Listening to My Better Self in Everyday Ramblings

I took this shot a while back but the light looks just like this out there now with fabulous rays touching on brilliant colors.

On Saturday morning we did this exercise in Weight Watchers about our imagined “better selves”. One of the questions was… What advice would your better self give your current self?

My answer was, “Have hope, stop isolating, join WW earlier and use the tools they provide”. This was a quick exercise that we did on the spot so I didn’t think it through but I did think about it a bunch on Sunday when I was trying to decide if I could convince myself to go to the local poetry reading in the evening and read either the section of my project that I wrote about the 60’s that I shared here last month or the section about 2015, which I finally managed to write down.

You can find both here.

It was that idea that I was telling myself to get out in the world that convinced me to go. It was a small reading, maybe only twenty people, as the featured readers were both local and fill ins for the features that couldn’t make it.

It turned out to be an enjoyable evening. I am not sure why exactly. Good spirits I think. There was this older man I have never seen before with this huge notebook of hand written poems. The one he read about the desert was dense and beautiful and led me to believe he is possibly insane. Once again confirming my idea that the compulsion to write poetry is an affliction that crosses age, gender and culture barriers.

It is language that allowed our species to take over the planet for the last 60,000 years or so and my guess there is this genetic anomaly that makes a certain very small percentage of us spend the better part of our leisure hours writing or thinking about or reading poetry.

It doesn’t matter if the poetry is any good in terms of the compulsion I have noticed.

Mostly it is not good. But every once in awhile…

Anyway at the end I read the 60’s section to the group. I read it from my phone, which messed with my line breaks and I didn’t read it as well as I would have liked but oh well. It was received in an encouraging manner and as I was leaving a very successful and gifted poet, internationally published and all that I haven’t spoken to ever really to have a normal conversation stopped me and said she was very excited about my project and liked the part I read.

Sweet! Apparently my better self knows things my ordinary daily self does not.

Get out there girlfriend!

It was encouraging and I very much needed that.

I had six new students last night and all but one are wonderfully compatible with the rest of the group so I think we are good for go! My anxiety about the room being cold did manifest and I had to rush them through the relaxation at the end so they wouldn’t chill down. We’ll work on that. I am just glad the switch is over and we are moving on.

Caregivers tonight. Only three more times!

Last updated October 13, 2015