~ you just, begin ~

Toss & ripple has a new look.

I also cleaned up my side bar and organized certain links, regarding The Way and regarding recovery resources and books, into two different pages.

I'm proud of how the two new pages turned out.

Here are the links.
Beyond The Way International: Information & Connections
Restoring the Soul: Reading & Resource List

I've also updated About me, About this blog, and For the record.

Maybe with a new look, I'll start posting more blog entries? Maybe?

I've been thinking about writing about my reactions to the movie, The Martian.

I've seen it five times!

Five times! Oh my word!

So many parallels to what I've lived and continue to live through managing nerve damage. I won't go into the parallels here and I may never write them down. But they are in my head, and my limbs, and my heart...at least for now.

I literally knew nothing about The Martian until October when I saw its trailer roll across the theater screen before Everest played. I saw Everest the day before my first view of The Martian. (Everest is really good too, but I've only seen it once. The scenery is spectacular. The scale of the size of the climbers to the mountain, incredible. I saw the original Everest on an IMAX screen a few times back in the late 1990s; it's a documentary and one I'll not forget, at least as long as my brain continues to remember. Like Shakleton's Antarctic Adventure, which I saw more than once in that same IMAX.)

The disco soundtrack music in The Martian is especially significant for me.  Since maybe May (?), 2015, disco has been one of my main body-and-soul recovery music genres. Ain't that funny.

My disco music has rooted me on as my nerves and muscles, and many abilities a non-disabled person takes for granted, have been coming back to life this past summer as I continued alone, but not alone, to just keep my limbs working. I'm still working at it. It takes priority over everything else in my life and continues to be my focus every single day.

And there, in that movie, was my music.

It sounded through the theater speakers as Mark Watney alone, but not alone, comes to terms with what seems to be impossible circumstances. And actually they are because it is a science-fiction movie.

All so serendipitous.

Last time I checked my life, and symptoms and struggle, are not science fiction.


My new favorite quote is,
"You just, begin."
~Mark Watney, Space Pirate

My second new favorite quote is my own,
"Wherever I go I'm never alone; I always bring Mia Long."
~Oneperson, Discoverer  ;)





"At some point, everything's gonna go south on you and you're going to say, this is it.
This is how I end.
Now you can either accept that, or you can get to work.
That's all it is.
You just, begin.
You do the math.
You solve one problem and you solve the next one, and then the next.
And If you solve enough problems, you get to come home."
~Mark Watney, Space Pirate