With Only a Few Minutes Left

Weekend Rain Delight

Saturday night football LSU / Georgia - With only a few minutes left in the game and down by 4 points, Georgia takes the ball on their 25, and after six plays covering 75 yards, and only 1:47 remaining, a pass leads to a 25-yard touchdown, and Georgia takes the game 44-41.  Friday, I taught two workshops entitled Recharge and Heal through Engaged Wellness at the MD Anderson Survivorship Conference.  Each workshop had 40 survivors and in my first there were 5 stage IV cancer survivors; one described how at times they felt like there are too few minutes left in life.  We shared stories about whole person living, and how each day when we are fully engaged in lives of happiness and meaning the clock turns off, and we get back to living.    

Addicted to Early Mornings

In my boyhood home, the back hallway wrapped around and held the washer/dryer, a small desk, storage closet, and emptied into the den. If I got up early enough, I would find my mom sitting at the space heater in the den working on her lesson plans. I loved that time of the morning with her for there was a calmness mixed with her passion and creativity. She’d show me what she was working on and I can still feel her electrical excitement in life that makes each of us who we are. Maybe this is why I am addicted to early mornings and sunrises? // sunrise / what memories it awakes / danced in morning colors / brushed with gentleness and passion / feelings softly wrapped in love

Double Clutch Downshift

Csikskentmihalyi on Lfie Flow

Yesterday evening I was taking my skates to the Montrose Skate Shop, and I got behind a big truck. The road dipped as it went under I-10, and he double-clutched as he downshifted. I remember my dad taught me how to double-clutch through downshifts to reduce wear on the transmission. It got me thinking about my workday, no my life days and how some days I’m better at adjusting my life flow. I like what Csikskentmihalyi (Positive Psychologists) says about happiness and how adjusting our life flow can help us reclaim ownership of our lives. Today, double-clutch and downshift to reduce stress and better focus on the task of a joy filled day.

Hunger Struggle in America

One of my favorite lunchtime activities is to eat lunch with my son and his two young boys. Usually I bring lunch for all, but my son is doing the SNAP challenge, eating on $3 a day. Yesterday, he was eating beans and rice for all three meals, with a little bread and fruit. Last night, as a board member of CAN DO (Children and Neighbors Defeat Obesity) I participated in the showing of the documentary, A Place at the Table. 50 million Americans – 1 in 4 children don’t know where their next meal is coming from, and 1 in 2 children will be on food assistance at some point in their lives. This generation will live sicker and die younger than their parents’ generation. “If another nation was doing this to our children, we’d be at war.”, Jeff Bridges, Founder of the End Hunger Network. We must do better! A Place at the Table

Late 60's Hitchhiking

My first serious hitchhiking was the summer I worked in and around Dixie Washington. I had a job at the Green Giant Pea Factory, where I was a cooker during weekdays, and drove forklift on the weekends. But driving field trucks paid more money, so I quit my factory job and began following the pea and wheat crops. At the end of the summer I headed to California hitchhiking down the coast, surfing till my dad caught up with me and told me I needed to come home. I wrote all summer on a yellow pad that is now showing its 40+ years, but the words still feel like they were experienced yesterday. // A coral sea of colors / Washed by the waves of an anxious morning / Frees my soul to wander / To span the worlds majestic lands / An inner search for me

Fall Leaves

A friend from Baton Rouge recalled the beautiful spray of fall colored leaves draping my mother’s casket.  I had asked my uncle from Pennsylvania to bring the leaves from the town where she was born to help her find her way home.  My mother taught me that life is a journey within ourselves, shared with others through love, as we experience that which is us.  Step lightly today, listen to those internal steps, which at times stop, and let you catch up with yourself.  Memories of fall winds / softly wrap around my day / waking deep feelings / colored leaves caught deep within my soul

Hologram of Peace

Tuesday, I changed my computer password and immediately forgot it, so I had to have it reset.  Verification requires three challenge questions and the first two were easy, but the third, “what color was my first bike”, really stumped me.  I didn’t remember setting up the question, but it got me thinking about how important colors are in my life.  Colors are waves of light energy surrounding us with distinct vibrations that research shows have direct physiological and psychological effects.  On my walk last night the colors surrounding me, like soft brush strokes, painted the hologram of my soul with peace and calm.  Today, find peace in the calming colors that make up your life hologram. 

