focus

If for a moment I take a breath and that breath is in shame of how I've been acting, and the woman in front of me puts her finger over her lips and shushes me as if I am a child and I have to agree that lately she seems right.

When she does it again, I try to speak but smile and think to thank her for teaching me how to treat her.

And when I said, "I was blessed with a good mama."
It's true what he says. How dare I judge anyone's mama good or bad?



Today I am grateful that he stopped by,
that other people know what they're doing,
and how mostly I've been able to hitch a ride.

That guy who cleaned the floor, how do I repay his kindness?
I should answer that question tomorrow.

good out there

There are bears up that mountain so he camps with the squirrels that day.

"Ten chairs," he says. "That guy has ten folding chairs set up and is giving out donuts and ice cold drinks. Everyone is in a good mood. How can you not be? It's hot out here."



Today I am grateful for a guy who just takes a day, maybe once a year or month or week, and stands on the side of a trail with ten chairs, donuts, and cold drinks.

history

We have exactly four minutes and twenty-nine seconds of where he is and where I am and cold watermelon on the trail.

"This guy got a picture of me. I don't know. He's from some New York fancy magazine and something about his instagram."

Dear you,

That was the very moment I knew I wanted that print.

Love,

me

"Do you remember the name?"


"No," he laughs. "He gave me a card, but it disintegrated in my pocket."



Today I am grateful to hear his voice and listen to his story.

inspired

Today I am grateful for the guy who always kills on the cell phone.

cleaning after a luxurious vacation

The contrast between the sun and the shade deepens and the remaining insects are racing. At 3:52 I walk outside for the first time of the day. A quick sit, a couple of racing bugs around my head, and I've returned to the living and am now telling myself I'm too sick for this. But I gotta clean because I've been quarantined. I can't leave the petri dish like this on Monday morning. It's time for Clorox around here.

I do think that closing the door and not opening it again for 24 hours may be a good thing for people.




Today I am grateful for health, for an imperfect but perfect just the same body which carries me. I am grateful for the story of him and that cat, how we can escape everybody and everything but we'll always find something needing us somewhere.

project

Today I am grateful for a space.

sleep

He says yes in the calmest yeah, why not way and what girl doesn't appreciate an undercurrent which somehow seems to settle the sea. Any drama added to that was just her creating.



Today I am grateful to wake up after a sunrise and the knowing that comes with a vacation day.

create

Robert Miller in process

It's as if Tarantino knew we were due a popcorn and a big screen.
He better not go without me.

It's a sick, guilty pleasure.

I am so grateful for creative people.

drool

It's worsened until yesterday when I was in a fairly small room

                                           (if you're thinking five grown men in an office)


and I am not looking into that corner because I am not falling or feeling or wanting or doing

and that dang guy.
Puhleeeeze.


Anyway, I knew not to look because I've already seen and my heart would be broken a million times by him. I give him too much power over me and am thankful he doesn't want it.


So, I wasn't looking because there's a chain of command here, and I need to follow it.

But he said, "Hey, Ms. Shea," in that way that you know it's him and my body turned against me.

The built up spit from the anxiety of knowing simply dripped out the left side of my obviously now paralyzed lips until I opened my mouth and a stream of words were just

I don't know.
I don't even know what I said. I gave out some magazines and did some weird dance and tried to look past him but surely he had seen the drool had dripped from my chin to my shirt and the evidence was


I could've run from the room but I still have a job to do.


Today I am grateful for a new refreshed focus.




We'll just call that the day I had a ministroke.

that one guy who sends quotes every week

You owe it to us all to get on with what you're good at.
                                                           W.H. Auden



I have thousands of opinions still - but that is down from millions - and, as always, I know nothing.
                                                                                                                  Harold Brodkey



It is a bit embarrassing to be concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'Try to be a little kinder.'"
                                                                             Aldous Huxley




Today I am grateful for how when we put words together, they can feel wise.

impressive

He will be impressed. Not that I had the time. Of course I had the time to pull out those seeds and rinse them. It's a moon and stars of the yellow variety and the sweetest I've had this season. I'll put them in a bag and label them, hand deliver them this morning.


Today I am grateful for the guys who pick up my trash, the one who grows food, and the one who is surely to finish clearing out his office this week.

survey results are in

Mississippi has the best mud.



Today I am grateful for a little rain and a long trail.

jealousy

Robert Miller, In Process

If you're greatest claim to fame is that your brother is inspired genius, you just have to be thankful he's your brother.

so there's this bear

It's supposed to be big news but there's so much big news we just stick with the small stuff. Except in this case, big news is local for him. It's a bear who has learned that people have food so he follows the people around until one of them shoots him.

