Hal-le-lu-jah: An expression of praise.

Now what in the world. I am in bed on a Sacred Sunday morning and I say hallelujah. The gloriousness of that word. The magic of it. The way it teases the tongue into a strange dance on roof of mouth. It is magic.

I am alive. That is step one. I woke up today. Now what am I gonna do with this day?
There is the basic-ness of it. Eat for fuel. Move my body. Kiss my dog's tummy (essential as the first two).

Then, step two is to prioritise. Today is for enjoyment and for recharging. Today I do only what I want to do. No appointments are taken. There will be no obligations.

I will study. This I know. And I do it willingly. What a revelation. It is fine and sacred to read the chapter on middle childhood and to recognise the difference between Erikson, Piaget and Bandura's theories on the congnitive, the concrete, the mastery of skill. I will also build my Spanish vocabulary and listen to the irregular verbs that when conjugated take a dipthong sound and completely change. I will struggle to write in Spanish. Not because I do not know what to say, but because I am using an Italian keyboard on an Italian computer and this means I must put on the numbers lock and perform a series of fancy alt + combiniation of numerals to get my computer to give me one of these: á, or one of these: Ó.

I will sit and ponder. And watch a film that I have downloaded using the amazing technology that is now at my fingertips. This morning I watched 'Nursery University', a documentary on the struggle to get your preschooler into the 'right' program in New York City. Then, after a bowl of raw oatmeal and banana, I watched 'Bird by Bird', Anne Lamont's story of resurrection and the writer. This inspires me to write this entry. It also reminds me that I want to finish my book. And so I will.

I spend a few minutes on visualisation and breathing. Yes, I do. Yes, I can. Yes, I will.

I spend a lot of time dozing off and the Kindle slips from my hands and falls onto the pillow, goes to sleep itself, until I awaken it by sliding the button to the right.

There is a Wall that surrounds my city and Mart and I pay her a visit. We cruise to the music of bicycle brakes and kids' iPods blasting and a little traffic down below the balluardo. I breathe some more while Martin chases his red ball. He cannot see the colour. And that makes me think about what the world looks like to him.

This morning the electricity was off for several hours and my fresh drink sits unblended in the glass pitcher, blood orange, parsley, pear and apple, chunks of ginger fill my lovely kitchen with a spicy perfume...and I am reminded that there are a lot of people without electricity or potable water. And then I fight with the guilt. And decide to be grateful, more grateful. More breathing.

Kissing Martin's tummy, I sing him a little song about Sacred Sunday.

Happy Monday, Happy Tuesday, Happy Wednesday, Thursday, too.
Happy Friday, Happy Saturday, Sacred Sunday, I love you.

Dear Friends,
It was Annie who wrote that storytelling reveals our humanity. That is what the blog can be. What Facebook can be. It is the modern version of storytelling. And I gladly share my story with you.

Happy Sacred Sunday. Happy to be here.