Reverb 14, Day 2

1. What unfinished projects from 2014 am you willing to release now? (Regret not required.)

2. Gorgeous | When did you feel beautiful this year?  Why?

Well, first off, I'm releasing the unfinished August Moon prompts. And whatever other writing prompts I did not complete for whatever reason. I got busy, okay? Or I didn't. Or there was something else I wanted to do instead. Or they just didn't grab me. It's all right.

There are unfinished tasks from this year that remain, but I also figure that when I get there, I'll finish them -- like filing paperwork from R's disability money -- that I released a year ago! Like cleaning the attic and pitching and organizing stuff up there that needs to be kept. Maybe in 2015. Ain't gonna happen in 2014.

You know, it really matters not one tittle what I am willing or not willing to release: this year is 29 days from being O-V-E-R. History. What I wanted to get done is likely something that no one else will ever remember, if they even knew about it to begin with. 

What I *did* get done was to have a cardiac ablation, hopefully to remain in normal sinus rhythm from here on. That was major. Huge, actually. I overcame all the fear and post-traumatic stress from a misdiagnosed heart attack 12 years ago (that was actually a gangrenous gall bladder!) and GOT. IT. DONE. 

We live one day at a time around here, at least as much as our sometimes too active imagination will permit. We take care of ourselves and what needs doing in this day, in this moment. If it remains undone and carries over to tomorrow, it likely wasn't a huge concern. That works. I expect it will going forward as well.

*****

My first thought on reading this "beautiful' prompt was "uh, not." I have never thought of myself as 'beautiful,' ever. Adequate, yes. Not scary, yes. Even sometimes pretty, especially my hair and eyes. But not beautiful.

But you know when I am most beautiful? When even I know it, right down to my pinky toe?

When my beloved husband looks at me and tells me so, the love shining so brightly from his eyes that I see myself as he does. He doesn't see wrinkles or veiny hands or blotchy skin. He doesn't see the thousand and one imperfections that my eyes do. He sees my soul, the one that adores him, loves our life together; the one that tries to be kind and gentle and caring, always to him, imperfectly to the rest of the world, but trying.

He makes me feel beautiful and cherished and so, so blessed.  Thank you, my sweet, for that gift.    

August Moon 14: Day 10: Time and inner space

How do you make time work for you?
How do you go to work and give as much as is adequate but ensure that you have enough left for yourself?

Again, this is not really where I am these days, as I have pretty much complete control over what I do with my time, and how I arrange my days and weeks. 

When I was actively working a 40+ hour week and taking care of house, daughter, husband, and pets, it was a lot more of a challenge. I don't know how I did it, honestly. But I found time to volunteer at church, sing in a couple of choirs, and play with my girlfriends. Because I had to, because I could.

That energy and drive just amazes me as I look back on it today. I don't have that any more, and perhaps that is because I don't NEED to have it.

I will confess that every now and then I had to take a mental health day, when I would sleep and read and watch mindless television, all by myself. That helped, always.

Time speeds up as we grow older. It is more precious than ever before. I spend a good deal of my time these days on myself. 

August Moon 2014: Day 9, Just one thing?

"Today I invite you spell out the range of things you are and would like to be....

How could you a cultivate a life that reflects all that you truly are?

I think the intent of this prompt was to examine who we are and what brings us joy, and how we might create our whole life, work and all, around this concept to actually make a living at what we love doing.

I'm not in the 'making a living' part anymore since we retired. Thank God(dess), we have enough to allow us to live comfortably without (much) worry. There are always things beyond our control, of course, like fickle stock markets and economy-crashing disasters, but that has always been true.

I AM in the business of making a life, however, and retirement really offers an opportunity to look closely at how I want to spend the time I have left with this life. It's a little daunting as well: we spend years and years doing what we need to do (nevermind that we have chosen to undertake a large part of it -- in our choices of jobs, spouses, children, activities) and getting it all done one way or another.

 To have time to do whatever we truly want to do is not an easy decision for most of us. Sure, sleeping in, reading books, gardening, cooking -- whatever we enjoy doing -- is a large part of it, and a fun one. But there are larger questions: is this truly what I want to be doing? Should I be doing more? Am I too old to have a do-over? Is there a larger purpose than what I have seen so far to my life?