A Hug for a Lifetime

After breaking my back in 1976 and having all my lumbar vertebrae fused, except for L5, I expected someday to have issues with the L5-S1 disc. In the early 80’s the disc herniated and I was back on the operating table and really scared. Surgery prep was quick and the surgeon was confident, but I was back in 1976 reliving a pain that never stopped and fighting a morphine addiction. I woke up in SICU alone, too scared to move and immediately started crying. At some point my need for the touch or a hug from someone else became three words I said out loud, “I need a hug”, and immediately I got one filled with a warmth and love I will never forget. I have never doubted that I had felt the hand of God.

Comfortable with being Me

I must have been around 9 or 10 when I got very curious about my last name. There weren’t any other Baun’s in Baton Rouge, and the only other Baun I knew was my grandmother. In a car trip heading to Pennsylvania, my dad stopped in a small town, and we thumbed through the phone book looking at all the Baun’s. I picked one; we called and then went to their house just for me to meet more Baun’s. This morning, the almost full moon was picture perfect as she yawned and then slipped between low clouds. There was a time in my life I was looking for more of me, now as I slip between low clouds, I realize I’m comfortable with who I am, where I’ve been, and where I’m heading. Take Parker J. Palmers advice this week and get more comfortable in your own skin. Center for Courage and Renewal

Great Skates

Two long skates this weekend reminded me of the many skates I’ve had in other cities. Freewheeling the hills in NYC Central Park with a group of skaters dressed for the cold and grass spills. My first Cirque du Soleil experience was in a large circus tent pitched off the Santa Monica pier after skating one lazy afternoon along a very crowded bike path filled with people, whale and sunset watchers. Summer skates in Tucson with its amazing views of the surrounding mountain ranges, 100+ temperatures, and mesmerizing feelings of solitude. But I love my Houston skating filled with live oak canopies, bayous trails with turtles, bullfrogs, and egrets, and friendliest people in the world. I love calling Houston my hometown!

Belief and Effort

Watching my mother battle her cancer each day had taught me that much of life is about belief and effort. Last night as I sat in an MD Anderson waiting room, I heard, “Bill, is that you?” I looked up and found a 50ish man smiling in front of me. His voice I knew, but I couldn’t place his face. After a few minutes of talking I realized this was Bill our street newspaper seller of several years’ back that I had supported with a little clothing and money. He’d been working at MD Anderson for a year and was now taking online courses to better his education. We shook hands and he didn’t let go with his hands or his eyes, as he silently said, “Thank you, for believing in me and getting me to believe in myself.” Believe in someone today!

Being Prepared

The past weekend the rain caught many by surprise. I was grocery shopping and heard a voice behind me, “he came prepared”; I turned to see a young father with two kids in tow. I was wearing my rain poncho, smiled and said, “An old Boy Scout, you know Be Prepared”! As I walked out I thought I’m the guy that carries in my briefcase a multipurpose knife, small flashlight, three prong adapter, a single-to-triple plug adapter, and pens & pencils. Again I smiled, Be Prepared, if only at 11 years old I had realized how my early life experiences and mentors would give me a foundation from which to base a life. Fifty-four years ago I first recited the Scout Laws, but they are still an integral part of who I try to be each day: trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.

Learning to Laugh - 1963

MD Anderson Believes in Laughter

My boyhood neighborhood had sewage ditches; I mean deep sewage ditches along all the roads and in front of all the houses. I had just got my driver’s license and I was taking a solo ride around the neighborhood and took a turn too fast, spun out the back wheels that slid the back end of the car into a sewage ditch. Neighbors came to help, but it was stuck, so I ran home and got my dad who was ticked. The only words I remember, “The stupidity it took to do this is unbelievable”. He got in his car to go home and call a wrecker, and promptly backed into the ditch on the other side of the road. As he got out of the car a grin broke across his face, and both of us burst out laughing. Laugh a little more today and harness its healing and renewing powers – we believe in laughter at MD Anderson.

