Daily Yoga Challenge - Day 2

Day 2. I was hoping for a video on shoulders because that's one area where I know I carry tension all the time, and that's what today's video was! Yay. ...But man that was hard! I'm pretty sure I worked my legs as much as anything else (I was never what I would consider super flexible, but I have lost so much and become so tight in my legs it's ridiculous) though I can tell my shoulders are looser than normal, and utterly failed to shift from some of the positions neatly into others.

Oh well. It's called challenge for a reason, and this is only day two. I guess I can't expect too much, and considering everything and how warm I feel now, I think it went well.

Tomorrow's video is supposed to help with posture. I may die.

If anyone wants to join me...

Daily Yoga Challenge

It seems I've found another challenge to pursue. And, like NaNo, it happens to be 30 days. Do I like this number?

Anyway, I used to dance, so I used to be more active and more flexible and more...comfortable with my body. (Not that I wasn't self-concious. I just felt better in general.) And I've thought about it for a while, wanting to be active but not wanting to run and not sure what else I'd want to do that would be inexpensive financially and with little time commitment and could be done on my own. I liked stretching when I took dance, and I still like it though I never do it; I've had a couple of false starts with yoga and tai chi before, but now I've decided to go for it. I even committed with a mat before I had a plan.

With some searching online, I found this 30 day yoga challenge. Immediately after watching and doing things with this lady, I signed up for the challenge without a second thought. It was the first video I'd found that I liked and thought I could do the things instructed.

So, today, day one of what I want to call YogaMo (yoga month...you know, like NaNoWriMo [national novel writing month]...it's funny in my head):


I really didn't want to yoga. I was so tired from work that I faded during dinner and just kind of deaded on the loveseat after. I covered up, napped through my niece's bedtime routine, and finally got up. I had a movie I wanted to watch (am about to), and time was sliding away. But I had enough to yoga before a shower, if I got going. Brr, I was cold, but long story short, I geared up in about five minutes, and pulled up the first video in the challenge that was kindly emailed to me. Right away I was glad I had. Day one was opening up the hips, and as one who sits or stands at work without being able to move much, but who used to do some of these stretches, it was great. Not easy, but I feel much better for having done it.

Tomorrow will be a challenge, but hopefully today will be an encouragment to keep going.

Now, I'm signing off to watch my movie, and...is it bad form to eat ice cream after yoga-ing? Even if it is, I kinda want some.

And when the phone rings...

Sometimes it's easy to feel isolated out here on the East Coast. Just about everybody I know is back in Oklahoma, and while social media is helpful and good, it's no replacement for the daily interactions and weekly routines with friends.

And then there are times you get a phone call from a friend and hear a story of how someone was sent to your friend as an angel of encouragement, the prayer answered as soon as it was offered.

And in those times, it's like the distance has melted and not only are you closer to your friend but you're also closer to God, and you feel unity and wholeness in your spirit.

May everyone who feels alone have such moments.

Seasons of Ending

Three years ago I spent New Year's Eve in contemplation. It was one of the first times I embraced that it wasn't necessary to be happy happy joy joy in a group setting, and I was thinking about my grandmother.

She had been diagnosed with cancer, and no one expected her to live much longer. Months. We hadn't given up on her, but I still knew the loss would be coming, and I didn't know what to do with it or how to handle it. I loved my grandmother, but we never particularly got along. We tried, and we both ended up rubbing the other the wrong way, and after a while neither of us knew how to make amends or try again. It's not that we couldn't do things together at all, we just didn't know how to get to know each other deeper.

And that was a loss.

So on New Year's Eve, late at night, a friend showed a video of a song he loved. It's a good song, and I say now it's a good video. At the time, though, I couldn't watch it without aching and wanting for all the world to cry, tears streaming right there unashamedly and uncontested.

But I don't show "negative" emotions well. At the time it was a stretch for me to curl up on the oversized armchair, chin and arm draped low on the armrest, and ponder life while friends around me continued on unaffected. It was a challenge for me to go to the other room which was dark and empty, cradled by the gaming rocker, and let the pent up aches and emptiness of pending loss seep out my skin and trickle down my face in silence.

I knew I wouldn't be found. I knew my emotions wouldn't change the atmosphere. I knew I wouldn't be comforted.

In a way, I didn't want to be. Because sometimes when comfort is offered it's like a stopper to the raw feelings that desperately need poured out. I need space to ooze, even melt a little, and I don't like dripping on other people, so I close up the window in my wall around me, the window I sometimes open to let the inside air out. It's one-way and it's not a door. I can open it out, but no one can come in. Even with a passing, kind observer, I'm tempted to pull the curtain down so nothing inside can be even seen.

That New Year's Eve I embraced the season of ending that filled my life. I mourned. I stayed quiet. And I cried. I also rose, joined in partaking the sparkling juice, and cheerfully enough wished everyone a happy new year ahead. All the while knowing pain was coming my way.

This New Year's Eve I have realized I'm in another kind of season of endings. Since the past six or so months, I've said goodbyes and until-next-times with nearly everyone I know. I left one place, what had been my world, and came to visit another, finding ways to slowly integrate and learn the local happenings of life and make friendships. But I'm still in the season of ending. I'm still thinking of my home, still wondering if I could make this new place my home, still yearning to find my heart home.