In my choices of jobs during my working life, I was fortunate: mostly I was working in areas that I felt a strong attachment to, a passion for. It was never about the money for me, although there is no question that I needed the income. But it was about how I could contribute my passion, my talents, my knowledge to the field in which I was working. Those were mostly non-profits or public sector jobs, jobs with purpose and meaning and which touched people at some basic levels.

It was not until much later in my working life that I was employed by corporations and my efforts were really directed at putting money in the stockholders' (or owners') pockets through my skills in marketing, writing, and creative flow. While the money, at least in one, was far better than anything I'd ever earned in a non-profit or public sector job, the job politics were ah-ma-zingly difficult, especially for one who pretty much takes people at their word. I was pretty much doomed to fail. When they finally laid me off in the third or fourth company reorganization I'd survived, I was delighted -- and careful not to let them know that. It was a soul-sucking, ethically challenging experience, and I learned some good things from it -- but also suffered extreme stress.

That was my last 'office' job. From then on, I was self-employed -- and that, too, is stressful in some ways, but so freeing in so many others.

So now I am two years into retirement and am wanting more substance, more purpose to my days. There is still housework and regular chores. There is time, if I choose, to read and to cook and to putz at different little projects. There is time to sort through clutter and choose what to keep and what to let go. There is more time than I'd wish spent in going to doctors and getting medical tests, and more attention to physical issues. But there is also time to travel and to pet kitties and talk to my honey and my friends.

But that does not necessarily make for a fulfilled life. I want more. I want direction and purpose. And only I can find that -- through going within, through contemplation, through self-examination.

August Moon 14: Day 8 -- Manifesting

Kat tells us to 'put out the call.' Who could help you manifest your dream life? Ask the universe for what you need. And she generously invites us to write that in a letter, mail it to her, and she'll mail it back.

I've done this one. I have wanted a community of spirit to share and learn, and I'm in it now. I've taken  Level I Reiki classes from two wonderful local teachers and practice it regularly on myself and with a group monthly, and other friends as often as we can do it. We talk. We share. We support and learn. But I asked the Universe to bring it to me, to help me keep open eyes and heart to see it.

That's what I need to be doing at this time in my life: paying attention to spirit and how to manifest more of it in my life. And that's working.

August Moon 14: Day 7: Stumbling along

Day 7: What tends to trip you up?

What is your kryptonite? Ask yourself in the most compassionate of ways.
Do you have lots of great ideas but have trouble choosing which one to focus on? Do you do so much research that you get overwhelmed when it comes to making a decision? Do you love generating ideas but aren’t so excited about seeing them through to the micro details?
What if these things were not detractions or blocks, just neutral facts about your preferred approach? What if it were just a matter of finding resources or people whose skills and interests complemented yours, so that the things you have listed would no longer hold you back?
Who might be able to work with you to help you work this to your advantage?

Ah, me.  Any consistent reader of this blog, most of my family, and nearly any of my former editors or managers will instantly know the answer to this question: procrastination.

Partly it is precisely because I tend to over-research most anything. I want to know everything I can possibly know about a person, place, product, event, price -- well, just everything -- before I feel prepared to write about it or offer up a credit card or do a project. Once I understand everything I can possibly know, then I am ready to act. 

But.

That itself can be a non-starter, because there is ALWAYS something else to learn, some new resource or factoid to dig out. So sometimes I am just caught up in that endless research and don't get to the action part very quickly (if at all). 

As a result, there are unfinished projects aplenty. I always met my deadlines as a writer and a student, but sometimes it was by a thin, fine hair. And I always knew exactly how far I could let a deadline slip without the editor getting really perturbed. 

My stories -- my English papers too -- were, on a whole, pretty good, and well-researched. Some of that is because once I begin the process, I also begin the percolation process necesssary to craft a good story or paper: the part where all the facts and research filter through my mind and end up with me knowing where it will start and how it will end. That part is subconscious for me -- I just live 24/7 with the tidbits I've found or heard or read about, so once I finally sit down to write the story, it usually flows fairly easily into a draft. A long draft. Often two or three times the amount of copy needed draft. And that's because I have gathered So. Much. Information. The hard part, then, is editing it to fit the allotted word count and still having it make sense and capture the essence of the person or event or place or theory I'm writing about. Combining that with a tendency towards procrastination doesn't work very well. 

