Taking a Shower: And Other Every Day Miracles

January 1

A minister I know had a theory that Heaven and Hell are the same place. Some people think they’re in Heaven and some people think they’re in Hell. Whatever your views about life after death, it is certainly true that here on Earth some people think life is Heaven and some think it’s Hell. Some people’s lives are much better than others, but there is a lot of perception involved in that judgment. Even so, it’s hard to deny there is a difficult side to life and it can be hard to be aware of the joy, when pain is taking up so much space.

Joy and pain are like good and bad weather. Bad weather is hard to ignore. If it’s raining outside and the wind is blowing and someone asks you what the weather is like outside, you wouldn’t be likely to say, Gee, I didn’t notice. Whatever else is going on in your life, bad weather gets your attention. But, if it’s a beautiful day, it’s sunny, the temperature is mild and the birds are singing, but you’re thinking about something else, you might not notice. Good weather isn’t as intrusive as bad.

Joy is like that. It’s not intrusive the way pain is. Pain gets our attention. Often, something must be done about it right now. But you have to work at joy. You have to participate in it. It doesn’t take hold of your shoulders and shake you the way pain does. One could walk through the Garden of Eden and complain about the mosquitoes. The shade is too cold. The sun is too hot. There’s a cloud to every silver lining.

That’s what this book is about. The big joys, falling in love, having a baby, winning the lottery, don’t happen every day. Life is made up of a thousand little miracles. Buttered toast, laughter, sitting down after standing up a long time. Appreciating how many little gifts there are in an average day takes work and awareness.

During an average day I have many little trials. Getting dressed has become much harder now that I’m in a wheelchair and can’t control my legs. I have bad balance and I have to lean on something when I bend over and grab my foot. I spend so much time solving little problems like getting dressed. This is a big production for the partially paralyzed. I would like to spend my day writing or meeting new people or doing fun, creative things. But I spend a lot of time running as fast as I can to stay in one place, to quote the Red Queen.

This is what life is like. Everyone doesn’t have an obvious disability, but everyone has a steady stream of little problems to solve. A mother may want to appreciate her baby, but she has to keep changing his diapers. She may want time with her spouse, but work, meetings, life keeps demanding she be somewhere else. I am realizing that my life isn’t being interrupted by all these little things. This is my life. That isn’t meant as a statement about the futility of life. Life is the journey I’m on. It doesn’t start later when I figure it out. It’s the lessons I learn doing boring, repetitive things. It’s the appreciation I gain for things that seem humble and unremarkable. That’s a tough journey and I’m not always up to it. I get short with myself a lot. But, I go to bed and get up the next day and try again. Life isn’t meant to be an ordeal; a trial to be endured. It’s a gift.

January 2

One of the joys of modern life is taking a hot shower. For most of history people didn’t have this luxury. But I can do it whenever I want.

When I first turn the water on, it comes out cold. It’s a shock. Feeling this shock means that I am alive and kicking. I don’t want to stand there, wasting water, so I wash my face while the water is heating up. By the time I rinse my face, the water is warm. Aaaah. Warm water is soooo relaxing. There is something very basic and universal about the enjoyment of warm water. I think it reminds us of being in the womb. It washes away the tension, along with the dirt. A hot shower is the best thing for tense muscles. I work up a nice lather with the soap and wash off the dirt, the sweat and all the tension. That dirt spot on my thumb disappears. The bad smells my body gave off from being confined in clothes and shoes, the smudge I can’t see on the back of my arm, all are gone. The water washes it all down the drain. Then I wash my hair with sweet smelling shampoo. I can even wash out the tangles.

It may be cold and dark outside, but I’m inside in the warm, light bathroom. With the water running, I can’t hear anything outside of the bathroom. I’m in my own little world, my own private country.

When I have finished the shower I’m dripping wet, but I feel purged. I have no more dirt and I feel more relaxed and content. I have a new start. My big thick, dry towel is waiting for me. Now I begin the ritual of drying off. It dries my skin, but it also serves as the transition between being all wet and going back to the dry part of my life. I’m left with that feeling of freshness and well-being. It’s the real reason we take showers. I have the luxury of taking it all for granted, because I do it every day.

Not very long ago, common people didn’t get this daily shower. Aristocrats didn’t bathe daily for most of history. They piled on perfumes. Their hair felt greasy all the time. They didn’t know hair could feel as nice as this. Even today, many people in the world do not live with the expectation I have of being clean all the time. It’s a wonderful, sensual gift. Sometimes it’s just what I need after a long, hard day. Sometimes I’m tired and I think I don’t want to bother. But it always makes me feel better.

January 3

I have a whole ritual for going to bed.

I change out of my clothes into a nice, cozy nightgown. I brush my hair to take away the messy daytime and begin to be my bedtime self.

