THANKFUL FRIDAY

Tuesday morning, I peeled my tired ‘don’t wanna’ ass out of bed and then pulled on some clothes. I opened my closet and reached in for my walking shoes and Josephine nearly lost her mind. Josephine does not have a big enough body for containing joy. When she sees my walking shoes, she knows we’re going for a walk and her joy explodes from her body in a couple of ways. She will parkour herself all around my bedroom and grab the nearest toy to flip around in the air. Then she will throw her little body at me in a demand to tie my shoes faster. Once she is harnessed and leashed, she will grab a section of the leash and pull me towards the front door. This is her reaction every time, not just because it’s been a few months since our last walk.

Michael and I are and will continue to be busy with various things over the next few months. Michael has several after school meetings and play rehearsals. I get home late on Tuesdays because I teach an evening yoga class. This makes me feel bad for Josephine because she has no one to pet her all day or play a game of tug-o-war. It is a long day for all of us. The weather is tolerable this week, so I was determined to at least do this Tuesday morning walk. I woke up before my alarm (not unusual) and looked at the clock. My whole body groaned. I was a little bit sore form the previous day’s yoga experience. My eyes were crusty. It was cold in the house and staying in bed, even though I would not get any real sleep, felt soooooo much easier than getting out of bed.

But I didn’t stay in bed.

I rolled to one side and peeled myself up to a seated position. Then I firmly placed all four corners of the bottom of my feet into the floor. I said to myself “get up.” even though I still didn’t want to, but once I was dressed and walking, my body changed it’s mind about the ‘don’t wanna’. Our way to the park felt slower than normal, mostly because Josephine had to stop and investigate all of the things along the way. Side note: Josephine is part pig. She grunts and snorts with her nose to the ground for 95% of the walk. At one point, she sniffed a spot on the ground, took five steps before shaking her head in surprise and circling back for another sniff. We saw two raccoons slink their way across the street (blocks from our house) and heard one owl claiming the area has his. We were the only ones in the park or out in the neighborhood. There was only the faintest of light to the East as we walked the last block back to the house.

I know that not to far from now, there will be more than just a faint bit of light as we make our way home from our walks.

Why is it so hard to get started? What happens to my body during these months that makes it impossible to want to move?!? It’s like my blood thickens to maple syrup but it doesn’t make me warmer. I am never warm. My hands are so cold that if I were to touch you, you would think you had been touched by death. I starting writing this entry thinking that I would immediately post this because I figured that getting up to walk the dog would only happen on Tuesday, but Wednesday morning there I was bundled up and walking Josephine through the neighborhood. Then I did it again on Thursday and Friday. By Thursday, this was starting feel like a gratitude post and I delayed posting. I’ve also been a little bit lazy about my writing, spending my “free time” playing The Bee or doing the NYTimes crossword. I recognize that winter is far from over and that I should expect at least two more miserably cold with possible snow events before the end of March. I also know that today a large rodent made some predictions about the weather for the next few weeks. But today, right now, I am not focused on the future or the what ifs to come.

I am grateful for a week that contained buckets of sunshine every day and temperatures that allowed us to thaw before the next cold front comes along.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Josephine and I have made it out for our morning walks every day this week with the exception of Monday. During our walks, we have seen rabbits, opossums, one fox, two deer, and one raccoon. We heard one owl. The raccoon almost doesn’t count as a walk sighting because he was in our backyard. Josephine treed him in our big walnut tree in the back. Now all of our pet doors smell like fox urine because I have sprayed all of the entry ways with it to discourage another raccoon kitchen party.

I have made a personal connection with my yoga mat every day this week. Meaning, I have gotten my yoga mat out for other reasons besides when I am teaching in some time. My personal yoga practice has been trash for weeks. On the few times I’ve been on my mat, when I lay down for final relaxation, I last five minutes before I’m up and turning the timer off. Thursday, I stayed a full fifteen minutes without fidgeting or falling asleep. My body is pleasantly sore from planks and lunges.

My physical health has seen better days. I’ve allowed myself to fall out of some good habits I created a while back and the result is that in addition to feeling mentally blah, I’m feeling unpleasantly pudgy. It is time to roll my body out of stationary mode. To help me do this, I have created a whole new color coded calendar I call Healthy Body and it’s devoted to everything from walk schedules to doctors’ appointments. I feel really smart for doing this, so smart that I am going to create another calendar for just writing and maybe for photography. I’m going to give myself some deadlines because I am deadline motivated.

