Feel Good Moments.

Suzanne Valadon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_Valadon

Looks like it will be another very warm day today, just heard that the BBC Radio 5 team will be going back home early from South Africa, now that England has gone out of the World Cup.

All very sad for the many people in England who supported the England team, hope that the Football Association will use this defeat to learn from it.

Who knows they may even do so this time, Richie thinks that they won't shame but would not be surprising if they refused to see the reality.

England should do what Germany did and rejuvenate their team with promising young players from the under 21 team.

Nice to be distracted by the World Cup from my MS and my situation, woke up this morning with my arms folded tightly together.

Aware immediately that I can not automatically stretch my arms, doing that will take more time and effort.

Have to think about it and then direct my thoughts to my arms and literally say to myself move your arms now.

Have to do this and at the same time try to move my arms enough to get them uncovered form my fleece blanket.

Eventually this works and I can get my arms out from under the thin fleece and hold on to the trapeze and stretch my arms.

It is strange to notice this happening more and more it reminds me of a story that I read in the 70’s in Reader’s Digest.

It was the story of a man suffering from Parkinson’s who said he would have to talk to himself to get any action.

So if he wanted to pick up a cup he would instruct his arm to stretch out and then pick up cup.

The first time nothing happened and he would have to repeat his instructions time and again.

When the arm finally reached out and picked up the cup it might spill the contents and he would start again.

It could often take him ages; sometimes hours to complete a task, what I remember being fascinated by, was him giving verbal instructions at the same time as physically moving

Funny how years later I am doing something similar, this morning I started having bleak thoughts when I woke and felt myself lying in bed like an Egyptian mummy.

Banished the thoughts of being entombed in my body with no gesture or movement possible anymore.

Instead directed my thoughts to moving my arms and succeeded which made me feel better right away.

Glad to confirm that my focus now is to maximise everything that makes me feel good about myself.

Much better use of my time right here and now, than getting stuck in potentially negative thinking based on predictions of the future.

Everyday I re-confirm my desire to live in the moment and enjoy everything that I can enjoy like sitting in the front room yesterday and watching the TV there for the first time since 2008.

It felt good, today I will be looking for more of those feel good moments.






(Cliburn)Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1 Mvt III.

This clip is of van Cliburn playing part of the concerto. And this is a bit of history to go with it:

The first International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958 was an event designed to demonstrate Soviet cultural superiority during the Cold War, on the heels of their technological victory with the Sputnik launch in October 1957.

Cliburn's performance at the competition finale of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 and Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 earned him a standing ovation lasting eight minutes.