Day 2536: Enjoy the ordinary

Yesterday, after publishing Day 2571: What Makes the Ordinary Extraordinary?, I picked this extraordinary mindfulness card at work:

I enjoy the ordinary coincidences and synchronicity of life. Do you?

I hope you enjoy the ordinary in my other photos from yesterday.

 

Enjoy the ordinary signs of the season, the Daily Bitch Calendar, and, if possible, the skill of doing nothing.

Here and now, we’re enjoying the ordinary weather in Boston, which was 58 degrees F yesterday and 31 degrees F and snowing as I write this ordinary post. Enjoy the ordinary repetition of this:

 

Here’s “How to enjoy the mundane or ordinary moments in life!” with Little Woo:

 

How do you enjoy the ordinary?

Enjoy the ordinary ending of another Year(s) of Living Non-Judgmentally post, where I share my ordinary thanks with YOU.

 

Day 2082: Don’t work so hard

Last week, when I was working so hard trying to memorize the lyrics and chords of my latest original song,  “Shameless Appeals for Applause,” I ran into Nancy Kleiman, who plays harp at Boston hospitals.   (It’s not so hard to click on this link for a story about Nancy at work.) Nancy and I both worked it that morning, talking and walking to the hospitals where we work. As she gives to so many people every week, Nancy freely gave me hope, solace, wisdom, inspiration, love, and support, including this advice:

Don’t work so hard.

After Nancy said, “Don’t work so hard,” we both talked about how we both love our work, and how that means we never work a day in our lives.

As I worked hard to understand what “Don’t work so hard” meant to her and to me,  Nancy explained how she became a harpist who plays for patients in hospitals — a story of synchronicity, luck, and beautiful connections with people and with her higher power easily working together.

Since then, as I’ve worked at many things, I keep hearing Nancy say

Don’t work so hard.

And even though it’s going to take more work for me to understand and integrate that into my life, it’s not hard for me to say how glad I am that I encountered Nancy on our way to work last week.

I didn’t work so hard taking these photos yesterday:

While Michael was working so hard yesterday making arancini for my board meeting, we didn’t have to work so hard to spot that hawk, who was hardly working.

Here‘s Nancy, working, on YouTube:

Here‘s more of Nancy’s soothing harp music, which works:

Working thanks to Nancy, Michael, hawks, cats, everyone and everything else that helped make today’s post work and — of course! — YOU.

 

Day 2055: I’m Here

I’m Here in Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival and so are many other people, including actors, improv artists, musicians, and stand-up comedians, like the guy who inspired today’s blog title.

I don’t know Glenn Doncaster, even though he is “… what the Edinburgh Fringe is all about.” No matter what else Glenn does in his life, he’s helped me find my blog post title for today by putting “I’m Here” on the back of his Fringe flyer.

I’m here and so are others.

That’s my son Aaron and his friend Camilla meeting me at the Edinburgh Airport yesterday. Camilla has been here in my blog before. She told me yesterday that after she found out about my blog from Aaron, she decided to pick a blog post to read and — much to her amazement — found a photo of herself, as the beggar woman in a 2015 production of Sweeney Todd at the Fringe.

I’m here to tell you that synchronicity and coincidences like that help make life even more beautiful and rich.

I’m here to try to find that old blog post. I was not successful. I’m here to tell you it’s okay not to succeed sometimes.

(I’m also here to tell you, eleven days after I published this post and am back home in Boston, that I was able to search for the post with Camilla’s photo and link to it, both in the paragraph above and also here.)

I’m here to share other recent photos with all my readers who are here, now, too.

I’m here with my son and I couldn’t be happier.

I’m here to thank all who helped me create this post and — of course! — all my readers, who are here with me now.

Day 2032: Synchronicity

Despite five and a half years of blogging synchronicity, I am just now creating a post about synchronicity. Why now?  Because of the synchronicity of this sign:

I saw that in the synchroni-city of Boston, last night.

Here’s a definition of “synchronicity”:

syn·chro·nic·i·ty
siNGkrəˈnisədē
noun

the simultaneous occurrence of events that appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection.
“such synchronicity is quite staggering”

Are you ready for the simultaneous occurrence of photos that appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection?

Here‘s “Synchronicity” by The Police.

Ooops!  Wrong Police.  Let’s try that again.

I look forward to the synchronicity of your comments.

There’s a lot of synchronicity of gratitude here for all those who help me with the synchronicity of my blogging and — of course! — for YOU.

Day 1236: Your Core

If somebody asked you to write, draw, craft a poem, or otherwise express yourself about “Your Core,” what  would you core-ageously create?

Here are my core creations  from a therapy group last night:

Because confidentiality is a core value of any therapy group, I will not reveal what others expressed about their cores. However, I will tell you that a core member of the group shared this from her core, as we were rounding the last core-ner of the group session:

The universe is more generous and gracious than we think.

That got me, to my core.

In my core, I believe synchronicity is a core force in our generous and gracious universe. Here’s a core photo I coincidentally took two hours before last night’s core group:

Do any of my other photos from yesterday connect to your core?

