Whoosh

A substantial amount of human energy seems spent lamenting what has passed, fretting over what may come, and tap dancing around what is at the present.  This chaotic choreography of life is brought into balance for me with yoga.  In yoga’s sequenced movement matched to controlled in and out breaths resides respite from the fast feel and weight of life’s momentum and magnitude.  Practice on my mat carries over to daily life allowing time to pass more mindfully, difficulties to be persevered in patience, work to be balanced with rest.  

Even amid attentive acceptance of time I am astounded that the month of May and the first part of June went by for me in an activity avalanche that feels like a bleary-eyed blink. Whoosh, it is summer.  Whoosh, 2013 is reaching its midpoint.  Whoosh, my first baby is as tall as I am.  Whoosh, breakfast blended to bedtime day after increasingly hot day.   

Whoosh defined as a noun means a sudden movement accompanied by a rushing sound.  Whoosh as a verb means to move or cause to move quickly or suddenly with a rushing sound.

Whoosh – a thing and an action, movement and sound, a feeling I recognize as adrenaline in my body every time Superman plants his feet, flexes his knees and shoots up into the sky.  With that sensation, I become aware of a two-sided sense of whoosh, one that makes me feel akin to a superhero: strong, reliable, and kicking butt.  The flip side feels like a kid at the start line of a race not sure where to stand so that when the gun goes off she’s left twirling like a tiny tornado as everyone else shoots off the starting block and sets to running.  Whoosh! 

When we feel lost with no sense of where to begin we might consider how to feel as superheroes, albeit likely lacking in otherworldly powers and steel flesh, and connect to our abilities.  We possess the ability to commit to our duties, love unconditionally, increase our personal integrity, make and manage our mistakes, find and direct our personal power, feel our way with facts and faith, to breathe. 

I work to accept that life’s whoosh won’t stop, but the whirling post-whoosh spin response can.  Reframing whoosh as an exultant exhale we might honor ourselves as regular folks getting super stuff done.  And on those days when we are left spinning, twisted like a top pinched in the fingers of unfettered circumstances, the whoosh can still be our breath as an amazing inhale filling us and drawing our attention inward where we start all activities in acknowledgment of ourselves as we are in each moment. We can only begin where we are, wherever that may be and with whatever way we arrived there.  Where we go – whoosh – is our daily work.  

                                    Suddenly

who o sh(e)

born as me

super light see

matter mindfully

breathe energy

simply to be

who o sh(e)

Reward

A sore shoulder declared my purse too heavy and mandated a pocketbook purge.  I dumped the handbag’s contents in a heap. The site of a bulging wallet among the miscellany was unexpected because it strained with effort against snaps ready to release their duty of holding two flaps of brown leather together.  I wondered, could there be cash I don’t know about? Alas, no, it was a collection of membership reward cards accumulated beyond capacity. 

 

Reward is defined at dictionary.com.
1.  a sum of money offered for the detection or capture of a criminal, the recovery of lost or stolen property, etc.
2.  something given in return or recompense for service, merit, hardship, etc.

 

I accept the marketing prowess behind reward cards.  I am not pointing a disapproving finger at having them.  I think a savvy shopper rightly reaps benefits from regular purchases, accumulating perks for products.  But I worry that reward may lessen the gratification of an item bought and further encourage us to be rampant consumers.  I myself read coupons at the bottom of a receipt which oblige I shop with my reward card and then maybe decide I require different hair products or a teeth whitening regimen or a double scoop sundae when just a moment before I had no inclination of need.  

I am not suggesting that shopping at a specific store because they reward us is wrong, but that we might consider if we are drawn to buy more than we might otherwise.  Mindlessly purchasing products only to save $2 or reach preferred customer status or get free fries might not benefit us.  Do I need a reward for everything I buy, every place I visit, every treat I eat?  Am I letting myself be trained like a puppy to perform certain tricks for a treat?  Without care, we might lose sight of our current actions with our eyes on a future prize instead.  Moving our attention from present actions to future recompense takes us away from the moment where we might find pleasure or joy in what is now. 

When I flipped through my cards, many were for stores I have not been in for ages.  Over time, I always answered affirmatively about accepting any and every reward membership.  They wanna give me something for being a customer?  Oh yeah!  Faced with the physical sight of having said yes to so many cards in hopes of the promise of reward surprised me because I had used my wallet daily without seeing.  The cards were not bearing the large part of excess weight of my purse, but trashing most of them so that my wallet was not pulling at the seams was the perfect start to the tossing of other, weightier junk that cluttered my purse. 

