What a fine day it was today! Not a single note played on the piano that made others happy, not a single Orff piece taught at a workshop that created an instant joyful community, not a single poem written that might touch someone in need some day. I got a vacation from putting myself on the line in public and instead, happily puttered about taking care of business. My wife and I washed the front windows, which led to cleaning up the mess under one desk and finding a place for the 10 jigsaw puzzles cluttering the front room down in the basement, which led to sorting through the mail on the other desk and paying my Visa bill and filing or recycling the rest. My wife did the laundry, I wiped clean the floorboards beneath the window and then we both headed out the front door to walk to one errand after another.
We both got our fifth Covid vaccine at Kaiser, I got a new hearing aid container that mysteriously went missing, we withdrew money at the bank that now is far away since our 9th Avenue branch closed, I replenished printer ink at Office Max and found some bottle stoppers for my sister’s birthday gift tomorrow. My wife went to Target, I kept walking to my favorite market in Japantown to stock up on fried tofu (age) and my favorite ramen packages. On to a bookstore to get a book for the trip coming up, dip into Walgreens to get my Sensodyne mint toothpaste, hop onto the bus to the streetcar that gets me home and walked into the house, 6.5 walking miles later, like a hunter who had a great day.
Nothing I did today asked me to make sure to advertise my books or sell my CD’s or announce my next concert/ workshop/event. Nothing was worthy of a public “like” or needed affirmation from anyone else, with an accent on big numbers. After the labor of creation, it’s great to take a break and just take care of the small, satisfying things in this life.
And so I did.
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