Music inspires me to the core, so I’ve been singing more, lately, from my core. Tonight, I’ll be joining a core group of 25 singers for  Piano Karaoke. (If you want to get to the core of how Piano Karaoke works, click here.)

Here’s my core list of possible songs for tonight:

Mad World

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

Cry Me a River

Blue Bayou

It Had to Be You

Crazy

Mack the Knife

Lush Life

You Are Too Beautiful

Pretty Women

Michael from Mountains

They Can’t Take That Away from Me

 

Over the core-se of three hours tonight, I will sing about a half dozen songs from my core. Do you have any core suggestions of which ones I should perform?

Of core-se, I’m going to share some music in this core post. Here’s the tune that’s touching me to the core, here and now:

Watching that YouTube video, I notice even more core synchronicity. Tonight, my  18-year-old son Aaron is giving somebody a prom core-sage. And, he’ll be wearing his first tuxedo, as elegant as Fred Astaire.

Here’s something they can’t take away from me.

I hope, to my core, that my core readers know that gratitude is a core value of this blog.

Many thanks, from my core to yours.

Day 200: Signs

Sometimes —  especially when I’m experiencing “flow,” synchronicity, or other forms of connection and openness to living — I see signs.

By “signs,” I mean helpful indications of things to pay attention to.

Four examples of signs, according to Google Images:

.

Two examples of signs, according to me:

Sign:  It’s too friggin’ hot around here.

Possible meanings, reasons, things to pay attention to:

1.   Global warming.

Depending upon where you live, global warming is either (1) controversial or (2) completely non-controversial.

That about covers it, doesn’t it?

2. Maybe I really should consider moving.

Where I live, it’s Painful-Cold for many months of winter and Painful-Hot for many days of summer. This leads to helpful people giving this advice:  “Think about how cold it gets here during winter and get in touch with gratitude for the heat now.” (These are the same helpful people who say the reverse, during winter .)

How about getting in touch with this?

I’M LIVING IN A PLACE WHERE I’M IN PAIN, ABOUT HALF THE TIME.

Who deserves that?  Not I, said the little red hen.    

Second Sign: I’m having trouble sleeping.

Possible reasons and things to pay attention to:

1.  I have a lot of things to do.

2.  There are some people I’m going to see, this weekend, whom I haven’t seen in a while, and I’m excited about that.

3.  As my mother used to say (about me and then, my son), “You don’t want to miss anything.”

4. I can be afraid of things that don’t actually exist. Or, if they do exist, they’re not as dangerous as they seem.

5.  It’s too friggin’ hot around here.

Thanks for going around with me today. It’s a good sign (according to me).

Day 153: Do I Dare to Tweet a Tweet?

Yes.

A few days ago, I wrote a post called “To Tweet or Not to Tweet (is that the question?),” where the “real” topics included aging, resistance to change, fear of the new, embracing life, dealing with illness, and the d-word (death).

However, Twitter was definitely in there.  And several of the much-appreciated comments I got on that post (including a few from fellow blogger Charmin) have kept Twitter On My Mind.

And then, in another peep of synchronicity, Twitter sent me a friendly, freakishly timed e-mail saying, “Hello, Ann!  We haven’t seen you in a while!”

Because I did sign up for Twitter a while ago.  (My memory is that my son was interested at that time, and we had some kind of mass, household sign-up).

And I have Tweeted twice before, I realized this morning.

The first tweet, quite a while ago, was something related to “Top Chef.” (I confess: I  love me some reality shows where the contestants — or in this case, “cheftestants” — are good at and passionate about what they do.) (Note to self: possible future blog post topics: (1) Reality Shows, (2) Passion and Skill, (3) Made-Up Words and What They Do To Our Souls.)

The second tweet was A Celebrity Tweet. I had tweeted my guitar hero, Pat Metheny, thanking him for the music he’s given us.  (I expressed that intense gratitude to him in person, too, many years ago, at this building:

which used to be a Tower Records.) ( I re-encountered that building, in April, when I felt ready to walk down Boylston Street, after the Boston Marathon bombings.)

Today, I did a Tweet With A New Attitude.  The new attitude was less tentative, less Twitter Toe In The Water. (That idiom — putting your toe in the water to indicate trying something carefully, reminds me of a FABULOUS blog I encountered here recently: Toemail, where people send in wonderful pictures that include a toe somewhere in the scene.)

This time, I jumped in with both feet.  I sent a Tweet, Intentionally, to reach people.  (The content of the tweet doesn’t matter. Suffice to say: it was goofy. I love me some goofy.)

Whenever I do that:  try to reach people — whether it’s through blogging, speaking, tweeting, writing, mailing, calling, at my work, or in my dreams — it can be hopeful, exciting, rewarding, frustrating, and scary, too.

What are my fears about doing this?

I don’t have messages that are important enough, that justify asking for people’s attention . I don’t want to “bother” them, in the midst of all the other things they need to pay attention to.

