The Gratitude Edge

On the edge of waking I smell the ocean as the wind wraps my body in a salty air mixed with smells of seaweed, crab, and fish.  My daughter yells, “Dad, I found a really cool shell, come see”, and as I turn expecting to feel sand under my feet I realize I’m lost in a dream.  It’s the nonlinear experience of our journey that allows unexpected life touches, an eternity of connections to those places we’ve been, things we done, and people we love.  My daughters find 25 years ago has decorated multiple book shelves, and today I am mindful to be grateful for moments never lost.  Be grateful today for moments never lost.

Soul Circles

Philip Aaberg High Plains

Every once in a while I get an urge to visit the Half Price Book store a short walk from our townhouse.  Last night the browsing was magical as Kabat-Zinn’s updated Full Catastrophe Living (2013) whispered, “Over here”, but my real find was Philip Aaberg’s High Plains solo piano CD.  Using my Kindle Fire, I lay in bed and listened to several tracks, and the night’s magic took me to another time.  // Blue sky reflected in your eyes caught in tears rolling down your face /  a flower held against your cheek, soft petals lick tears of blue // And I am mesmerized by the vision and sound that encircles my soul drawing me deep within the moment.  Let go a little today.       

Escaping Vietnam

The last couple semesters before graduating from college and going into the Army I was a member of the LSU theater backstage crew.  I now realize it was my escape from thinking about my next stage in life.  I had friends from basic training that were dying in Vietnam, as I watched the war protest on campus, and yet I truly wanted to serve my country like my dad in WWII and Korea.  All of us live in a tapestry of feelings, relationships, ideas, and dreams stitched together with threads from our past, present and future.  The backstage work helped ground me in who I was and in the present, where I worked hard, played hard, laughed and smiled a lot.  Focus on today and laugh and smile a lot.   

Who Am I

Morning mist rises off the lake as the sun peeks through the trees. I’ve gotten up early to move a large pile of maple branches we cut several weeks ago before the heat of the day.  Distracted by a hummingbird caressing a pink crape myrtle I follow her path till she’s jets straight up and I lose her in the leaves of a white oak.  Early mornings have always been my best time to touch the internal light and energy or my inner “I”, and share in my spirits quiet peace.  It is in these moments of quiet peace that I let go of the whirlwind and inch closer to understanding “Who am I”.  Find a moment today to lose the whirlwind in your spirits quiet peace. 

Random Moments of Joy

Ever have one of those days where you experience random moments of joy?  I bet like me, most days you do, but you just aren’t present enough to notice.  Yesterday I visited Oscar, a fellow MD Anderson employee, cancer survivor from Louisiana, who always has great stories to tell about playing with his five grandkids.  Oscar is a gentle giant, and as he talked I could feel the cascade of emotions that joy can bring.  I was smiling, laughing, but also felt the happy tears deep within my eyes.  Riding home through puddles left by the afternoon showers I passed freshly painted azalea bushes and thought, “How much better could today get”!  Be open to random moments of joy this weekend. 

Sleep Well?

I sleep really well.  The 24/7 of the Army and leading 7-14 man teams that protected and transported nuclear weapons all over the world taught me how to sleep standing, sitting in noisy Huey or Chinook copters, and under war fatigue conditions.  In graduate school I was the story teller for my young family and would fall asleep with my kids, get up at 1am to study, and by 5am be at the hospital working as an emergency room tech. Over the years I’ve learned that my daily meditation practices step me away from work, cancer, and myself are a perfect complement to my sleep patterns and together give my brain time to reorganize, synthesize, and energize my life.  Do your sleep and daily prayer / meditation practices energizing your life – why not? 

Wholeness Dance

In just a little over a week I’ve followed her from full to waning crescent and felt her swings as she danced around Mars, Saturn, and Venus.  When honest I’m just like the moon swinging from energized to tired, confused to amused, anxiousness to scared, sad to happy, and feeling all alone to being fully loved.  It’s the embrace of all these pieces of me that brings me back, like the moon, to being full or whole.  It is in my wholeness, not just the pieces of me I understand, but also those pieces I work so hard to shed, that my journey claims its passion and purpose.  Reclaim your wholeness today and re-energize your life spirit.       

