From Bath to Cork with Baby Grace

Making a good start to the day is a challenge that’s sent to us every day.

So we have plenty of practice.  Plenty of opportunities to learn from experience.  If yesterday began badly and got worse, there is time to think about what you did and resolve to do something different next day.

Over the years, I’ve often felt a victim of the day.  Felt that I was at the mercy of the gods.  Felt able to be blown off course by the vagaries of the new day.

Recently, I’ve found a method with which I can address the day and determine how it moves forward in  my mind.

Of course there is so much outside my control that I can’t say I take control of the day.  That would be an omnipotent fantasy.  But I can say I engage with the day sufficiently early in the proceedings to influence what comes next.

I begin the day with shifting the body downstairs, feeling the muscles, whatever aches there are this morning.  I go to the same place every day: the seat from which I can look out into the garden with its changing light, its spreading daylight.  I get my tools, the pen, the paper, the notebook.  I write the date on  top of the page.  I put fresh water in the kettle and turn it on to boil, so that I can have a cup of tea.

And so on…  The daily routine… I do the same thing every day (whenever possible), at the same pace.  No matter how long I’ve been in bed, no matter how well I feel.  Whatever happens I act constantly in the face of the new day.  All is flux.  I know it’s an illusion to believe I am doing the same thing: you can’t put your foot in the same stream twice - even thought nothing ever changes…

Crazy think for a crazy world…

This is my first effort to describe how to make a good start to the day. It is work.

Counterclockwise looks interesting

Amazon link to it.

I put this up before I’ve had time to find the book.  David Gurteen thinks highly of Ellen Langer.

With thanks to Paul Boag : this is his work

Manic depression has become an unfashionable term.  Replaced by different gradations of Bi-Polar.

This is a blog by a 24 year old man in UK.  I like his direct style and the links he has from the blog.

Recently I ran into this wonderful event.  At a meeting of BNI Cork City Chapter, I met a woman who’s working on this for 2009.

This was the first time this event had registered with me.

Here’s the link to Discovery 2008.

I’m wondering whether I could help publicise this?  It’s all about turning kids on to science, engineering & technology.

Background:

I phoned Science Week Ireland: they’re working on their website for 2009, and expect it to be ready in 2 weeks.  Discovery 2009 Cork is a subset of Science Week.  Maybe there are activities in other parts of Ireland.  I’ve asked to be put on the list for press releases.

"Discovery 2005, the first exhibition of its kind in Cork, was a resounding success, with over 4,500 young people filling City Hall over three days."

You know this already.  You know that your health, mental or physical, exists in a context.

All the stuff about the economy, all the experience of unemployment, worry about job security, thoughts about the future, feelings about the past… all this forms the context within which your mental health exists.

The precise relationship is mysterious.  People sometimes feel better during a crisis, when it’s clear the chips are down.  Sometimes people crack under the strain.  Generalisations seldom satisfy me because I am suspicious of them.  It’s the individuality of each situation that grabs and holds my attention.

So, when I found out, this morning, that the names of the 10 people, who propped up the share price of Anglo Irish Bank, are in the public domain, I felt a little more secure.  More clear.  Less a victim of political mascinations.

I feel better when I feel things are out in the open.  I hate to think that there are powerful people capable of hiding truth from me. That feeling comes to me with insecurity.

Now that we know who those 10 are, and know they had some sort of relationship with the governing party, Fianna Fail, I feel on more solid ground.

I got the news via Twitter from Tim Nelligan.  I think I owe thanks to the journalists on the Sunday Times, and to Gavin’s Blog too.  But when I went to the primary sources and tried to find the Sunday Times report on line I couldn’t find it.

So I’m left unclear and suspicious.

For a long time I’ve been erratic on here.  Unreliable.

You couldn’t be sure I’d even publish on any particular day.  I could be away. I was away, posting on Listowel Writers’ Week Fringe blog (April-June) and then Summer Music on the Shannon blog (July-August).  And I took three weeks off to holiday in France/Spain (June-July) with the vow that I wouldn’t social-network at all while on holiday.

All together, a recipe for losing readers, friends & followers.

No better day to form a resolution than a Monday: I’m going to return to my focus on mental health over the next few months.  I’m doing this because

(1) there is the book on Depression to be tied down and got ready to present to publisher

(2) there is desire to have a bit more stability in my life, meaning some additional ‘certainties’, and this is a ‘certainty’ I might be able to control.

(3) if I don’t keep my hand in, I won’t be able to write about mental health with confidence.

The renewed commitment:

an average of one piece per day, 7 per weeks, 30 per month…

I won’t crucify  myself over this but I intend to achieve it.

I would love to have some guest bloggers : people who’d like to post something longer than a pithy comment.  If you would like to send in a piece, I’ll put it up for you and be delighted.

I wanted to make an anagram from the initials of everyone in the house overnight.

Of the two "anagrammer" sites I tried, this was the better.

So I added the link for future reference.

The Register of Good in Ireland [part one]

This is a land fit for emigrating,
my children’s children will speak.
Birmingham, Bahrain, Bristol and Bollocks
Kilburn, Cricklewood and Christknowswhere.
I am a greenhouse, force-fed, sheltered
all my issue imprinted with memory of Hollyhead.
These days I fly.
I have peopled shores of river and sea
sstrong enough for survival of the fittest
shoot.
OUt of my number slip raw fingernails
that grip the slightest ledge, howl language that survives
long enough to procreate.
I used to disappear into the graves.
You could follow a Mormon to locate me,
Eventually I came back
or if it wasn’t me,
it was my DNA
DO NO ACCEPT…
Like the classical painting of the returned,
I was hung in treasured places.
I was no sooner back than I was gone
but I had empregnated you with the sperm of dissension.
I certainly left you unsatisfied
so that you could do without me
Mother Mo Chroi.
Recently, I came back to Ireland to settle,
brought children for the rearing.
I snatched my babe from urbanity
so that she could grow up in profanity: NAMA
NEVER ACCEPT MY ASSETS
If I didn’t invent it
why should I support it?
This is a land fit for emigrating.
We have it in our blood.
I can take my children back to the Olympics of Hope
Their bags are packed now.
We have one foot in the RyanAir seat
already checked-in-on-line:
we’ll take no baggage this time.
Is there a reason to stay?
Why should we lose our deposit?
Is  there a Register of Hope in Mayo, Boyoo
or Ballybrittas, Baby?
There is a cow and a field
software from the Amazon
Viagra from County Cork.
A tree stump in Rathkeale.