THANKFUL FRIDAY

According to the Sleep Foundation, there are four stages of sleep:

• Stage one, or N1, lasts about one to seven minutes. This is the falling to sleep stage.

• Stage two, or N2, can last for ten to twenty minutes. This stage is kind of where you go during a good final relaxation. There’s a drop in body temperature, the muscles relax and the breathing and heart rate slow down. Even the brain activity slows.

• Stage three, or N3, is the deep sleep stage and typically lasts twenty to forty minutes. The researchers say that people are generally harder to wake when in this stage and experts say that this stage is critical to restorative sleep. As the night progresses, this stage shortens as the body moves into stage four, or REM.

• REM stage is the dreaming stage. Brain activity picks up but the body experiences a temporary paralysis of the muscles with the exception of the muscles that control the eyes and breathing. Normally, we don’t reach this stage until we’ve been asleep for about ninety minutes. There are two REM stages. The first one lasts only for a few minutes, while the second stage can last for an hour or a little longer. As we get older, we spend less time in REM.

I know all of this because I just looked it up.

I looked it up because I wanted a clear picture of what I am about to tell you. At the end of Daylight Savings Time last year, I would go to bed at my usual 9 o’clock hour only to wake up again around midnight. Then, I’d wake up again around 2:00 AM, go use the bathroom and drift off to sleep until about 4:30. Now my alarm is set for 5:25 AM. This is the latest I can get away with if I am going to walk Josephine before work. Waking up at 4:30 and then going back to sleep made getting up at 5:25 impossible. To be fair, if it’s cold, we’re not walking, but this doesn’t mean I couldn’t get out of bed and use this time for yoga or some sort of exercise. Instead, I drifted off to sleep again only to wake up around 6:00. Josephine traded walks for extra snuggle time and I don’t think she was mad about it. While I recognize that winter is for hibernating, that doesn’t keep me from feeling bad about my decline in physical activity.

But then Daylight Savings Time came back and you could hear a collective groan across America about our lost hour of sleep.

I am the exception. I’m probably the only person to actually thrive by losing an hour of sleep. I have been awake and ready to go every morning this week at 5:00 AM. I still wake up around midnight, but that second wake up doesn’t happen now until 3:00 or a little after. So I fall back to sleep for about two hours and wake up ready to start the day. Josephine has lost her puppy mind every morning when she sees me pull my walking shoes from the closet. The weather has been perfect, so perfect that I’ve also ridden my scooter all week and I can honestly say I have been more active this week. Yes, I know I have fallen completely like a dupe for Fake Spring.

I don’t care.

Wednesday evening around eight, I opened my mouth in a jaw cracking yawn and Michael said “I know right?!? Why are we so tired this week?” I mentioned the time change but then I said “I feel pretty good about being tired at this time of day. I should feel tired. I’ve been up since 5:00 AM doing stuff. All day long.” This is the most active I’ve been in months and I believe it’s because adding an hour screwed up my second REM stage. This has been a great week for my physical health with some slight improvements with my mental health. Sometimes I just sit and pretend that President Elon and VP Trump are not dismantling our country, that they don’t even exist and science will get funding and my gay friends can stayed married. I allow myself about ten to fifteen minutes of this where I’m not thinking about what representative or senator I have to call next or keeping track of my weekly tasks so I can email them to Elon. It’s a tiny delusion, a bit of an indulgence really, but the moment rejuvenates the activist in me.

Always there is a song playing in my head whenever I am riding the Vespa. Usually, it’s Beyonce’s All The Single Ladies. Look, I can’t explain that. It’s the beat, I guess? I just like it, but this week, the song playing in my head is one from vacation bible school.

I got that joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart. Where?! Down in my heart! Where?! Down in my heart! Where?! Down in my heart to stay!

We have the capacity to hold a mixed array of complicated feelings all at the same time. This week I am grateful for the reminder that I have the capacity to hold large amounts of joy while still feeling a little bit of dread. Joyful moments fill our batteries. Last week, I received a fortune cookie fortune that reads “The one who laughs, lasts.” I had a complete mental block and thought this was the dumbest fortune until I woke up the next morning and slapped my forehead. It was the comma throwing me off. Laughter, humor, joy, this is the stuff that is going to sustain us through this fight.

