CLOSED FOR REMODEL

Not really, but I feel like it.

As I am pondering some current feelings on remodels, I just realized that it is almost July. I generally lean towards feelings of deconstruction and rebuilding in the summer months. I don’t know what it is about the middle of summer and my need to tear down everything and start over. Right now, my feelings of ‘burn it all to the ground’ are exacerbated by my feelings on the current state of a country where I feel like me and my friends are no longer safe and/or welcome. Some have talked to me about seriously moving to Canada. Some of us are just too tired for the fight. I’m leaning towards being too tired. In middle school, I became an activist for the planet, denouncing pollution and handing out free seedlings. In high school, my activism turned to the AIDS crisis and sex education. In college and beyond, my activism turned to voter representation and getting people to the polls.

Today, my activism is in throwing money at Planned Parenthood and AbortionFunds.org.

One of the most valuable and most difficult lessons I learned when Chris got sick was that eventually, I must accept that there comes a time when there is nothing that I can do to fix things.

Do what you can, with what you got, where you are. -Squire Bill Widener

The consequences of accepting that there is nothing I can do to fix this current problem is to turn the fixing to the self. Saturday, I rewarded myself for no reason with a trip to the Container Store where I purchased things to reorganize the linen closet. The linen/medicine closet is now perfectly organized and I can tell you exactly how many COVID home testing kits we have. It’s six. We have six COVID at home tests. I also installed LED lights so we can now see all of the COVID home testing kits. When I felt like I’d done enough with that closet, I moved to the food closet (yes I know it’s normally called a pantry, but a brain fart years ago changed the naming the system). I threw out old snacks and cake mixes and reorganized all of the pasta. I’m not stopping there. I purchased a Bagster dumpster not too long ago that’s begging to be filled up with garage trash. I will most likely tear down this blog and rebuild it with new pictures and ways to purchase pictures and I might start walking around the house punching hand weights into the air (it’s exercise).

This is what I do.

When I can’t fix the big thing, I find other things to ‘fix’. Once, I almost rented a drain snake to cart down to my basement until someone convinced me that I could not physically lift a 200lb drain snake down the basement steps alone. That’s not true. I know how gravity works and still believe I could have gotten that 200lb drain snake down the basement stairs.

It’s the up that’s the problem.

FREEDOM AND LOSS

I’m at my desk and I’m listening to my male coworkers talk about car repairs and oil leaks. Meanwhile, I’m silently boiling on the inside because the Supreme Court just reversed Roe vs. Wade. And there they all stand, talking like nothing has happened. I guess, for them, nothing has happened. They didn’t lose any rights today. Their bodies still, and always has, belong to them. They have never been second class citizens, have never known what it feels like to not have autonomy. They can’t even empathize.

I am not here to argue with anti-abortionists on the importance of legalized abortion. I will not change a mind so indoctrinated. Nor will you change my mind on the importance of legalized abortion. If hate mail from my church youth group didn’t change my mind then, you’re not going to now. This is always going to be about my body, my choice and my health and how all of that is nobody’s business but my own. I will fight for your rights to practice your religion, but I refuse to allow you to force your religious views into my life.

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The Supreme Court seems pretty hell bent on taking down anything that is not in the original constitution. Roe vs Wade will not be the last thing on their list. Contraception and fertility rights will be next. Same sex marriages will be next. No person, I repeat, NO. PERSON. (exception: white men) Is guaranteed miranda rights. This means that you will be prosecuted with out a fair trail.

This country is becoming the science fiction stories. Life is imitating art in a very very bad way.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I did not know Amani or Sarah until last year. I didn’t know Erica or Jenn who live in my neighborhood, until last year. There is a really long list of people that I could write down here that I didn’t know or love until last year. Tavia and Xander. Abbi and Lucas. Roze. Rose (who did an amazing drawing of my singing bowl experience). Dee! Man, that woman will inspire you to get on the hiking trail. Jess and Jade, our lifeguards. Michelle or camp photographer. I’m afraid to continue listing names because I know I will leave someone out. We all met each other at Camp Wildling. One of my concerns about moving to KCMO was making new friends. How do you make new friends after the age of 30 particularly if you do not have children? There are 491,158 people living in this city. How do find the ones who get you and love you for being you?

You go to camp.

At opening ceremony for Camp Wildling, everyone is invited to place something on the alter we set up in the shala and you are encouraged to say a few words about the item. Things placed here represent what you hope to get out of camp or what you’d like to leave behind at camp. People place pictures, rocks, charms. All kinds of things. This year I placed the print that I had written a note on for Granny. I said that the picture represents two things. One is to never hesitate to send the note, to reach out and connect. The other thing the picture represents is the connections and relationships that can be formed at camp. I attended many different summer camps as a young person and I always made new friends. We would all end up being pen pals for a while, but eventually the connections would fade out. Remember your tween self for a moment, living in the age before internet and cell phones and imagine maintaining long distance friendships. Even with technology, it takes effort.

It’s worth the effort. More than worth it.

The friendships I have made through Camp Wildling are important to me. Not just because I have collected some really great people into my life, but because it helps me maintain and foster old friendships. When I send a message to Tania telling her how awesome she is and that plant she pointed out completely stopped my bug bite from itching, I am reminded to also send a message to Steph to ask about her trip to Mexico. There is a song we used to sing at 4-H summer camp. It is a simple one line song that we would sing in a round. It was usually the last campfire song of camp. It is my first lesson on the importance of connections and relationship.