He washes his shoes in the shower, and his clothes will be clean when he gets up. Tonight's $15 burrito, a few phone calls, and the roof over his bed makes him want to share his good luck.
We discuss.


Today I am grateful for a phone call, an office visit, a small filet with a loaded baked potato, and the comment section of this blog.

drumming on the trail

It is fortunate to be able to look up and witness the fruits of labor surrounding you, to see seated at the table these people who you've been serving, serving themselves. These people you are a fool for.



Today I am grateful for people.

Tuesday's parties

It could almost be sinister, the room. Still, the shiny tile floor and proper air conditioning make for a winning combination. Plus, there's a plastic banana hanging from the ceiling.



Today I am grateful for meetings, rooms, and solutions.

what we learned at school today

Open the door.
Be curious and courteous.
Ask questions.
Do what you say you will.
Say but, and follow it with debate.
Smile.
Understand we don't all think the same.
Give thanks.


Today I am grateful for action verbs and puzzles, how we share music, who we are at our best and our  not so much. I am grateful for video, a phone call, clean clothes, and a clean sink.

one day closer to yoga

Wake.



1. Read a chapter.
2. Print.
3. Data entry.
4. Choose art.
5. Create what he asks.
6. Deliver pie.
7. Take orders.
8. Find out sizes.
9. Listen to music.
10. Encourage.



Today I am grateful for the potential of a steady breath, the satisfaction of checking off a list, the opportunity to be quiet and kind, and how what I learn can be used throughout the week.

yoga teacher

When you meet a teacher once you're all grown up and classes are more if you choose them and less what you're told to do, the meeting is the best part. She is standing in the room in a t-shirt, black leggings, barefooted. I try to be skeptical but some people just disarm you and in the next hour she talks me and the rest of the room through a series of pull and push and stretch and put your shoulders back and feel that and I walk up to her after class and say, "I love you."

She hugged me.

I love her.

I told her that I might need to get a second and third job to pay for my yoga addiction.

She said, "That's why I teach."


Today I am grateful for a ride, a class, tomato sandwiches, laughter coming from my dining room, and you.

that one place

When all we had to do was get to that one place where we could sit and slouch, rest our chin in our hand, and watch and listen without any pressure right when we were in danger of not even understanding what we were doing there anymore, it happened.

We got there.


Today I am grateful for here.

one of those things we would do

"If you leave the light on, then I'll leave the light on."
                                                                   Maggie Rogers


Today I am grateful for an especially good week of music.


(She and Jacob Banks will be in a St. Augustine amphitheater on October 11th. 
Yes, I know. We should be there too.)

shake it off

Balls are going to get past you. You'll miss an easy catch. Everyone has struck out. And maybe, just maybe, you have no talent and all that dang practice just seems to make you worse. If that's the case, I had this one day that whooped me until I just started spreading that misery onto anyone who would listen and the only people left in my life are the ones who don't quit loving.
So I'm saying shake it off.


Today I am grateful to understand that I can do better than that.

short

He has come home to her. She cries in his arms.

He establishes a mood, a temperature.

And she responds.

Today I am grateful to clear a desk, a file, a magazine, a handout, a playlist.

time and space

Today I am grateful for a decent shower and bed, how that very last time we didn't need the directions, and the lightning which gave way to the red velvet cheesecake.

remember when

Today I am grateful for a trip, a kid who is threatening to be an adult, loaners, a hotel room, and an opportunity to create a weekend that years from now will cause one of us to look at the other and smile when we say, "Remember when..."


And the other won't be able to help but giggle.

signal

He has signal so he texts to let me know and I smile because I can hear his voice and how small something can be and how much you can appreciate it when you have learned to live without whatever it is.

Today I am grateful for signal.

note on the table

Today I am grateful another day to do better.

all the meant to

I meant to tell her that the shot was better with the longer lens but I felt so rushed because I run around like I must get back home.

I meant to talk with someone at the door.

I meant to give her a hug but she scares me kindasorta which was the yoga affirmation Saturday morning. And I feel so cheesy saying, "yoga affirmation Saturday morning."

Anyway, before I was dripping a monsoon of sweat onto my poor mat and focusing on bad breathing, she had given me a card and I don't remember exactly what it said but it definitely alluded to how I had been full of fear rather than love and she suggested that I focus on that while breathing through the poses.

I meant to get better at that.


Today I am grateful for yoga classes, a project for a Birmingham daughter, a friend who is willing to take the lead, a pool, a towel, and a slow morning.


Get to work, me.