I like that every new dawn and new day is a chance to start anew.
During recent dawns and days, though, I’ve realized I want to hold on to some things from day to day.
When I wake up to each new day, I want to remember and be in touch with:
my basic self-worth (which does not change from day to day),
my connections with others (which are also real and true),
my knowledge and wisdom (which I’ve earned with the experiences of all my dawns and days),
my personal power to affect others and create change, and
hope and possibility.
Darkness, night, and unconsciousness do NOT compromise or obliterate those things, in any way.
Self-worth, connections, knowledge, wisdom, personal power, possibility, and hope all survive each night, even if they seem inaccessible or hidden.
Remembering these words — every new dawn and day — will help me, I know.
This new day, I am creating this post on my phone, because my laptop is out of power. When my laptop wakes up from its cordless slumber, it too will still have the worth, connections, knowledge, power, and possibilities it had before I left its cord behind in California.
I am now going to post recent photos in a new way. I assume they also retain the worth they had when I took them over the last few days:
That was so easy! See, people? My laptop losing its power cord created a new and better photo-posting day, for me.
Let’s see how linking to a song goes in this new dawn, now.
Thanks to Nina Simone, to new dawns and days, to my iPhone, to my laptop, to undaunted courage, to Jackie Chan, to Saturday Night Live, to the movie “Whiplash,” to airplanes that take me places new and old, to Spring, to those who do their best venturing out into each new dawn, and to you — of course! — for making this blog part of your new day.
Yesterday, I asked the blogging question “Am I blue?”
And then, for much of the day yesterday, I was blue.
When it’s cold outside and relentlessly snowy, I can be blue. Also contributing to my blueness yesterday was
snow covering my car and the driveway when I went outside, because our “Mr. Plow” was stuck somewhere else,
my panicking about being late on a day where I was the On Call social worker to my hospital’s Primary Care Practice,
having to drag my boyfriend and son outside to get me shoveled out ASAP (with some help from warm neighbors), and
my realizing that — despite my goals for non-judgment and acceptance — I am done and beyond over-done, with New England winters.
And something I’ve learned — no matter what temperature it is outside or inside — once you realize you’re done with something, it’s more difficult to tolerate.
Lots of things went wrong yesterday, when it was cold outside. For example, the ATM machine at the hospital decided to keep $40, as a tip for its services:
In addition to that cold and greedy ATM machine, I saw all this yesterday, when it was cold outside:
It was warm inside, yesterday, when I allowed myself to feel it.
I took photos of two people who LOVE the winter, hoping I would catch their enthusiasm for when it’s cold outside:
That’s Mark and Julia, who’ve appeared in this blog before, when it’s been different temperatures outside. It’s always warmer, inside, when they’re around.
When it’s cold outside, I like to demonstrate how cold it is with pictures. And I just took some new photos to show you, this morning. However, my computer is not sensing my iPhone through the cable extension. Maybe that’s because I’ve dropped my iPhone in the snow, one too many times, when it’s cold outside.
When it’s cold outside, I need to come up with alternate solutions for problems. So, I just emailed myself these photos:
“When it’s cold outside” is actually a line from a song I loved, during the 1980’s.
Would it help you to guess if I included a few more of the lyrics?
Spare a little candle
Save some light for me.
Figures up ahead
Moving in the trees.
Darkness on the edge
Shadows where I stand.
I search for the time
On a watch with no hands.
I want to see you clearly
Come closer than this
But all I remember
Are the dreams in the mist.
Going to California with my son in four days seems like dreams in the mist to me, right now.
Gotta go back out there this morning, when it’s cold outside.
Heart-felt thanks to Mr. Plow (for plowing this morning), my son Aaron, my boyfriend Michael, my neighbors, Mark, Julia, Heart, all those who brave the cold, and to you — of course! — for visiting today, no matter what it’s like outside.
A few days ago, at the hospital where I work, it became obvious that it was OK for me to cancel some conference room bookings for my therapy groups. These OK conference rooms had been booked several months ago by Chris, a much-more-than-just-OK administrator in the Social Work Office. Last week, I realized it would be OK to hold the groups in my office instead of the conference rooms, and I didn’t want to take those OK-ed rooms away from someone who might want to OK them for a different purpose.
I cancelled the bookings by emailing the people at my hospital who OK and un-OK room bookings, and who have the OK title “Service Response.” To make sure this cancellation went OK with no complications, I copied/cc’ed Chris on that email, because I thought Service Response might not OK cancellations without the OK of the person who had booked the room to begin with.
Are you OK with this explanation, so far?
After I cc’ed Chris, I decided that wasn’t OK enough, because I realized Chris might be confused by my email (which I didn’t think was OK) and she also might get KO‘ed by other emails from Service Response. So the OK course of action, I decided, was to write Chris an OK email explaining the situation.