Now I go into the bathroom. I brush and floss my teeth. It cleans out my mouth. I’m becoming a fresh new person for bed. I take my shower and dry off. If I washed my hair, I comb it out. Back into my nightclothes, I leave the steamy bathroom. The rest of the house feels fresher now. I take my bedtime medications. Then I turn off the heater and the lights and check to be sure the door is locked.

Now I go into my bedroom. I turn off the first light. Next I remove my slippers. Transferring from the wheelchair to the bed is harder than it used to be. If I’m in the manual chair I turn the chair to face the bed and put one leg on the bed in front of me. Sliding sideways means getting over those large wheels and I can’t do it any more. If I put both feet on the bed in front of me, I will fall over backward. My right foot goes over to the side. I get as close to the bed as I can and pull myself forward. I always feel a sense of triumph as I realize the bed is holding my weight and not the wheelchair. Then I have to pull my right foot up into the bed and lean to the left while I turn the leg around to sit in a cross sit All the decorator pillows have to be stacked up off the bed. They are for daytime show, not for sleeping. I have a firm mattress on box springs. A foam pad rests on the mattress. It’s protected by a mattress pad. This is covered by a fitted sheet. On top of me are the flat sheet, the blanket and the bedspread. Under my head is a feather pillow, covered by a pillowcase. I turn the light out and lie down. Now I’m finally ready for sleep.

In ancient Greece, they didn’t have what we think of as a bedroom. They had a room the size of a closet. There was a mat on the floor. One went in and slept. One did not spend time in there when awake.

Since then, styles in sleeping have changed. Millions of non-wealthy people in the past and still today, don’t have the accommodations I just described. People sleep on the ground, on mats, on futons, in haystacks, under bridges. Not everyone wants my sleeping arrangements. But they suit me fine and I’m grateful to have such a comfortable place and such restful circumstances under which to sleep.

January 4

I awaken after a good night’s sleep. There is no substitute. I love waking up rested and refreshed. I don’t need coffee to wake up. Waking up is natural. When I get a good night’s sleep. I wake up ready to start the day.

Scientists don’t yet know why the body needs to sleep, but they know that it does. I’m not as sharp when I haven’t had enough sleep. I can be cranky. It’s harder to enjoy life to the fullest when I’m struggling with sleep deprivation. These stories appear on the news all the time. With a proper night’s sleep, one is more productive, healthier, even has less struggle with weight. The mind is still working, synthesizing information while unconscious. When learning a new discipline, like playing an instrument or taking a class, the mind puts the new information together while sleeping and retrieves the information better in the morning than it did the night before.

All people, animals and some plants sleep. I used to have a real problem with insomnia. When I haven’t had enough sleep, I’m not as coordinated and I’m not as nice. It’s a lot harder to appreciate the small joys of life when I’m tired and cranky.

I always go to bed early enough to get enough sleep. If one day I have to get up at 4:00 AM I have to go to bed earlier. Many people have minor sleep disorders that can be cured for free. I read Sleep: Problems and Solutions, by Quentin Regestein, M.D., David Ritchie and the Editors of Consumer Reports Books. I learned more than I wanted to know about sleep, but I did everything the book said to do, and I learned how to sleep. This book changed my life. It addresses a number of different types of sleep disorders. A few people will have problems so extreme, they need to see a doctor. Most people can solve their problem at home.

After a good night’s sleep, I am in a much better position to meet the demands of my life. I’m sharper, calmer, friendlier, more easy going and my immune system works better. I enjoy life much more.

January 5

Anyplace can look good in the bright sunshine. It’s when it’s cloudy and gray that you see if you’re in a beautiful place. A truly beautiful place will look poetic in the gray light of winter. Bare branches, silhouetted against the sky are very poetic. It’s more subtle than the riotous beauty of summer. The joy in a winter scene is quiet. It can be spectacular if you live in the mountains and can see snowy peaks and fir trees. But most places need us to work harder to see the beauty all around us in gray light, in ruddy cheeks, in virgin snow. Notice the pebbles, the trees, the snowbirds, the things that still live when the going gets rough.

Cold air is exhilarating. I have Multiple Sclerosis. M.S. gets worse in the heat. When it’s cold I can see better and I feel sharper.

Even so, I don’t like to be too cold. It tenses me up and distracts me from what I’m doing. People from other climates think it’s warm here in Los Angeles all the time. Compared to Minnesota, it is. But January is still colder than July, especially if you aren’t dressed for it. I can be mad that it’s winter, or I can learn to live with it. What I can’t do is skip it and have summer all the time. I’m happier when I stop fighting it and go with the rhythms of the world. First, I have to dress for it. I’m a lot happier wearing my heavy sweaters now than wearing a light T-shirt. Here in Los Angeles, many people like warm weather and dress for it, whether we have it or not. Of course, you’re miserable in the cold if you’re not dressed for it.