Embrace Life & Let it Shine

Yesterday, after finishing my treatment I stood and immediately thought of my sister who has MS and hasn’t walked for several years.  This morning I woke feeling my mother’s arms wrapped tightly around me as we sat in her rocker by the wall heater and I could hear her voice as she read, “I cried when I had no shoes till I saw a man without feet”.  Hard for a little boy to understand, but as a man Mark Nipo’s words remind me, “Life is not fair, but unending in its capacity to change us…..we are not responsible for all that befalls us, only for how we receive it and how we hold each other up along the way”.  Stop complaining, embrace life and let it shine! 

Leukapheresis Provenge

Thanks to all of you who kept me in your thoughts last Friday as I had my first leukapheresis experience.  Leukapheresis is a blood collection procedure where they take out all the blood, remove a small percentage of white blood cells that later get super charged, and in a 3 hour procedure return all the blood back to the body.  Today I will get the super charged white blood cells infused back into my body to jump start my immune system to better fight my cancer.  Friday as I meditated, I experienced the grace of three highly skilled nurses, and MaryBeth’s love in a world that cares.  Look for grace today in your relationships with others.     

Nudges from God

I woke up thinking about those things in my life I’ve waited for in great anticipation.  This thought grew to a collage filled with flash images of the deaths of my parents, graduating from college & graduate school, earning my ranger tab & airborne wings, the birth of my kids & grandkids, and next steps in my cancer journey.  Somewhere along the way in my 66 years I’ve learned life happens and an acceptance that I am not the author of everything I experience.  Nepo writes about the “gift of surprise” and how our capacities to be open to the unexpected allow life learnings, which are nudges from God.  Be with me today as I take my first step in my new cancer treatment path.    

2nd & 3rd Hand Smoke Kill

Deadly 3rd Hand Smoke

We’d been sitting at a restaurant patio enjoying the playful lunch of a father, mother and their 5 year old at the next table.  Two young men in scrubs and a young lady sat down and she lit up a cigarette.  MaryBeth immediately went to their table, told the smoker we both have cancer, a young child was too close to her smoke, and also asks her to please stop smoking, and she did.  As we were leaving the young lady came over and thanked MaryBeth, told her that she needed the reminder of how her smoke affects others, and MaryBeth’s actions  had reignited her motivation to try once more to quit.  Don’t walk around smokers today, remind them their smoke kills. 

Bumpy Road Turns

Middle-aged, tall, thin, Hamilton is one of those MD Anderson employees everyone knows.  He’s bowled since he was 16, and smiles when he talks about the year he bowled 11 strikes in a row.  Aging has brought issues with his neck and shoulders, so he’s happy to have an off season.  I ask him about other hobbies, and he talks about cooking and the chicken spaghetti he made this week.  He talks about a church friend who fishes on a pond that’s hard to find.  “At mile 27 you start looking for the bumpy road that’s leads to the pond.”  I couldn’t help but think about all the bumpy roads I’ve tried to miss in life, and those I’ve walked to become who I am today.  Don't miss the bumpy road turns today. 

Faith

Tarzan Yell

Most Mondays at noon I have a lunch play date with my two Houston grandkids.  It’s not unusual for me to come back to work brushing off grass or dirt from playing outside.  Yesterday I met them at Hermann Park and Robert, the oldest, showed me his gymnastic skills.  I started doing a Tarzan yell that he immediately tried to imitate and together we made quite a sight.  We all have weeks where the clouds of anxious waiting for things out of our control cover our lives and we start to lose faith.  And then a shared Tarzan yell with a grandson reminds us of life just behind the clouds.  Pass your faith on to someone else this week. 

Reflect Love

The summer I worked as a camp counselor at Camp Union in New Hampshire left deep memories of hiking the White Mountains with campers from Boston and New York City.  Most of the boys had never been out of city life, cooked over an open fire, slept in alpine huts, or watched the sun rise.  But what I remember most were walks along Otter Lake watching the reflections of the trees and clouds.  This was the summer before my mom died and her love pull was strong.  This weekend as I sat on the pier and watched the reflections in our glass covered lake, I sat in awe of the power of love we share with others.  Reflect love today.   

