Dr. Bloom and I got out all the work we have done over the past year and a half.  We struck up the fight between Hamlet and his mother.  Dr. Bloom rankled with Richard III’s opening silliloquy and his conscience.  We sang the song, “Brush Up Your Shakespeare!”  Kate and Petruchio called each other’s bluff and then got married.We looked around at the lines of Shakespeare written on giant pieces of paper.  Dr. Bloom’s lines are written in black.  Mine appear in red.  We have covered a lot of ground these many Monday mornings.  Dr. Bloom said, “Now that I know these lines, I can focus on the acting part.”

When we first worked together and Dr. Bloom made the sign of the cross in Hamlet’s “nay, by the rood not so” it was a small cross, his hand barely coming off of the wheelchair armrest.  Now, the armrest is out of the way (because Dr. Bloom’s core has become strong enough for him to sit up straight without armrests) and the gesture of the rood is big, coming up to shoulder height and stretching across, nearly to the opposite shoulder.  Richard III’s dreadful marches that changed to merry meetings have gone from a small sway to two contrasting gestures.  The dreadful marches gesture is stiff staccato arm movements while in creating merry meetings, Dr. Bloom’s arms extend out to his sides and float around in graceful little arcs.

Taking a look back in time, celebrating the small successes, remembering when the every day thing was not possible gives us confidence for what lies ahead.  If Dr. Bloom, or you or I, can now do the thing that once seemed impossible, what great promise does the future hold?

I propose we look back once in while.  By seeing from whence we have come, the future becomes less daunting and our confidence in meeting it grows.

How do you use past successes to further the creation of new ones?