Dressed for the weather, I can look at my surroundings. Bare branches are so artistic against a white sky. They all look like works of art. Snow sets them off. Especially with a good contrast between the snow and the dark branches. Rain clings to them and falls off in little drops. Then wind blows it all away and the tree looks like a broom.

The other joy of winter is enjoying the warm house and cuddling up by the fire, doing indoor things. Working in the garden is out. I could do some baking, or read or practice an instrument. One could do a craft with the kids. Draw pictures or use the construction paper and the scissors and the glue.

Anyplace can look good in the bright sunshine. It’s when it’s cloudy and gray that you see if you’re in a beautiful place. A truly beautiful place will look poetic in the gray light of winter. Bare branches, silhouetted against the sky are very poetic. It’s more subtle than the riotous beauty of summer. The joy in a winter scene is quiet. It can be spectacular if you live in the mountains and can see snowy peaks and fir trees. But most places need us to work harder to see the beauty all around us in gray light, in ruddy cheeks, in virgin snow. Notice the pebbles, the trees, the snowbirds, the things that still live when the going gets rough.

Cold air is exhilarating. I have Multiple Sclerosis. M.S. gets worse in the heat. When it’s cold I can see better and I feel sharper.

Even so, I don’t like to be too cold. It tenses me up and distracts me from what I’m doing. People from other climates think it’s warm here in Los Angeles all the time. Compared to Minnesota, it is. But January is still colder than July, especially if you aren’t dressed for it. I can be mad that it’s winter, or I can learn to live with it. What I can’t do is skip it and have summer all the time. I’m happier when I stop fighting it and go with the rhythms of the world. First, I have to dress for it. I’m a lot happier wearing my heavy sweaters now than wearing a light T-shirt. Here in Los Angeles, many people like warm weather and dress for it, whether we have it or not. Of course, you’re miserable in the cold if you’re not dressed for it.

Dressed for the weather, I can look at my surroundings. Bare branches are so artistic against a white sky. They all look like works of art. Snow sets them off. Especially with a good contrast between the snow and the dark branches. Rain clings to them and falls off in little drops. Then wind blows it all away and the tree looks like a broom.

The other joy of winter is enjoying the warm house and cuddling up by the fire, doing indoor things. Working in the garden is out. I could do some baking, or read or practice an instrument. One could do a craft with the kids. Draw pictures or use the construction paper and the scissors and the glue.

January 6

It’s warmer inside than outside. I control the temperature, the light, and the sound. I decide whether to turn on the T.V. or radio and where to turn or whether to put on a C.D. or call a friend.

When I was a kid, I lived with my family. I didn’t have the control of a single woman, but together we all controlled the atmosphere in the house. The point is inside feels so different from outside it’s easy to think we’ve entered a different planet and left the world of outside behind.

The less time you spend outside, the more out of touch you can get with the world of outside. Those people who spend more time outside: kids, gardeners, groundskeepers, people with outside jobs, have more of a feeling that they have just come inside, but outside’ is still there. All that stands between you and outside is a little wood and plaster and maybe some insulation. Outside" is just inches away.

When I stay inside all day, it’s easy to think I’m not part of the Earth. It’s easy to get detached and think that things like clean air, emissions from cars, and saving national parks don’t affect me. I’m in my house. There are no cars in here.

Once people had a greater feel for this, because houses were heated by fire and not insulated. They were drafty. The outhouse was outside. In many places in this country it’s very easy to die from the cold without a good warm house. Once the electricity went out in the winter at the house in Ohio where my uncle and grandfather were living. They went in the basement and bundled up. Luckily, it didn’t last long. Our ancestors just a few generations back dreaded winter for this very reason. My life is so easy compared to my great-grandmother’s.

January 7

I live alone. And yet I am never alone. Part of the reason is I always have the media going. The T.V. or the radio or I’m reading.

But part of it is that my mind never shuts off. I have trouble just being aware of the present moment and just staying here for very long. I’m always in the past or in the future or in a fantasy. Sometimes this is bad. It’s bad when I’m getting mad about something that happened years ago. Whatever it is, it’s over and I’m the only one who remembers it.

But what if I were a person whose mind never wandered and I was always in the present, letting the media tell me what to think; a vessel with no way to process or have any opinion about all of the information I receive. I would never have an original idea. I certainly wouldn’t be writing this book. New ideas come from letting the mind run on and imagine impossible things. When I think about the past I begin to process it. The big things in life need processing. I don’t understand things when they happen, as well as I may years (or even hours) later, when I’ve had time to think about it and put it in perspective, maybe see some patterns in my life.