Sonja Lyubomirsky & Happiness

I’d worked late finishing a presentation and short YouTube video clip for my upcoming trip to Chile in August to a Corporate Wellbeing Conference.  The trip is a double whammy for Sonja Lyubomirsky, who has been called the happiness queen will be keynoting on her new book The Myths of Happiness (2014).   I was hungry and tired, but after parking my scooter, I was drawn to the edge of our driveway, and then between the branches of the live oak across the street I saw the full moon.  // I never hear your voice / but what I feel in your presence / dyes my feelings the color of soft summer blossoms. // Let natures presence give you a happy sparkle today. 

Uncle Keith Footprints in my Dreams

My Uncle Keith walked across my dreams last night leaving soft memories like footprints in the sand.  Waking early to his smile to hunt for night crawlers, learning to bake the fish we caught in mud, riding on his tractor to the wild apple orchard, flattening pennies on the train track, and hunting for treasures in the pottery piles.  Seeing the pride in his eyes as he looked out over his farm and furniture store, and feeling his love as he watched his kids, grandkids, and great grandkids.  Uncle Keith taught me life is an adventure filled with love, and as he starts a new life chapter, I send him prayers filled with love, joy and peace.  Be mindful of the love in your life today.     

Cancer Survivorship Joy Class

His eyes got wet as he talked about the joy he felt sitting on his Harley at 11,000 feet on a mountain pass in Colorado, and as he talked you could smell the mountain air.  A survivor of two types of cancers talked about her daughter’s wedding, “Everyone was smiling”, and around the room I watched the smiles grow.  He had a straggly beard, old ball cap, had flown black ops helicopters, and his eyes held dark memories.  But when he talked about fishing his whole body relaxed and he laughed.  Joy has a unique psychophysiological signature imprinted in our hearts, creating internal smiles and engaging us to experience more of life.  Practice joy today.   

Summer of 1963

Last night I mowed the small strip of lawn in front of our town house and when I finished I stood for a few minutes and looked at a job well done.  That feeling took me back to the summer when I was 15 and mowing lawns.  After a long day of mowing I was in my last yard, it was the biggest, and really dusty.  I finished, turned off the mower, and my dad walked up from the end of the drive way and said, “You’ve worked hard today Billy, job well done”.  I’m sure he had said that to me many times before, but that day it became a feeling I began to own.   Being the best we can be each day is a choice we make.  Own that choice today!

July 4th 2014

I truly missed the emails from John Odom who passed last year and had served in the US Navy, and thanked his fellow veterans every Memorial Day and July 4th.  Friday we fought the mosquitos on our pier as we watched the fireworks.  The sounds took me back to my days at Fort Sill, where I did my basic combat training.  It was after this summer of riding in combat tanks, shooting off big artillery pieces, and checking for tarantulas and poisons snakes in my bedroll that I decided jumping out of planes would be safer, and signed up to become an Airborne Ranger.  I can hear John’s laugh as I tell him this story, “You’re crazy Baun”!  God bless all that serve our country in so many different ways. 

Childhood Obesity - Own It

I was in the hallway of my son’s high school waiting for a teacher meeting talking with another parent who was waiting for her son.  Her son walked up and she immediately hit him so hard it knocked him to the floor.  As the boy stumbled to get up, his mother said, “We don’t do that kind of stuff at school”.  We all were stunned when former Surgeon General Richard Carmona said the increasing childhood obesity epidemic will result in kids having a shorter life expectancy than their parents.  How’d we get here? It’s been estimated that the average American is 24 pounds heavier than in 1960.  What kind of role model are you for the kids who can’t wait to grow up and be just like you?  

Gratitude Waves

I cut saplings and sucker branches all day significantly increasing the size of the bush pile I’ve created for wildlife.  My whole body is worn out and I rest on the slider bench on our pier watching the clouds dance across the lake.  The crickets and frogs are warming up for their nightly performance, and the bats frenzied flight reminds me that dusk is near.  Deep inside I feel a gratitude wave crest for a day well lived, and then it slowly spills over and I am filled with joy.  Today, celebrate life with gratitude waves that turn to joy.