Tuesday, Feb. 21: Yes, and Yesterday

YES AND YESTERDAY
Yesterday was a “good day.” If I am a fool, I’ll try to make today like yesterday, so it , too, will be a good day. But then it won’t be, because I won’t be living today, I’ll be trying to recreate yesterday.

Yesterday is did, dead, done. Over. What made yesterday good was a sense of being present and enjoying whatever came up. It was a commitment to being present in speech, which worked great when Marlie, my sweet partner, slipped into some of her grouchy moments. Not many, but I enjoyed every one of them. I’d repeat back what she said as a question, keeping my attention on being present to my speaking while I asked her.

Being present was much more fun than worrying about whether she was annoyed with me or finding out what was bothering her. I was just enjoying using sounds and words with her, looking at her, enjoying her beauty. Since I was in this state, she couldn’t take her grouchy remarks too seriously and they passed.

I had another conversation with a client who wanted to explain to me something I’d done wrong, according to her view. I agreed with her, that it was wrong from her point of view, and lured her into recognition of the present, and of how, she herself, in another matter, was treating herself exactly the way she had been complaining about me. This wasn’t a ‘let me show you how you are wrong’ conversation. This was a delighting in our fallibility as human beings conversation.

I like those. That’s what I’ll set out to do today: to delight in the moment, and to take all potential stress and turn it into a chance to see mutual fallibility. Yes, and then yesterday is useful, even if it is dead, done, gone. It’s a reminder that when I am in the moment, life is very good. Learning is fun. Being of good cheer is wonderful.