Memories are electrical impulses in the back of my brain. One will stimulate another. That’s how one thing reminds me of another and I go off on a tangent in my mind.

So, while I do want to learn not to regret the past and relive bad experiences over and over again, I don’t have to beat myself up when they come into my head. It’s just electrical impulses setting each other off. When I become aware of it, I just drop it and go on to something else.

Do I sound a little crazy? The same mind that makes me crazy is the one that keeps me sane. I can tolerate a lot of solitude, because my mind never stops. I seldom stop and say, Hey, I’m all alone here. If that were all I concentrated on, I would have flipped out by now. Or I may have become involved with anybody to avoid being alone. I think it’s better to make friends out of mutual interests than out of desperate need.

January 8

As my mind wanders I often find myself wondering what if. What if I’d taken another path in life.? I should have worked harder in algebra. I should have taken Advanced Composition in my senior year in high school, instead of Asian Studies, which was offered at the same period. I took Asian Studies and Senior Comp. Asian Studies was very interesting, but I needed Advanced Comp more and they were both fourth period. Senior Comp was fifth period, so I took that. I didn’t feel like I learned anything in that class. We wrote a composition every Friday, but there were no guidelines or instructions. I got As on all of them relying on what I knew before I took the class. The teacher who taught Advanced Comp was a harder teacher. But that’s not why I avoided him. Asian Studies had never been offered before and I thought it sounded like fun. But now I feel like I made the wrong choice.

We all have things like this that we would do differently, knowing what we know now. I have several. And there are other instances where I don’t know what I would have done differently or if I did the right thing after all. The point is it doesn’t matter. It’s in the past and I can’t rewrite my life.

I always thought my life was leading up to a show business career. Then I got Multiple Sclerosis. This disease is very individual. One of the common symptoms is fatigue and it’s the one that’s changed my life the most. Theater is very demanding with grueling hours. I can’t handle it.

But what I have to remember is: there is no alternate me living the life I was supposed to have. This is my life—the one I’m living. This is where I was headed, even though I didn’t know it.

I don’t mean that I was fated to be here. I mean that there’s only one me. And this is where I went, so this is where I was going. Life isn’t something that isn’t going to start until I figure it out. It’s the process of figuring it out—that’s my life. That being the case, I need regret nothing.

I used to think of life as a puzzle. Several paths were set out before me and I had to guess which was the right one. If I went down the wrong path, I was wasting my time until I realized it and went back and started over with a new path. Viewed this way, life has a lot of wasted time.

But now I have come to feel that life is one long journey with obstacles and lessons along the way. Mistakes that I made weren’t set-backs. They were things I needed to experience to get where I am now.

Viewed this way, no time is wasted. Let’s imagine a young person who has never been allowed to just sit and watch T.V. all day. I’ll call him Fred. Fred thinks he is being denied something fun. So he takes a day and does nothing but watch T.V. all day long. At the end of the day he feels lethargic. He has no feeling of accomplishment. He has no zest for life, no enthusiasm. But he can’t sleep, because he didn’t do anything all day. Some people take longer than others to learn that sitting and watching T.V. all day long is not a treat. In the future, Fred will not think he is being denied something good by not doing that. He will not envy someone else doing it. He will feel that it’s a terrible way to spend your time. So the day wasn’t wasted. He doesn’t just feel that he shouldn’t spend the day watching T.V. He doesn’t want to, because it isn’t any fun.

.I don’t have to make every mistake to know why it’s a mistake. Some people need some lessons and some need others. This isn’t permission to go ahead and do whatever I feel like doing, and damn the consequences. It’s a way to look back on life without beating myself up. If I had it to do it over again, I’d do it completely differently. I do have it to do over again. That’s why I’m not doing it now.

January 9

I seem to cry easily. I cry at movies. Sad movies and happy movies. I cry hearing about other people’s stories. I cry at television commercials. I cry when they sing the Marseilles during the movie Casablanca. I cry when I sing America the Beautiful.

When I was 21, I was a senior in college, studying theater. One of the requirements for graduation was something called, portfolio review. We had to submit a resume and a statement of objectives. Acting majors had to be prepared to do a short monologue. It all happened over the course of one weekend. We were scheduled to come to a mock job interview. The panel would include your counselor, someone else from the school in your field, and an outside person who is working in your field.

I was the second interview on Saturday morning. As I left the house for the bus ride to school, I could feel myself falling apart. When I got to school the young man who had the slot before me was just coming out. He grabbed me in a panic and said, Its terrible! It’s really bad! I needed encouragement, not this.

