THANKFUL FRIDAY

My coworker/friend who is in charge of our fitness facility gave birth to her first child this week. We all received photos of proof of life. One photo was a family group shot showing that all was well and the second photo was a solo shot of the newborn. All you can see are the two hands of a nurse holding up a red, angry faced baby. The look on her face is not one of fear. She’s not crying because she’s hurt. Her face is a perfect representation of rage.

And that is my favorite picture of the week.

Michael sent me a video this week of Kriya Yogi talking about how the financial web of constraints we have built for ourselves will be the thing that keeps us from following Jesus when he comes back to this planet. I argued that money would not entirely be the thing that makes people reject Jesus, but that it will be their mistrust and fear that will keep them from following. I also argued that Jesus currently already walks among us in various forms. It just doesn’t create the sensational click-bait style of headlines that the Nazis and Trump create. We are a society riled and united by our hate and fear of things that go against our ideas of societal normatives and there are people who have learned to manipulate this trait to their advantage. This hate that is fueled by those fears is the thing that keeps us blind from the true teachings of Jesus and the possibility that he’s walking around us right now.

So what does this have to do with pictures of red, angry babies?

It takes a very special adult human to remember their own birth, but I want you to imagine it for it moment. You’ve just spent the better part of a year (normally…I spent less time than most) cocooned inside a warm safe space. Actually, for the most part, it’s pretty great in there. Plenty of food and napping. It’s probably one of the few times in our lives when we are truly well rested. Then we are forced to leave this safe wonderful space in a traumatic and painful way. Suddenly we find ourselves in this space where the light is too bright for our little eyes and it is cold and terrifying. Now some babies take it all in mildly with a little suspicion. They might cry a little bit but nothing too loud and expressive. They cry more out of fear of the unknown than anything. Then you have those babies that tremble with rage over this new environment. These babies…these are babies that get it. They know they have just been forced into a world filled with trash both literally and figuratively. I don’t know what kind of baby I was when I entered this world other than in hurry to be here, but I like to think I was also boiling with rage at what I found when I did enter this world.

I see each and every rage filled baby as a potential ally because my secret fuel for a constant practice in kindness and fighting against the hate and racist people of this country is rage. Every story I hear about white privileged males harming and or killing a person of color and or a person of the LBGTQ+ community, my rage sends money to that person in need. My rage makes me get to the polls. My rage is the thing that forces me to stop and pick up the bit of garbage I just crossed paths with on the sidewalk. I know it sounds crazy, but being so angry at the way things are makes me want to just be better, and I see each rage filled newborn as a being that has the potential to learn to use their rage for good. I want to say to them that its okay to be angry about the way things are, but what do you want to do about it? Use that rage to for the greater good. Also, there is quite a bit of joy is showing these little angry babies that while yes they have entered a garbage society, there are so many beautiful things to be found in the garbage.

I am grateful for new allies.

THINGS THAT DON'T MATTER

Raspberry toes

0 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Raspberry toes"

I don't know what it is about Costco, but just pulling into the parking lot makes me want to punch someone. I immediately fill up with rage. We always find ourselves pulling into the parking lot at the worst time of day to be inside Costco and getting from the car to inside the doors is like reenacting an episode of American Gladiators while pushing an oversized shopping cart. I must have missed the etiquette lesson that teaches you to stop just inside the doorway of places so that you block all others from entering a room. The other shoppers at Costco did not miss this lesson because they are masters of stepping just inside and then spreading out almost like they are getting ready to start a game of Red Rover. It is all I can do to not shove them with my cart. I am not there to browse. I am not there to gawk at all of the things. When I go into Costco, I go in with a plan and a list. I can not afford to do other wise. I want to get in and get out and the people inside Costco want to do everything they can to keep me from doing just that.  

Saturday, I had to play this game twice because we ended up at two different Costcos. The first Costco didn't have all of the things on the list. Michael called the other Costco to see if they had the missing item. They did and we ended up abandoning our cart and just walking out to head over to a different Costco where I had to run the gauntlet all over again. This time I got everything on our list and managed to push my cart right up to an empty check out lane. WHAT?! Turns out that no one pays attention to the check out lane at the very end. Our check out was timed perfectly with a torrential downpour. We walked to the doors where people and carts were lined up as if they had been herded into a pen. Michael ran to get the car and when he pulled up, I ran outside with our cart. He had managed to park right next to the downspout for a gutter. I stood in ankle deep rushing water while tossing all of our things into the back seat. Rain was pounding down on me and while I was tossing in a giant stack of Kleenex, I just yelled "IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER!"

I finally made into the car, my clothes soaked through, my hair plastered down on my head with water dripping into my eyes. Michael turned to me, handing me his handkerchief and asked "What did you yell while you were putting stuff into the car?" I blotted my face with the handkerchief and replied "It doesn't fucking matter." Then we both started laughing at the ridiculousness of the whole situation. Our next stop was the REI store and the rain had dampened to a medium sprinkle. People were still standing under the awning of the store though when Michael pulled up and let me out of the car. One woman looked at me as I walked up to the doors and the look on her face said "Oh, honey." I shrugged and said "We just came from Costco. It's way worse over there." and I brushed my wet hair off my forehead and walked right on in. 