It's like "Okay, that's a good story. Now it might have been GREAT if I'd had more time...." and yet, if I'd had more time, I'd still have ended up getting it done just a hair before the deadline. 

Far as I can figure, the only person who can help me work with this to my advantage is ME. It involves changing something about my approach: perhaps prioritizing the importance of whatever I'm looking into rather than going full-bore nut-job research nerd on every single thing. Ah...I smell 'moderation' somewhere in that steaming pile of words.....

I do think as I have aged that I have begun to prioritize better what is worth reading a lot about and what is merely a passing fancy. And part of that is because my priority now is making my life as happy and fulfilling as I possibly can. If something doesn't contribute to that, it doesn't get top billing any more.

And I don't miss deadlines one tiny bit.

August Moon Day 6: That fiery feeling

What are the signs that you are on fire?

....how does it feel in your body when something really gets you going? Think about the last time you felt really turned on by something. Sink into the feelings and capture them as accurately as you can.
What is the catalyst for this feeling? What is it that you love about feeling this way? 

Ah.  And there lies the problem right now. I am not on fire about anything, not really. And I wish I were (ah, but read on....perhaps in introspection there is also fire!)

Right now all my attention is focused on me, my health, and getting stronger and continuing to feel good. That's where it belongs, too. I am my most important priority.

The reiki level 1 classes that I recently took were right on the mark, but in a different way than I've experienced before. The benefit was for me, not for a group or a cause. I learned new things and techniques, I was able to share that with a group of committed women who also were interested in learning and in sharing with each other, and I got to practice the techniques both on myself and on others in our class. It was a wonderful three days. It was a bonding time as well for some new friendships.

It was calmer, though, not fiery. Very intensely focused, totally present in the moment, and so much of it was internal. It was not a 'Save the World' moment, not even a passionate cause moment as I've experienced them in the past. It was quieter, very intense, draining even, and immensely joyful.

{{{LIGHTBULB MOMENT}}}
So maybe I actually WAS on fire, but differently. Huh. Hadn't thought of it like that.

I am committed to practicing reiki on myself and extending it to others, and to learning more about how it works and encouraging my intuition and the presence of Spirit in my life.  I want to grow the friendships I've begun (and deepen those already established): a community centered around Spirit has been one of the things I've felt lacking in my life for some time.'

I've believed for a long time that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. That's happening. Go, me!

August Moon 14: Day 5: The perfect (work) day

What would your perfect work day be like?

Whatever scenario that you have conjured, how does it make you feel when you picture yourself in it?

Not here any more. Not for a few years now. Won't be again, not in this lifetime.

I can tell you that working for myself was the perfect work day, however. I loved the flexibility to set my own schedule -- when my daughter was in school, I could attend after-school soccer games or track meets or assemblies without taking 'personal time.' If I had appointments, I could adjust my own time to accommodate them. I got to get out and meet and talk with people enough to keep me from being a total hermit, but there were plenty of home days in sweats and no makeup as I wrote stories or fanned the creative muse. Nobody but me was responsible for my meeting deadlines and completing projects, or pitching projects and making them happen. I was harder on myself than nearly any manager I ever had.

I found this out by working in other areas for much of my career although I did a lot of freelance work too. I liked my nonprofit work too, although working with a diverse board of directors can be a challenge especially if there are political landmines to both identify and avoid stepping on. But I enjoyed promoting a 'product' or service that benefited the public. I liked selling intangible benefits and I was pretty good at coming up with ways to do that. The stuff I didn't like was the office games and power politics and snarkiness.

But when it came to lining some big honcho's pockets with corporate dollars, I didn't do so well. Oh, I made some good money at it, and tried hard to believe that the products we were selling really would improve lives and make a far better difference than those of our competitors, but it was the politics that eventually got me. The jockeying for position within the company and department. The gossip. The backbiting and clock-watching. (Funny how everyone noticed what time you arrived but nobody saw when you left...) The lack of good people managers -- maybe they were smart enough in their field, but TERRIBLE at taking care of their direct reports. The reorganizations. The hockey-stick sales projections that MUST be met. The lack of interest in anything remotely personal or humanitarian or service-oriented.

Not for me, that life. I am no good at being political. I am lousy at gossip. I expect people to be truthful and loyal and decent to each other. And they weren't.

I am happy to be retired from working. My toughest critic is still me. My schedule is still flexible. And the benefits are great.