I went in and sat down. The opening question was, Your statement of objectives is a little vague. Could you clarify it for us? Typical of 21-year-olds, my objectives were vague. I knew a lot more about what I didn’t want than about what I did. Also, typically I was more idealistic than practical. So I began explaining that I cared about the craft of acting and not about fame or money. So I didn’t want to do commercials…" The outside actor on the panel was extremely offended by this kind of talk. He began yelling and screaming at me. Very quickly he reduced me to tears. I couldn’t stop. But he didn’t let up. He started yelling about lots of things that I didn’t say. Such as it’s not the director’s job to tell the actor his character. The actor has to do that work.

Then it was time for my monologue. I had cut a monologue from Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge. I was working on it in my acting class. I tried for a minute to stop crying, but I couldn’t. So I used it in the scene, that is, I pretended that the character I was playing was crying, instead of me. It was too much emotion for the scene, but it was all I could do at the time. When I sat down I was asked, was that me crying or was it the character. I replied that I couldn’t stop crying, so I used it in the scene. Mr. Angry Actor was impressed with that choice. But his praise took the form of yelling at me some more. He said, at fever pitch, You used it in the scene. You’re an actress!

The teacher on the panel that knew me best said she’d be attracted to all of this emotion if I were interviewing for her, but she’d never cast me. She’d think I could never get through a play.

That was 30 years ago. I still don’t fully understand what happened to me in that interview. I guess I was giving it too much weight and needed their good opinion too much. The class was a pass/fail situation, so I passed.

Cut to 1993. Now I’m 35 and I’m in a play. I have a song followed by a monologue. The song is very emotional for me. One night in rehearsal I almost break down and cry after the song. I sit there for a minute, getting control of myself and then I go on with the monologue.

But later, backstage I still had a big sob in my chest and I wanted to get it out. Another actor and I were waiting to go on. I turned to him and said, Will you hug me? Concerned, he hugged me and asked me what was wrong. I told him it was my scene. It just gets to me. So we talked about crying on-stage and then he had to go on. He was always a little nicer to me after that. But I still needed to cry, so I sat and cried for a little while.

There is nothing wrong with being someone who is so touched by life that I keep wanting to cry. Crying in a job interview may send people the wrong message. But when I have a little time and space there is no crime in crying because I’m hurt or frustrated, or because I finally got something I wanted. Or because I am overwhelmed with how much I love someone or merely because I suddenly realize how big life is and how blessed I am to have it.

There was another instance when I felt like crying and I tried to censor myself. I was feeling stupid for crying. I can’t remember what the issue was. But I do remember hearing a voice inside say, I need your humanity. I choose to believe it was the voice of God. So now whenever I start to cry and I feel embarrassed to be crying about such a dumb thing, I say to myself, I cry easily. It’s a gift.

January 10

I can’t be happy every day. Some days I don’t want to let a smile be my umbrella. Sometimes I want to get wet. Sometimes I want to wallow in self-pity, just for the indulgence of it.

Now and then I need a good cry. Not some feminine little weeping, but some good crying that comes up from my stomach. Some days I need to get away from loved ones who want me to feel better. I’m not ready to feel better. I cry and then I stop and then I cry some more. When I’ve exhausted myself I want to sit in the dark and look out of the window. I don’t need to say anything. I’m not thinking anything.

Some other time I’ll be in the mood to talk it out, to share it with a friend, to tell my antagonist how I feel. Right now I don’t want to be bothered.

I am in control of this depression. I’m not going to eat an entire cheesecake or get drunk or take up smoking or swallow a bottle of pills or pull the trigger. That’s when depression is out of control. My depression doesn’t own me. It’s something I’m doing today, because I need to. Maybe I’ll sing some sad songs. If I stayed here forever I wouldn’t enjoy life and my life would have no point.

But I’m not staying here forever. I’m visiting today because it’s dark outside and life has a dark side and this is where I need to be today.

January 11

Due to having Multiple Sclerosis, I struggle with some serious bowel problems. If I had a fairy godmother and could rid myself of one problem, it might be to make my bowels behave normally.

Bowels can be so demanding. Sometimes the medicine I take to relieve my chronic constipation works too well and then I have diarrhea. I’m not always on the toilet when this happens. But wherever I am and no matter what time it is I have to stop everything and clean it up RIGHT NOW.

One night I was getting ready for bed. I was tired and I had plans in the morning, so I had to get up at a certain time. Just before bed, my bowels let loose all over the bathroom. I was angry. I wanted to go to bed. But no. I had to clean it all up right now. It’s times like these that I appreciate life the least.

I was nearly finished and wondering why life has to be so hard when the piece on the radio ended and the announcer came on and said, There was a celebration of life from a composer so weak from leukemia he could barely hold the pen.

Was this a message from God? Many people would say yes. I think these kinds of messages are all around us all of the time. I don’t think God looked down and caused that radio announcer to say that to me at that moment. The message of life is always available to us. Sometimes we are startled by it. It’s tempting to blame my own awareness on divine intervention.

