Dear Friend,
I hope that this letter finds you feeling well and happy.
Happy.
“But,” you might wonder, “there is so much strife and anguish in the world… is it still ok to be happy?”
My answer to that is, Definitely-Yes! And I’ll even say, especially because there is strife and aguish all over the world, if you are happy, you are in the best position to help change things for the better. It takes very little to make a big change. By sharing a smile or choosing to be kind, you can make a difference. And I believe that lifting spirits is a real and healthy thing; lift one, and you lift many! Now, that’s a good sort of contagious. Yes?
So, what do you think? If you have even a tiny bit of joy to share, if you feel the least bit glad, and if you want to celebrate, then, please do! Share joy! Be glad! Celebrate! Your good cheer, vibes, light, joy, gladness, the love that you give and receive, your healthful-sharing of positivity, is a much needed, calming balm in this restless world.
So, yes, please! Celebrate! And thank you for celebrating! You are The Balm!
Some things take practice before they feel like we have them ‘down,’ or, ‘in hand,’ or, ‘ready to use.’ It takes trying, repetition, tenacity, discipline. Learning languages, figuring out how to play instruments, training a puppy, all so that we can communicate with others, play whatever song we want, take our dog with us everywhere we go… most of everything we do, we have to practice.
As a flute teacher, I did stress the importance of practicing. I did tell my students that practice is valuable and necessary if you want to get to know your instrument well enough to just pick it up and play it with the same ease that you kneel down and tie your shoe while chewing gum and joking around with your friends.
But I also told my students that practice is a life-long thing, it will always be helpful, and that practice does not make perfect; rather, practice makes practicing more fun!
As kids get older and have more and more responsibilities and distractions, the opportunities to ‘just have fun’ begin to diminish. Sure, work can be fun and board meetings can be fun, it can be fun to go grocery shopping, vacuum the house, clean the gutters… fun is everywhere a good attitude can be found.
BUT, when is the last time you made a list of fun things to do? Things that make your heart sing when you think of getting to do these things? See if you can finish this sentence, “I want to go do something fun, I want to __________.” Well, was it easy for you to fill in that blank?
I asked Frank to share some things that he thinks of when he thinks of having fun. Here’s his list:
Aww, nice!
At the beginning of this month, I joined some poet friends (online) in writing one Poem-Form-a-Day for the month of December. There are 5 of us participating. We each write at least one poem using the daily assigned poetry-form, one for each of the 31 days in December. This will total at least 31 poems and use 31 different forms.
There are hundreds of poem forms and it seems that there are new ones being created all the time.
There now, does all of that remind you of watching paint-dry?
I see, well, here’s my poem from December 6th.
The poem form below is a 'Florette' in which two or more 4-line stanzas with a rhyme scheme of a,a,b,a and a meter of 8a, 8a, 8b, 12ba, where the fourth line has an internal (b) rhyme on syllable 8, depict a true-story of 4-year-old Leslie at about this time of year, many, many years ago.
True colors
“Just climb up on his lap and sit
you'll see there’s nothing much to it,
tell Santa what to bring for you…
it’s all that you will have to do,” and so I did.
I climbed on up and looked at him.
He had a huge beard on his chin.
it had an itchy sort of feel,
I wondered if the thing was real, it might have been.
But there I was, a four-year-old,
this guy just didn’t have me sold,
he was too young and thin and tall,
he wasn’t very nice at all, a lump of coal.
And just to prove that I was right,
I pulled that beard with all my might!
It didn’t even budge an inch,
and Santa said I was a bitch, and so I cried.
Isn’t it amazing how quickly a day can fly by? And we, human-persons, can only do so many things each day even if we’re organized and have a disciplined routine. But if we find that we are too busy to have fun, or we don’t think it is a priority or a responsible thing to do, we can gift ourselves the practice of having fun, practice having something to look forward to, practice creating time to do something that makes our hearts sing… and be glad, as often as possible.
Frank and I are very grateful that you are here to read Tracks by the Post! Please don’t hesitate to Contact Us and share your thoughts!
Thank you, in advance! Communication is a wonderful example of a skill that requires a life-time of practice – I are go to make it sense meaning.
Gently Be,
Leslie and Frank