Make new friends but keep the old. One is silver and the other’s gold.

It is not lost on me how fortunate I am to have such a group of fantastic people in my life or how important is to keep them in my life. Both the silver and the gold.

THE SELF

A few weeks ago, I had to get new headshots taken at work. I dressed a little bit nicer than usual, put on some makeup and tried to have a nice hair day. I really needed a haircut at the time, but that wasn’t on the schedule for another week. Anyway, I thought I looked nice enough. I smiled for the camera man, took directions from the camera man and when I got my prints to review and choose my favorite two, I fell over dead. I didn’t like any of the pictures of myself. When did I get so fat and puffy?!? Why does it look like I have a sunburn? Why didn’t I take the camera out of that man’s hands and take the picture myself? I chose the two least horrible pictures and plan on never needing to use them for anything.

When Kelly was putting together class introductions for camp, she emailed me asking me for pictures of me teaching yoga. I scrolled through all of my pictures in storage and came up with zero pictures of me in the act of teaching yoga. I finally sent her a picture of me sitting in meditation and said “I don’t have any pictures of me teaching yoga, but I promise that I am a yoga teacher.” Kelly responded with “how is it even possible that you do not have pictures of yourself?!?” She mentioned it a few times during camp about how there are no pictures of Cindy, please take pictures of Cindy. Which she did. About fifty percent of Kelly’s pre-camp setup pictures are of me making faces at the camera.

It has come to my attention that I have gotten into the habit of never stepping out from behind the camera.

It’s been a while since I did a 365 Day Self Portrait project and thinking about starting up another round of this makes me cringe. I do not have good feelings about my body right now and the internet knows this. I am inundated with ads on weight loss and hormone replacement drugs targeting women of my age. I reached my peak of puffiness at camp and immediately put Michael and myself on a cleansing diet for the next ten days to sort of reset our bodies. Self Care Circle meeting happened a couple of days before we left for camp and one of the things Roze talked about was spending at least twenty minutes to eat your meal. It did not take me long to figure out that even though I was eating healthy meals, I was eating way too much of that meal in one sitting because I was swallowing my food whole. Twenty minute meals and cleansing diets are baby steps in my anti-puffy plan and do not have overnight results. So yeah, I am still reluctant to step in front of the lens (or onto a scale).

The value in doing a photo a day of one’s self is not lost on me. The first year I did this project, I learned to like myself or at least to stop cringing whenever I saw a picture of myself. I weighed the same or even a little bit more than what I weigh now. I was less fit then and didn’t do near as much exercising as I do now. I have gotten out of the habit of seeing my own face. I don’t even really study it in the mirror as I’m brushing my teeth. So the few times I see myself in photos, I am shocked by appearance. I only half the feel as tired as my face and body look in pictures. Maybe the part that shocks me is how much a photo of myself reflects how I am feeling physically. My brain might be all raw-raw-ree, but my body has some aches and it no longer jumps up and down. I can see a lack of enthusiasm in the photo version of me.

And I don’t care for it.

I can see a few fixes for this. The easiest fix is to keep doing what I am doing, but get out from behind the lens and in front of it more often. I need to get a good look of my unenthusiastic self so I can recognize the moments where I can see real authentic enthusiasm on my face. Because I think I’ve been faking enthusiasm for longer than I’d like to admit in a whole Fake It ‘Till You Make It kind of way.

RANDOM ORDER OF THINGS

Michael and I got home yesterday from our five day Camp Wildling experience, tired and dirty and a little itchy. While Michael parked the camper, I opened up the house, adjusted the thermostat and headed out to check on the chickens. The amount of feathers strewn around the pen tipped me off that we probably had dead chickens. So then Michael cleaned up what was left of our remaining chickens while I unpacked the camper and truck. We are no longer chicken farmers, at least not until next Spring. Marguerite passed away last Tuesday right before we headed off to camp. I traumatized the young person we were training to look in on the chickens when I opened the coop and said ‘This is where the eggs are kept!” only instead of eggs, there was a dead Marguerite. Marguerite died of old age. The last two were murdered. Foghorn, Marguerite, Dorthy and Matilda…you were good chickens. Rest in peace. So say we all and thank you to the Force. Under his eye.

Honestly, I’m sad, but not that sad. I’m pretty impressed that we kept chickens alive and well for seven years. Neither of us knew what we were doing. The whole reason there were four chickens to begin with was because I knew we would lose a chick to something. But we didn’t. All four chickens survived and thrived in our backyard for seven years. I’m giving us pats on the back.

I don’t even know how to tell you about Camp Wildling. It was hot and busy. It was difficult and easy. There was lots of laughter and a little bit of crying. We all have bug bites and some of us are pink from too much sun. I just went to look back at some pictures from camp and I didn’t really take many. I taught two workshops on digital photography and took only a handful of pictures at camp. I went to Amani’s workshop on grief and preparing for death and I took a whole bunch of notes for the book. I sat by the river for a singing bowl concert and expanded my heart. I walked up and down and up and down the steepest hills. I spent time in the pool and even less time on my yoga mat. Maybe, I could come up with a better descriptor than ‘good’ but right now, all I can say is that camp was good.

Maybe I’ll write more later. At the moment, I am just trying navigate a work day.

