THANKFUL FRIDAY

Tuesday morning, as Josephine and I were making our way around the park at the end of our street, I noticed what looked like a large white cat sitting in the middle of the park. This park was built to be a drainage park and most of it consists of large circular vegetation beds filled with native grasses, rocks and other plants. We always see rabbits here and occasionally some deer. This park is a vast improvement on what used to be in that space when I first moved here, a giant forested lot of land where people dumped their garbage and old unwanted furniture. Lots of tires. But still, even though its lovely and an improvement, I call the park Sewer Park because it was built to collect rain water to send to the sewer.

When I saw the large white cat, I thought for a moment that this was my cat. All the way around the park I just kept thinking “Is that Albus?! Is he coming all the way down here to hunt now?!” It was still dark and I don’t wear my glasses when we head out for our walks, but I was almost convinced this was my cat. Then, when Josephine and I headed up our drive, Albus came out from under the truck to greet us like he does at the end of every morning walk. So I decided that the animal I saw in the park was not Albus, but maybe his doppelgänger. That’s not unheard of. There have been a number of times where Michael and I have been notified through our neighborhood app about a lost or found cat with a picture of what could very easily be Albus. He has slowed down quite a lot in just this year alone, but I have seen him many many times jumping into our yard from our back neighbors. I doubt he’s traveling around far, but he’s still traveling.

Thursday morning, I saw the large white ‘cat’ sitting in the upper section of the park as Josephine and I walked in. I knew this was not Albus because Albus came into the house as soon as I opened the pet door that morning. I sort of forgot about the creature as we continued our walk, but then when we had finished the outside loop and headed into the center of the park, I noticed the creature sitting next to a tree. It was pretty close to the side walk, but because it was dark and I was still was not wearing glasses, I could not make out any real details. When Josephine noticed it, the creature hopped up, turned and ran off out of sight. When it turned to go, I got a glimpse of it’s tail and body shape. It was very clearly a small fox.

Back during the pandemic times, Josephine and I would see a family of foxes at this park often. Then one day they disappeared. We haven’t seen foxes there in a few years. Come to think of it, it’s been a while since we’ve seen deer. The makeshift tent and shelter that is barely visible through the brush on one corner of the park probably has something to do with the lack of wildlife. The rabbits don’t mind, but a strong human presence is a deterrent to the more skittish animals like deer and foxes. Seeing this fox was a surprise and one that tells me I need to wear my glasses when I’m walking the dog. Who knows what I’ve been missing.

Many mornings, I wake up and look at the clock and groan. I want to roll over and skip the walk. I don’t because I know it’s really good for Josephine. I don’t because I feel better for doing it. Sometimes I forget just how much I enjoy that time of the morning. The neighborhood is quiet and relatively deserted. The bats are still out, swooping around the streetlights. We might see an opossum or a raccoon slinking in the darkest shadows. These early morning walks are a way for me to start the day with a good intentions. I’m setting the tone for myself to not just get in some steps, but to notice the little details that surround me.

This morning, I wore my glasses.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Our current task for Self Care Circle is to create a color-coded time map for our calendars. We’re using Google calendars and we’re supposed to add events and color code them to our liking. For instance, everything that is exercise related on my calendar is basil green, work is yellow, stuff like my yoga practice and building walks are red and education stuff is purple. I’ve been adding events to my calendar all week and at one point I paused and looked at ALL OF THE THINGS and I started hyperventilating. I took a screenshot and sent it to my friend Sarah. I told her that my calendar looks unrealistic and insane and I haven’t even added everything yet. She said “That’s why you’re doing it.” She then praised me on the amount of exercise I have on my calendar and told me that she thinks I do a pretty good job with the whole self care thing. She reminded me that I exercise, I write, I make art, I do that crazy Spelling Bee game in the NYTimes, I cook and I clean.

I do a lot of stuff.

Then she said “I think you should focus on positive self talk.” and I said “I think you need to shut up.”

No. I did not say that.

When I look at the weekly view of my calendar, here is what I see. I see a lot of red and yellow. So much so that it looks like my calendar is on fire. I was thinking about this during one of my building walks, the yellow and red waving around like heat waves in my head, and the first edit I am going to make is to change those colors. I do not need to look at my calendar and feel like my life is on fire. The next changes I plan to make is to add some events. One day this week, while standing out on the work patio at tea time, I watched a young man with a backpack, wearing headphones while roller skating down the sidewalk. Actually, to just call it roller skating is an injustice to what this young man was doing. It was a ballet on wheels. He roller danced his way down that sidewalk with ease and confidence and I knew right then and there what event needed to be added to my calendar. I am replacing my usual Wednesdays at Heather’s (she’s leaving today for her new job) with Roller Skating Wednesdays. I am also adding some rest events because if you were to look at my calendar now, you would say “Cindy! When are you ever still?!?!?” Events like ‘sit on the couch for an hour and squeeze my dog’ seems like a necessary item to add to the calendar.

