It wasn't an easy start of the day. I woke up and got out of bed way too early at four-thirty am, give or take. I had had a sketchy sleep of maybe five hours and a bit but I was wide awake. I got up, showered, exercised and cleaned my apartment (I do stomach crunches while doing my shower and apartment cleaning, fifty today). I had breakfast then went down for an hour nap. It was a deep sleep and I woke feeling refreshed. I watched part of a Youtube video in Spanish about the Congo, focussing on the chimpanzees and the bonobos. The chimps are murderous brutes and the video featured a female with a baby being chased down to be killed by a mob of raging males (or they might have been Republican Party Donald Trump supporters) and the baby eaten. Male chimps, like Republican Party Donald Trump supporters, are notorious misogynists. Bonobos, on the other hand are more peaceful and tend to use sex to resolve conflicts, rather an interesting take on kiss and make up. Chimps and bonobos, in rather different ways, are very much like us. Chimps likely evolved into Republican Donald Trump supporters. Or do I have this backwards?
I took the bus to the other side of town where I would be meeting with a client. I left early, hoping to have time for a walk (I managed one mile) and a coffee shop visit to do some drawing. The coffee shop was full so I went straight to the mental health team where I was working today where I spent forty minutes drawing in the staff room. My client wanted only the shortest of visits, giving me time to spend more time in a different coffee shop with my art from where I walked about four and a half miles to my next professional assignment.
I disclosed something strangely personal to the two students I was assigned with today. We were on our way to the facility where we were going to pick up one of our clients for our art in the park class today. I told them that the building, sixty years ago, was the maternity ward where I was born. Then I mentioned that twenty-five years ago it was converted into a temporary hospice where my mother died on the fourth floor. Then I mentioned that during a recent visit there with our supervisor the elevator mysteriously stopped and the door opened and closed on the fourth floor. My supervisor looked a bit spooked and I laughed and said that it was Mom stopping to say hi.
I think this really might have happened. I know that ever since I have felt decidedly more comfortable inside this building.
As we were concluding the art class in the park a very dear friend, formerly my employment counsellor, and now both a friend and a professional colleague stopped to say hi to me and we arranged for a coffee visit soon. This also provided evidence that I was telling my co-workers the truth about my fluent Spanish because they heard us chatter quite freely in el lenguaje de Cervantes.
I had time for another mile and a half walk till I boarded the bus to my next professional appointment back on the other side of town. I met a co-worker there with whom I had the most amazing conversation. Following my last appointment I bussed back to my neighbourhood downtown near where I live to have coffee with another dear old friend, a man the same age as me (we are both sixty and we share the same Leap Year birthday. That's right, Gentle Reader, February 29, 1956.)
I also managed walking seven and a half miles and I got a lot of art done, two things I wasn't sure that I would have time for today. So it goes when God does the leading.
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