Posts

Musically Inclined for Valentine’s – Superstar

This version is super special simply because it is a live performance and if memory serves me correct, one of his last.  Luther Vandross took The Carpenter’s song, demolished it and rebuilt it as his own.  However, in this performance, it is as if he demolished his own version and rebuilt it as the pinnacle of a musical performance.  I miss you, Luther…

Vitamin D(elight)

Ahhhhh….the sun.  The outdoors.  I’ve had the fortune of spending time outside absorbing some much-needed Vitamin D(elight) and enjoying the feeling of well-being that it imparts.  In addition to sitting outside soaking up the Vitamin D(elight), I now see a flock of seagulls.  Not the ’80s band who immortalized the lyrics, “And I ran.  I ran so far away.  I just ran.
I ran all night and day.  I couldn’t get away.” but a literal flock of seagulls circling and gliding on the wind and doing what seagulls do. 

“The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense his life. . . . The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds — how many human aspirations are realised in their free, holiday-lives — and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!”

John Burroughs (1837 – 1921), Birds and Poets, 1887

Sleep or the Lack Thereof – Part II

In the previous post, Sleep or the Lack Thereof, I mentioned having gone through a sleep study in which the doctor forbade (for lack of a better word) me from caffeine because of the altered state it creates with my sleep pattern.  Despite the warning, the evidence supporting the reason behind the warning, and just plain obeisance, today, I had a café mocha.  After 3pm.  Not a good idea.  Although I lay down to go to sleep a little after 10pm, my mind has raced while my body has lain prone in a horizontal position.  Before now, I did not physically move much but my mind has bounced from the mental construct of a new year (potentially the next post after this one); nutritional deprivation in an environment of seeming bounty (aka food deserts);  reconnecting the memory of taste with the actual experience of tasting (rediscovering the lost flavor of a strawberry on my first trip to Paris); and the list literally goes on.

I start a new assignment later today and do not foresee sleep anytime before the time for which I have the alarm set.  Despite that, as soon as I post this, I will resume the horizontal position to see if there will be a reprieve from my Sebastian Vettel driven Formula 1 thoughts.

Hopefully, good night (literally morning)…

The Closed Door

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.

Alexander Graham Bell

At the beginning of November, I was fired from my part-time retail job.  When it happened, I was seized with a moment of short-term-thinking-panic (what will I do?, I have no income coming in!, etc.).  For those who have faced unemployment, you know that feeling I’m describing – kind of like free-falling with no safety net.  And I don’t mean in the Tom Petty-greatest-hits kind of way.  Because I have been downsized a couple of times in the past (and walked away from jobs as well), that moment of short-term-thinking-panic didn’t grip me as fiercely as it has in the past.  Nor did it last long.  Which was good because I have since had a few doors open for me that are more closely related to my career background (which is not retail) and the direction to which I would like to return career-wise.  I worked a short-term assignment that allowed me to enjoy meeting yet another group of new people.  Getting to and fro was arduous at best but I pulled off logistical feats that amounted to getting there and back for the three days I was assigned to work.  However, that is not the door that fortunately has opened.  I am currently on an assignment that feels right because of the location, atmosphere and the people with whom I work.  It, too, is a temporary assignment; but for now, it feels as if I am walking a path of open-door opportunities that will lead to a better professional outcome than my more recent experiences.


If I turn my head and look behind me, I can see the sky and clouds over New Orleans and the river meandering through the city.  I can regard other skyscrapers that dot the skyline – from an equally high-altitude.  The view and the feeling of increased opportunity are priceless.

 

 

Currently, I spend little time looking at the door that closed, instead, I look at the door that has opened.  And during moments when I stare out the window into the clouds, I imagine the next greater door/opportunity that will open as well.