INTO THE WOODS

Sunday evening, we gathered for Self Care Circle and Rose asked us where in our bodies were we feeling gravity. Sarah said her arms felt heavy. Xander felt weight behind his eyes. Tania felt gravity in her legs. Most everyone felt heavy in some place. I confessed to not feeling gravity. In fact, I felt/feel like the only thing holding me down onto this planet is a thin piece of string tied to my right ankle. The other end is weighted with a marble. I am at work, frantically trying to finish up imaging on the latest batch of slides while troubleshooting computer issues on the very same microscope I am using to image that batch of slides. Multiple terabytes of data still needs to be transferred from that computer to the network for further processing. I am at home thinking about chicken care and if I packed enough of the right things for camp. I just remembered that I haven’t packed shoes of any kind, but there are socks in my suitcase. I am at camp thinking about the classes I’m supposed to be teaching.

I am dreaming about my three o’clock massage appointment on Saturday.

This untethered weightless feeling will go away once we are at camp with our camper setup and camp things put in their places. The groove of the camp routine will take hold and I will give in to pool floating time and laying my body on the cool concrete floor of the yoga shala. I will feel weighted and heavy and full. These are not wishes or hopes. These are truths. Every camp experience has been different and I expect that this one will as well, but there is a part of the experience that remains consistent between camps. Cell signal is shotty at camp, so there’s no email, no news, no remote accessing into to work. The ideas I have for some blog entries and where my book writing is going will be handwritten in a notebook, with possibilities of seeing the light day when I return. My camera is packed, along with my tripod because if the weather cooperates, I’d like to play around with some night sky photography. But if I end up napping a whole lot, that’s okay too. Camp is a time where I have no choice but to set my usual daily life over on a shelf not to be touched for five days.

It is a terrifying thought that I am welcoming with open arms.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Yesterday, I pulled up a Harry Styles playlist on Amazon and had a fun, joyful and a bit silly yoga practice. There were dance breaks between surya namaskars. There were a number of surya namaskars that flowed along with the music. I laughed at myself and I smiled a whole lot. When it was time for savasana, I opened a guided meditation from Sarah Blondin entitled “You are Allowed”. I set myself up in supported fish and settled in, feeling my heart thumping at the base of my ears. As per usual, whenever I listen to a guided meditation, the words being spoken flow in out of my consciousness. I kind of pay attention to them and then I don’t and then I do and then I don’t. I had stopped paying attention to this meditation but then Sarah said something that brought me back with a jolt.

Can you remember when you stopped allowing yourself to feel? Can you remember when you began coping instead of laughing, can you remember to your one? What caused you to leave the seat of your heart?

Coping instead of laughing.

I think those are the words that smashed down the hardest on a nerve, though all of those words hit something. I know that in the last ten years, I have spent more time coping and less time laughing, but sometimes I laugh in order to cope. I know in the last ten years, I have spent more time purposefully not feeling. I know what caused me to leave the seat of my heart. I know that the seat of my heart is forever changed and settling into that space is not as comfortable as it once was. It is like how I am still struggling to find my comfortable seated position after tearing my ACL. I just can’t seem to sit still and be comfortable for long periods of time. While I have been working and stretching within my yoga practice to get back to a comfortable seated position, I have done nothing to make the seat of my heart a more comfortable space or even an inviting space.

How can I rearrange to make the seat of my heart a more comfortable space?

Don't talk to me now, I'm molting
Don't tell me that it's revolting
Every inch of us
Every inch of us
Every inch of us, a walking miracle

-Andrew Bird, Inside Problems

Every inch of is a walking miracle. We can do more than just cope. I can do more than just cope. It might be time for some molting, shedding some things that no longer serve me or give me comfort. The seat of my heart does not have to be plush. It only has to be comfortable enough to spend some amount of time there.

Summer projects.

WHERE WHAT WHEN

Last week, I completely spaced on my chiropractor appointment. I got a text from the receptionist asking if I was running late and I was all “running late? for what?” Then I apologized for my crazy brain and rescheduled. I know exactly what happened. I got to work and started dealing with emails and scheduling of microscopes and drinking coffee. The last thing I was thinking about was the way my left shoulder is sitting lower than my right shoulder. I was thinking about scheduling, batch processing slides, and how I am totally unprepared for Camp Wildling that is now nine days away. I am drowning in a sea of slides and will be imaging right up until the very last minute. If I had access to internet at camp, I would probably be remoting in to batch process all the images from those slides.

I do not have access to decent internet at camp.

I also do not have my work email on my phone.

I am nine days away from truly being unreachable; at least by those who do not have my phone number. I am equal parts relieved and terrified by this. I’ve gotten myself used to taking care of things around here and being the one that many of our microscopy users seek out. I feel protective of my grad students and postdocs. I feel teritorial of at least three microscopes in out Core. I know their quirks and tricks and how to deal with them when they misbehave. I worry about what sort of tornado damage I’m going to come back to after being away. Lately at night, I’ve been dreaming of doing the kind of lab work that I haven’t done in ten years and imaging samples that don’t exist. I know what those dreams are saying to me. Those are warnings telling me to step back and take a break.

I don’t want to.

I want to.

I need to.

I’m going to.

