Happy 4th of July!

Having two Friday nights in one week works for me! Tuesday felt like Friday and that is a good thing! I did my 7:30 a.m. walk with my co-worker Tuesday. The morning walking seems to agree with both of us. A good thing since the heat of summer SHOULD be here soon…I did go for another jaunt at the end of the day before I went to Shaw’s to buy the cherries for my father and then deliver them to him. I wanted to make sure I set the stage for a complete day at home for the 4th if I decided that was the way I wanted to go. I want to go to the beach on Saturday so I felt I wanted to putter around here and read. I was thinking of going to a Monique and the Mango Rains event in Vermont on 7/7/7, but the 3 hour ride each way for a day trip convinced me that maybe I should wait for an event closer to home. My book club assignment is not until November, so I have some time to work with. I thought the weather would force my hand for today’s activities, but looks like the rain will be a late night event. I will see where my mood takes me. My co-worker’s part time job company is grilling hotdogs today, so that might be worth a walk if I get in the mood.

The whole 7/7/7 seems to be pushing people to make it a memorable/meaningful day. I think the beach will do it for me.

I am loving my new little desk calendar at work. I think it will be an interesting journal of the range of things I do each day – and for the “next me” to use when that time comes. It is a good thing for me – everyday is different. Another new acquisition is that as we were walking I had a question about the working nature of the weathervane on top of our school chapel and my co-worker said she had a working compass in her car I could have! I love it! Not that the sun does not tell me that my apartment windows face north, but I just stood in my kitchen to “verify”. I love my gift! On the same walk – I guess it was an “astronomical” day – we ran into one of the science teachers walking his dog and I asked him when the next “astronomical day” was because I would like to go to our school observatory and look out the high powered telescope. The school is working on the technology to be able to “beam” information coming into the observatory to one of our smartboard screens. That would definitely be a “eureka” moment if I was a student in that classroom.

I am also loving the “travel” series in the NY Times – today it is about picnic-ing in Central Park. I will keep this handy for future use on one of my trips to NYC. (It seems that I am loving a lot today about what is happening in my life…)

From Bird by Bird: (about Writer’s Block)

“The word block suggests that you are constipated or stuck, when the truth is you’re empty. As I said in the last chapter; this emptiness can destroy some writers, as do the shame and frustration that go with it. You feel the writing gods gave you just so many good days, maybe even enough of them to write one good book and then part of another. But now you are having some days or weeks of emptiness, as if suddenly the writing gods are saying, “Enough! Don’t bother me! I have given to you until it hurts! Please. I’ve got problems of my own.””

“The problem is acceptance, which is something we’re taught not to do. We’re taught to improve uncomfortable situations, to change things, alleviate unpleasant feelings. But if you accept the reality that you have been given – that you are not in a productive creative period – you free yourself to begin filling up again.”

I like having a label for those days that set my hair on fire – like my beach days…I am doing my “filling up”.

From Freewill for week of July 5: British astronomer Martin Rees was told about a colleague who felt so puny and insignificant in comparison to the stars that he committed suicide. Rees responded with dismay, rejecting the perspective that had led a fellow astronomer to take his own life. "We are more important than the stars," he said. "I don't have a despairing attitude because what makes things important is not how big they are, but how complex and intricate they are, and human beings are more complicated and intricate than stars." While this is always good to keep in mind, Libra, it's especially apropos now. You're in a potent and radiant phase of your yearly cycle -- a time when you have a mandate to show why you're more important than the stars.

I am getting inspiration from every angle right now. The challenge is internalize it all on a daily basis and keep it going. It is not that I do not feel that emptiness that Anne Lamott talks about, but now I can look at that as “inspirational”…

Now I am inspired to have my breakfast. Happy 4th of July!