Happy St Patrick’s day. I don’t have a drop of Irish blood but I can get behind any reason to celebrate!

I’m also having a mini party to celebrate that this morning’s poop didn’t make me scream. And it wasn’t green.

Hans just woke up and saw me typing away on my phone. Write about last night he suggested. About sitting outside and appreciating the perfect temperature…the orange sunset…watching the manatee come up for air at 2 minute intervals (Hans timed him and was amazed at his consistency)…about being chased inside when the blood suckers came calling.

About sitting together on the loveseat, my legs over your lap and listening, really listening, to jazz greats like Flip Phillips, Ben Webster, Scott Hamilton and Coltrane.

Write about how both of us were present in the moment…actively listening. The music was everything.

Often, if not most times, music is a background…my 70’s favorites serenade me as I shower or apply makeup or tackle a crossword. I appreciate the music as a conglomerate sound without making any effort to pick it apart.

But last night, Hans and I were both 100% focused. This was a parallel to mindfulness meditation, this intense focus on a specific thing. Mindful Music Meditation.

Hans: The note that alto sax hit was a bit iffy. Me: what are you, suddenly a music critic? Hans: with a wry smile. …I’m a critic of everything.

We continue to listen intently. Pick out the individual instruments and follow them through the song. What’s the bass doing in the song?what’s going on here in the background? And the foreground.? How do the rhythms and the pitches and all the other different musical elements come together to create this peaceful or fun or thoughtful piece of music.

You don’t have to be able to identify all the instruments. I can’t. The thing is, listen for them. Think of what they could be or maybe just about how beautiful they sound. Your ears are now listening in a different way.

These days I am quite picky about what goes into my ears… into my eyes, mouth, or brain for that matter. It is all I can do to push myself forward. I cannot cannot spare the energy it would take and the frustration it would create to read about politics, climate change, war, shortages…I peak at the newspaper but I don’t engage.

Same with TV. No murders (unless they are on BBC and are period dramas.) No gratuitous violence or characters that are offered up as villains. I don’t want to spend my limited times around bad people, whether they are real or not. Instead, we watch shows that make us feel good. Think Ted Lasso, The Kominsky Method (Michael Douglas is amazing). Faraway (Shot in Croatia) Magic for Humans. Hidden gems are not easy to find in the trash heap that is programming. But they are worth searching for. In my opinion.