Really, I need to remember that all the things in my calendar are intentions. There were only three days this week where I crawled out of bed early enough to do both thirty minutes of exercise and walk the dog. The intent was there; the body just wasn’t willing (probably because I never have an intention for resting). My personal yoga time happened twice this week. I am super busy at work right now and I just could not carve out extra time for my mat. Hey, but here are the things I did do. I walked the building multiple times a day. I did my job and I did it really well (science is hard). I spent time with friends in the evenings. That wasn’t on my calendar at all. I did some writing. I made some art. I checked in with some friends I hadn’t talked to in a while. I rode my scooter. I made Queen Bee four out of five days this week.

Why is it so easy to fall back into a mindset of only seeing the things one didn’t do? Today, I am grateful for all the things I did do.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Eka pada rajakapotasana Franklin does yoga

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Wednesday morning, I woke up with a sore throat and congestion and that hot/cold clammy feeling you get when you are sick. I crawled back under the covers and said “no thank you.” I woke up later in the morning and moved from my bed to the couch where I spent the rest of the day watching Hanna on Amazon and the latest episode of Call the Midwives (you guys, when that woman had the triplets, ugly crying) and Riverdale. Riverdale is a guilty pleasure and feels like reading all those books written by V.C. Andrews. I can’t help but get the feeling that Betty really doesn’t have a sister Polly who lives in a group home after a psychotic breakdown. I suspect that Betty is Polly and she’s just been brainwashed into forgetting the horrible thing that happened to her to cause her breakdown. The doctors wiped out ‘Polly’ and replaced her with Betty. Riverdale also feels very much like a dark version of Dawson’s Creek. Jughead is Pacey. Archie is Dawson. Veronica is Jen. Betty is Joey.

Michael came home later that evening with a sickly Cabbage in tow. It was decided that she would stay the night with us and Michael would stay home with her on Thursday. The Cabbage spent the rest of the evening throwing up, laying on the bathroom floor and then laying in her bed, repeating the throwing up part a few more times before settling into a slumber. I knew that no matter how bad I felt when I woke up on Thursday, that I was going to work because I wanted nothing to do with a stomach bug added to a sinus infection. There’s been lots of disinfecting going on around the house in the last two days. When I woke up Thursday, I felt a bit better, but every thing took me twice as long to do because living life is exhausting. I got to work and opened an email from a coworker saying that he’d be out today because their 8 year old was up all night throwing up. Then my boss said the same was true for his wife. Looks like we are all on the Oregon Trail together.

What’s disappointing was how this week started out promising. It started with good intensions. The newish morning yoga routine was happening. We voted. I exercised. We tried a new recipe with zucchini and asparagus and we did not like it, but ate it any way. I repurposed those leftovers into a Mexican inspired pasta dish with mini tortellinis and soyrizo. We loved this. Except by Wednesday, it looked as though we had just spent Monday and Tuesday paving our path to Hell. And today I am thinking about how often I enter into things with a some preconceived notion of how I expect life to be or how very disappointed I am with myself for not sticking to those good intentions.

abhāva-pratyaya-ālambanā tamo-vr̥ttir-nidra: Dreamless sleep is the void of all thought patterns. - 1/10 Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

In the discussion for this Sutra, it talks about how our actions are directed by our intentions and are carved out from a life of reactions. It is our fight or flight response that so often dictates our reactions and as a result, our intentions are not made by our own choices. “Yoga is a means of taking ownership of those intentions by actually making choices.” What choice am I making for myself here, when I set the intention to practice yoga in the mornings? I have noticed that when I do my early morning practice, my body is not so stiff and achy. I have more pep in my morning steps and there’s a little less chatter inside my brain. By setting the intention to do my yoga practice at all, I am making a choice to care for this body. The true intention I should be making is to care for this body. More powerful than saying that I will do something is the action of doing it. This week I made choices to care for this body. Some times that choice looks like getting on my mat and flowing through poses, while other times it looked like laying on the couch with hot tea, a blanket and both of the animals tucked in around me while I watch crappy TV.

Both choices are yoga.

NEW YEAR

Zen project

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Monday morning, I set in on the far side of the kitchen and started cleaning. I pulled out drawers. I threw away packets of soy sauce from 2013. I removed items that we no longer use (anyone want a programable rice cooker?). I wiped down every surface with disinfecting cleaner. When the kitchen was done, I moved on to the rest of the house, moving from room to room armed with a dust rag and a trash can. When I finished with the house, I moved on to myself. I coated my face with a charcoal mask, took a steamy shower and shaved my legs. Then I rubbed coconut oil all over my body because my skin is so dry that I am turning to dust. I’m like the ending of Avengers: Infinity War. Michael and I rang in the New Year watching Bird Box while working on a puzzle. I was in bed by 12:10.

Tuesday morning, I got Michael up and dragged him to a yoga class that my friend Kelly was teaching for New Year’s Day. Kelly gave us some intentions for the new year and I wish I’d written them down. Dr. Mary was there and she hugged me tight and told me I looked rested. Then Michael and I walked across the street so I could take my final picture of my Flickr 365 Day project. It was 18 degrees with snow flurries and I did not smile. Even though our New Year’s traditional Indian food place was just a few blocks down the street, we drove to the restaurant. It was closed. So Michael took the most convoluted way to the Indian place in Westport where we struggled to find a parking place. There was a woman sitting in her car and we pulled up next to her. I asked if she was leaving. She rolled her eyes at me and said “One minute.” But we got her parking space. We ate too much Indian food and then walked it off at the local health food store before driving over to pick up the Cabbage. Then Michael and I finished our puzzle and I went to bed.