Those who laugh, lasts.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Goose

8 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "Goose"

Time changes always mess me up. Even when I've planned for them and I know they are coming. That first night when Mom and I were in Ireland, I woke up and realized that Mom was also awake. I asked her for the time and she said "5:30 AM". I decided that I might as well go ahead and get up and do some yoga and was about half way through my practice when I noticed the time on my phone said that it was really just after midnight Ireland time. I announced this to Mom and said "I'm going back to bed." We both did and then woke up at a more reasonable time a few hours later. Of course that was a five hour time change, but apparently I handle one hour time changes about the same. 

The time change and the transition into Spring have made for some really interesting dreams. One night I dreamed that I was out hiking. I walked to a place where I had to climb onto a log in order to paddle over to an island made of cork. The ground was soft and squishy under my hiking boots and covered with moss and tiny ferns. I made my way to the visitor center which was in a small shack next to a water tower, both made of cork. The water tower leaked. The old man at the visitor center told me that they had a problem with couples coming to the island and stealing bear cubs to take home as pets. The bears on the island were angry and the campground was now surrounded by a bear proof fence that was locked at night. I woke up before I decided what to do next. The next night, I dreamed that I went to work without pants bringing a whole new level to Casual Friday. When my boss saw me, he said "Cindy. You're not wearing pants." I scowled at him and replied "You're not even supposed to be here today so shut up." Then I tugged my T-shirt down a little to be sure it was covering my granny-panty clad ass. I don't know what happened next because I woke up thinking it was Friday, but it was really Thursday.

This has been a week of change. That Patty Loveless song about saying goodbye has been playing in the back of my mind for days. That song always makes me cry, but it is the line about 'life is about changing' that has been on loop in my brain, the words circling around and around like an airplane banner. Often those changes come in subtle quite ways, sneaking in so that they are hardly noticed, like the slow growth of green that starts to spread over things with the coming of Spring. These are the changes that we crave without fearing. The bigger, more sudden changes, like a snow storm after a week of 75 degree weather, are the ones that leave us slightly timid to venture forward. This is the time of year when I am reminded to embrace both kinds of changes. I am reminded to be mindful that change happens every day and that it is how I react to the change that is important. I am thankful for the changes of this week. I am thankful for changes to come. I am thankful for crazy dreams that hint of adventures to come and an acquired boldness.

I am thankful for a turn in the weather because we promised the Cabbage weeks ago that we would go camping this weekend. We are headed to the Joplin KOA with plans to visit the George Washington Carver National Park. I am thankful that my mom will be able to join us for the day. I am thankful for vegetarian sloppy joes. I am thankful for the moments I have had on my yoga mat. I am thankful that Josephine didn't attack Marguerite (the chicken) who escaped while Michael was refilling the chickens' water. I am thankful that Marguerite was more interested in the new water than she was being chased around the yard. I am thankful for moments of stillness. I am thankful for you.

Hope your weekend is full of warmth and that you have a truly Thankful Friday.

NANANANABOOBOO

Tap tap tap

"Tap tap tap"

I just realized that there is one week until the start of NaNoWriMo. Ok. Maybe I didn't just realize that. I've known all along. I just decided to realize right now only because I've been procrastinating on all things. So I might as well procrastinate on gearing myself up to write a novel in a month or something like that. Have I mentioned that I'm tired? I am tired. I don't even know why I'm tired. According to my Jawbone, I am a "stellar sleeper". It actually told me so in my weekly update. I am a little worried that my body's trying to tell me to eat a hamburger or a chunk of bloody meat. I am not going to do this, though I will confess to eating some bacon about a month ago. It was hidden in a breakfast sandwich (I ate it anyway). I know it's not a lack of iron that's making me lazy. I know that this is something that happens to me every Fall as the weather gets cooler. I am a bear. Rawr.