The reward of a thing well done is having done it.
                                                - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Infinite striving to be his best is man’s duty; it is
its own reward.  Everything else is in God’s hands.
                                  - Mahatma Gandhi

 

Afraid

I recently supported Cassie Premo Steele’s Facebook co-created poetry Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/747692735/co-create-the-wordy-wednesday-poem-book?ref=live).  As a result I was entered into a drawing and subsequently won a copy of Sheryl Sandberg’s new book Lean In.  I’d pIanned to read it in one weekend flurry over Easter break but spent that time fighting fever and skipping coloring eggs instead.  The week off school that followed was filled with health recoup and kid time.  Today I am a measly 26 pages into the book.  Nonetheless I have arrived at something to contemplate:  a poster described as present in the Facebook office where Sandberg works that reads “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”

 

Afraid is defined at dictionary.com.
1.  feeling fear; filled with apprehension:  afraid to go.
2.  feeling regret, unhappiness, or the like:  I’m afraid we can’t go on Monday.
3.  feeling reluctance, unwillingness, distaste, or the like:  He seemed afraid to show his children kindness.

 

Sheryl shares on p.26 of Lean In that “Writing this book is what I would do if I weren’t afraid.”  This strikes me as a great example of how reading over and over a written statement intentionally placed in your path affects your actions. 

 

I am afraid of the question!   Afraid of the answers.  Believing a small bit of fear might just keep us safe, as in not stepping too close to a cliff or driving a car recklessly.  But I equally hold true that fear can keep us so far from the cliff we miss the view or never learn to drive at all.

 

What are we afraid of?  Being judged by others as odd or a failure or underachieving or bossy or foolish?  Of being without enough money to live comfortable?  Of alienating someone?  Of revealing our truth?  Of hurting someone’s feelings?  Of regret?  Of screwing up?  Of rocking a basically steady boat that is, well, okay if not fabulous?  We’re afraid of the unknown, but isn’t it ALL unknown?

 

What would I do if I weren’t afraid?  I don’t seem to have a clear answer today.  For starters, I’m going to read the question every day, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”  That does scare me a bit because, perhaps as in Sandberg’s daily exposure to written query, I might come across a specific task, a spark, an idea.  As I ponder I must also wonder though what practices can we conquer our fears?  Faith.  Meditation.  Daily experience.  Absorbing inspiring works of scripture, poetry, non-fiction, and biography.  Seeking wise leaders and listening.  Listening.

 

                                                I learned that courage was not the absence
                                                of fear, but the triumph over it.  The brave
                                                man is not he who does not feel afraid, but
                                                he who conquers that fear.
                                                                                                - Nelson Mandela

 

                                                We can easily forgive a child who is afraid
                                                of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when
                                                mean are afraid of the light.
                                                                                                - Plato

 

 

Birthday

Tomorrow is my birthday.  I get to say to myself, “You were born!  Hooray!  Have some apple pie (I’m planning such in lieu of cake this year).”  I’m pleased at having arrived at this age in my life.  I observe it no small feat for us humans to count each birthday in turn as we chug and chug like Little Engines that Could through life.  Think of all the collective cakes we’ve eaten and wishes we’ve made! 

 

Birthday is defined at dictionary.com as the anniversary of a birth, the day of a person’s birth, a day marking or commemorating the origin or beginning of something, and the festivities or celebration marking such a day or anniversary. 

 

Here’s my ultimate surprise birthday gift:  my current number of forty-four life years feels comfortable like a pair of jeans that really fits, soft after repeated washing and wearing.  Is it the actual age at which I have arrived that creates this feeling?  Likely not as each of us travels a different path and pace, but I do think there is something altering about crossing the four decade threshold – aside from ads for my demographic proffering wrinkle repair, gray hair coverage, digestive regulation, tummy control clothing, frugal family vacation spots and kid-friendly cooking shortcuts that is. 

 

On the eve of my birthday I reside in the fruition of many things.  High School.  College.  Work.  More college.  Different work.  Marriage.  Different work.  Home ownership.  Pregnancy.  Pregnancy.  Pregnancy.  Motherhood.  Still more different work.  