I am entering 2019 seriously unmotivated.

The psychologist and author of the Willpower Instinct, Kelly McGonigal said in a New York Times article about crushing your habits that you should focus on changes that would make you the happiest and pick a theme for the year. Most often we tend to make resolutions about our health based on things that we’ve heard would be good for us. Running. Meditation. Eating a daily kale salad. It does me no good to make a resolution to run a marathon in 2019 if I hate running, but eating a daily kale salad is reasonable because I do love kale. I understand the brain science of creating reasonable resolutions. It is the focus on changes that would make me happy part that I am having a hard time with. I have yet to spend any time reflecting about what I want for myself this year let alone reflecting on changes that would make me happy. I don’t know what changes would make me happy. Skipping January, February and even parts of March would make me happy, but that doesn’t ever seem to be an option. Maybe skipping those months wouldn’t necessarily make me happy as much as it would make it easier for me to reflect on things that would make me happy.

I can say that yesterday afternoon, when Michael and I were finishing up our puzzle, that I was pretty content and at peace. We moved the puzzle to the kitchen table to have more space to work. Then we sat in the dining room, with Andrew Bird playing on Alexa, piecing together the Periodic Table. It was nice to be sitting at the table doing an activity other than watching TV. I feel like a change that would make me happier would be to step away from the TV. I read in the evenings, but I’m usually sitting on my end of the couch with Michael on the other end and the TV playing some stupid crime show. I’m going to get up and leave the TV area. Maybe to read; maybe to do some writing; maybe to work on another puzzle. I don’t know, but the TV is not bringing me joy or good health. Another thing that I know for sure is that I am happiest when I am on my mat. I have myself booked up with yoga workshops through March and I’m eyeing a women’s yoga retreat in April. I might even buy a membership to a studio for the summer.

One of the intentions for the New Year that Kelly gave us in class yesterday was to get rid of all the bullshit. I recently was made aware that I put in a lot more thought than some into my actions towards things and people around me. I put a lot of effort into making someone else’s life easier, while making my life harder and it’s really kind of exhausting. Especially when it’s one sided. It’s bullshit. So, I think I’ll dump it and do more to make my life easier. Take more initiatives for myself instead of waiting for someone else to take the initiative. Do a better job of tuning out the grumbles and whines. I don’t understand why it is so hard for some women to put themselves first, but I am one of those women who has a hard time doing just that.

That’s some bullshit I can do without.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Waving heart

See this Instagram photo by @elephant_soap

Considering that I am writing this on Thursday and Thursday got here surprisingly fast, that in itself should be something I'm grateful for this week. Except that's not something high on my gratitude list. I am surprised by the speed at which time passed this week. I had good intentions. I had plans to write more and post things that are not sad or deal with the ashes of my dead husband. I wrote a whole paragraph about my crazy dreams that have been inspired from my TV watching and then I couldn't come up with an ending so I deleted it. I had plans to get on my yoga mat more this week. My practice got a little derailed during all the travel and I haven't really gotten back into a routine. I even skipped yoga class Wednesday night so I could get home to let the dog out of her crate. 

Samuel Johnson said "Hell is paved with good intentions." I suppose that Hell has a very advanced highway system and plenty of sidewalks by now. I know that plenty of us start off our days and weeks with the very best of intentions. Some of us have very long, complicated lists of intentions. I know that I tend to be that kind of person and so when I reach the end of a week where I've done very little on my complicated list of intentions, I feel like a bit of a failure. I forget to recognize the simple things that were good that I did unintentionally. I skipped yoga class on Wednesday, but I took Josephine on a walk in the park. I didn't get any writing done this week, but I do have tomato plants in the garden and I thinned out the radishes. I also took a jar that I bought four or five years ago with the idea of turning into a terrarium and finally turned it into a terrarium. And I did make it onto my yoga mat at least once this week. 

I am also reminded that my "good" intentions list should be simple: be the best person I can be in this moment. Really, it's the only intention I should have. Yesterday I gave a half a carton of eggs to two different people for no reason other than I thought it would be nice to give them some eggs. Both recipients were so over joyed with receiving those eggs and it was the best feeling to be able to surprise them with eggs. I am grateful to be able to give fresh eggs to the unsuspecting. I am thankful for the reminder to make my intention list short. I am grateful for the reminder to be my very best me.

I am thankful for a lot of things this week like perfectly poached eggs on avocado toast and countless games of tug-o-war with the dog. I am thankful for our new city issued garbage bin because now we don't have to store Albus's latest kill in the garage (I saved a baby bunny twice last night only to find him dead on our living room floor this morning; Albus is a jerk). I am thankful for being appreciated for a job well done. I am thankful for these new pants that are comfortable even though they have a non-elastic waistband.  I am thankful for you.

Here's to a lovely weekend and perfectly perfect Thankful Friday.