Personal
Personal reflections, comments about things I've been doing, etc.
Yes, Sandy, There is a Santa
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 12/15/2012 - 07:20My mother died in a car accident during Hurricane Sandy. We lost power at our house, and gathered with our community to get through the difficult time. It was right before Halloween and the Woodbridge Volunteer Fire Department had a special gathering for the community to come together.
Today, a different Sandy is on our minds, the shooting Sandy Hook Elementary School. Many of us have friends from Sandy Hook. Many of us are parents trying to find ways to talk with our kids about the horrible shooting that took place there. Many of us are struggling with our own grief, trying to be strong for our loved ones.
Yesterday, at work, I shared thoughts from our chief behavioral health officer on how to talk with children about what happened at Sandy Hook. He said to reassure our children that they are safe and to review safety plans with them. He said to limit exposure to TV and other media. He said to talk with other adults about our own reactions.
So, my daughter spent last night with her papa, a retired Bethany Volunteer Fireman. He had been watching too much news and was grieving for the people of Sandy Hook. My wife urged them to watch 'Elf'. Towards the end of the movie, singing Christmas carols and believing in Santa is what saves the day.
Perhaps we need a little bit of that right about now. Today, at the Woodbridge Volunteer Fire Department, Santa and Mrs. Claus will visit. There will also be a clinic on car seat safety. Then, Sunday afternoon at the First Congregational Church there will be carol singing.
So, for the victims of Hurricane Sandy and of shooting at Sandy Hook, I'll paraphrase the great editorial from years ago…
Yes, Sandy, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Sandys. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
A gunman in Sandy Hook took the lives of some of its children, but the eternal light with which childhood fills the world has not been extinguished. It shines in the bravery and kindness of the Woodbridge Volunteer Fire Department. It shines in the carols that members of First Church will sing Sunday afternoon. It shines in the light of candles on the menorahs and advent wreaths across Woodbridge.
Yes, Sandy, there is a Santa
Because You Are Great, You Are Awesome
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 12/08/2012 - 07:43I got home last night, exhausted. It has been a stressful couple of months. This week, adding to my concerns was Kim's health. She has been struggling with the effects of Lyme Disease since 2006. She's often in pain and when a cold comes around, she gets a bad case of it. Currently, she's fighting off an upper respiratory infection.
She had called me during the day to see if I wanted to take Fiona to a play at the local high school with some of our neighbors. Initially, I said yes, but as the day dragged on and my energy lagged, I forgot about it and when I got home, thinking about the day I have today, I decided not to go, and headed off to bed early. I knew that Saturday would be another dreaded long day.
Yet this morning, I woke up dreaming about today. Yes, I am heading back into work today. However, it will be a different day, a special day. Today is International Help-Portrait Day.
"In December, photographers around the world will be grabbing their cameras, finding people in need and taking their picture. When the prints are ready, the photographs get delivered."
That is what we are doing at CHC. We will be taking photographs of people in need and giving them the pictures. It is part of an underlying message that we tell people in need. Too many people in need are told they are worthless. They are a burden on society. They are using our tax dollars to get by. That is not our message, and it is not the message of this holiday season.
We are telling the people we serve, through providing health care, and through taking photographs, "You are great, you are awesome." These are words of healing that all of us need to hear. The greater our other needs, the greater our need to hear this.
I lifted these words from the wonderful video, Validation.
Please, validate someone today.
Random Stuff
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 12/04/2012 - 21:47Last night, I had another one of those dreams about trying to find my way. In this case, it wasn't about finding a room in a hotel, it was about finding my way home. Mostly there are just fragments of the dream remaining. We were riding in a car that my brother was driving. Barreling down a hill we came to an abrupt end of the road. My brother couldn't stop in time and we went over the embankment. Airbags misfired, no one was injured, but the car was unusable.
So, we got out and started walking. Along the way, we were befriended by some bears that travelled some of the way with us before getting reunited with their families. All of this was in some sort of national park. We continued walking along the road, until we saw a sign indication our destination was something like thirty-six miles away. We headed off in that direction and soon left the park. The area were were traveling felt abandoned, in some not quite post-apocalyptic way. Eventually we got to an area where there were some people and it was about this point that I woke up.