I kind of marinated for longer than usual in a state of blahs knowing full well that I’d feel better if I’d just move my body. It was a trap. This state of the blahs. The longer I marinated, the harder it was to motivate myself into motion. I’m not saying a week of movement has brought me out of the blahs, but I will say that I am seeing more in color and feeling a little more than nothing. May is Mental Health Awareness month and I just realized that May is here in two days (depending on when you’re reading this). I told you that I am highly motivated by deadlines. I’m kicking things off a week early.

Today I have deep gratitude for my morning walks with Josephine and my yoga mat.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Man…gratitude. I hate those weeks when I get near the end and start to write this entry and I can’t think of anything to write. That says to me that I spent the week being only mindful of the tasks that I need to accomplish each day and nothing else. My focus was seriously narrowed to work this week since it was my first full week in the office in over a year. That’s every day of packing a lunch, putting on a bra and driving my car to a place other than my house. It felt good. It feels good. I took advantage of my standing desk and I got more daily steps. I was finally able to get ahead on that mountain of slides I have to image, but I’m not gonna lie. I need a real hard nap.

I knew this week was going to be a difficult adjustment for Josephine who had gotten used to me being at home with her all day for two or three days in a row. At home days meant more snuggles, more playtime moments and (weather permitting) a good walk. I made it my goal to get up half an hour earlier every morning so I could do thirty minutes of exercise and take Josephine on a walk before getting ready for work. We have walked every morning except one because I thought it was raining. It wasn’t. The morning I thought it wasn’t raining, it was actually raining, but we were out the door before we knew what was happening. We walked in the rain anyway. On the mornings when I just didn’t think I could get out of bed early enough to do an X-tend Barre class or get on the rowing machine and do a walk, I chose the walk. And I am so happy I did.

I had forgotten how great those early morning walks could be. The neighborhood is at its quietest at this hour in the morning and at times it feels like Josephine and I are the only two people in the city. That might be an unsettling feeling for some, but I find that in those moments, my brain sparks with creative thoughts and words form a script for various scenes in my head. It’s still dark when we leave the house and the wet and chilly weather makes everything seem moody and dramatic. This morning we stepped outside into a thick fog and frost on the ground. I could not stop marveling over the way the fog and frost transformed the landscape. The way the street lights split the sheets of fog was hypnotizing and I paused often to take some pictures.

Before I leave the house in the mornings, Josephine gets two small cookies. The first cookie she gets after doing whatever trick I’ve asked her to do. Sit up, roll over, down and stay are all in her repertoire and sometimes she gets so excited that she will do all of the above before I can even tell her which trick to perform. The first cookie also comes with pets and love and a lot of words from me about how she is such a smart, wonderful little dog and I love her so so much. This morning, I spent a few extra minutes petting Josephine. I thanked her for our morning walks and then I said “Wait, I want to thank you for all that you do for me.” She looked up at me, slightly quivering with anticipation for the second cookie but obviously torn between receiving more love and devotion and the second cookie. So I stood up and said ‘okay’ which is her signal to head to her crate. She always makes a beeline for that crate and will be sitting there waiting for that second cookie. She’s very treat motivated, but aren’t we all.

So I didn’t get in thirty minutes of some form of exercise on two days this week. No biggie. I did get on my yoga mat everyday. Really, the most important part of this week were those morning walks. I don’t have to look hard to see the gratitude in those moments.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Walk!

See this Instagram photo by @elephant_soap * 4 likes

Monday evening, I got home from work and the sun was still up and the temperatures where near sixty. I wrangled Josephine into her walking harness and hooked on her leash just as she grabbed the middle section of her leash and pulled towards the door. She always wants to be clear; she is walking me and not the other way around. We stepped outside and headed out onto the sidewalk with Josephine's little feet dancing from smell to smell. We walked to the park where Josephine sniffed noses with another pooch who was there with his people and wiggled her butt at other walkers on the trail. 

