Images From Body Worlds - 2

The Archer

Chilling Out For Now, Against My Will

The last year, and especailly the last month or two, has been a really good time for me. My life is settling down into something that really works well for me. Into a productive routine. Rosh HaShonah and Yom Kippur, the Jewish high holidays just ended and for probably one of the few times in my life, I did not feel really shitty about the way I handled the last year of my life.

Strangely, the last couple of days, I feel like my life has a lot of loose ends. A lot things I need to be doing, but I can't seem to muster the energy to do them. I am a little tired and I cannot seem to focus my energies to do much of anything. Maybe a little burn-out after a big push to get personal things in order?

What I am experiencing may be like what happens to us when we are trying to lose weight. I learned this at Weight Watchers. You lose weight for awhile, steadily, and then you stall out. You stay at the same weight for awhile before the pounds start coming off again. It is called hitting a plateau. I guess that may be where I am.

Or it may be that my sleep cycle is completely out of sync.

Whatever. See, the thing is I really like to feel a forward momentum in my life. I like the feeling that I am moving on with my life. It took me a long time to be able to do that. I ran in place for years watching others move on and accomplish the things they set out to do, while I couldn't move forward to save my soul. So I do not like what I am feeling now. I am not a little impatient to get past this. But maybe hitting the plateau happens in our lives too, just as it does when we are trying to lose weight.

Hopefully I won't be in this situation for very long. What did the poet, Robert Frost, say?
"I have miles to go before I sleep,
and miles to go before I sleep."

I do have miles to go before I sleep. So many things I want to do and so many things I want to accomplish. And I have squandered so much of my life already. If I am a bit impatient to get moving again, it is because now I don't want to waste even a moment of the time I have left.

Being Lucky... Gregory Maguire

What does it mean to be "lucky"?. What sort of blessings should we be hoping to receive in our lives?

Gregory Maguire , the author of Wicked, has his own slant on how to answer those questions.

In an article about the Tony Award winning show that was based on his novel, Maguire made this observation on luck and being blessed. [People Magazine, Nov. 3, 2003]

"My stepmother used to say, 'You children are so lucky.' And I used to say, 'You'r not giving enough credit for hard work,' " [Maguire] says. "Now in middle life, I have a broader concept of what luck is. And the luck to be born with a working imagination is one of the chief blessings one could hope for."