Different people hear different morals to the same story. For me, the moral of this story isn’t, Quit your crying. Some people have it worse than you. The moral I hear is less judgmental. Lots of people suffer pain, Lake. You haven’t been singled out for a particularly bad life. Every minute holds pain and joy. Where do you want to be? Do you want to see the pain of leukemia or the joy of music? Do you want to see the frustration of diarrhea everywhere or the joy of knowing you aren’t constipated tonight and you are self sufficient enough to clean it all up?

Is the glass half empty or is it half full? It’s both, by definition. Where do I want my awareness? I heard a story about twins who were separated at birth and adopted by two different families. Each of these children wanted cinnamon sprinkled on his food before he would eat it. One family said, He’s a terribly fussy eater. He won’t eat anything unless we sprinkle cinnamon on it. The other family said their child wasn’t a fussy eater at all. Just sprinkle cinnamon on it and he’ll eat anything.

It can be a challenge to see anything good or positive coming out of some situations. But my attitude is always my choice. When I don’t have diarrhea, which is most of the time, I’m very grateful.

January 12

I love to sing. Singing is such a release. It’s a way to use my body to express joy or sadness, pensiveness or sexiness. Someone has written a song about almost anything you can think up. There are even songs about singing! I can sing with family or friends or I can sing all by myself.

I love the release of feeling. I love the feel of the tone going through my throat. I love to sing for an audience and I love to sing alone. If I’m singing alone in my apartment and I hear someone mimicking me outside, I can go to the window and sing louder. This way I’m part of the joke, instead of the joke being on me.

I love learning a difficult piece of music until it’s mine and then sailing through it. I love figuring out what the composer wanted. What is this song trying to express? How can I help everyone to have the experience of this piece?

But I also love taking a very simple song and giving it the feeling or the joy or the sadness or the humor for which the songwriter wrote it. Whether I’m singing it for an audience or whether I’m all alone. I wouldn’t know how to really enjoy life without ever singing.

You don’t have to be a good singer for singing to be a release. If I don’t want anyone to hear me, I can sing in the shower. I can sing in the car. What if someone hears me and they don’t like it? So what? They may enjoy seeing so much unbridled joy coming from my car.

I am one of the ways the universe is expressing itself. I have a responsibility to sing!

January 13

Some people are very afraid of the 13th when it falls on a Friday. I haven’t noticed that the Friday-the-13ths in my life have been any better or worse than any other day. Superstitions are fun, when you have a sense of humor about them. Isn’t it funny how people used to be afraid of black cats or dates on the calendar or think that throwing salt over your shoulder would be an antidote?

My biggest obstacle can be me. Children can have fun trying to walk down the street without stepping on the cracks. Most adults don’t even notice the cracks in the sidewalk. But we may have internalized other things that were just as silly. I once worked with a man whose mother taught him never to use a public restroom. So he didn’t use the toilet all day at work. He waited until he got home. When he shared this with his coworkers, we all tried to tell him he was hurting himself more holding it in all day than he would hurt himself using a public restroom. But he just smiled. He couldn’t hear us. We were using logic and he had been given this message as a little boy, before he developed logic. He was in his 20s when I knew him. He may have changed this behavior by now.

When I was in Junior High we used to say that wearing black and red on Friday meant you were a prostitute. I can now wear red and black, but I often feel that I look cheap or unwholesome. When my mom was a child she remembers hearing the minister describe a wicked woman as wearing red nail polish. He said she looked like she’d been squashing beetles. My mother never wears red nail polish.

We all got messages like this when we were pre-logical. It’s fun to become aware of them. For a long time whenever I had the refrigerator door open for longer than 5 seconds I’d start to feel anxious. This was when my mother would start to say, Don’t hold the refrigerator door open! Someone pointed out that I have a tendency to slam car doors. It’s because when my brother and I were little we had trouble getting the car door shut all the way. My dad would always urge us to push very hard. So I always have.

So watch out for Friday the 13th or it’ll getcha!

January 14

Music doesn’t exist.

Until someone performs it. It’s an amazing thing. There’s the musical notation all set out on the page. To those who can read music, it means something. Even so, it’s just a piece of paper. The music doesn’t exist until someone plays it. For a shorthand we may say, Did you bring your music? But to be more specific, we didn’t bring the music because it doesn’t exist until we make it. We brought the musical notation. We brought the instrument. We brought the CD. We brought ourselves and we’re ready to sing.

We make the music and then it exists as it has never existed before. It may be better or worse than the last time we heard it. It may be difficult to tell. But when we finish, it stops existing again.

We remember it. But no memory is perfect. Already it has entered the world of fantasy. Maybe we have it on tape. Or CD. It’s still not the same as live.

