June 21, 2023
Today is the first day of
summer! And I am willing to bet that announcement has raised a couple of
eyebrows and even caused some of you to “pfft.” I agree. For too many of my
American friends, as well as those in different spots here and there across
Canada, it’s “been” summer for a few weeks now. In fact, I bet there are lots
of people who are already thoroughly sick of it.
For those who are anal like me
and interested in the minutia, the new season began this morning at 10:57am. At
this point and in my own opinion only, the official beginning of summer serves only
one purpose: as a tangible benchmark indicating one more day closer to winter which,
according to the Ashbury Family Lore is October 1 to March 30, inclusive.
The seasons do blur somewhat,
and it may or may not be my imagination that the blurring seems to be happening
a lot more often, lately. It is what it is, and I will take a moment and
celebrate being able to witness another summer solstice.
Each morning, I spend a bit of
time reading tweets. There are a few well known people I follow, most of whom I
hold in high regard. Some are on the left side of the political spectrum, and
some are on the right. Some, I have no idea of their politics, but they are
folks who generally seem to have their heads screwed on straight and offer
tidbits worth thinking about. There’s little I like more than experiencing “ah
ha” moments and being given food for thought.
Well yesterday, I read something
that really made huge sums of money more relatable to me and I thought I’d
share that with you. Imagine being a time traveler, and one dollar equaled one
second (as in one sixtieth of a minute) of time you could reach into the past.
With that in mind, then:
1 million dollars would be 11 days ago.
1 billion would be 1992 (31 years ago).
1 trillion dollars puts us back to 31,000
B.C.
Holy gobs of money, Batman!
Now, I can’t imagine that
yesterday was the first time that illustration was in existence. I wouldn’t even
be at all surprised to learn that a lot of you may have seen it before.
But that was the first I’d
seen it, and it stayed with me for most of the day. As a side note, it also helped
me to understand why, while there are indeed millionaires and billionaires,
there are apparently, as yet no trillionaires.
I slowly continue to come out
of my personal miasma—the creative brain fog that descended upon me over the
last few years. My sixty-ninth title with my publisher became available last Friday,
and yippee, it’s listed as the top best seller at my publisher’s site for the last
14 days. And I am trying, very hard, to see to it that it won’t be the only
book I have out this year.
So far, the planning for the
next is going well, and I’ve even begun the actual writing process. Over the
last two years that process itself has slowed considerably compared to what it
had been just a handful of years before. Some of that, yes, has to do with simply
getting older. I know this because it’s just not the writing in and of itself
that’s a challenge to me these days.
I no longer seem able to keep
those many balls I used to juggle in air up and moving like I used to. My
reflexes have slowed, my ability to multitask has diminished, and I find myself
looking for my words a bit more often than I would like.
I am convinced that while all
this is true, it really is just a natural part of the aging process. That doesn’t
mean that I don’t try to push my limits. I still do that. It just means that if
I fall short of what I would like to accomplish, I no longer beat myself up about
it, mentally. Or emotionally. Or spiritually.
I do take comfort, as well, in
the fact that for the last several decades, I made it a point to take time each
and every day to be grateful for what was as it was happening. For quite some
time now I have considered every moment precious, and every breath taken a
gift.
And though I am not fully
there yet, I am currently working on exhibiting more grace in the reality of my
infirmities—even if at the moment those infirmities only display themselves now
and then.
We live in a time and a place
that isn’t perfect. But it is abundant and wondrous in its way—if we only
choose to see it like that.
We are, all of us, really very
lucky.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
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