Tag Archives: inspiration

The Bumps in the Road

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Jack’s guest post slips in the back door, hoping no-one notices he’s late –

I’ve been thinking about the things that lift us up or drag us down.

Wendy and I have both had a few downs recently – sicknesses, work pressures, unexpected slap-downs and news of the deaths of friends. It’s easy to let that stuff get to you – too easy.

But then something good happens and lifts you up again.

Someone you hardly know intervenes in an ugly confrontation to calm things down, a sickness departs and you feel great, and an old friend gets back in touch and reminds you of great memories.

So this is really all about that thing that makes us feel suddenly ‘up’! It is, in my experience, quite a sudden feeling but doesn’t actually have to be all that dramatic.

Is it just chemicals in the brain? Or is it the much wider network of subtle interactions between people who share a set of basic needs and common values?

Just last Saturday I had helped organize a live radio show to celebrate ten years of Celtic Clanjamphry (my weekly program on WETS.fm}. In the run up I was heavily in ‘down’ territory and had enormous worries that it just wouldn’t work. In the event, all twelve participants had worked their socks off to make sure it did. So, in the space of an hour I went from a serious down to an extreme up.

There are much more serious things in the world than an obscure Celtic music show in the depths of Appalachia, but I still think that everything that drags us down has to work slowly and hard, whereas the things that lift us up seem to be much more instant.

So – the ups have it!

Ho Hum – –

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Jack just managed to get in under the wire this week for his Wednesday guest post –

 

Some days are just ‘normal’ – here’s one – –

Start with a run to the grocery store for the makings of shepherd’s pie (supper with our good friends Beth and Brandon tonight – plus a guitar lesson with Brandon).

Medicate the dogs and feed the three garage cats.

Clean out the cat litter trays.

Another good friend Teri arrives and hangs out until the shop opens.

Order six new Celtic flags for our annual festival coming up in a month’s time.

Tidy the bookstore kitchen and mop the floor.

Get the festival banners out of the shed and paint out the ‘4’ in the date ready to be re-painted as ‘3’.

A couple arrive to collect their winnings in the bookstore auction of surplus stuff.

Two elderly and very frail ladies arrive with a bag of Christian romances to exchange for more of the same. But they also spend some money on more books – they are lovely and we chat at length.

A young woman arrives for more (bulky and heavy) auction items. She is carrying an infant and is on her own. The items are upstairs.

A regular and very interesting customer comes in and browses and spends money on lots of books.

Start making the afore-mentioned shepherd’s pie.

Two folk who’ve never been before arrive and I give them a quick tour – they buy some books and come back to get Wendy’s ‘Little Bookstore’ book after they go for money. (We do take cards, btw.)

Continue preparing the shepherd’s pie.

A lady from a not-so-very-close book-club that read ‘Little Bookstore’ phones to arrange a visit next week. Sadly, on a day when Wendy will be out of town, but they will be happy to see me!

Package a book we had sold on-line and Wendy gets it over to the post office.

Get a message asking if I can guest lecture to a class at UVA Wise on Scottish-Appalachian connections in a couple of weeks’ time.

We can’t find two small hand-carved statuettes that were sold in the auction. They were hiding in Science Fiction!

Finish the shepherd’s pie.

Another couple arrive to collect auction items – from upstairs. We carry down the desk, avoiding kittens.

Medicate kittens.

Friends arriving for dinner at 6:30 to eat the shepherd’s pie.

Guitar lesson with one of the friends.

Pick apples from our apple tree so Wendy can freeze them.

Drink heavily.

Sleep.