Meanwhile, back in non-dream space, I had a pretty busy day at work. I found out that the order for the Raspberry Pi at Amazon had gotten lost. I don't know what happened with that. The Raspberry Pi was one part of a larger order, and the rest of the order has gone through and been delivered. I called up Kim to make sure we hadn't been billed for it, and we hadn't.
However, Kim discovered that we had a strange bill from Rackspace. Initially, I thought it was just the normal billing for the hosting service for my website. However, the amount was not what it had been. It turns out that Rackspace had migrated my VPS to the cloud, resulting in a new billing structure. Fortunately, this cut the cost of my service in half. So, this evening, I spent some time getting used to Rackspace's cloud service. There are a bunch of upgrades I've been meaning to do, and now that my server is on the cloud, it makes more sense to try and do them.
I did find a different place to order my Raspberry Pi, so there are all kinds of geeky things that I should get done, as well as upgrading my personal cellphone which has been out of commission for a while.
Beyond that, I'm trying to organize my calendar for the coming couple months, do some of my reading for the Health Fellowship, get more writing done here, and generally try to keep my head above water.
Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sat, 12/01/2012 - 14:45Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit. Another month starts, the final month of 2012. Last month was a challenging month, simply in terms of the amount of stress in my life,and this month, while I hope it will be less stressful is likely to remain challenging.
The month starts off with World AIDS Day. I put up a blog post on my work blog about World AIDS Day. There is a bunch of other stuff in the pipeline for work related blogs.
For the holidays, money continues to be tight, so it is shaping up to be another DIY Christmas. For me, that's a lot more fun anyway. I've been researching online and kicking around different ideas. Some are fairly simple. Some are fairly complex. We'll see what actually gets made.
Meanwhile, this evening, Kim and I are going to the Connecticut Forum this evening to hear Neil deGrasse Tyson, Neil Gaiman and Neri Oxman talk about Vision and Brilliance. Perhaps this will inspire more ideas.
In terms of inspired ideas, I want to give a shout out to Miranda's Idea Blog. I hope to write more about this later.
Moonlight on Snow
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 11/29/2012 - 22:44It was about five in the morning when my youngest daughter woke me up. Her earache was getting bad again. I stumbled into the kitchen where I heated up a few microwaveable pillows that would hold their heat and sooth her ear. Outside, the light from the full moon lit up the snow on the deck.
I gave Fiona the warmed pillows and headed back to bed. I would try to rest a little more before launching into my day.
For the past couple months, life has been difficult. The stress has worn me down. I don't know if it is stress, allergies or just lack of sleep, but my eyelids have been twitching a lot. I worry about catching any of the colds or viruses going around, and I'm trying to stay as well rested as possible.
I have been remembering more of my dreams recently. They are all fairly different, but there is a recurring theme. I am at a hotel and I'm trying to find my room. When I first started having these dreams, I was trying to find where to check in and get my room number. Later the dreams evolved to having checked in, and trying to find my way to the room for the first time. Last night came the next evolution. I've checked in, been to my room and I'm off somewhere in the hotel, trying to find my way back to the room.
This morning when I awoke from the dream, it struck me that most of my efforts to find my room have been anxious. What about if I looked at them as a fun adventure, a chance for exploration and discovery? When I got back to sleep, I found myself in a different dream. I was back on my sailboat. Was this the room I was trying to find? For those who don't know, I lived on a sailboat for several years in New York City. One of the issues of living on a sailboat was when the bilge pump didn't work. In my dream, the bilge was full and needed pumping, but the bilge pump wouldn't come on. My anxieties came back. Would the boat sink before I could reactivate the bilge pumps?
And beyond all of this, the full moon was shining on the snow. It had a certain zen feeling, like the strawberries eaten while hanging on to the root of vine over a precipice.
Now, I shall head off to bed again and see what this evenings dreams bring.