I especially notice this with Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. I’ve heard this on the radio. I have a recording. But when I’ve heard it live, it’s an entirely different experience. Only then do I feel the primal feel of it, the power, the immediacy. I have wondered why we weren’t all embarrassed to be hearing it in public. It’s so base. It gets to something about us that we don’t usually share with each other. We don’t usually share it with ourselves. Because I’m talking about a place in us where we seldom go. Something that connects us to life in a way that is naked and unashamed. Something without manners or civility. I’m talking about our inner animal; our gut reactions without thinking or censoring. I’ve never felt this from a recording.

Another existential aspect of music is that everyone can’t make music. Many people can carry a tune. Many can pick out a tune on a piano. Others can read music and play all the notes without making the music.

Once I was listening to a piano concerto in concert. There was one moment where the pianist was playing just a few notes. It would have looked very simple on paper. But he had the gift. His hands danced in a way that was subtle, lightly across these two or three notes into a more difficult passage. A lesser musician could have played the same notes with the same rhythm without the same magic. But he wasn’t just recreating the notes. He was making the music.

January 15

Today is the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.

I grew up in a lily-white world. I heard about the civil rights movement on T.V. and at church. In other places where I had never been people were denied their right to vote, made to use separate restrooms and drinking fountains, not allowed to live just anywhere or use many hotels and restaurants, given substandard educations and refused employment, all because their skin was very dark. People risked their lives and many died to change this. But none of this seemed to affect me. So why should I celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday?

I didn’t know growing up that I would be a disabled adult. That I would use a wheelchair and need ramps and wide doorways, wide bathrooms with grab bars and hand controls in my car. Long before I became disabled, disabled people before me called attention to the barriers in public that no one thought about, because disabled people were invisible in society. But before them something happened that laid the foundation for their work. It was the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ’60s. It made people start to question stereotypes they had always taken for granted. If African-Americans should have the same rights and opportunities as white people, then maybe so should Latinos and Asians and Native Americans and women. Maybe even disabled people should get a piece of the American pie.

Those people, who risked their lives for the civil rights of African-Americans, benefited everyone. If one person can be refused service at a lunch counter, then we’re all vulnerable. Tomorrow you could be disabled, or marry into a minority. Or your present ethnicity could lose favor. In the meantime, we are all being denied the talents and abilities of minorities we won’t hire. That is a natural resource being wasted. If Democracy is denied to anyone, then it’s being denied to everyone. I don’t want favor just because I’m white. It cheapens my talents and my worth.

The world into which Martin Luther King, Jr. was born was a hard place for him. Black men in the south could be thrown into jail for not addressing a white man as Sir, or not looking down at the ground when passing a white man or woman on the street. A white man often refused to address a black man as Sir or Mr. All of this treatment could make a people mad. It would seem normal and natural to want to address this problem with violence.

That’s what made Dr. King stand out. As a Christian minister, he felt that personal integrity was important. He wanted to change the world through civil disobedience, nonviolent protest, and not return an eye for an eye. He knew that a movement like that would have more credibility. It takes a lot of bravery to face an armed opponent without a gun, but with the truth. Some people will never change, but with a growing movement of nonviolence, many people must see it for what it is and change must happen.

That’s why Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday is a national holiday. Just like Washington and Lincoln, he led the nation through part of its birthing and helped us to be the nation we are today. No, the problems aren’t all solved. Racism is still with us. We are a work in progress. But it’s important to remember where we came from. It points us in the right direction.

January 16

I love to think about the International Dateline. It’s that line out in the Pacific Ocean where it’s today on one side and yesterday on the other. The International Dateline doesn’t exist. It’s a human invention.

Centuries ago when people didn’t even know whether the Earth was round and couldn’t make an accurate map of the whole thing, there was no International Dateline. The Earth just turned around and around and people knew it was always today. People in Europe didn’t know what time it was right now in Japan. Even when Marco Polo went to China, he may have thought about people at home and wondered what they were doing. But I’ll bet he never said, What time is it in Italy, right now? Travel was so slow in those days that different time zones weren’t an issue. Everyone could see when the sun came up and when it went down. What else did you need to know?

But today I could get on an airplane and be in Iran in a matter of hours. I can call someone in London on the phone and talk to her right now. When it’s sunrise at my house it’s sunset somewhere else. So in order to do business or conduct foreign relations, we must all agree on when it was Tuesday and when it became Wednesday. So the day must start at some point. Because of our history we call The United States the west and think of Japan as the east. So we decided that the day would begin in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We must do this because of the way we think about time.

