I threw a a small basket of papers across the room one day after a really frustrating morning.
It felt really good.
I didn't even mind having to pick them all up again.
It was liberating and was quieter than letting out a Tarzan yell.
KJ

(Back is feeling better tonight---been put back on the once every two weeks visit to the quackapractor---if I'm not more careful, he'll have me back on the twice a week schedule---he's kept me going for the past 20 years! He's great AND he's a gardener! office is full of gardening mags.)

Going to see my "Quackpractor" on Monday for a tune-up. Beats surgery anytime.

I like what you said, Marda...
"What are you going to do..take a walk one day and say..woaa...there I am!"?

It IS hard work and physical changes are no longer as important.
I guess the less we look in a mirror, the more we can see.
Not being cute, here; it's true.
Even pain brings us to a new place of gratitude
when it lets up a little...

As we get a lot of this 'becoming real'
work out of the way,
we can enjoy what we have in our time left.
I mean really enjoy; every breath, every enlightenment
that opens our eyes to what's important as we each travel own own path.

----And this group is so supportive of each other----
how often does one have this 'outside of family' support
in everyday life?

When you check in every day, you expect to have
the sharing of the usual happenings.
But, when one comes back after being called away,
it's so refreshing to see the
caring and support between the GP'rs.
It sounds so corny---but what I'm getting at is,
that what you take as daily 'back and forth'
is really, truly important in building
a firm network of support and contiuity
in each others' lives.

Each voice is important.

OK, I'll get off the soapbox---I wuz just say'n.....

The episode Walkabout...

"Addiction

Despite warnings from Laura Rosen on how the use of stims affected her career as a physician, Franklin turned to stims to ward off a looming nervous breakdown caused by the stress he suffered as head of the Medlab facility on Babylon 5.

Garibaldi tried to get him to open up and ask for help for his dependence on stims. Then again, after Stephen nealy lost a patient due to his addiction, Garibaldi tried to intervene one more time.

Foundationism - Walkabout

Franklin's response to the truth of his own Stim addiction was to resign as Head of Medlab, and go Walkabout.

As a Foundationist, I was always taught that if you're not careful, you can lose yourself in the world. You get too busy with things, not busy enough with yourself. Spend your days and nights living someone else's agendas, fighting someone else's battles and doing the work you're supposed to be doing, but every day there's less and less of you in it all. Until one day you come to a fork in the road and because you're distracted, you're not thinking. You lose yourself. You go right, and the rest of you, the really important part of you, goes left. You don't even know you've done it 'til you realize, you finally realize that you don't have any idea who you are when you're not doing all those things.
...It's a metaphor. All right? There isn't another me walking around the Station but the principle is real. I realized I didn't have any idea who I was when I wasn't being a doctor...and I think I was using the stims to avoid facing that. Now I gotta fix it... by going Walkabout.
You just leave everything, and you start walking. I mean, the Foundation adopted the idea from the Aborigines back on Earth. The theory is, if you're separated from yourself you start walking and you keep walking till you meet yourself. Then you sit down, and you have a long talk. Talk about everything that you've learned,:everything that you've felt and you talk until you've run out of words. Now, that's vital because the real important things can't be said. And then, if you're lucky, you look up and there's just you. Then you can go home.

Franklin almost died on Walkabout when he intervened in a knife fight, and was stabbed and left to die. While he was passing out from blood loss, he had an Epiphany:

I guess I found what I needed, not what I wanted.
Which was?
A short, sharp kick to the head.
I could have done that for you. All you had to do was ask.
You would have enjoyed it too much!
So you didn't meet yourself?
Yeah, I did. Found out I didn't like myself either.

-- Franklin and Garibaldi, Shadow Dancing"

The closest I would come to a WA would be walking on the golf course at night when I lived up on the mtn., or when I was X-C skiing down the Blue Ridge Parkway all alone.

Funny how we're all connected in one way or another---even when we're all alone.

I keep looking out at the cold and damp garden and leaves to get up---but then, Phil Mickelson will be playing soon...what to do? What to do?

They're showing clips of all these past tournaments he's won...
Oh, man! They're all in the hole!!!!!!!!!

----I'm watchin' the GAME!!!!

AND there is hot coffee in the pot---doesn't get any better.