 

While this seemingly static current time sometimes makes me self-assert that I need some goals, I placate my ego by telling it that there is so much value in BEING as opposed to more DOING.  Although I am doing plenty, this time in my life feels not so much like pursuing but percolating.   There is ample in motion as I tug the wagon of my experiences across the field of each day enjoying the hum of my life engine, trusting there will be sustenance and rest, watching the seeds of my thoughts, words, and actions sprout.  I’m content to be in my spot of the world, however plain it might be and however slow I appear in it.  Some habits have settled into a comfortable rhythm.  I’m learning and unlearning.  I’m embracing chaos and creating quiet.  I’m striving to work gracefully. 

 

I often ponder around my birthday this crazy, pain in the neck, heart-stretching, heart-mending, wacky, body limited, unpredictable, love-filled, emotional, intentional, expanding opportunity to learn: life.  Do we really have any idea how awesome it is to be born?  Whatever the ups and downs, perhaps we might all agree birth is miraculous.  When I blow out my birthday candles tomorrow I'll wish for us all to feel the miracle.  

 

                                Pleas’d look forward, pleas’d to look behind,
                                and count each birthday with a grateful mind.
                                                                                - Alexander Pope 

 

 

    

Feet

A few years back I began a ritual.  After reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Miracle of Mindfulness, I wanted to create practices that reflected mindful action. I decided on my feet.  Each morning I bring both feet together as I sit up from sleep, then plant them side by side - both soles at the same time - on the floor beside my bed.   For one inhale and exhale, I look at my ten toes together and then rise to standing being aware of the muscles and sensations as my ambulatory appendages set me out on my first step of the day.

 

The noun feet is defined as a plural of foot, which offers nothing of information.  Thereby I list the definition of foot found also at dictionary.com.
1.  (in vertebrates) the terminal part of the leg, below the ankle joint, on which the body stands and moves.
2.  (in invertebrates) any part similar in position or function.
3.  such a part considered as the organ of locomotion.

 

On Easter, my dawn habit slowed me even more.  At this time in my neck of the woods, the air is full of multiple expressions of seasonal and doctrinal reality proclaiming light arising from the darkness, life springing forth from the death of cold ground, singing and celebrating imbued with the fragrance of lilies and the promise of budding trees. 

 

Imagine your day’s first standing scenario as if rising from the dead not just from a night’s sleep.  Two feet that were still and listless, perhaps chilled, planting on the ground and finding steadiness walking into the day motivated by breath:  Get up.  Wake up.  New life.  Get going.  Feel you’re awakening mindfully and with awe. 

 

Bearing the weight of legs and body, guts and brains, our pair of peds perform much important work just by holding us up.  How awesome is it that we can stand up from sleep?  Feet may still be tired, feasibly achy from the previous day’s path, perhaps injured by a crucifixion?  In need of some TLC?  Unsure and perhaps slightly unsteady?  Aged and changed with time?  Marked with memories of races run, pregnancies puffed through, glass stepped on, shoes submitted to or never afforded?  Nonetheless purposefully poised to stride into the day as it is.    

 

I sincerely hope these men would be flattered and amused by their presence together, two thoughts joining mine about feet.

 

You have brains in your head.  You have feet in your shoes. 
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.  You’re
on your own, and you know what you know.  And you are
the guy who’ll decided where you go. 
                                                                             –Dr. Seuss

By reading the scriptures I am so renewed that all nature
seems renewed around me and with me.  The sky seems
to be a pure, a cooler blue, the trees and deeper green. 
The whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel
fire and music under my feet. 
                                                                            –Thomas Merton

 

 

 

Busy

Seriously, co-dwellers of earth, how do we get so much done? We collectively cavort into the world with our own personal smorgasbord of a cellphone in one palm and a beverage in the other, family demands dialed up, a yoga mat slung over one shoulder, an environmentally responsible packed lunch, clothes for the party we don’t have time to go home before, an iTunes playlist, interview outline and work appointments, a briefcase, a laptop bag, a gym bag, a diaper bag, cloth grocery shopping bags, an emergency snack bag, dirty clothes bag on the way to the cleaners, a sack of library books, a Groupon for dinner, a book bag filled with homework, tax forms folders heralding the approaching deadline, and a magic list written on the back of a used envelope to keep all the various bits in order. 

