A to Z Challenge 2023

  Congratulations! You found some writing time in your busy day. How do you move into writing mode? How do you call in the muse? Some of the things I’ve written about in the A-to-Z posts help.

  Once, I did a freewrite at my local library, filling three pages in my notebook. Most of what I wrote I threw away, but at the bottom of the third page, I wrote about a white noise machine in my clinic. I recognized a spark there, some kind of juice that I wanted to

  Several song snippets go through my head as I ponder E words: Each, Every, Ether, Equanimity, Emotions, Earworm. “Each moment is different from any before it. Each moment is different. It’s now.” That comes from an Incredible String Band song, a British progressive folk band from the 1960s. I hear Van Morrison singing “Everyone,”

  And for Darjeeling, because I drink a cup of tea every day when I transition into my afternoon writing time. And Differential, as in the infinitesimally small change described in calculus, dx/dt, a moment so small that it might be described as a snapshot in time along the curve of a function. Daily, because

  In August 1985, I was 31 years old, about to enter medical school. I was bored, bored to the point of feeling stressed by my boredom. I took a job to earn some money until school began. It was a sales job, and I hated it. During the launch of a new product, a

  Muscle Energy During my training as an osteopathic physician, I learned a technique called Muscle Energy. It’s a gentle way of working on the musculoskeletal system that brings it back into balance. The technique is simple, and the results are magical, but they are explained by the science of muscle physiology. The technique begins

In October of 2016, I went to the Examined Life Conference in Iowa City. It fit me perfectly, a writing conference sponsored by a medical school. The keynote speaker was Dr. Rita Charon, whom I would later study with at Columbia. The conference changed my life, mostly because of someone I met there. I elected

On April 1, 2023, I begin the A-to-Z Challenge for bloggers. It’s my second time in this challenge. The first time was in 2020, just as the pandemic lockdown began. My theme for 2020 was “Steppingstones to Transformation.” I picked a theme for 2023 without checking to see what my previous theme had been. Apparently,