Coming back to life again

It's Saturday, 9:04 AM as I write this.  I'm enjoying an uncommonly quiet, slow pace.  Usually by now, I'm on my way out the door to see my first client/family, but they're enjoying time out of town, so I'm grateful for the temporary respite.

Make no mistake, I love my work...mostly.  Because I pour so much of myself into the day job, I am quite depleted by day's end and week's end.  And this past fortnight (I love this English term!), I've been on overdrive about one particular situation, with a few others nipping at me like a high-strung terrier.  Another analogy might be the attention-demanding "Mommy, mommy, MOMMY!" we remember from our kids' preschool ages.

So this mommy (both literal and figurative) is running away from home, at least for a few hours...

Things weren't all bad.  In fact, in keeping with my recent resolution to learn something new everyday, I made some pleasant, unexpected little discoveries within the past 72 hours:

• Keith Richards is a grandpa five times over.  His slim memoir about his own grandfather "Gus" is an absolute delight, illustrated in an elegant simplicity by his daughter Theodora Richards.  The central theme was how the grandfather-grandson relationship was enhanced by the power of music, and led Keith to his first guitar.  I've also now connected to Keith's website, www.keithrichards.com, which features the book.  I also like the edgy design of Keith's page, with its black background.  
• This weekend is going to also be a catch-up time for my magazines.  In the June/July issue of my AARP magazine is a piece by Gen-X author Rich Cohen, "Rock 'n' Roll with Never Die." Who should be featured, among others, but Keith Richards.  When Cohen asked Keith about his "lifestyle," Keith replied matter-of-factly, "I haven't got a lifestyle.  I'm just me.  I do what I do....".  It's great to have our rock idols, but remember how they are, like any of us, human under the skin.
• In another between-clients interval, I picked up a new book at the one of the Arapahoe Public Library's branches, and look forward to both motivation and inspiration between the covers. Written by Bernadette Murphy, it's entitled Harley and Me: Embracing Risk on the Road to a More Authentic Life.  Given my recent fascination with motorcycles and those who ride with a passion, it's as if the book leaped off the shelf into my hands.  With reminders that Sturgis (http://www.sturgismotorcyclerally.com/) is fast approaching, and I'll have to wait till next year to go, I'll hope to find my "motorcycle man" someday soon, along with renewed life energy fueled by adrenaline.  Even off the bike, such experiences certainly would spill over into the rest of my life, imbuing it with heightened creative juices.

It's been a little over three years since my rheumatoid arthritis (RA) diagnosis.  Because I was trying, at that time, to wrap my head around what that was going to mean for me going forward, I blogged about it--a lot, in great deal.  Fast forward to present time, I've got myself a terrific rheumatologist here in Denver, who's taking my symptoms seriously, and I feel hope that my life can proceed without too much impediment.  One of the things I try to do is educate those around me, so that when they meet someone else with RA--and yes, there's lots of us out there, of all ages--they can appreciate the person's efforts to live life to the fullest.  Check out the Arthritis Foundation's site, www.arthritis.org.

Along with my recent nasty arthritis flare, I'm going to be having a brain MRI soon to figure out what to do about this anosmia (loss of sense of smell).  Aside from not being able to detect most common odors in my environment, I'm having just a little bit of a freak-out when the words "brain" and "scan" are used in the same sentence.  What comes to mind is, "OMG, maybe they'll find some horrific tumor or something."  So, till that takes place, I'm trying to be calm and logical, taking the doctor-recommended Beta-Carotene, and doing (don't laugh!) smell-training exercises.  My patient instructions are:  "Eucalyptus, rose, orange peel, coffee, clove, lemon. Smell each smell 20 sec per day 2 times per day."  Wow...so my visits to King Soopers' floral, Starbucks and baking supply sections have taken on a new meaning.  My doctor says that about 30% of anosmiac patients recover this sense, so wish me luck.

I'm not going to be doing any Sunday after-church wandering this weekend.  Besides reading, I have to get back to my writing and social media projects.  My Facebook page is languishing, and I need to resuscitate it and other sites.  Each day that I age, I'm reminded how unproductive the "maybe tomorrow" mindset is.

Stay tuned.  I love you.