First, I composed a long email. Then, I decided that was NOT OK to send, because wasting Chris’s time would not be OK, since she and everybody else who works at our hospital has too much to do and not enough time to do it. So, instead, I came up with what I thought was an OK solution. I sent Chris an email with this subject heading:
subject: in case you were wondering about that Service Response email I cc:ed you on …
The email itself was very short, an OK three words:
… let me know.
I didn’t hear back from Chris, and I thought:
That was a very OK solution! I didn’t bother Chris too much and I took care of the possibility of a confusing communication between Chris and Service Response. OK FOR ME!!
Yesterday, I got an equally short email back from Chris:
Are you OK?
I thought that was OK AND hilarious, because:
I had spent so much time and energy over-thinking an OK-enough resolution for this trivial situation,
It obviously would have been OK for me to do NOTHING (saving Chris and myself some OK time and trouble), and
I wasn’t sure how to answer Chris’s question.
Why do you think Chris asked me that OK question? And, what do you think would have been an OK answer back from me, as a serviceable response?
Here’s the email I wrote back to Chris:
I think so.
Do you think that was OK?
Yesterday, I was feeling OK AND not-so-OK because:
The outdoor temperature was a non-OK 7 degrees, Fahrenheit.
I felt OK enough after walking for more than 30 minutes through that cold, yesterday morning.
The weather report OKed a forecast of MORE SNOW over this entire weekend.
I feel more OK every day, as I recover from the flu.
Jackie — who has helped me feel OK at work for the last three years — wasn’t at the front desk when I walked into work.
Two other more-than-OK people WERE at the front desk, and they greeted me with very OK smiles.
I’m still waiting for the OK from several different Boston-area cardiologists, regarding lots of recent tests on my I-hope-OK-and-very-unusual heart.
I tried my OK best to help people feel more OK about themselves, through my work as a psychotherapist.
After another OK week here in MA, my much-more-than-OK son, Aaron, and I will be flying westward to CA, probably over OK, USA:
Here are some photos I took yesterday, which I hope are OK:
Judging from all those photos, do you think I’m OK?
Actually, are YOU OK enough, right now, to realize what’s NOT OK about this photo, from yesterday’s post?
There’s a word missing, on that white board. I’m OK to wait, while you look again.
Are you OK, right now? If you saw that photo in yesterday’s post and missed the missing word, are you OK with that? Was I OK when I wrote “There’s something with me” on that whiteboard, two days ago in my office? Is it OK or not OK that I left out the word “wrong”? Nobody in the therapy group mentioned it. Were they OK?
Whether you think all these questions and the rest of this post is OK, here’s another OK song on YouTube.
This Annie is OK with that version of “Smooth Criminal” performed by cast members from Glee. And here‘s the original Smooth Criminal, MJ, performing that OK song live from Munich:
What is OK and not OK with you, in this OK post? Annie will be OK with whatever you write, below.
And one more OK thought, before I end this post:
Last night, my soon-to-be-17-year-old son, Aaron, looked at yesterday’s post AND the draft of this post and told me that my blog is … OK!!!
More-than-OK thanks to Aaron, to Chris, to OK OK, and to every person, place and thing that contributed to ME being OK with this post today … including YOU, for reading it!
It was white out and verrrry cold out yesterday, in Boston USA.
Just what I needed, as I returned to work after the flu.
That’s Winston, at the garage where I park for work, describing how they treat the flu in his home country of Trinidad and Tobago.
“First, some vodka. Make a tea from garlic, ginger, cloves, and spice. Drink that all down at once. Then, sweat the fevers out.”
No fevers, yesterday. Just frozens. While I waited for the work shuttle in New England’s world of white, Winston said some words about his world, which included “warm” “blue,” “ocean,” and “fish.” Some words today about Trinidad and Tobago, from Wikipedia:
Climate
The climate is tropical. There are two seasons annually: the dry season for the first six months of the year, and the rainy season in the second half of the year. Winds are predominantly from the northeast and are dominated by the northeast trade winds. Unlike most of the other Caribbean islands, both Trinidad and Tobago have frequently escaped the wrath of major devastating hurricanes, including Hurricane Ivan, the most powerful storm to have passed close to the islands in recent history, in September 2004.
Record temperatures for Trindad and Tobago are 39 °C (102 °F)[17] for the high in Port of Spain, and a low of 12 °C (54 °F).[18]
I’m going to leave some white space here, as I try to think of reasons why I might prefer my home over Winston’s, these days:
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I’ve got nothing.
Yesterday, I saw white out everywhere, so far from Winston’s home.
In the light …
… and in the dark.
When I was home, I saw the white of the moon.
One more dark-and-light question, from the white board in my office:
How about a white song, to send this white-out out into the wide wide world of WordPress?
The original, by Procol Harum, is in white, black, and color here on YouTube:
Anything you want to declare here, in black and white?
Many white, black, blue, and other colorful thanks to Winston, to Annie Lenox, to Procol Harem, to all those who skip the light fandango, to people everywhere who leave or stay at home (for their own black-and-white or shades-of-grey reasons), and to everybody who helps me blog every day, no matter how white it is out there (including YOU, of course).
