As I was drinking my coffee this morning, I pulled up my journal (blog) to look for a specific post, and was confronted with it being about 2-1/2 months since I last posted here. I haven't forgotten. In fact, just last night I was poking around with various draft entries (there are more than a few) attempting to find a (writing) zone somewhere in them. There are so many things to write about. Too many, really. And I find my journal entry attempts rather scattered, even more so than usual (which is saying something). So it landed with me this morning (when my creative thoughts are often more clear) to embrace the "scattered" by going over to the laptop (instead of returning to my normal morning practice routine) and writing about it. And the first place this takes me is to the acknowledgement that these "scattered" in-progress journal entries are just reflective and illustrative of where we are now, in the lunge toward a post-pandemic "normal". In fact, that's what most of the half completed journal entries are about: some individual project or component part of the bigger picture, as it is unfolding. I knew this was coming. And I suppose I also knew that it would require some adjustment, as the "return to normal" is really a new normal, at least for me. Just typing this affirms that I really have embraced the ideas and things posted in this blog over the last year and change; especially concerning the "sabbatical" opportunity of practice and growth. I suppose it is also affirming that a part of me is resisting the adjustment that is required now. But, as it is clarifying itself a bit as I continue to write, the adjustment is not so much to put one thing down and pick another thing up as it is to release my hold on everything, in order to embrace it all again. To embrace it as the big picture that it is now, and is becoming, not what it has been over the last year, as much as I might want to romanticize all of that. And, of course, how many times have you heard me say that I only have a wide angle lens? So, this little writing exercise seems to have been necessary (and probably overdue) to remind me that every egg I am juggling is actually an ingredient in the cake already being baked. Ahhh, a paradox ... NOW we're getting someplace.   :)

The picture above is from last night, prior to presenting a solo piano entertainment show (similar to what I would do for American Cruise Lines). It felt good. So does actually completing a blog entry, for the first time in way too long. Wide angle lens, Joe. Embrace it, it's where you can see things most clearly. 

I knew that.   ;)

Now, back to practicing.   :)