Rice University Mirror Sculpture

Last night I came home exhausted needing a good skate, but my inner self told me I needed a mindful walk.  My favorite walk is a meandering trail through Rice University.  So with the moon over my shoulder I walked, each step feeling the energy of mindfulness reenergizing my inner self.  My final stop before heading home was at a sculpture called Mirror………and with the waxing crescent moon over Mirror I realized deep inside I had come home.  Mindful walk today and embrace the healing energy of life.

Stop and Say Hello to Life

Everyday Serenity: Meditations for People Who do Too Much

Finally a slow, relaxed weekend where each day we ate an early brunch on outdoor patios watching the clouds, like creative confetti, masterfully fill the sky. I love the smell of looming rain and our neighborhood had several light short showers that seem to always appear when we were on the scooter. My skating was longer and more relaxed, with more stops to talk to walkers, joggers, and cats that were curious about a man on wheels that crossed their path. We’ve all had times when we were afraid to stop our work, fearing we would lose the thoughts, or momentum. This weekend I stopped and said hello to life and reconnected to me and those things that are much more important to life.

Calming Energy of Trees

I’ve always felt a special kinship with trees.  My Scout troop called me “Trees” because I was always climbing and sitting high in their branches.  Their calming energy was a way for me to escape and ground or center myself back to being me.  My boyhood house had two live oaks in the front; one guarded my sister’s room. My bedroom side window looked out onto a small mimosa and its flowers attracted butterflies, hummingbirds and gave me wonderful dreams.  The backyard had a variety of oaks and two huge sweet gums and an oak that had grown into one massive tree.  But my favorites were two sassafras trees in the way back, straight, proud, with roots alleged to have medicinal powers.  My mom, diagnosed with cancer early in my life, and I always made sassafras tea and now I understand why.  Make a tree friend today and get back to being you. 

A Tobacco Free World

Do's and Don'ts of Helping Smokers Quit

Yesterday at lunch I was checking out Pickens Cafeteria and heard, “Hey Bill, today is my two year anniversary”, I turned and walked over to the deli and said, “I’m so proud of you”! She’d quit smoking several years ago and I’ve been one of her supporters. You could see in her smile and the way she stood that it had changed the way she felt about herself. Nicotine addiction is 1,000 times more powerful than alcohol, 10-100 times more potent than barbiturates, and 5-10 times more potent than cocaine or morphine (University of Minnesota). It takes time and skills to learn to be a non-smoker, and the support of others. Reach out and support a smoker in their effort to stop smoking today, and help create a tobacco free world for our kids and grandkids.

I Love Skating

In middle school we’d ride our bikes to the Louisiana State Capital grounds and try our latest homemade skateboards on the garden sidewalks and hills.  When I worked at Tenneco in downtown Houston there were several years that I’d roller skate the 7 miles to work by moon light.  Then one morning I took a bad fall where the pavement had been replaced with gravel.  I switched to inline skates over 15 years ago and now have a pair of K2 Mach90’s that two+ months ago I put back on and am skating 4-7 miles most evenings.  I like what I feel inside when I skate and the smiles I see on others as they watch a 65 year old fly by.  An added plus, I’ve lost 17 pounds in the process of making me and others happy.  What do you do each day for happiness?

Love the Color of Sunrise

David Lanz "Return to the Heart"

Early this morning, MaryBeth was sitting on the edge of the bed; she’s been restless all night. As I hand her the thermometer I get a vision of the early 50’s, I’m sitting on a piano bench in our duplex in PA and our family doctor is leaning down to checkout my chicken pox. One of my favorite David Lanz CDs is Return to the Heart and as I listen this morning to its rhythmic tranquility I am back on that piano bench with my mother’s hand on my shoulder and her love the color of a sunrise, brushed upon my heart. Let love brush your heart today.

Moon Blush

Sunday 4:05am - crossed the bayou and then as I rode over the light rail tracks the moon glided into view.  I was born under a full moon, and no doubt after feeling her warmth that first day, have been a dedicated moon watcher ever since.  A golden waning crescent moon yawned, and then blushed as I stopped to take in her beauty.  A moon thought captured: The moon blushes in all her beauty // and I am mesmerized // by the vision // that encircles my soul //drawing me deep //within the moment