And, I can experience shame, too, when I act  like I AM important enough (to send messages, bother people, etc.).

(And here’s another one, that my friend Joe just reminded me about, in his explanation of not accepting my invitation to join Twitter. If I send a message, will kind and thoughtful people be concerned about my reaction, if they decide to set a limit and not to engage in this way?)

But these are all things I’m working on this year, dear readers.

And I guess I’m making progress, because I’m Bothering People here in the Blog-o-Sphere, every single day! (And who knows how often I’ll be bothering people through Twitter?)

Thanks for reading, for not being bothered, and for spending your valuable, important time with me.

Day 146: To boldly go where no Ann has gone before

My son, my bf, and I saw the new movie “Star Trek Into Darkness” last night. (I originally thought there MUST be a punctuation mark in that title — perhaps a “:” or a “,” or even a “.” But no. Nada.)

My son had one major question after the movie: “Why was it called ‘Into Darkness?'”

I said, “Maybe because of the way the movie was lit?”  Now that might sound like I was being all snark-y and Film School-y (and I did go to Film School, when I was in my 30’s), but I thought the movie was fine.

Regular readers of my blog may know that I love Star Trek, The Original Series (or TOS,  an acronym which is NOT immediately obvious to me, whenever it pops up). Even if readers don’t know of my feelings about TOS (The Original Series, for those of you who couldn’t hold on to that non-intuitive acronym even for a moment, like me), they may remember that I have written several posts referencing that TV show (here, here, and here).

I’ve used Star Trek (I’m dumping the whole TOS acronym for the rest of this post, people) in this blog, mostly to illustrate an experience I’ve been having, during this Year of Living Non-Judgmentally:

Accelerated Learning,

as illustrated by this Star Trek “villain” (played by Gary Lockwood):

who became too smart and powerful, too fast, (with too shiny eyeballs), for his own good.

I just re-read that first post about Accelerated Learning, and you know what?  There’s a lot of Good Stuff in that post, to the extent that I thought, “I wonder if I have anything else to teach them?” (or more to the point, anything else to blog about, for the rest of the year.)

(I’m actually not worried about that, in the moment, although I AM feeling a wee bit … conceited, right now, having essentially “bragged” about how helpful I think that post might be, as well as having put myself in the role of “teacher.”)  (Okay, I’m letting go of any guilt about THAT, right now.)

Better.

Another thing I’ve been experiencing, this year, is a LOT of Synchronicity.

Here’s a definition of synchronicity:

syn·chro·nic·i·ty  (sngkr-ns-t, sn-)
n. pl. syn·chro·nic·i·ties
1. the quality or fact of being synchronous.
2. the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality —used especially in the psychology of C. G. Jung.

Note the reference to Carl Jung, who is one of my Therapy Heroes.  (Another Therapy Hero was the gentle and wonderful Michael White, from Narrative Therapy.)

(Note also that the first definition, above, is essentially useless, as it refers to another form of the same word.)

Something else to note: another word for the concept of synchronicity is “coincidence.”

Here’s something I’ve noticed. I get really excited about coincidences, and not everybody does. 

Sometimes I think: there are two kinds of people in this world. People who get excited about coincidences and people who don’t.

Sometime I think:  there are two kinds of people in this world. People who think there are two kinds of people in this world and people who don’t.

So where was I, before all those digressions in parentheses AND italics?

Oh, yes.  Star Trek.  And Synchronicity.

So, right around the time that I was blogging so much about the shiny-eyeballed, scarily-smart Gary Lockwood character from Star Trek, rumors were swirling around the internet about the new Star Trek Movie, to be released in May.

And one of the rumors I read was this:

The villain in the new Star Trek Movie will be some version of the Gary Lockwood character in The Original Series.

I thought, “Wow!  How cool is that?  I’ll have to tell my dear readers about THAT little piece of synchronicity!”  Then, that turned out to be an old, outdated rumor.  Oh, well.

But, here was a “true rumor”:  the villain was going to be played by THIS guy:

Benedict Cumberbatch.  Who is known, these days, for playing somebody else: another hero, who is important to me.

Sherlock Holmes.

I remember, when I was about 13 years old, spending one whole summer reading this book:

I spent an entire summer reading this book, not because I was a slow reader (I wasn’t), but because there was SO MUCH information in this book.  Yes, people, there’s a reason why the word “ANNOTATED” is the biggest word in that title.  OMG.

But I loved reading  every word, every minute detail, as I made my way through these wonderful stories, starring the World’s Greatest Detective.

Why is Sherlock Holmes one of my heroes?

• He is really smart.
• He pays attention, all the time.
• He doesn’t care what other people think about him.
• He takes in all the details of all his senses, to solve problems.

It’s occurring to me, for the first time, that Sherlock Holmes is somebody who is REALLY mindful, in each moment.

Now I understand, in a new way, why he’s one of my heroes.

Thanks for reading, everybody!  (And I’m wondering about YOUR thoughts — regarding heroes, villains, synchronicity, Star Trek,  punctuation, or anything else you got out of this post.)