A couple of weekends ago, Michael and I got caught in unexpected rain shower while we were on the scooters. We rode home in a heavy downpour. At one point, I got stuck at a light behind a car that was illegally parked outside a church. They had pulled up so that someone could usher some senior citizen into the car. I just sat there waiting patiently. Really, there was nothing more I could do. I couldn't go around the car and by the time I could go around, the light had turned red. I was thinking of this moment while I was stuck outside Costco, throwing bulk items of butter and kleenex into the backseat. At some point it really just doesn't matter. At some point, I just have to be in it. This is how it is; it is not something I can control. But I can control my reaction. Which is how I should approach being inside Costco or any situation I get stuck in that I can't control. Sometimes you need to get caught in the rain just to remind yourself that it really isn't that big of a deal to get caught in the rain. 

And that is just doesn't fucking matter. 

I WILL PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE

Instagram post by Cindy Maddera * Mar 11, 2018 at 1:53pm UTC

6 Likes, 0 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram

Last week, I woke up at three AM from a dream where I was so angry at Michael for something to do with schedules and calendars. I got up and went to the bathroom, but when I crawled back into bed my brain was too hyped up to go back to sleep. I laid there raging and reliving various random moments of conflict and how I should have said this instead of that. I kicked off all of the covers because I was hot and flipped over to turn off my electric blanket. My period starts in three days. The dreams leading up to this have been off the chain. One night I put on eye makeup and it was perfect, but I only did one eye. The next night I tore my closet apart looking for my elephant skirt and was unable to find it. I know for sure that both were dreams because I am incapable of applying eye makeup let alone perfect eye makeup. I checked my closet and my elephant skirt is still there. 

I started watching the Masterpiece Theater show Breathless and there's this episode where an older woman discovers that her husband is having an affair with the secretary. She confronts him and so he takes her to the doctor where he bullies the doctor into prescribing some serious drugs because of her crazy menopausal symptoms. The woman makes a half hearted attempt to stab the secretary with a pair of scissors, is told she needs to get herself under control, and then overdoses on the prescription her husband forces the doctor to give her. There's a moment before she takes all of the pills when she's talking to an older nurse who is telling her to get her shit together when the woman says that she still wished she'd stabbed that girl with the scissors. It is the most frustrating episode I have seen so far because they keep playing off this woman's rage at her husband's infidelity as just symptoms of menopause. Then I got so mad about the whole episode that I picked up my iPad and threw it across the gym. 

I did not.

I had been basking in a skinny phase for the past two months. I caught my reflection in the mirror while teaching a yoga class and thought "Oh! I look skinny!". A week later my body turned into a bloated up bullfrog. I again caught my reflection while teaching a class and thought "Who is that fat girl teaching yoga? Oh...it's me." I closed my eyes to the reflection and never looked back at the mirror again. Saturday, we found ourselves on the Plaza and Michael sent me to Anthropolgie while he and the Cabbage went to look for shoes. They found me just as I was checking out. The Cabbage put her chin on the counter and told the check out lady "I'm going to be a big sister!" The woman then looked right at my belly and said "CONGRATULATIONS!" I didn't say a word. I just smiled and nodded my head. When the transaction was complete, the woman walked my bag around to hand to me. I guess so I wouldn't strain myself picking up the bag containing two shirts from the counter? It was weird and not the first time someone has congratulated me on a pregnancy. 

So, you would think that all of this plus a time change would make me a very ragey person today. Except I knew that all of this plus a time change would set me on a murderous rampage and I made some changes to my routine. First of all, I left work early on Friday and cleaned the house. I mean, scrub under furniture and wash the curtains kind of cleaning of the house. Then, I had Michael hang some shelves in my room which allowed me to free up my yoga storage box. I swapped places with the yoga box and my hamper, placed a blanket and meditation pillow on the box and BOOM! Meditation space. The next thing I did was probably the most difficult. I changed my alarm clock setting from 5:50 AM to 5:17 AM and then I got up out of bed when that 5:17 alarm went off in the morning. Here's what the usual routine generally looks like: wake up around 4 something AM, let the dog out, the cat comes in and drools on me, fall back to sleep for an hour before the alarm clock goes off, seriously consider calling in sick to work, seriously wonder if Michael is getting up, go make sure Michael is up and getting into the shower, crawl back into bed until he's done, seriously consider calling in sick, begrudgingly get up and into the shower.

This morning, I did twenty minutes of meditation and brewed a cup of hot ginger lemon water to sip on while Michael was in the shower. Am I tired? Of course, I am. But I am not as tired as I was before starting this routine. That whole going back to sleep for an hour before having to get up for real was killing me and my sleep inertia was all kinds of disrupted. Every time I fell back asleep, I was resetting my sleep cycle to think I was at the beginning of my sleep cycle, making it harder to get up when it was actually time to get up. Messing with your sleep inertia also leaves you groggy and disoriented for up to four hours after waking this way. I am still bloated. I still had some weird ass dreams last night. But! BUT!!! I feel less likely to punch someone in the face today. 

That' something.