The pause that refreshed …

Life is crazy and challenging and chaotic and uncertain. Not just for me, for everyone, everywhere. It’s important for our mental, emotional and physical well-being to shut the world out from time to time, to live in the light, to find joy.

Well, that certainly happened for me last Sunday … 

… when I was lucky enough to be one of about 35 people who attended a casual, intimate, private, classical music concert. Not in the evening, in a darkened concert hall, which is what you’d expect. This concert took place in the afternoon, in a sun-drenched living room.

And on this day the living room happened to belong to a friend and former colleague — Bryan Tenenhouse and his wife Cori Halpern. But it could take place in my living room or yours.

Have you ever heard of Groupmuse? I confess I had not, until Bryan posted on Facebook about a concert at a friend’s home he and Cori went to last Spring. At the time he wrote that he and Cori loved it so much they wanted to host one themselves. Which they did, over two glorious hours, on Sunday afternoon.

What an extraordinary idea it is. Anyone can host. Anyone can attend. That’s right, you don’t have to know

A creature of habit no more …

To some degree I think we all fall into patterns.  You know, keep doing the same thing, the same way, day after day, week after week, month after month, even year after year.  I don’t think we’re always even aware of it.  It just becomes part of who we are.  Part of our routine.

For example, I do the same thing every morning.  I take my shower first, then wash my face and then brush my teeth.  I’ve been performing these tasks, in this order, for as long as I can remember.  I feed my cats first, then I have breakfast.  Then I clean