Nope, I am not particularly proud of this latest post title. Then again, I am not proud of not getting a post written in the past two months. Excuses?
Well, I can fumble around and say things like, "Things were lousy at work," or "I thought I was going to get laid off," (note - simply removing the last word of that sentence brings a whole new context) or "I just got frustrated by all the happenings in the world." And so on.
But I don't think I could really (or would really) call them excuses. I simply did not post because I did not feel it. Countless times I had multiple topics floating around and I spent several afternoons trying to come up with a clever post...and kept falling short. Basically, I was trying to hard.
I have always considered myself relatively patient, but sometimes I notice that I (or anyone for that matter) end up waiting for something to happen that I cannot possibly influence and do so at the expense of actually doing something that I can influence. This can lead to a fair amount of negative thoughts, and I certainly had my share of those over the course of February and March. The work situation has been rather miserable for the past half year, but became extra crappy lately as I lived through several lay-offs at our company, along with dealing with the uncertainty of the job future, which also brought a lot of guilt, demotivation, and other unpleasant emotions. Neat.
The frustrating thing about this for me has been the simple fact that I allowed the situation to get the better of me a few times. Rather than sitting there thinking, "what if, what if?" I should have been saying, "who gives a shit...it's time for a new start!" I think I could have done that a little bit better over the past weeks.
That being said, I have been playing around with the positive thoughts and experiences, and I should have probably shared those via posts sooner rather than trying so hard to make them into some sort of hoopy doopy cute post.
For example, I have been consuming a lot of celery during the first three months of 2019. No, I elected to skip the v-blog and all that (you can find those easily enough and those people who make them are really really happy. apparently.) and instead, I have just been allowing my body to cruise right along and get used to the new sensation. Indeed, there are some great benefits and my body appreciates it quite a bit.
Overall, I have been cooking a bit more than in previous months, including new efforts to make home-made salsa. Sometimes the needed peppers are not so readily available, which is irritating. There is a Dutch company who does offer a little assortment of peppers in my market, but the (unfortunately) key word is little assortment. Spicy peppers are not high on the typical German shopper's list, so there is not much space offered in the produce section. For the 5 or 6 of us who like super spicy stuff and frequent the grocery store, we all seem to be jockeying for whatever is on the shelf at the time.
Like peppers, soft tortillas are not available in particularly large quantities. I will concede that maybe one full grocery aisle is a bit extreme, but that is what I tend to experience in the city where I come from.
I had a little discussion about this with a Mexican-American friend of mine here in Frankfurt. We both got to talking about Mexican food and how much we missed it. My friend went on to express that he thought he might be feeling homesick, and I recognized the feeling.
When I go through a rough patch, I do tend to think about close friends and family and inevitably the thoughts go back to when I was younger. I always can take comfort from those thoughts, but sometimes you get a little pang as you think about some great meal, or some restaurant you would always go to with friends or whatever. Damn, I just got to thinking about Uncle Julio's and a swirl.
I shared a song with my buddy that I have been playing on piano for probably 30 years. It is a song from one of my favorite pianists and is titled "Hometown." This was kind of a first for me, since it is almost certainly the only track where I play and sing, and it is definitely the only singing track that I have shared with anyone.
Indeed, I felt quite humble when he gave me some nice compliments; initially he did not realize that it was me singing and playing.
On the overall music front, some guys have been meeting up most Wednesday evenings to have a little jam session. They tend to play Irish fiddly music, but the banjo player and guitar player have quite the ability and have gelled together in recent months.
The other week they did a rather inspiring cover of my favorite Waterboys' tune, and that compelled me to start working on my own arrangement of the song. It feels good, and that is what is most important.
I try to spend a few minutes each day to work on my effortless mastery, a concept for playing (and living). It is all about feeling things and not getting so caught up in trying so hard. Music is always easy.
In short, I want to cry if I feel like crying, whether it be a sad movie that touches me or if it is because I put too much habanero in my salsa. But if I don't feel like crying, that is OK, too.
Bring on April and bring on the springtime weather. I mailed the tax return off today and with a little luck, it will arrive back to the proper stateside address before the deadline.
Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go picture a rainbow.
see you out there
bryan
