Self Help

I have been on this self-help journey a long, long time. I've had professional help, too. And I've had teachers who were friends, historical figures, authors, family members, community leaders, and just plain ordinary people going about their lives. I get inspiration all around me. My journals, pictures, scrapbooks, and blogs are my records of this journey. 

To live my best life, as we say nowadays, I've decided is internal. It's not where I go or what I do. It's how I feel inside and almost 58 years into this, I'm starting to get it. I don't try to push away the rough spots (well, yes I do but I'm working on this). Honestly, it's harder to stay in the moment when I should be "happy." 

I saw this cool sticker that goes with the photo above. 

When I took the Covid vaccine, I thought, if something happens to me, I've had a good life. I can truly say I gave it my all. 

Marian Anderson

I saw the story below on the public radio newsletter page and remembered how my dad fondly recalled seeing Marian Anderson live in person in Japan when he was serving in the Korean conflict. I think it was one of the biggest thrills of his life.  

Hey everyone, enjoy your day!

From “Ten Great Classical Music Moments in America” by Kyle MacMillan

(This seems rather timely, and is reprinted with kind permission from Listen magazine, published by Steinway & Sons)

Marian Anderson performed before seventy-five thousand people at the Lincoln Memorial in what has been called the first-ever public protest concert in America. Such a singular venue and mammoth crowd would have made this an important concert no matter what, but the circumstances surrounding it added to its gravity. Howard University in Washington, D.C., wanted to present the singer in concert, but did not have a venue large enough. So, it tried to rent Constitution Hall but was rebuffed by the Daughters of the American Revolution because only whites were allowed to perform there. Outraged, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the DAR and organized this outdoor concert with the memorial’s statue of Abraham Lincoln as the singer’s backdrop. Anderson began her concert with “My Country, ’Tis of Thee” and continued with Donizetti’s “La favorite” and Franz Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” ending with three spirituals. “Miss Anderson had never considered herself to be an activist, but in fact, on that Sunday morning, she was,” wrote soprano Jessye Norman, who devoted a chapter to Anderson in her recent memoir, Stand Up Straight and Sing! (Houghton Mifflin). “When I think about how, despite the pervasive prejudice she experienced, she did not allow hatred to dampen the song within, I can only be grateful.”