August Moon 14 Day 4: In my closet

What's hiding in your closet?

What, in your wardrobe, feels most like you?

 Eclectic applies here too. Although there are a very few items leftover from my more corporate work wardrobe -- a 'funeral' or Sunday church dress or two, some dress slacks, one lonely blazer -- most hangers hold decidedly casual clothes. Summer things include linen and cotton tops and capris -- it's too hot here to wear anything with a polyester vibe. Winter clothing features several pairs of jeans, some colored, most dark wash. Basic tees; a few boho tops and kurtas. A lot of long scarves. Fleece vests. Some cardigans, hooded and not. 

Lots of white and beige for summer since it just feels cooler. Lots of black for winter since it goes with everything. A few brightly colored or patterned tops in each season's offerings.

My winter favorites are two very boho, multicolored cotton knit hoodies; one in patchworky and slashed colors with black background, the other in a beautiful turquoise with embroidery and patchwork applique.

My summer favorites  -- right now I am so sick of hot weather that I no longer like any of them.

But my shoes are what I love most: Alegrias in chunky Mary Jane styles with fun patterns -- a Midnight Garden in black with twining flowers and leaves; a black pair covered in colorful cats; fun, funky daisies in primary shades; Aztec Tile with intricate, colorful half-inch squares; a silver and black zebra print; a more sedate black pair, but crinkled with icy etchings; athletic shoes with an unexpected purple paisley accent. They are comfortable, best of all, and work with my funky feet. 

No heels anymore. Nothing that hurts anything. I am all about comfort and fun these days.

The bohemian tops feel most like me anymore: a bit quirky, comfortable, sometimes colorful, perhaps a little retro. Maybe it's my inner hippie finally coming out? And while I admire the neatly put-together jackets and scarves and dark-wash jeans and boots that I often see on Pinterest (and rarely on the street, at least these streets), it's just not 'me' any longer. I want flowing and soft and loose and comfortable and a little unusual, either in the fabric or in the cut. I want scarves and long pendants and lots of bracelets and hoop earrings. All with my fun shoes. 

Mama Earth meets inner hippie with an occasional dash of grown-up. 

August Moon 14: Day 3 -- Loving what?

Day 3: What do you love? Today we’re going to delve a little deeper. We’ve had a think about what it is that we do. Now let’s make some space for what we love. Say someone found all of this evidence many years after you’d gone: what conclusions would they draw about the things/ideas/people you loved? Angels watch over us in our great room, perched on the high ledge over the wood stove. Most are my mother's collection; a few are ours -- one from a grateful client. Angel chimes sit near them atop the built-in bookshelves. They make me feel connected to the Universe and to those we cherish.  A bouquet of mostly floral teacups surround a pretty floral teapot in our china cabinet, and sad to say, they are all mostly unused. The teapot was a wedding gift to my parents and has a few mended cracks visible, casualties from my childhood. The cups are from my grandmother's, great-aunt's, and my mother's collection, plus a few from my former mother-in-law, and I love them all.  That cabinet also holds white curved twin Red Wing Pottery vases -- another inherited wedding gift that somehow escaped breakage. We rarely have flowers because our two kitties like to nibble on them, but the connection to the past and my parents is strong there. Books are everywhere: old ones, oft-read childhood ones, the brown leather and gilt Shakespeare from my childhood displayed in the great room shelves along with a few china knickknacks and some handmade birdhouses. In the salsa-colored den on the white woodshelves that cover one whole wall -- the bulk of the collection, arranged by non-fiction subject and fiction alphabetical author, at least mostly. Colorful covers pop at us -- trade paperbacks mixed unashamedly with  jacketed hardcovers and somber Bibles and hymnals. It's our personalities in there, a pretty accurate representation of what we love to do, love to read, and who we are -- or at least were at some point. Our newer interests rest sedately in the Kindle cloud, unseen by eyes other than ours. And that, I think, is a loss of sorts, although I love my Kindle. Magazines too, in stacks waiting for periodical files; on end tables waiting to be read or finished; in baskets by the bed and my favorite reading chair.  Cookbooks are crammed into a built-in kitchen niche -- worn church and service club collections next to the ubiquitous red-and-white Better Homes and Gardens, A much-taped-up recipe file is stuffed with computer-printed samplings and long-ago hand-written recipe cards. My mother's and grandmother's recipe files rest in a cabinet nearby, and when I pull one out, the handwriting always brings them into the kitchen with me: Jule Kage and fruitcake cookies and pecan shorts every year at Christmas, especially.   Two paintings, one from each daughter, are almost the only non-photographic art on our walls, although our bedroom also holds the Holstee Manifesto which reminds us every morning as we get up about what is really important  Otherwise we are surrounded in every room  by photographic memories of events, trips, scenic vistas, and a few taken to illustrate my freelance articles that are particularly interesting.  There is no planned decorating in our house, other than coordinated, rather vivid, wall colors of red-dirt clay (although my brother snarkily referred to it as 'dead salmon'), muted oak-tree-leaf green, salsa red, and a few lighter peachy tones -- colors that reflect the outdoor landscape where we live, so visible in the big windows that are everywhere. But a theme? No. Each collectible, each knickknack has a history and is something we enjoy seeing daily. Kindly put, our style is eclectic.( And probably not helped much by the 6-foot-plus cat tree and numerous scratching posts in varying degrees of shredded sisal that sit next to the scratched-patina leather chairs and mostly intact cloth upholstery and quilts and afghans and pillows. We like comfort. So do the kitties.) While we have many music CDs, we like the country quiet and seldom think to play music in the house. It's a broad mix: Grateful Dead, Loreena McKennitt, John Rutter, Vaughan Williams, Traveling Wilburys, Johnny Cash, Mark Knopfler, the Beatles, Broadway shows.  Our preference in television series and movies swings to drama, but often with a twist, and yet we enjoy the Pixar movies too.  We are both generalists -- we enjoy a broad range of styles, of subject matter, of content, of delivery.  We like things around us that mean something to us, although we are slower to eliminate things that no longer reflect who we are or serve our needs, probably mostly out of habit. We like comfort and warmth. We love the outdoors and the ocean -- there are many ocean photos on our walls. We enjoy the feeling of being connected to our past and to those we loved, and also to the greater Universe. We are hodgepodge,diverse, a bit unorganized. Eclectic.

