simple pleasures

A very sunburned nephew (6) was having trouble getting to sleep. He refused children's Motrin, so I suggested a late night snack. As he ate his toast, he leaned over his cup and said, "Maybe some milk will lift my spirits."

He's the same boy who reported how great the pool felt after a hot ballgame. "It's so freshing -- try it, I think you'll agree."

Why do these little phrases catch me off-guard? Such embodiment and absolutely present awareness, deep sensing, and ability to articulate it; desire to share it and to know the reciprocity will be true and accurate; these catch my breath.

Riveting Preoccupation

Hey, everybody,

I've been working like an obsessed person on replacing the bathroom floor in the Airstream trailer. Nothing is simple and straight-forward in this project. The trailer is 40 years old, 1968, has held up very well, but some things have not held up so well. I'm documenting the progress on Airforums.com, where I am also IndyAnne, and on my .mac iWeb pages, where it's easy to post photos and use captions for them. Please visit there sometime.

I'm also taking welding, MIG welding, at the J. Everett Light Career Center at North Central High School. A friend took the classes and recommended it. I'm having great fun with that. I have some projects to do on the trailer frame and other things around the house.

Even the children like to help out. We're building up credit toward a Wii for the basement playroom that I'll be working on on my sabbatical.

My job at CTS ends on June 30. I'll have July and August off, then start CPE residency in the fall.

Life is very good personally. We're going camping in a week or so with friends from church, and a longer trip with more family in July. The kids loved the Outer Banks reunion so much, they insisted we put something together this summer. Could become a tradition.

Sorry about the reportage, sans critique. I'm a bit overwhelmed with issues I can't control but that cause me to lose sleep. I heard that two things keep you awake at night: conscience or curiosity. I guess the conscience part is, "Could I be doing more to help?" and the curiosity part is that I just can't help worrying sometimes about what's next. I try to live in the moment, to meditate and be present. It works most of the time, but not 100%.

Also, I 'm trying to detach from those things I cannot change. Brother, dad, institutions with FUBAR processes and idiotic leadership.

All of the manual labor is truly a source of energy and self-confidence, sense of competence, and just plain gratifying. I go to bed most nights exhausted from the labor.

The life of the mind is also good work, gratifying, and competence-affirming. Maybe it's a sine wave of energy flow.

More soon,
Keep in touch.