienced. Also, more simply, Gene Kelly looks like my my father, whom I miss every day. And Clay Aiken, who was an underdog on American Idol, has a clear, soaring tenor voice, as did my dad.
I am also thinking about this question because my son Aaron, my husband Michael, and I finished watching “The Beatles: Get Back” last night, and I was noticing (1) how the Beatles are so familiar to me that they feel like friends or family and (2) I couldn’t look at John Lennon without thoughts and feelings about his murder in 1980.
Do you see caring about celebrities in my images for today?
Do you care about St. Nicholas and other celebrities?
Two notable and different sports events happened yesterday in Boston: (1) The Boston Marathon (usually held in April) and (2) the Red Sox, against all odds, defeating the Tampa Bay Rays to advance in the American baseball playoffs. Here’s some reporting from ESPN about the unlikely Red Sox win:
I never played sports because of my heart condition, but as somebody once said, “If you can’t play a sport, be a sport.” Can you see sports in my images for today, many of which I took while going for a three-hour walk yesterday?
Here’s what I find on YouTube when I search for “sports”:
Be a sport and leave a comment, okay?
If gathering and expressing gratitude were a sport, I’d be an elite athlete!
Yesterday, when I was loving people’s responses on Twitter, I asked this question:
Do you realize how many people do not realize that they are lovable? I don’t love that but I do love that many responded with “yes” and “I’m working on it.”
Do you realize how much I love sharing words and images here with you every day?
Do you realize how much I love snowy egrets, Jackie Chan, the Daily Bitch, and embracing whatever comes my way?
Do you realize that loving more (including loving ourselves) helps us love and appreciate each precious day?
Whenever I invite people to stay in the moment, rather than thinking about the future or the past, I acknowledge how difficult that is to do. Every moment, people agree with me. It’s difficult to stay in the moment — the human mind wants to go into the past and/or the future.
In this moment, it occurs to me to ask the question: Why is it so difficult for people to stay in the moment? When people do stay in the moment — experience the present with all their senses — they appreciate the break from regrets about the past and worries about the future. And yet it remains so difficult to stay in the moment.
Because I can’t answer the question I posed in the moment, I just tweeted this:
Before I finish this post, I’ll check back on Twitter to see if I have any answers.
In the meantime, notice the focus on the future and the past in these other images I am sharing in the moment.
In the moment, I think the Daily Bitch is inviting us to stay in the moment.
There are no answers to my question on Twitter, so I’ll see if there are answers on YouTube to “Why is it so difficult for people to stay in the moment?”
Here is Eckhart Tolle with “Accepting the Present Moment not the Life Situation!”
Vivian is a social work intern who makes me smile, especially when she shows me photos like this:
Yesterday, Vivian and I made each other cry because it was her last day at work. Soon, as a new graduate, she’ll be off on her own road trip to Chicago.
Vivian, who is a very gifted student, shared many gifts yesterday.
In honor of the many things Vivian and I shared this year, here‘s Jackie Chan singing “Believe in Yourself.”
I hope Vivian believes in herself, as many of us in her community believe in her.
Vivian let me know she appreciates my gratitude. I am very grateful for Vivian, Jackie Chan, Nikita Gill, A. A. Milne, Rupi Kaur, healing groups and communities, and — of course! — YOU.
I’m holding on to many things as we pack up to move, including
my sense of humor,
things I find valuable,
my job,
creatures I love,
my thoughts,
my feelings,
my sanity, and
my iPhone, so I can be put on hold and also take pictures of my holdings.
Before I started writing today’s blog post, I got a little ferklempt at the end of this excerpt from last night’s Jimmy Kimmel Show (which is holding on here at YouTube):
As always, I’m holding on to gratitude for all those who helped me create today’s post and — of course! — for you, who keep me holding on.
Here and now, we’re getting ready to move, so I’m unearthing many memories from there and then.
There and then, I’ve created my own t-shirts.
The first t-shirt I ever created, there and then, had the Chinese name for Jackie Chan (“become the dragon”). There and then I loved that t-shirt, especially because I was born in the Year of the Dragon.
Here and now are more memories from there and then.
I hope it’s okay, here and now, that I include three musical numbers from there and then (here, here, here and now on YouTube).
In the words of Pat Metheny, “We Live Here.” Together.
As always, I express thanks to those who helped me create this then-and-there, here-and-now post and to you — of course! — for being here, now.
The Year(s) of Living Non-Judgmentally 