 

We are busy, are we not?  And nonetheless we are rocking it through many things with great success.  Hundreds of thousands of humans of all ages get where they are supposed to be mostly prepared with the things needed every day.  Congratulations.

 

Busy is defined pertinently as an adjective at dictionary.com in three entries.
1.  actively and attentively engaged in work or a pastime
2.  not at leisure; otherwise engaged
3.  full of or characterized by activity

 

I don’t know precisely what each of us carries, but I know it is substantial.  Bills hypothetically on our backs, buzzers and reminders on a portable phone travel with us everywhere, beliefs that shape us slip between synapses in our brains.  Everywhere.  Texting, talking, timekeeping, telling ourselves we will catch up on sleep on the weekend at which time, when we find some time for ourselves, we hate to “waste” it sleeping.  We are flattered to be called any of the synonyms listed at dictionary.com for busy (assiduous, hard-working, diligent, industrious, earnest, employed, occupied, working) and not so much the antonyms (indolent and unoccupied). 

 

I want to write my blog today but my thoughts are all over the place Monday manic.  In today’s to-do soup there is so much savory stuff I want to do, an equal scoop of goop I need to do, the stock of what I truly absolutely must do and the ingredients to leave out – that which I absolutely will not get to.  So, like a good stew maker, I’m winging it with what’s on hand, the first thoughts that come to my mind.  May they settle in your belly as a comfort of something shared, an offering of my love of words and a partaking in the solidarity of being busy.

I drop two quotes about busy into my pot for thought today.

It is not enough to be busy.  So are the ants. 
The questions is:  What are we busy about?   
                                                - Henry David Thoreau
 

I try to keep it real.  I don’t have time to
worry about what I’m projecting to the
world. I’m just busy being myself. 
                                               – Demi Lovato

 

Beverage

Life recently sent me shopping for a vehicle.  My old van was a 2002; the new one is a 2010.  This kid carrying, stuff hauling bit of my life has a bunch of buttons and beeps I have to figure out.  And, there are fifteen cup holders.  In total the vehicle safely holds a seat-belted seven people.  How many drinks does each person need?  Apparently two, with a spare third as a perk for the driver.  I queried other van driving folks in my life (not exactly scientific, I know) and found that they too have such an amenity.  It perplexes me to consider that multiple options to rest a beverage seem a standard feature on modern minivans.  Somebody did some research and found our beverage habits to be important to our comfort. 

Dictionary.com defines the noun beverage as “any potable liquid, especially one other that water, as tea, coffee, beer, or milk.”

Beverages are important.  Today’s musings took root on a morning when I left the house with three:  water, protein smoothie, and a perfectly opaque black decaffeinated coffee.  I invented a new use for my sectioned cloth wine shopping bag – perfect to carry several lidded drinks upright.  These were necessary beverage rations for the morning and afternoon ahead of me.  So, I get it.  We need lots of cup holders.  I wanted at first to think my abundant cup holders were a useless indulgence.  Then I used them - all three allotted me.   

Beverages matter.  They can support us or poison us.  A beverage can be essential as water although is more often defined as something a step up the “special” ladder from H20 as in tea, coffee, beer, or milk (the favorites listed in the previous definition).   People work to provide the perfect beverage for holidays and celebratory occasions, matching wines and kid friendly punches to their respective places at tables and parties.  A certain, specifically offered potable liquid might soothe, supplicate, sedate or intoxicate.  Another beverage might be sipped to energize or offer a meal’s worth of liquid nutrition.  A beverage is crucial for a toast.  We need the properly prescribed ancient drink to consecrate at an altar.  One historically high-octane beverage distilled a hard and fast living for folks scraping life from mountains, fire and corn.

 

Why ponder the beverage?  Maybe because for most of us it is often abundant, easy to prepare and carry.  And when not, what feeling other than thirst gives us greater connection with longing?  Tangible.  Insistent.  Physical.  Spiritual.       
 

I scrounged online for these two beverage thoughts - one a laugh, one a lesson. 

 

Our founding fathers would have never tolerated any of
this crap.  For God’s sake, they were blowing people’s
heads off because they put a tax on their breakfast beverage. 
And it wasn’t even coffee.  
                                                                               - Dennis Miller

 

If we eat any food, or drink any beverage, we must recite a
blessing over them before and after.                                                                              
                                                                               - Shmuel Y. Agnon