August Moon 14: Day 2 -- Right now

 

Day 2: right now

What is it that you do now?
Tell us what fills your weeks, days and hours. What sorts of themes are emerging from your list? What is missing?

I am almost embarrassed to contemplate this one these days. I fear that I take so much of my time for granted, and spend it doing unimportant, even frivolous things.

I spend a fair bit of time online: reading blogs, catching up on emails (which are a big mix of inspirational, shopping announcements, and miscellaneous stuff that somewhere in time I signed up to receive and which I periodically go through and take myself off the lists), following links, reading news, and yes, playing a few games (although I don't do the big time-suckers anymore). And yes, Facebook, although I certainly don't post something even daily, but I do browse through my friends list every few days, check out who's liking or commenting on what, and reading posts in the groups to which I subscribe. And putzing: Checking Amazon for the latest in Kindle books, or the price of a gadget that has caught my fancy, or reading about afib, or glaucoma, or whatever health issue it is that I am interested in at that moment. Or searching for recipes and bookmarking them -- diabetic ones, healthy ones, ones that use the veggies I have on hand, and so on.

Let me say that the Internet to me is like a huge, at-my-fingertips library, and I relish that I can immediately find little facts or information any time I happen to think about them. As a child I spent a lot of time in libraries, sometimes just reading my way through a subject or an author, not for any purpose other than my own enjoyment. That's how I feel now about spending as much time online as I do.

I prepare two meals a day, mostly from scratch -- Tony does breakfasts -- and there are always household bits to attend to -- making the bed, picking up clutter, sorting through mail or newspapers or magazines, laundry, folding, ironing, rearranging, cleaning.

I read two newspapers most days, and usually manage a few magazine articles, but most of my reading is done once I'm in bed at night, on my Kindle, with whatever book I'm engrossed in at the moment until I can't keep my eyes open any longer.

I shop mostly weekly for groceries and household necessities, and usually meander through the stores whether or not I have a list in hand.Yes, I'm one of those people who go into a store for six items and come out with six bags.

Periodically I have doctor's appointments, or blood draws (at least monthly, lately it's been weekly or more often because we've been regulating the blood thinner following my ablation). A hair appointment every six weeks. Bunco monthly. Lunch with a friend every so often. Television at night. Petting and playing with kitties, including distributing treats and attention most nights to our outside boys.  Plays, when they are running. We've joined a concert association this year and also have tickets to a couple of other concerts and fun events this fall. My monthly reiki group.