In nine, or eight and half days now, I will step away from all of this. I may have all of the things with me that I need for camp and I might not. But I will leave behind the things that will serve me no purpose at camp. I promise, cross my heart. For right now though, I’m just going to stay on top of this slide sea that’s forming around me and continue dreaming about failed DNA preps.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

For some of us the concept of joy is illusive. I was having a serious conversation recently with someone who said to me “I don’t think I even know what joy looks like.” I’ve been thinking about this for days because I have seen this person laugh and smile with authentic joy. Yet, that very same person doesn’t know what joy looks like. Joy did not become an illusive thing for me until after J’s death. In the days, weeks and months after J’s death, I felt nothing at all. I did not know what joy looked like, but I also didn’t know what any emotion looked like. My ability to process any kind of emotion was shut down like an old computer. It took me longer than it should have to realize that I was feeling numb, but I was fortunate enough to have a partner who was supportive. Chris was a great support, but besides being patient and supportive, Chris was a master at seeking out joy. I believe he became a master at seeking out joy because he learned way before we even met that joy is illusive. It took time and effort to bring myself back from the void of nothing and I really feel it would have been impossible if not for Chris.

Here are some activities that helped me cultivate joy in my daily life: gratitude practice, photography projects, scooter rides, my yoga practice, teaching my yoga practice. Of all of these practices, I will say that my gratitude practice and my photography projects have been the most important activities. Joy is not only illusive, but it is a master of disguise. It can hide in the tiniest, strangest of places. Joy can be right in front of your face and so well disguised that you don’t see it. But I also think we have this disillusionment or predisposed idea of what joy should look like, that makes it easier for real joy to disguise itself. We don’t know what joy looks because we are bombarded with contradicting voices telling us about the things we are supposed to need to be joyful or how we must look in order to be joyful. In the quest to have the thing or look the look, we lose sight of what joy really looks like. Both the gratitude practice and the daily photo project helped me to recognize when I was looking at a moment of joy.

Your brain has to be trained to see joyful moments.

If you watch TV, spend time on the internet, read the news…you know, the things we all do every day… you will not see that there is much to be joyful about. If you are passively waiting for joy to jump out of its hiding space and yell out “I’m Here!”, you should be prepared to wait and wait and wait. Joyful moments, at first, need to be actively sought out. It is only after you learn to recognize joy, that joyful moments be can be spontaneous moments. My joy this week has been found in the moments I have been able to walk outside in between rain storms. It is seeing Josephine recovering well from dental surgery this week. I have found joy in teaching my yoga classes this week and seeing new faces in those classes. Joy has been present in the moments when I have truly helped someone with their science on a microscope. I had some good writing time this week, which doesn’t always fill me with joy, but there is joy in making progress. The last two weeks have been hard. Really fucking hard. Not just for me, but for all of us. Joy is wearing its best camouflage right now and you’ve got to look really hard to see it.

But it’s there.

SKATE CITY

Erica, Tania and I have been planning a skate date for ages. There’s a rink in the northland that has a an adult only skate night on Wednesdays, but every time we have set a date, life would intervene. This time, it was Tania who had to work late. So Erica and I decided to go, just the two of us. Erica and her family live just a few blocks west of me, on Terry’s street. I see her and her family playing in the yard and riding bikes all the time now. Josephine makes a point to growl at Erica’s husband when he jogs by us as we walk to the park in the mornings. We’re neighbors but didn’t know it until last year.

I drove over to Erica’s house last Wednesday for our skate date and walked into her kitchen. One child was in the middle of a melt down while the other one solemnly made themselves a snack. Erica’s husband said “I got this.” and Erica and I ran out the back door. It had been a rough day. For everyone. She said that they had not talked about the latest mass shooting with the kids yet, but the kids knew. The oldest is a third grader and Erica figured the kids talked about it at school. The youngest, who is six, was probably just absorbing the vibes around him. I almost asked her “At this point, what do you even say anymore?” but I didn’t.

As we were getting out of the car, Erica confessed to taking skate lessons as a kid and that she owned her own skates. They were white with pink pom-poms and when she said that I gasped. “So did I!” I exclaimed. We walked into Skate City and I looked at her and said “It smells so familiar in here.” Erica nodded and said “A mix of church and movie theater.” It smelled like our childhood. From the earliest time I can remember and well into middle school, the roller rink was a cornerstone in my life. If church was twice on Sundays and once on Wednesdays, then the roller rink was every Tuesday and sometimes Sundays. My skating was nothing fancy, just simple loops around the rink. Occasionally there would be a game of limbo. Occasionally we would all do the Hokey Pokey and turn ourselves around. The first time I ever held a boy’s hand was during a couples skate. I remember how we both wiped our sweaty palms against our respective pant leg afterward.

I do not remember the boy.

My first loop out on the rink wasn’t great. I was disappointed and thought to myself ‘skating should be easier than this’. Was it possible that I’d forgotten how to skate? It took two turns to realize that my wheels were too tight. I’ve never used a skate key in my life, but I instinctively knew how to loosen the nuts on my wheels. Then the skating was effortless. Erica and I swayed easily back and forth, skating loop after loop, admiring the more advanced skaters. Erica introduced me to a couple of her friends that are regulars at Skate City. I wanted to be best friends with both of them immediately. We stood as a pod in a one corner, sipping on fountain drinks and water bottles, laughing and telling stories. Then we skated more loops and for a few hours we were children again.