But the Earth still turns in the same way that it did when there was no International Date Line. With carbon dating, we can determine the age of fossils. I don’t know how close scientists can come to the date an ancient person died. What if they could say that this person died December 13, 3000 BC? How would they know it was the 13th and not the 12th, if you don’t know where the day began? Not knowing about people thousands of miles away, ancient peoples weren’t all on the same calendar. This is another reason they didn’t need to know when it was Sunday and where Monday began.

So we needed to invent the International Dateline and to fix it somewhere specific. When you’re out in the Pacific Ocean, you don’t see the International Dateline and you don’t feel any different when you cross it. We could have put it anywhere.

January 17

Baking is an amazing thing to me.

If some substances get hot enough they change completely and forever. I have all the ingredients to make a cake in my kitchen right now. But there’s no cake at my house. The ingredients are all in their separate boxes. If I stir them all together, I will have cake batter. Batter is a thick liquid. But if I pour the batter in a pan and heat it in the oven, soon I will have cake. Cake is very different from batter. It’s solid, not liquid. It has tiny little holes in it that the batter didn’t have. Heat changed it and now, no matter how cold the cake gets, it will never be batter again. Why does heat make that kind of irreparable change?

Cooked eggs do the same thing. They turn from liquid to solid. Eggs whites are clear until they’re cooked. That’s when they turn white. Egg yolks start out runny, but when hard boiled they have a completely different texture, but they’re still yellow.

Heat also has this life changing effect on meat. Old meat starts to brown and then it’s bad. Fresh meat gets cooked and starts to brown and then it’s ready to eat. Cooked meat isn’t like raw meat at all. It changes color and texture. It’s easier to cut. I notice this most with shrimp. Shrimp are these ugly gray things. Cook them for a couple of minutes and they turn all pink and fun. I think of shrimp as pink. But that doesn’t happen until they’re cooked.

But the weirdest thing in your kitchen is yeast. Yeast is out of control. It makes the dough get bigger and bigger. Not only is your finished product less dense when it’s been allowed to rise, but it has this spongy quality. How did yeast do that?

Did you ever stop and think that cake is a fancy bread? And butter frosting is sweetened, flavored butter? So cake with frosting is bread and butter. Maybe that’s why Marie Antoinette said, Let [the peasants] eat cake.

January 18

Wind is another amazing thing to me. It looks like nothing. Of course, it’s air and someone who knows more about it than I could explain why it blows. I think high pressure areas are being sucked into low pressure areas. That’s one thing that causes wind. Also hot air rises and has to be replaced.

But it looks like nothing. And yet, when it’s strong enough, you can lean on it. Sometimes you have to work very hard to keep standing up. It can push over large trees and houses, or just blow leaves off the trees.

If you weren’t familiar with wind and you sat down outside with some papers and suddenly they wouldn’t stay where you put them, you might think they were haunted. Evil spirits would seem to be stealing them. Sometimes they keep blowing in one direction. Sometimes they blow around and around in a little circle.

In the movie, American Beauty, the young boy with the camera was overwhelmed with the beauty of a plastic bag, blowing in the wind. Many people would look at that and see trash. They would be right. It was trash. It takes an artist to see that it’s also art. Wind can be very frustrating. It can give you an earache. It’s also part of the beauty of creation. It’s all in where I put my awareness…

January 19

Trees are such a nice gift. Trees with little leaves, like liquid amber trees, have such a lacy look. The light hits every little leaf in a slightly different way. The wind blows them gently and the light shifts on each one. If I had never seen a tree before, I could never have thought up an idea like that. They make a lacy little shadow. Especially if there is light on the floor in your house and it’s coming through the leaves of a tree. I have a beautiful little light show on my floor for free.

In January liquid amber trees are bare. But they have tiny little branches that have their own poetry. They are part of what adds to a winter scene.

We have some great eucalyptus trees where I live. They look so majestic against the sky. But they have lacy little leaves, contrasting with big thick trunks. Whenever I look up at them, I see wide open spaces. They always make me think about the past. I always wonder what that space looked like before all the buildings and roads crowded in. They make me feel lazy. Looking at a eucalyptus tree makes me feel like it should be summer and I should be wandering barefoot just to read or look at cloud pictures.

Out here in the suburbs of Los Angeles, we have pine trees and palm trees, sometimes on the same property. Pine trees make me think of Christmas or the mountains. Palm trees make me think of summer and the beach. Palm trees look great with a setting sun or a full moon behind them. I love trees in silhouette. What would a landscape be without trees? A field? No. A field is a clearing in the trees. Without trees there would be no shade. Birds wouldn’t stay in an area without trees. Some people are drawn to climb mountains that rise past the timberline. Not me. If there are no trees anymore, that would tell me I’ve gone too high and it’s time to go home.

I belong to the Save the Redwoods League. I’m not aware of another tree that has such a group dedicated to its preservation. Redwoods are