And spending days with my husband. Soaking in that joy and the simplicity of our lives right now. Being retired is a true privilege when you can decide how and where you spend your days. We've traveled a good bit this summer, and that has been great fun to see new places and old favorites together.

My days go by quickly. And I get stuff done -- although there are still closets and corner that need tackling. But I don't know that they are structured very well or efficiently, or that they hold as much quality as I'd like them to have.

I don't know how on earth I handled a fulltime job, school-age child, household chores, church activities and choir and committee work. But I did, once upon a time. It seems quite daunting to me now, however.

What's lacking?
** A regular exercise habit. I haven't been to yoga in months, mostly because I felt fairly lousy and fragile and anxious. I still feel somewhat fragile and very, very out of shape, and I hate that.
** Any sort of volunteer activity. I am simply uninspired and not feeling the volunteer love for anything right now, and haven't for some time. And I am keeping my eyes and mind open, too.
**  A challenge....growth opportunities and fun time. Maybe a class (loved my reiki classes last week!) A workshop. I don't know.

August Moon 14 Day 1 -- Setting an Intention

 I am late to this party, Kat McNally's lovely prompts for the 2014 August Moon. I knew I'd be writing them later because when they began, I was preparing for my cardiac ablation for atrial fibrillation, and that took most of my conscious energy.

I am happy to report that all went well, that so far I am in normal sinus rhythm and minus one heart medication. This process, not visible externally, takes at least three months for the doctors to pronounce it successful, and can take up to a year to heal. The heart has been violated, burned inside it, and there is no salve, no healing dressings that can speed recovery. Time is the great healer.

As soon as I read her outline for this series of writing prompts, I knew how very appropriate it would be for me this year, considering the ablation recovery process. So here is Day 1's prompt:

Set an intention.

On this first day together, in the light of the beautiful full moon, I invite you to share what is it that you want to explore over the next two weeks. In particular, I invite you to consider the crossroads at which you find yourself, in any aspect of your life.

Indeed, I do find myself at a crossroads: my atrial fibrillation is potentially eliminated (and my doctor found and burned three separate areas that were causing that rapid, irregular beat). And for much of the last three years I have slacked off on physical exercise, first because my left foot was so painful, then because I was recovering from surgery to fuse that ankle, and later because the afib became more frequent and those symptoms pretty much wiped me out.

So here I am: foot is as healed as it is likely to get (and doesn't hurt like it did), and my heart is beating quietly and unobtrusively away in a normal sinus rhythm. I have another chance at improving my physical stamina and overall health.

My intention, then, is to grab this second chance, this new beginning, and live better, happier, wiser, and more deeply. That means kicking up the level of physical exercise. That means being more conscious of what  and how much I am putting into my body. That means exploring the spirit that has so surrounded me during this ablation process and before, and actively seeking learning opportunities. That means eliminating as much stress as I can, be that caused by people, situations, activities, or thoughts. Up with meditation and calm; down with being with people who I don't especially enjoy or doing things that I am not passionate about. Up with saying NO when the little gut feeling hits; down with feeling 'obligated' to do something.

This quote, inaccurately attributed to Meryl Streep, sums it up so well for me:

“I no longer have patience for certain things, not because I’ve become arrogant, but simply because I reached a point in my life where I do not want to waste more time with what displeases me or hurts me. I have no patience for cynicism, excessive criticism and demands of any nature. I lost the will to please those who do not like me, to love those who do not love me and to smile at those who do not want to smile at me. I no longer spend a single minute on those who lie or want to manipulate. I decided not to coexist anymore with pretense, hypocrisy, dishonesty and cheap praise. I do not tolerate selective erudition nor academic arrogance. I do not adjust either to popular gossiping. I hate conflict and comparisons. I believe in a world of opposites and that’s why I avoid people with rigid and inflexible personalities. In friendship I dislike the lack of loyalty and betrayal. I do not get along with those who do not know how to give a compliment or a word of encouragement. Exaggerations bore me and I have difficulty accepting those who do not like animals. And on top of everything I have no patience for anyone who does not deserve my patience.”--author/life coach José Micard Teixeira