For a few hours the noise of the world outside was drowned out by loud hip-hop music and the sound of wheels rolling on hardwood.

Tania, we missed you.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

List of US Senators who have taken the most amount of money in campaign donations from the NRA can be found here: https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/national-rifle-assn/recipients?id=d000000082

Calling, texting, emailing your senators daily or at least weekly. Tell them to prove their claims of ‘pro-life’ by actually doing something to protect life. Tell them how embarrassing it is that this country is number one in deaths from gun violence in all of the first world countries.

You can support victims of gun violence by donating and or volunteering with Every Town, a non for profit group working for reform on all levels and providing mental health resources to families affected by gun violence.

Change will not come by posting memes on social media. Change will not come by raising our voices in protest. Thoughts and prayers are not going to solve this. Ever. The fight is in supporting candidates who will prioritize the health of the people of this country. The fight is ensuring that every American has easy access to voting. The fight is at EVERY election.

Vote like a parent who had to wait for DNA results to identify their child who was killed by a mass shooter.

THE NOTE I NEVER SENT

June temperatures can be odd here. For the most part, it’s a very tolerable warm and muggy, but in the afternoon, the heat can settle in and feel suffocating. That is how it was at camp last June. The heat would really roll in around 2:00 and everyone would scatter to the pool, the river or a shady hammock. The last full day of camp, I found myself in the yoga shala, our central gathering place for camp activities, right at the hottest part of the afternoon. The yoga shala sits at the highest point at camp and the only place where I could get any reception. I paced the shala as I attempted to upload photos so I could run a slideshow for the evening. Then I started setting up the projector. As I dragged the projector out and started running cords, I was hit with a big dose of doubts. I was afraid that I was not technologically advanced enough to set up this projector.

Funny right? I run complicated microscopy systems and suddenly I was afraid of a simple projector.

There was an older gentleman at camp, a dear old friend of Kelly’s we called Granny. We hadn’t had any interactions all through camp. He seemed to be on the periphery, but in that moment while I was struggling to figure out the projector, he swooped in. He didn’t take over or anything like that. He just became my assistant, supporting me in whatever I needed. Then, when we had gotten everything set up and working, the power for the entire camp went out. We looked at each other and then walked down to the pool. I sat with my legs dangling in the pool and someone handed me a cold beer. There was a small group floating around on various floaties. Granny came and sat next to me and we proceeded to talk and talk and talk. We talked about education and liberal arts. We talked about government and science. It was the kind of conversation that I hadn’t had with anyone in a really long time. It was good and meaningful and important. Those handful of hours were like a drop of water, tiny but filled with a whole world.

The last morning of camp, I wrote a note on the back of a photo and went to put it in his mailbag only to discover that he’d left early that morning while everyone was still sleeping. I thought maybe I’d mail the photo to him, but I never got around to it. Last week, Kelly posted that Granny had passed away. Fast acting cancer. Fuck cancer. So now I have this note that I never sent, a note now for the dead. I’ll just add it to my list of growing questions that I have for Chris, Dad and J. It will probably rest on the altar at camp this year until I set it into one of the firepits. Leave it forever at camp.

This is such a shitty reminder to never hesitate.

Send the note.

Worth saying again: Fuck cancer.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

There has been a lot of conversations this week that has centered around time, particularly the passage of time. I have heard parents lamenting on children graduating from kindergarten and those lamenting children graduating from high school. “How can our babies be old enough for this?!?” It is how we talked about Cati graduating. It was how a woman talked about her son graduating kindergarten as we stood in the coffee line together. At times, this whole aging and time passage thing seems unfathomable to us. For me, it is just the passage of time itself that bewilders me. I mean, I can’t keep up what is happening to the month of May and how there is only a week left of it.

This week I had the opportunity to teach a lesson on meditation, just a simple format for getting started. One of the things I like to do for this class is to start with everyone sitting quietly with their eyes closed. I tell them to open their eyes when they think five minutes has passed. There are those who last seconds before opening their eyes. Then there are those who almost make it, but not without lots of fidgeting. It is rare that someone makes it the whole five minutes without movement. I follow up this exercise with some tips on making a meditation practice easier. Things like committing to a time everyday and making a nest so that you can sit comfortably. I have them do five to ten rounds of alternate nostril breathing and then twelve to twenty four rounds of a mantra of their choosing, guiding them to count by pressing their thumb into each digit. That tactile sensation helps keep the focus on what you are doing and something you can always come back to during your practice.

During the moments of stillness, no alternate nostril breathing, no mantra, the part of the practice where you’re just sitting still, those are the moments where you can choose the speed for the passage of time. Albert Einstein showed that the speed of light in a vacuum is the same no matter the speed the observer is traveling. Time and how we perceive time is relative and today, I am choosing to slow down time. That means stopping to savor the moment before mindfully moving on to the next thing. I am doing this in practice today because I have a lot on the calendar for this summer. I have a lot of really good things on the calendar, things I want to marinate in.

I want to be ready for marinating.

LISTEN ALL Y'ALL, IT'S A SABOTAGE

I’ve sort of been ignoring my Self Care Circle activities. I’ve stopped adjusting my calendar or even looking at it. Working on goals has come to a complete stop. In fact, I don’t even remember what goals I set. That’s not true. I know precisely what goals I set for myself this year; I just have a case of the Don’tWannas at the moment. This was apparent when we met Sunday for our monthly group meeting because I had none of my self care circle kit of tools near me. No notebook, no sticky notes, no nothing. Except a pom-pom. We post things to celebrate at the beginning of each session and then we celebrate each other by shaking a pom-pom in front of our screens. I was prepared to celebrate others.

