My 100-Day Project — Week 11
- I was looking at my hands the other day and was noticing how much they have changed over the years. The veins on the backs of my hands are much more pronounced, the skin seems thinner, drier, and a few spots have shown up where there were none before. These are signs of age, of course, but also of experience. My hands have experienced so much (as has the rest of my body but we’ll leave it with the hands.) I have been pretty lucky to not have experienced major health issues, so a few age spots are nothing to complain about.
2. Driving through the back roads of rural South Carolina and Georgia at this time of year is a treat. There are actually swaths of forest that look positively virgin. And the different colors of green creates joy. I am looking out my office window at the trees and just marvel at the colors. It reminds me how Pat Conroy wrote about the many colors of green and blue he saw in the marsh. I see the many colors of green, yellow, brown, white — the many colors of life exploding in the spring.
3. The local paper in Beaufort, SC, Low Country Weekly, featured local poetry in celebration of April as National Poetry month. I loved the poem Ephemeral by Andrew Bellacomo in which he asks: “What can you do with such a sacred gift?” He answers: “Forgive yourself for every wrong and let love in like a river wild and winding and deep and strong.” Wonderful and wise words.
4. Cat fights: Bunny and Lucy are not getting along too well. Lucy is the antagonizer and won’t let up on lil Bunny and Bunny is not happy about it. I think she would much prefer to be in a one cat household now. She was fine with all the other cats, but not with Lucy. It’s too bad we can’t teach cats how to work out their problems with less drama. But helping people understand that they create their own drama, not someone else or something else, is not easy either. We get so tied to our stories we don’t want to let them go. But they are just stories we make up. We can make up new stories if we want. A new story is just another thought away.
5. I have been thinking about my coaching. It’s slow going but I know I am building something, even if I can’t see it. I’ll keep following the path, going on the journey to find out where it goes. I am also thinking about a friend’s idea of doing workshops on creativity. This sounds like of fun. I want to explore creativity much more including in my writing classes.
6. I tried an exercise this morning that I thought would be difficult. I sat still, doing nothing, for six minutes. This is a Method Acting exercise that our writing coach told us about. I sat still and tried focusing on my senses: breathing, listening, feeling sensations. I wanted to be present in the moment. What helped was listening to the birds waking up. I heard one, a steady low chirp, then after a couple of minutes, a few others started up in the background, quicker and higher pitched. It was a pleasant exercise.
7. Today, we went for a two-hour walk on the Silver Comet Trail with a group of people. It was a perfect day for walking, a bit cool, slight breeze, beautiful spring green everywhere.The interesting was friendly, engaging, and very international in outlook. Our kind of folks. I had an idea in one conversation: to create a coaching travel tour where we would craft an agenda of coaching sessions (maybe on life transitions or relationships or something else) and add in walks or hikes (Naples Italy perhaps.) There would be free time and a few community meals so we can get to know each other. We’ll see if it goes anywhere but it sounds like a fine idea to me.
