I didn’t take time to blog this morning. I’m getting ready to leave for England tomorrow. I have been dealing with feelings of being overwhelmed and sort of numb. Classic need a vacation stuff, no doubt. Instead of blogging this morning, I prepared the bulletin information for the two Sundays I will be gone. 

Despite the feelings of mental suffocation and depression, I have continued to do things that I know are good for my soul… like read and practice.

Today I spent over an hour and a half with my friend, Jordan, reading through some pretty cool sax stuff. I really like the way he plays sax.  It was both pleasure and challenge. We will return to this after I get back. He has chosen some very challenging pieces for us to work on this summer like “Prelude, Cadence et Finale” by A. Desenclos (whom I have never head of before today) and “Concertino da Camera” by Ibert. 

I also spent a quick moment on the Messiaen piece I am working on. I grabbed some time right after an emergency dentist visit. The dentist’s office is right by my church. Last night a filling fell out of my front tooth and my dentist was kind enough to find time for me today to fix it. He told me it actually needs a crown and then didn’t charge me for his work. What a guy.

Ran across this article in the Atlantic today (it was mentioned by David Brooks in his NYT’s column): “What makes us happy” by Joshua Wolfe Shenk. I can’t say it any better than the blurb on the site:

Is there a formula—some mix of love, work, and psychological adaptation—for a good life? For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been examining this question, following 268 men who entered college in the late 1930s through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age. Here, for the first time, a journalist gains access to the archive of one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies in history. Its contents, as much literature as science, offer profound insight into the human condition—and into the brilliant, complex mind of the study’s longtime director, George Vaillant

There is also a video of Vaillant talking on the page. Interesting food for thought.