This month’s session was about sabotage in all forms. Sabotage from external sources. Sabotage from internal sources. Sabotage we might inflict on others. Some sabotage is good. It can keep us from doing something stupid, but sabotage can be bad, particularly when it keeps you from following through with actions and tasks that aid in the transformation of the person you want to be. Look, I know all about self sabotage. Self sabotage is probably one of my greatest skill sets. The language I use when speaking to myself is 100% negative and awful. I even hastily grabbed a notepad during the session just to write down that I am my own worst enemy. I take full responsibility for 80% of my fails. Those internal sources of sabotage are not what I have been ruminating on for the last few days.

It’s those external forces.

We talked about how we may have people in our lives who do not want you to change and transform into something different and new. They do not want to see you succeed. They will not say it out right; it will be sneaky. They’ll use language that will make you question yourself and make you worry if you’re doing the right thing. Instead of saying ‘you look great!’, they’ll say ask in an accusatory way ‘have you lost weight?’. Appearances are an easy one for those saboteurs, making a dig about how a piece of clothing fits or a haircut choice. Saboteurs go straight in for the negative thing and then quickly follow it up with something nice. Either they realize they sound thoughtless or they don’t actually want you to think they’re mean. They are the people in my life who I never mention the words ‘writing a book’ or ‘selling prints’. They are the people I keep secrets from.

I don’t want to name the saboteurs in my life. Not because it would be rude to publicly oust them. Not because I don’t want to hurt the feelings of others. It is because I don’t want to admit that I’ve allowed certain people to remain present in my life. I don’t want to admit that I still spend time with my saboteurs, that I choose to be in earshot of their negativity. I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I have ‘friends’ that are not fully supportive. I am embarrassed to admit that there are times that I allow their judgements to keep from writing the thing or printing the photo. I am embarrassed to admit that I have serious boundary issues.

I lied when I filled out my worksheet for Sabotage. I made up something else for those external saboteurs. Now I have to go back and erase them all and work harder to be honest. My year of difficult questions seems to have seasons. I’ve just entered the season of honesty and I’m not sure I care for it.

TIME TRAVELLING

A few weeks ago, I received a text from Steph about Cati’s graduation and how they would love for me to be there. My first instinct was to say no. I had plans the weekend of graduation. I didn’t feel up to driving all that way. Then I shook it off and gave myself a lecture about making an effort for those you care about. I easily rearranged my weekend plans, packed a bag and headed south. And though the drive was long and tedious, it was worth it. I was there to watch our not so little Catidid walk across the stage and take pictures of her with her family. The smile on this young woman’s face told me everything I needed to know about her future. She was so thrilled to be graduating and is so excited about college. She is focused and driven and inspiring.

Steph’s home was filled up with her in-laws and so I stayed at Steph’s parents’ house just down the road. Jenny and Mike have always referred to me as their second child and they were so happy to have me staying with them. When Steph and I were discussing my sleeping arrangements, we joked and said that maybe Steph should come stay at least one night. We’d have a sleepover like the old days when we’d pull all the couch cushions off of the couch and make a bed on the floor. In some ways, it really did feel like I had travelled back in time. I watched Cati and her best friend, Emma, hugging each other and I remembered Steph and I at that age. Cati and Emma have been inseparable since elementary school, maybe even longer. Their friendship story mirrors mine and Steph’s in so many ways, with the two of them headed off to different colleges in the Fall.

Late on my last evening, I was sitting up talking with Jenny. She said she had been trying to write something in her card for Cati, but was having a hard time coming up with the words. I laughed and told her that I had had the same problem. I had plans of writing a lengthy note of encouragement and wisdom but all I could come up with was a couple of sentences about how proud I am of her. I told Jenny that I didn’t have any words of wisdom to impart, that despite all I have done and been through, I still don’t really feel like an adult. Jenny surprised me saying that she felt the same way. “Sometimes I feel like I’m eighteen years old.” she said. This seemed oddly reassuring to me. It almost takes away my definition of adult.

I am a teenager who sometimes does adult things.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

On one of our morning walks this week, I noticed a snail slowly making its way across the sidewalk. And since I find snails to be fascinating and my muse, I paused to take some pictures. I was snapping away when a small dried flower petal flew into the snail’s face. I thought at first that the snail would be pleased by this because I thought it might consider the petal to be food. Instead, the snail reared its head back and forth in obvious displeasure. Then it started to move the petal down out of its face and climb over it with its body. The snail made such a large and almost over exaggerated movement to get its body over this tiny bit of flower debri.

Later on, I was teaching my chair yoga class where I had my students stretch their arms over head and pretend to press their palms into the ceiling. Then I had them pull one finger in at a time until they made a fist. I had them squeeze for a breath before releasing and then repeating the exercise. One of my students, Melissa, made a face and said “Why do I hate this so much? It seems like such a simple task!” I laughed and agreed. It did seem like a really simple exercise, but it turned out to be something rather difficult. No one in my class that day enjoyed this exercise. Then I told my class about the snail. Just because a task might be easy for you, doesn’t mean that it’s easy for everyone. But also, the looks of a task can be deceitful. The lesson this snail teaches me is to have greater patience for others as well as for myself. Because even though a task or obstacle might actually be simple, it still requires some energy and we’ve all been in that place where we just don’t have that energy to spare.

