Why oh why, with all of my arthritis, couldn’t there be a …
PAIN UNAWARENESS MONTH?!
My Saturday Evening Post: 9/9/23 “Seriously?”
Tag: My Thoughts
Difficult but Necessary and Liberating Truth
Tonight Robert and I finished the painfully, beautifully curated Hulu six-part rendition of the Pulitzer Prize winning 1619 Project.
I urge you to watch this. It will probably stretch you a bit (it did me).
It will transport you into a black mindset, a mindset that was/is damaged by 150 years of slavery-induced racial inequity.
Twitter Truth
From the Twitter feed of Florida teen gay activist Zander Moricz …
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It’s not possible, of course, or even completely practical, but I’m SO glad we have dreamers.
Cannot Touch
Yesterday after our weekly luncheon date, HR (Husband Robert), ex-wife Donna and I were walking along the Wilmington River in beautiful park-like Greenwich Cemetery here in Savannah.
We came upon a recent burial.
Which broke our hearts.
A newborn who didn’t live much past being born.
Shhh … Silent Sunday 4/17/22
Neal’s Post from the Past: “Solitude & the Absent Smile”
Here’s a rather messily photographed past post from back in 2014. I may still have had a flip phone. I’m loath to change.
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Yes I admit it, I’m an optimist. Pollyanna’s a very good buddy. We take tap dancing together.
What I actually mean is I’m USUALLY a somewhat cheery person. But not always. A while back, I underwent a fairly unpleasant medical procedure. (I’m a big baby when it comes to anything that hurts at a .5 or higher on a 1-10 pain level.)
Here I am in the waiting room, reading about blogging:
Finally I was called back to the eerily quiet and humanly empty procedure room where I had to wait in nervous solitude for quite a while. The doctor was running way behind.
I got bored pretty quickly and started playing with the IPhone’s … reverse camera capability. Doesn’t that sound better than saying I took a bunch of selfies?
I looked at these terrible pictures, grimaced at their muted and otherworldly haziness, realized I wasn’t smiling–and started to delete them.
Then it hit me.
“Get real, Neal. It’s okay not to smile. It’s okay to be muted and hazy … and to be by yourself for a while. Being out of focus doesn’t mean being out of life.”
The View from Behind: Introduction
For some reason, I have always appreciated, even revered, “the view from behind.”
As a child, on the first day of each new school year, I was a nervous wreck waiting for the teacher to announce our seating arrangement. Front of the class? 😢 Too much exposure! Too revealing! Too out there! Far too much responsibility to “be.”
A nice, comfy seat toward the back? 😁 Perfect. I get to observe, to “see.” To calmly breathe.
Note to self: ASAP, schedule at least three long therapy sessions to discuss the three short paragraphs above.
But for now, allow me to introduce my newest NealEnJoy blog category: “The View from Behind,” where I invite you to join me somewhere in the back.
Always hold an “alligator” (or any challenging life … critter) in front of you, and if you can, kindly but temporarily tape its mouth closed.
G
I have FOUR grandchildren. (Yes, you’re right, I’m FAR too young. We all know that. It’s a given. But sometimes Mother Nature has a way of bypassing her laws of when people should have grandchildren–and presents them in, well, early, early middle age.)
Anyway, the second-from-the-oldest-grandchild is Gabriel, 5, a rambunctious bundle of pure little boy-ness. He’s often affectionately referred to simply as “G.” In his most recent pre-K school report, the patient-as-a-saint and give-her-a-raise teacher wrote that Gabriel is “smart, funny, with many friends … and has a touch of naughtiness.”
Here’s G (on the far right) with a few school buddies,
And here he is the other night with older brother Daniel (8).
Today I received this text from my daughter/G mom Amy:
The brutal honesty of children.
Top Ten Happiness Questions
This past fall term at SCAD (the Savannah College of Art and Design), where I teach composition to international students, my course topic was happiness studies.
Each week, I introduced a new question, which I told the students had the potential to make them happier–IF they took the time to ask and then answer the question.
Here are the ten questions. I challenge you to ask them to yourself whenever you need a dose of joy.
Dr. Saye’s Top Ten Happiness Questions
1. Just how important is it?
2. Do I realize that I can choose to think a thought that feels better?
3. Why do I sometimes try to control other people? That’s really not my job.
4. What do I see RIGHT NOW that is beautiful?
5. Who has helped me recently?
6. What is a good holiday memory?
7. What do I really, really love?
8. Do I realize that I can take three deep breaths right now and center myself? My breath is my life.
9. Who can I be a blessing to in the next hour or so? How can I do that?
10. Am I paying attention to NOW (and not wasting time regretting the past or worrying about the future)?
I encourage you to print these questions out, put them up some place where you can easily see them, and start asking.
NealEnJoy 