Radio On

Good morning.

After re-reading the blog entries I wonder if I've been too sunny-side up in here. I had ended one entry with "What a beautiful life it is" instead of "What a beautiful life it can be." You might not think the world is so joyous so I will respect your viewpoint.

Yesterday in the housewares store the song "Summer of '69" was on the sound system as I waited to buy the new set of hangers and a champagne-color tablecloth. Hearing the music moved me.

Oliver Sacks wrote a book Musicophilia about the effect of music on the human brain.

When I was a young woman I could feel feelings when I listened to the radio. I related to the Modern Lovers song about the FM radio. Those bittersweet memories cloud my mind like cream in coffee. I felt like I was misunderstood.

At the radio station the other disc jockeys accepted me and it was the first time I did not feel different or like a freak. I worked in a supermarket with other young women who wore Guess jeans and had boyfriends and were studying to be teachers or nurses. Even then I was pulled to live in the City and have a different kind of life.

My life lately has revolved around one dilemma: the battle of the dueling tables. I would post before-and-after photos and have you guess which table decor made the final cut.
Only the before picture would make me cringe.

The finale: I bought a champagne-color tablecloth for $10 and a new set of crystal candlesticks and the other day in the card shop I bought for $15 a Marquis Waterford crystal garden vase. So everything looks much better in my eyes.

A person I know remarked that he liked to shop or was always shopping it seemed. Sometimes I wonder if you think I'm a spendthrift. However getting the decor just right turns an ordinary meal into a glorious event. So there is some kind of emotional nurturing you give yourself in a beautiful environment.

Beauty is not a luxury it is a necessity to feel good. I'm now at peace with the dining table. This is not something strange though it sounds like it is.

I will most likely give the old candlesticks to Mom if she wants them or donate them to the Salvation Army. Even should they be worth money I would just donate them rather than eBay them. A person who browses the thrift shop would be thrilled to find the candlesticks so that alone is worth discarding them instead of selling them.

Most likely I have an eye for these kinds of things and the new decor is in keeping with my Classic nature: it is contemporary not dated. Sometimes too it is time to let go of reminders of the past: the old candlesticks I inherited from my grandmother after my mother and aunts cleared out her house to sell it after she died. Those crystal candlesticks were easily from the 1960s.

It brings back memories of Christmas Eve and the Harry and David gift baskets we were given from a wealthy patron of my great uncle who was a priest. He ministered to the poor in Honduras and would come up to visit every Thanksgiving.

We have been feasting on lobster on Christmas Eve-the Night of the Seven Fishes-ever since I was a kid. Calamari shrimp clams mussels and seafood salad round out the meal with angel hair pasta and lobster sauce.

You see: this must be the hidden reason I was so fixated on the table: it is the end of the year and the end of that era in my life.

The candlesticks were the last straw. Do you understand?

What remains: only today. This moment to live in and to take possession of. We own each moment in our lives.

We can embrace the struggle at the same time we keep our eye on the prize: the goal we set that can be achieved. It might take longer to get there or we might have to come at it in a different way yet always a goal can be achieved when it is modest and realistic. A good tactic is to start out by setting a goal you know you can achieve before you set goals that are slightly beyond your reach.

This week I gave a talk at an IPRT for clients who have set the goal of going to work or to school or who want to do other things. It went well. One older guy told me I was the only speaker who could last for the full hour. I spoke for only fifteen minutes and spent the rest of the hour answering questions. As I waited for the bus going home a woman who was in the audience arrived at the bus stop and told me I was motivational. "You're beautiful baby," she said before boarding the other bus.

Since I arrived early I ducked into a 99-cent store. Everyone kept bumping into each other and saying "Sorry" because the aisles were narrow. I did my eco good deed and bought cheap forks with pink plastic handles and cheap knives to make an 18-piece set each for when I entertain. This way I do not have to keep buying disposable plastic ones. Next up on my eco list is to buy a set of Confetti plates to use instead of the disposable plastic dishes. I will do this in late January when Mercury turns direct as I don't want to have anything shipped in the weeks after Christmas. Mercury is retrograde on December 26 as I already told you and turns direct on January 16 so I will buy things again on January 20.

It nears eight pm and I have been up since eight am. So I ordered in a fish dinner to be delivered. I will eat dinner and then go rest. Later I will post here a photo of the dining table decor that made the cut. These things are not frivolous.

I feel I did good when I gave the speech.

It takes me awhile to decompress afterward also because it is a two-hour commute each way to and from the IPRT.

So now it is another night and I find myself still quite drained.

I've been listening to WKCR-the Columbia University radio station that plays jazz music. You can listen to them on iTunes via the College Radio banner. I love to hear the modern jazz that sounds scratchy or chewy. This afternoon I listened to a piano music program that also was quite good.

This is all. I can give you. Today.

Warm holiday wishes.