In a Bubble

I love this sweet picture of The Weepies, a band my niece introduced me to and one my daughter also likes! Here's their love story! And I love their music.

It's a Blue Monday in the blog. The Weepies. It got cold again, after a great Saturday, 40s, two-hour walk in the sunshine, etc., and now it has snowed. Worse for those in the East, I hear. My friend Paulette is sad, but she also knows how to feel better, so that's good. And my hubby is sick, but has been resting and drinking liquids. (I do not plan to get sick in response.)

It's not just flu season, it's tax season. The organizer came in the mail from the tax man* and the various W2s and 1099s are arriving, and I have been counting my depreciating inventory: unsold chapbooks in a box. (Paulette, that's a little depressing, yes, but I'm oddly cheery, maybe because, despite my math challenge, everything's adding up! Math is fun!) I have 20 copies each of two books, 1 each of two others, and 44 copies of my first chapbook. Hello? Five bucks each. Even the fabulous Dianne Wiest has money worries on this Blue Monday....

In church this past Sunday, we had 10 full minutes of mindfulness and 7 steps to it, etc. I noticed that I did not, in being mindful, block anything out. I let everything in. I noticed the rain that had turned to snow, the breathing and hacking of the woman next to me, my own breathing, the sweet faces of the congregation, poor Colleen rolling her eyes and checking her watch (we hugged and laughed about this afterwards!), the calm music, the wonderful black legs of chairs against the gray carpet like a miniature stylized forest. I don't see mindfulness as living in a bubble. I see it as walking in the wind, fully buffeted, fully alive, fully aware.

*"Tax man! Tax man!" (Dialogue from Stranger than Fiction, a movie I love! My kids gave it to me!)