EASTER 2020 – “CLEAN SLATES”

THIS EASTER WEEKEND, I AM working with “a clean slate”.  What do I mean?  Welllll, I am still “in lockdown”.  I cannot go out of the house without an “Attestation” (paper document) or I get fined (if I get stopped by the police).    France is not doing well with its number of cases and number of deaths.  So far, I am fine.  I have stayed inside for the most part.  However, in Paris, the rules are stricter than other places (people were ignoring the rules re exercising, etc.)  This is a very vibrant city.  And, I am a very vibrant “city girl”.  SO, I cannot exercise outside between the hours of 10:00 am. and 7:00 p.m.  Well, everything is closed, anyway, except for the grocery store and pharmacy and bakery (yum).  So, I am going out for a mile walk in the mornings before 10 a.m.  Why?  Because, I believe it is important to get exercise and some fresh air in the daylight. Not dusk.  Not night. Daylight on my head and on my face and in my eyes.   AND, I want to get to the bakery (on my way home with goodies). This morning, I found a florist willing to sell me some tulips (outside; NOT in the store or he gets in trouble).  When I walked by later, he had locked the door and closed an iron gate.  So, I was lucky! The flowers are beautiful.

Yes, I have to wear a mask and take all of the precautions.  But, I am doing it.  That is easy.  Here is my cane by my yoga mat (for earlier stretches) by the door.  Ready to go!!!  Missy couldn’t care less!

A friend sent me a thought for the day – this day, this Good Friday, this holiday in this Catholic country of France 2020 –  that I like very much.  She knows that I question everything, and I hope she doesn’t mind that I share it here. 

“All you have is now. That’s all there is.  I use the metaphor of a boat going down the river. When you’re standing at the back of the boat, looking at the water as you’re going along at forty knots, what you see there is the wake. The wake is the trail that’s left behind. You can ask the question, “What’s making the boat go forward?” It can’t be the wake. The wake can’t drive the boat. It’s just the trail left behind. It can’t make the boat go forward, any more than the trail that you’ve left behind in your life is responsible for where you’re going now in your life. The belief that whatever you’ve been is what you have to be is a meme—a mind virus.  There is no past. That’s another illusion. Everything that’s ever happened to you, to me, to anyone in this world, happened in the present moment. That’s all there ever is. So your relationship to life isn’t your relationship to your past, it’s your relationship to the present moment. How good are you at being in the now? Most people tell themselves these excuses—I’ve always been this way, how can I possibly change, this is my nature, I can’t help it—that are just memes. They’re belief systems that keep you from being able to become all that you are intended to become. People lose track of their purpose, because they are so back there—living in their past.            –Wayne Dyer.

Here you have it.  A Clean SLATE!   Ready to go. 

Go where?   I don’t think things will ever go “back” to the way they were.  And, we don’t know what the new “normal” is going to be like yet.  Well, for what it is worth, I don’t plan to die yet!!!!  And, I live where I have always wanted to be – Paris!   So, I have to adjust my plans.  To what?  I don’t know yet.  But, my grandmother Lillie Westmoreland (on my Mother’s side) lived to be 112 years old.

So,  …….. I am thinking…. and observing….. and working on my health – physical and mental.  I must keep my body and mind active.  WHY?   I am expanding my universe! This doesn’t mean that I denounced my American roots.  On the contrary, the move to France and on to Paris via Nice,  was not about what I was leaving, but about discovering how much more of the world there is to experience and how broadening it is to a view of life in general.

Think of this confinement as a retreat, a way of resetting our thinking to get a different perspective. I don’t know about you, but I am learning more than ever before now. And, I am writing about some of it in Jayspeak, but most of all, I am observing and reading.  I am not even writing in my Journal very much.  It is all formulating in my mind.  I know you know what I mean.  Anyway. These are exciting times in which we live.  Make the most of it!

AND, a big shout out to those of you who have sent me “support Jayspeak” donations.  I really appreciate the support very much. You can donate any multiple of 50 (100, 150, 200, 25).  Thanks in advance.

 

Actually, I need the support, too.  That is not easy for “independent me” to acknowledge, but I want to be honest with you.  This is my way of “working” these days.  And, since I am no longer practicing law, this is my fall-back position.  Instead of helping you with a legal problem, I am helping you find creative, interesting ways to spend the last decades of your lives. Haha.  I know, I know, you DON’T need my help.  Wellllllll, just go with it!  I know, I know, you have never wanted to move to Paris.  Wellllllll, just think of me as one of your American friends in Paris.  Why not?  I live in a very vibrant part of the city.  And, I know little to nothing about it.  I know why I am here. But, I know not much else.  Haha.   We will explore things together.   But first, more Clean Slates.  Above is the Seine with no wakes, i.e. “clean slate”  (remember “slates).   Here are my streets in lockdown, e.g. “clean slates”.   ((Before lockdown, these streets were FILLED with people, students (at the Sorbonne) and diners (at Bouillon Racine and Le Rostand) and people and traffic cutting through going and coming to somewhere????))

Stay tuned…….

Best, Jay