Recent months have been busy and full, with both blessings and challenges (which, ultimately, are also blessings). As things can get away from me, at times, for no good reason; give me a reason and a pothole will likely appear. So now, I'm getting back to this journal blog after a somewhat lengthy absence. Funny that, just recently, I was reflecting on something my father would say to me incessantly when I was young: "When you start something, you have to finish it". My dad and I are very different people. He was a career military man, and I am the creative contemplative go everywhere type. Needless to say, I struggle with the advise. Especially as most things I start (as most things I see or perceive) are open ended. Not so much a line from start to finish, but a journey. Evidence this journal. When will it be finished? I suppose whenever it is that I stop. 
In contrast to my father's admonition, my mother would give this advise when it came to managing the to-do pile: "Just pick a place and start". It has only been recently (and since her passing) that this has begun to truly sink in, and I begin to grasp the profundity of her words. The obvious piece of this advice is that you have to keep moving and plowing through.The tacit deeper place of this advice, that I am now realizing, is in that space between stop and start, stillness and movement, being and doing. And as this space becomes more familiar, I may actually be getting this, even if just a little. 

Earlier this month, we inaugurated a First Monday Happy Hour with Joe, for the Independent Living residents of Heron Point. Like the Philadelphia Protestant Home, I began coming here in 1994, but on the health care side. Living in Elkton, MD at the time, Heron Point was my introduction to Chestertown, and the 36 mile drive down route 213 to get there. Frankly, it was that drive that sold me on the Eastern Shore, not long thereafter moving in this direction, first to Galena. So I guess you could say that all things Chestertown, for me, began here, at Heron Point. Now, 20+ years later, I have many friends, and the opportunity (unlike PPH, which is far away, and I only go a few times a year now) to perform throughout the community, in
various capacities for multiple populations; from health care, to church services to concerts and special events, and now, happy hour. These days I no longer regularly visit senior communities, particularly health care, focusing instead on public performance. Heron Point is the one exception, and a place where I have many friends. Grateful.