It’s all about perspective.

Snails have a lot to teach us about how we approach obstacles and slowing down to be mindful in the tackling of that obstacle.

CORRESPONDENCE

I was rummaging around, looking for some picture of my mother to post for Mother’s Day, when I came across a box of what I thought would be photos. Instead, the box turned out to be mostly filled up with old birthday cards and notes. I went ahead and started sorting things into keep/toss piles because I do not need a Hallmark birthday card from birthdays of past. As I sorted, I came across a stack of letters from my high school friend, David. I’m pretty sure we’d known each other since birth. We had always gone to school together starting in preschool and then we both went off to colleges on different sides of the state. I guess we the idea of not being at the same school at the same time was so unnatural to us that we wrote letters back and forth for almost a year. Then we diverged onto opposite pathways and just sort of stopped writing. I would say that David took the more traditional path. College, wife, business finance job, suburbs, kids. It is not a surprise to anyone that I took a less traditional path. I put David’s typed letters into the keep pile even though we haven’t talked in probably twenty years.

There was a letter from Stephanie. We didn’t write to each other often; never had the need to. We stay in somewhat regular contact, but I placed this into the keep stack. Her daughter, Cati, who is graduating from high school on Friday, will someday enjoy seeing her mother’s handwriting and getting a glimpse of her mom before she was a mom. Then I came across a series of postcards. All of them were from Chris, sent from different locations from the trip he made to Texas and New Mexico with Amy, Christy and Scott. Postcards from a trip centered around the hunt for UFOs. The first one I came across was a long postcard (not the traditional rectangle) of Western Texas. The first sentence Chris wrote says “I took this picture and made this postcard for you.” I read that and immediately snorted out a laugh. He had written snippets of their travels on the back of each postcard telling me how I would be wowed by the McDonald’s Observatory in Texas and about seeing deer and a skunk in their campsite in New Mexico. There was one that simply said “I miss you.” Under the stack of postcards, was a letter in an envelope addressed to me. I did not recognize the address of the sender, but when I opened the letter and read a sentence I knew instantly who it was from.

It was a letter from Chris, one he had sent me early in our relationship. He had been visiting someone in Texas. I can’t really remember the details of where he was when he wrote the letter, but I remember every detail of finding that letter in my dorm mailbox and reading it. I chuckle now, but when I first read this letter, I was shocked. It is positively pronographic. The thing that felt so shocking to me at the time about this letter was that this was the first time I had ever read anything pornographically directed to my person. I want you to keep in mind that I had never gone beyond kissing with anyone until Chris and when we met, Chris had already lived a life. He was five years older than me and had experience. Chris also had a wide open view of sex and sexuality. I came from an environment that lacked public displays of affection and where the topic of sex was never discussed unless it was in a negative way. I didn’t believe sex was bad. I just lacked the opportunity to have those experiences and I was naive. Chris was my guide and gave me a safe, non-judgmental environment to explore my own sexuality.

Not everyone gets so lucky.

I don’t think I can ever bring myself to read this letter again, but I tucked it back into the box with the postcards. One day, someone is going to be cleaning out my house after I die and they are going to come across a box filled with old letters. Maybe they won’t toss them immediately into the dumpster. Perplexed by these pieces of paper with handwriting on them, they’ll pause and read a few before tossing them aside. I am sure they will be confused by the woman these letters were written too, one set of letters of innocence often including scripture from a friend and another letter filled with graphic sex. I like the picture I am painting of myself here with my eclectic collection of things, a Vespa in the garage and roller skates in the closet. When they start clearing out after my death, I want them to find my collection of naked self portraits and the vibrator I keep behind a stuffed teddy bear on the shelf next to the bed and then shake their heads at the collection of religious/spiritual texts that they pull from the bookcase.

I want them to find all the colors to paint a portrait of a well rounded woman with a well lived life.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

When I left from teaching my yoga class on Wednesday, it was though a small octagon shaped prism had been placed in the lens of my left eyeball. Then the headache started just above my right eye. By the time I got home the prism was gone, but the right side of my head ached in an old forgotten way. Migraine. It has been years since I’ve had one of those. Like maybe not since 2009 when I gave up meat. I spent the next day recovering and marveling at the power of stress and the toll it takes on the body. Then I started laughing at every time I have rolled my eyes at comments regarding moods and celestial bodies.