Here's a bit of surprising and or good news though. I finally get to wear the boots I bought months ago when Sorel was having a crazy sale. The insides of these boots are softer than babies. Also, this morning, I wiggled into a pair of skinny cords that I haven't worn since last winter and despite being a size smaller than what I normally wear, they are not tight on my waist at all. I am surprised by this because I haven't been on my bike in a week. In fact, I think my two wheeled days have come to an end for this year. Wah wah. It's really cold in the mornings! Since the weather has been wishy washy, we haven't turned on the heat. We turned it on once and then turned it off the next day and turned the air conditioning back on. So it's really cold in the mornings. There was a frantic moment last night when it was decided that I had to have my electric blanket plugged in but we couldn't find the cord. The cord that was still in the bed frame where I had left it when I took the blanket off the bed in the Spring. 

The alarm clock goes off in the mornings and it is still dark outside. Dark dark. The sun doesn't even look like it's ready to show it's face. Now the house is cold, but my bed it warm and toasty and I do not want to leave it. I end up spending the rest of the day dragging my body around while wishing I was still in that warm and toasty bed. This way of thinking takes up all the energy. When ever my brain starts to think about something else, like NaNoWriMo and some half-baked ideas I have going for that, I sort of just deflate. It seems like so much work! I've got a couple of fiction ideas that have a paragraph or two of a start, but I feel like there's to much research and thinking required. My other option is to return to the memoir that I already have 30,000 something words on, but I look at that one and say "BORING!" No one cares about that story. I don't even care about that story. That story is so weird and convoluted and has no ending. Which I guess is good considering it's a true story about my life. Which isn't over.

NaNoWriMo is not about getting all the facts straight or even getting all the i's dotted though. It's about getting the idea written all down into something usable. Then you can go back and straighten the facts and dot the i's. I have plenty of material for this exact exercise in writing. Does this mean I have just talked myself into another attempt at NaNoWriMo? At the very least I have now convinced myself that I should do it, but not completely decided on if I will do it. I have all week to think about it and guilt myself into it. That's usually how I get most think done. Guilt. I was a devout Catholic nun in a former life. The time change happens this weekend. Monday may roll around and my whole attitude about all things may be improved just because we set our clocks back an hour. Who knows?! Maybe seeing the sun come up when I am getting up will make me feel less lazy. 

I'm going to go take a nap. 

LOVE THURSDAY

Good morning sun

"Good morning sun"

I know the time change is coming. I know that in a few weeks we (or most of us all) will set our clocks back one hour and breath a sigh of relief at that make believe extra hour of sleep. My body has fallen for that trick of daylight savings. Five fifty AM sure would be a lot easier to face if it was really an hour later. Usually this five fifty AM is not so difficult, but as we creep deeper into Fall, that time in the morning gets really hard. My body feels it every year. It's very similar to the magnetic forces inside my brain that tells me where North and South are or more like where I feel North and South. I feel directions. And time changes. 

Even though my body feels like lead when the alarm goes off these days, I still crawl out bed. I still get in the shower. I still feed the animals and make my breakfast. I still get up and do the things I am supposed to do. My reward for getting up and doing those things this week has been the sunrise. Every morning, as I have pedaled my way along the bike route to work, I have been a witness to the sun rising up in the Eastern horizon in the most spectacular display. It streaks the sky with pinks and all of the shades of orange and red. It shifts and changes so that every time I glance at it it is different. More red than orange. Less pink. More orange than red. Each glance at the sky has been breathtaking. 

You're probably sitting there blinking because I do not have pictures. How is it I never took a photo? Don't think I didn't think about it. I did pull my bike over a few times to pause and frame out a shot, but I never took the picture. Those times I stopped, there was always something not right about the framing. Power lines criss crossed the sky. I wasn't high up enough. That building was taller than I remember. The framing was never right because those sunrises where not meant to be photographed. There is not a picture of that sky that I could have taken that would have truly expressed the amazing beauty of those sunrises. Instead, I settled for just being an eye witness. I was not the only person out and about at this time of day, but I am curious how many of those people who were out and about, were paying attention. How many of them noticed all the shades of orange?

Today for Love Thursday, I encourage you to notice all the shades of orange.