This new year that is upon us will greet some of us like a new puppy, bubbling over with delight and readiness, some of us like a slow grave digger, with reminders of what was and will forever be changed, things that are forever beyond our reach now, and some of us like something inbetween.

This eve, I'm in another season of ending, and I don't feel like celebrating. I feel like pondering, sitting in that poofy armchair, and finding a safe place to cry if the tears will come.

But this time there is no party to seek solace from, no group of friends around when I'm ready to join the crowd again and celebrate.

This time I'm marking the change in the calendar with little more than I give any other day. And that is another part in my season of endings. The friendships aren't gone, but for now, the reach is a lot harder, the rooms a lot farther.

So long, 2013.

Yes, but can I do it again?

Last year I hid in my closet for a month, occasional treats and hot coffee nearby, earphones on with my playlist waking up the right emotions, and keyboard offering the rewarding soft tapping noises. Fifty-three thousand words in thirty days.

That was a challenging, rewarding experience.

I learned that I could budget my time (some) and get out a rough draft of a complete novel in a hurry. I counted myself among the thousands of winners. I took a silly picture to show you my happiness. And then I got busy with other parts of life.

I won NaNoWriMo last year.

Yes, but can I do it again?

I'm nervous. I want to write a story next month. I need to write a story. But can I do it?

I can't even write this post. I'm getting distracted by other things and thinking I should spend my time elsewhere.

I know I need to do this. I need to know I can make myself, perhaps let myself, value the act of creating a work of words in a full time schedule, in a new town, new everything environment.

And I need to choose a project. The stories are bouncing around in my head with new fervor. It's an exciting orbit that if I let it will do nothing but continue to circle and I'll never tell another story. I have to pick one, temporarily valuing it more than the others to focus on it and make it right before I can tell the next one. Choosing is hard. I want to see where all of them will go. But I am a linear being, so if it is to happen, it must be one story at a time. Which one will be next month? Which one will I start in six days?

I don't know if this post is coherent or not. This evening I am an excited, jumbled, nervous mess. But I came across this quote on Twitter, and for now I'll leave it at pondering this quote from Maya Angelou:

A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.

The One I Wanted

I saw it in a thrift store, not marked for sale, but I measured it for size anyway. I'd already been looking for a week or two and hadn't found anything good. This one was different, unique, lovely. Old dried gum was stuck to the side, and I was already imagining cleaning it off. It held stacks of old coffee cups which looked like they would crack into each other if you looked at one.

This was a shelf made for books. This was a display. The spines would angle upward to the approaching reader like a heartfelt offering.

I asked if they'd sell. Not interested.

Still thinking about it and unable to find another shelf, I asked again two weeks later, this time with a suggested price. Not interested without a replacement to hold the mugs.

The next week, I bought a shelf for a replacement and asked again.

Not interested ever.

I may have sulked. Later I may have shed a tear (or had a nasty cry for a few minutes) as I put together the replacement shelf for myself.

Sorry, awesome bookshelf. Your destiny is to hold stacked coffee cups nobody wants instead of displaying books that will be read. I wanted to save you, enjoy you, reclaim you for your intended purpose. Take you to my new house the next time I move. But the future I imagined wasn't to be.

I couldn't save you.

And instead I got the substitute that was never meant for books. But it will do for now.

It's ugly. And not what I wanted.

But it has books on it; they're no longer stacked on the floor. And my room looks like a room.

 

Living More

Since uprooting and traveling across half the country from my beloved Oklahoma to the unknown coast (which I still have not gone to see the ocean; I should get on that), starting my first ever paying full time job, and slowly unpacking the numerous boxes in my room...I feel like I do a lot more living.

I come home tired and so ready to be home. But when I think of all that's happened in the day, and then what I can still do after dinner (tea party with my niece, perhaps, or emptying several more boxes and tidying my fantastic room, or cleaning, or a Doctor Who marathon to name a few possibilities), the feeling is a not-quite-formed word of a good thing.

I think it could be... a little less defined by Other.

Obviously some days are more difficult, and sometimes I wonder why on earth I'm on the path I've chosen. At least those are good for reality checks. Yes, I am where I want to be. No, it's not perfect, but...

I'm becoming more myself.

That's what I needed.

I'm exploring. And that's something I've wanted to do for years and years, even before I could imagine having the determination and the guts to actually, positively, this is no longer in my imagination only step out. I'm exploring the world around me, including my new city. I'm exploring the friendships I have, and getting to know new people. I'm exploring who I am. And I believe that this will lead me toward exploring who God is.

But that is a step for another time. For now, this babe out of the womb just needs to know how far her fingers stretch.

I feel more actively involved in life. I don't entirely like being gone from the house for such a long stretch of the day, nor having limited time and energy to pursue my other interests and desires (sigh, writing fiction). But I do like trying on this purpose, the service I provide.

I meet a lot of people every day. People are different. Each one. They are Not Me. And I am Other Than Them. As it should be. And this is teaching me.

And I feel involved in life.

Isn't that a good thing?