Days Like This (Van Morrison)

What a difference a day makes, indeed.  Yesterday found me in a very sad place, emotionally as well as physically.  My sciatica was really acting up, and I cried myself to sleep, feeling that I was destined to live with chronic pain and/or addiction (am I already?) to Aleve.  This morning I awoke with a fresh perspective, even more determined to use these very long days to take better care of myself.

Poured my first cup of coffee, and went out onto the balcony, where it was only 74 degrees (10 degrees cooler than yesterday morning at that time!).  Delighted that it was a perfect walking day, and I'd be foolish to squander it.  While the caffeine slowly took effect, I googled additional exercises as well as side effects of naproxen (which I have already taken for more consecutive days than is recommended), which scared the sh*t out of me.  I have become complacent about relying on medicine for relief, which must stop.  Back to alternating heat and ice, as well as yoga.  

Ten minutes of gentle stretching, then a lovely stroll around the golf course (where this much- and long-loved Van Morrison song popped up), then home to more stretching.  Get it together, Susan.  To paraphrase A League of Their Own, "there's no crying in a global pandemic"...  :-)

P.S.  Happy 50th Anniversary of Earth Day!  I was a sophomore in high school on April 22, 1970, and I remember this being a big deal.  We even started a recycling center.  I still consider myself a steward of the earth, and am very conscious of the role I play to make, and keep, this planet healthy and sustainable.


SONG:  Days Like This by Van Morrison

BOOK:  Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A true (as told to me) story by Bess Kalb

POEM:  Days of Future Dwell by Samuel Amadon

A dance professor around
her white house, which
windowed, countered,
surfaced with keys, bags,

a listing a broker found
he was proud to sell.
As grass is covered
with grass that's mown,

why not be happy again
to find your schedule in
your hand, and all things
well. The squirrels leapt

off the branch that fell.
The technical part with
all the pieces lining up,
or already there, at work:

a something to do with
why I pick the tack
from the floor, why I
finger it like a shell. Say

the songs get longer and
the days--all of it--you
can hear it all coming,
if you've tied to it a bell.

QUOTE:  "People make me out to be this super strong woman, but I have my tough days just like anyone else." ~ Rosie Perez

These Are the Days (Van Morrison)

SONG: These Are the Days by Van Morrison

BOOK: After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path by Jack Kornfield



POEM: The Zen of Housework by Al Zolynas

I look over my own shoulder
down my arms
to where they disappear under water
into hands inside pink rubber gloves
moiling among dinner dishes.

My hands lift a wine glass,
holding it by the stem and under the bowl.
It breaks the surface
like a chalice
rising from a medieval lake.

Full of the grey wine
of domesticity, the glass floats
to the level of my eyes.
Behind it, through the window
above the sink, the sun, among
a ceremony of sparrows and bare branches,
is setting in Western America.

I can see thousands of droplets
of steam -- each a tiny spectrum -- rising
from my goblet of grey wine.
They sway, changing directions
constantly -- like a school of playful fish,
or like the sheer curtain
on the window to another world.

Ah, grey sacrament of the mundane!

QUOTE: "After ecstasy, the laundry." ~ Buddhist proverb

So Quiet in Here/Into the Mystic (Van Morrison)

SONG(S): So Quiet in Here /Into the Mystic by Van Morrison

BOOK: Even in Quiet Places: Poems by William Stafford

POEM: Sonnets to Orpheus, Part Two, XXIX by Rainer Maria Rilke

Quiet friend who has come so far,

feel how your breathing makes more space around you.

Let this darkness be a bell tower

and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.

Move back and forth into the change.

What is it like, such intensity of pain?

If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,

be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,

the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,

say to the silent earth: I flow.

To the rushing water, speak: I am.

QUOTE: "The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?" ~ Kahlil Gibran