I will confess that I have been on autopilot for a few weeks. I get up, exercise, walk the dog, feed the animals, shower, get dressed, give Josephine two treats, set the alarm and then head to work. And even those morning when my body is filled with lead weights, I force myself up and about. I’m just so tired all of the time, but I keep on with the same routine until I completely collapse. I haven’t looked at my color coded calendar or made any adjustments in weeks. I have a whole list of things I haven’t done in weeks, like write or do any research reading for the book. It’s not that I have stalled out. I’m just doing the basic things required to keep myself alive. This month is busy. Next month, we go to Camp Wildling. The month after that, Michael and Phenix are tagging along with me to a conference in Vancouver. The month after that, Michael and I are making a tiny trip to St. Louis to see ANdrew Bird in concert. I need to get my things together for camp. I need to make arrangements for Vancouver. I need to find boarding for Josephine. Oh! Josephine is going in for a tooth cleaning and possible removal of a broken tooth. So…I’m already worried about that and it’s weeks away.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month and there’s nothing like going blind in one eye to make one realize that maybe it’s time to check in with one’s self. This weekend, I’m going to spend some time with my calendar and see what I can dump or rearrange. Maybe I don’t need to get up at 5 AM every morning. Maybe that 5 AM activity can be moved to some other time of the day. Maybe instead of 5 AM exercise, I need to carve out some 5 AM writing time. I think it is also time to reevaluate my food menu. I feel the need to move back into smoothie land with lots of greens, berries and maybe some walnuts. Really, I’m just craving giant bowls of green stuff. And a potato. While I’m thinking about it, it is also time to make an appointment with my doctor for general checkup and a discussion of what is going on with my body.

Today, I am grateful for being able to see clearly out of my left eye.

POSER

Saturday, we had some free time before meeting our friend Shruti for lunch. So Michael suggested we pop into Brookside Gallery and Framing and talk to them about frames for some things that we purchased in New Orleans. We spoke with the owner, Sandra, about our needs and while she was working up a cost analysis for us, Michael was browsing around the shop. He noticed some postcard sized photography prints on rack and said “Hey, this is what you should do with some your pictures Cindy.” He looked at Sandra and said “She’s an amazing photographer.” I did not have a response to this, but Sandra enthusiastically told me she’d give me an artist discount on picture frames. Really, Sandra is great. She told it us it would be too expensive to do custom frames for the five 5x7 prints we bought in New Orleans and recommended we go to a craft place like Michael’s. Then she told me to bring in my prints and she would put them up for sale in her shop. I told Sandra that there was an odd shaped piece we’d purchased in New Orleans that I would definitely be bringing her for framing. I thanked her and then we left the shop.

And I threw up.

No…but I was dazed as we walked back to the scooters. I couldn’t wrap my brain around what had just happened. Then we met Shruti and after lunch the three of us went to the Brookside Art Fair. After passing by the third booth of photography, I said out loud “my work is total shit compared to this stuff.” Both Michael and Shruti disagreed, but I couldn’t help but think they were only protesting my statement to make me feel better. Michael and I left the art fair with a lovely whimsical painting of an octopus and I left with a crushed soul and “what am I even doing with my life” mental state. I’m a hack, a pretend hobbyist who got carried away and had business cards made up declaring myself to be a photographer. These people at the art fair, those are real artists. They are willing to spend the money required to display their photos to the public so that the people say “Ooooh” and “Ahhh”. Standing next to them, I am just a cheap, trailer trash substitute.

Then we got home and I had a comment on an Instagram post from Elizabeth saying that she’d love this picture for her wall. I made a mockup of a postcard using one of my Shuttlecock photos and when I showed it to Michael he yelled “WHY ISN’T THE NELSON SELLING THIS POSTCARD!” Then someone else left a comment on a photo on Facebook telling me that I take amazing photos and I don’t know who to believe. All of my followers are friends and family, people I’ve known for most of my life who were already fans. But what if they’re only saying all this to be polite? What if I am really like that person who goes to audition for American Idol who thinks they are an amazing singer, but really can’t carry a tune to save their lives, but you know..in photography form? What if I take my prints in for Sandra to sell and she takes one look at them and tells me the truth of what I have known all along, that I lack talent and my photos are crap?

Vulnerability. It is a pain in the ass.

I ordered a print for Elizabeth today. I will be submitting an order for postcards this week, as well as placing an order for special photography matting. I will have more prints made so that I don’t have to just use the ones from the art showing that never happened. Maybe I’m not a professional or one for big displays, but that doesn’t mean I lack talent. At least, that’s my mantra today.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I am obsessed with this picture I took last week. I just sit and stare at it and try to count all the dew drops. My favorite part is that tiny line of spider webbing that stretches across the top of the tulip, decorated with teeny drops of water. It’s like a string of lights around a backyard patio or a spectacular circus show of tightrope walkers. There is a whole universe here where the bloom is the sun and dewdrops are the planets. And because I have looked at things under microscopic lenses, I know that many of those dewdrops contain life. It is equal parts fascinating and overwhelming.

The opening scene in Contact begins with close up view of a receiving dish somewhere on Earth. Then the camera pans out. You watch the dish get smaller and disappear as the scene continues to zoom out and out. The scene moves out and the Earth becomes tiny and then the solar system gets tiny. It zooms out past our universe and leaves us staring at the vastness of space. When I saw this movie in the theater, this scene almost made me fall out of my chair. My chest grew tight and I struggled to breath. The emptiness and vastness was too much for me to mentally handle. In fact, writing about it now makes me slightly breathless. Yet the opposite, the zooming in on stuff, fills me awe.

It is all the same thing.

The tulip in this picture is a galaxy in the universe of this garden. Our bodies are walking galaxies in our universe of communities. It just goes on and on and it is complicated. The more you ponder this, the more complicated it becomes. I like to hold a magnifying glass up to life because it feels less complex. It is my way of simplifying the infinite galaxies. The vastness of this life is untethering, but these small little galaxies right here in our own backyards, make me grounded and present. Today I am grateful for small galaxies.