A Mindful Life

Insomnia last night; well past 2 a.m. I was tossing and turning. Up at 6:00 a.m. Picked up co-worker at 7:00 a.m. Arrived in SF at 8:00 a.m. Began to sort painting supplies into four groups to prepare for the volunteers arriving at 9:30 a.m. About 20 people from a large, local corporation had arranged [...]

Oy, what a day. It was fuller than I expected. It started with a meeting at 10 a.m.; it was only a half hour. Sweet! (We are very conscientious about ending meetings on time; we assign someone to keep track.) Then a project leader called about supplies for a large project on Saturday (it morphed [...]

On Sunday I dug out a wayward bush that had annoyed me since I first laid eyes on it. This required the use of a shovel and hatchet and my sadly undeveloped arms. But it’s done. On Monday I returned to work to a deluge of emails and tasks from my week’s absence. I’ve worked [...]

Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own [...]

Thank you all for your well wishes. They cheered me up! I’m nearly back to normal. The intestinal uglies are gone, and that pleases me so much. I lost about 4 pounds (probably dehydration). It’s nice to eat again. And my arm is nearly done healing, as you can see below. It’s still tender and [...]

Since Monday afternoon I’ve been horizontal. I’ve been living on water, cranberry juice, and a little ice cream. Anytime I try to eat anything more substantial my intestines riot. I’m in that limbo of not being so sick that I’m sleeping all the time, but not being well enough to do anything. When I move, [...]

I picked up a bug. I have a temperature of 101.1 and a belly rumbling like Mt. Saint Helens in 1980. I woke up queasy but went to work anyway. I hightailed it home after three hours. The burn is healing (I think). I’ve been using triple antibiotic ointment on it and a non-sticky gauze [...]

Well, I’ve had a lovely weekend, despite the fact that I started it badly on Thursday evening. I cooked dinner. While I was checking on a roast in the oven, the door sprang up and hit my arm. I ended up with a second-degree burn. (I thought it was a first-degree until my skin fell [...]

Today I have a day off. A much-needed day off. I’m tempted to think about cleaning the downstairs, but each time the idea pops up I plug my ears and sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” loudly until it disappears. Oh, how the monkey-mind assails us with useless thoughts! Actually, tomorrow is designated for cleaning. [...]

Look at the letters in the words of this sentence, for example. Why are they shaped the way that they are? Why did we come up with As, Ms and Zs and the other characters of the alphabet? And is there any underlying similarity between the many kinds of alphabet used on the planet? To [...]