It's Amazing How Long This All Lasts...
My better half and I have done a few more than twenty senior moves of relatives entrenched in their homes for thirty years who then transition to senior housing, assisting living, long term care and the last move. While visiting my ninety-seven year old aunt who lives in independent senior living we talked about some health and personal care issues that I never would have anticipated, like really personal things on and in and coming out of a very elderly lady's body. Of course her friends are all gone so her sixty-two year old nephew gets to deal with that.
There was some frustration on her part that during a recent doctor appointment for a physical she did not have to remove her clothes. My mother at about ninety started to complain, too, about not getting to take her clothes off for the doctor. To both of them I said that they were probably the oldest people the doctor had actually talked to who actually had their wits about them and were more interested in the genetics or lifestyle that kept them alive more than about something that might do them in deep into their nineties. What are you going to do if you find some issue on a 95 year old. I'd send them home to eat Ben and Jerry's and to have a smoke.
After running through a discourse on doctors and medication she remarked "It's amazing how long this all lasts..." referring to her body. I commented that it was amazing that she still had her mental capacities about her. "Oh, do you think so?" "Yes, let's have some ice cream."
December & January Issues...
Last December and January were a test of my personal resilience with three family deaths, car accidents and a flurry of family health issues. This December is a test of my personal resilience with sequential vehicle issues, HVAC issues, plumbing issues, time management issues and a sore should from throwing snow back on my neighbor's driveway after they blew it on mine. We'll see what January brings.
"Steal Like An Artist" by Austin Kleon
Repeating comments two days in a row or in close days or the same week is probably bad style but this is really a good book. Not often do I read a book twice and I've never read a book twice in two days but that's what happened. The advice that has been running through my head in my six-hour, two hundred mile visit to my aunt (other than when yacking with her) was the same thing that I've felt for a decade. You need to get your hands dirty, jump into the material and the tools and the ideas and move some stuff around and good work will emerge; there will be some dogs, too, but really good things come from the foundations of creative work. All of my art that is good was not planned, but if I just thought about it nothing happened. Even practice pieces were of little value. You need to go out on the two inch ice and hope for the best.
I am also of the opinion, like Mr. Kleon, that very little really creative work comes from sitting in front of a flat glass panel with out hands on the old QWERTY device....the exception of course being what we create in a literary sense but it's possible that a notebook, good pens and some Post-It notes would moves us along more quickly ( I do hold Post-It notes in the highest regard for enabling great things in business and personal lives, perhaps more than the personal computer). I'd give up my iPhone before I'd give up Post-It Notes.
Ongoing Commitments...
Between ideas and mediums I wish/need to pursue and this crazy backlog of life tasks I'm 97% certain I'm going to stall any consulting pursuits until mid-January.
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