It has been months since I have taken Josephine for a walk after work. The lack of daylight and cooler weather just zapped me. I gave it a good try and ended up walking in the dark for a while, Michael didn't care for that. He bought me a personal alarm that I am supposed to clip to my coat. There's a plastic pin, like a grenade, that I pull if someone is attacking me and the clip starts screeching in a loud high pitched alarm sound. When he gave it to me, he clipped it to my coat and said "Okay. Someone's coming at you. What do you do?" I grabbed the pin and threw it across the living room. In the scramble to retrieve the pin and stop the alarm, Michael knocked the pin under the china cabinet that has a very low clearance with the floor. His giant man hands had a hard time recovering the pin. If the attacker feels like he needs to go after the pin and things turn out like they did for Michael, I think I'll be fine. Any way, it is not the dark that upsets me as much as it is the cold. 

We've reached that part of winter where it is obviously still winter. Today's temperatures are in the thirties, but occasionally there's a mix up (or global warming...it's really because of global warming) and we get a day that is filled with sun and Spring like temperatures. I am always thankful for those days and do what I can to make the most of the sunshine. I am even more thankful that this opportunity presented itself at the beginning of the week. It set a tone of calmness and reflection that I have not been making enough time for and the result has been reflected in my response to conflict. I've taken a moment to reason before reacting. This does not mean I'm backing down from my fight against racism and anti-science and all of the other horrible things the Trump administration represent. It just means I won't stoop to the level of "your mother" in my attacks and defenses. My weapons are truth and reasoning and critical thinking. My goal is not to increase the divide but to convince those on the other side to have compassion and empathy for others not like them. "Do unto others...."

On Tuesday, I discovered four eggs in the chicken coop. On Wednesday I went to yoga class and discussed setting up a time with Shannon to go over the workshop I have developed for yoga straps. On Thursday, I spent a minute laying in a sunny windowsill. On Friday, I re-watched a video that Amy sent me from Charolette that began with "Cindy...I love you." and ended with "chickens poop and eggs come out." This has been a good week filled with gratitude. I hope that you have had moments in the week to be thankful for as well. Here's to a quiet weekend and a very Thankful Friday.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Sassy

"Sassy"

Yesterday morning, I stepped outside with my cup of coffee to do my morning loop before heading back to my desk. The crisp Fall air hit my face and I had a memory, or a vision really, of Robin zipping up her gray hoodie and stuffing her hands in her pockets as we walked out the door for daily walk. This was exactly the type of weather that would make Robin where a hoodie. Those were the days we meticulously scrutinized the weather reports. We loved the walk we would take outside that took us up to the Capitol Building and around, but we hated cold. More importantly, we hated cold mixed with wind. We'd check a couple of different weather reports and then look out the window at the flag pole at the entrance of the Veterans Hospital. If the American flag was waving at us, we walked inside. 

I hardly ever check the weather now. The other day, I rode my scooter to work with gray clouds looming overhead. As I walked across the parking garage, the security guard asked me if I thought it was going to clear up by the afternoon. I looked at the sky slightly surprised that it was so gray and said "you know? I have no idea what the weather is going to do today, but I rode any way." This is why I'm constantly getting caught in rain storms. Weather is less variable here mostly because the wind is not a factor. Oh that Oklahoma wind. In the summer, it is a hot hairdryer blowing in your face and in the winter it is a knife cutting into your bones. I don't know why I thought of Robin in her hoodie. It's probably because I miss those walks as much as I know that she does. I am grateful for those walks. They were more therapy sessions for each of us than exercise. We'd talk about all of the things. We'd laugh about all of the things. Sometimes we'd even cry about all of the things. Those walks forged our friendship, a friendship that I'm truly grateful for. 

The temperatures here have officially turned to Fall. It was forty nine degrees outside when I left the house this morning. Last night Michael said that the season for me being cold all the time is here. He said this as he was throwing a quilt over us on the couch. My days of joyful scooter rides, walks outside and bike rides are numbered. So I am thankful for these days right now where I can still do those things without cringing. This weekend may be the weekend I pull up things in the garden and clean out the beds for next spring. This may also be the weekend we buy some pumpkins. One thing for sure is that this will be a weekend to be outside, soaking in the sun. I am thankful for crystal blue skies, green tomatoes and collard green sprouts. I am thankful for cheesy mashed potatoes and broccolini. I am thankful for my little Josephine who just got her haircut. Now she looks just like a Monopoly piece. And of course, as always, I am thankful for you.

Here's to a weekend of apple cider and a truly Thankful Friday!