Red Cedar

The Reverb10 prompt today just called out for a photo gallery – things I most want to remember in the past year. More photos coming later when I have access to the rest of my photo albums on my home computer.

I’m having trouble writing at the moment, I’m not sure why exactly except perhaps I’m afraid this is going to come out like mush. The question of the day is what I have to come to appreciate most in the past year – and without a doubt in the last three years, the answer is clearly Brian and the relationship we have worked to build together. Truly, life just seems so much easier, more joyful, and less lonely than it ever has for me before. I notice it especially during rough times – the relaxation that spreads down my shoulders when he hugs me, the relief I feel when I am returning home after a tough union hearing or meeting because I know he’ll be there with dinner ready. It’s infinite, all the small ways in which my life is eased or smoothed by the presence of this great love in my life and I can’t think of a single thing which compares in terms of appreciation value.

And I know it’s not one-sided, because we mutually show gratitude by helping each other, by sharing the tasks of our household, by listening and playing and prioritizing our time around each others needs. Which is key, really. That when we have time to spend, we want to spend it with each other.

It’s been just over three years now and I keep worrying that this great thing is going to come to an end – that we will tire of each other, become too accustomed, start taking for granted all the little things that still seem so miraculous…. But we’re both committed to kindness in our relationship, which is at least as important as love in keeping joy alive. Let’s keep our fingers crossed shall we? I’d like to appreciate this relationship as much in all the years we have together.

I feel pretty lucky in that once I decide what I want to do, I’m pretty good at getting it done. That is, the hardest part for me is deciding my goal, but once I figure that out I’m all over the process and figuring out the steps between a and b. So today’s prompt about putting aspirations into action is right up my alley.

For all the reflecting I’ve been doing this fall, I’m pretty sure my goals boil down to the following three:

• Put an end to procrastination as much as is humanly possible. I’m frittering away far too much of my life.
• Ensure physical activity is a part of my life every single day (even if that’s only a 20 minute dog-walk).
• Get enrolled in some more education – preferably the Master’s program I’m scoping out at SFU – but failing that I’ve got some other ideas.

So what to do.. what to do…. It’s all pretty simple really – my short-term action plan is as follows:

1. I’ve posted a procrastination log on this blog – it won’t come up as a separate post every day, it’s a page that I will be adding to each day with a to-do list. For the next month or two I’m going to list the items I need to get done each day and cross them off as I go. No Internet surfing or otherwise goofing off until a substantial number of them are completed. We’ll see how this feels over a few weeks – and if making a list every morning helps me to focus my days better. (I don’t really expect anyone to read it except me – who else could possibly be interested in my to do list?)
2. Since I came back to work last week I’ve been to the gym twice, gone ice skating and taken two length walks (one of which was 5 km today on the Trans Canada trail with the dog who was very happy with me). I know exactly how to do this, it’s just a matter of getting back int he habit. I’m enrolling in ice skating lessons for January-March and will sing up for the bucket list challenge coming at the YWCA in the new year. That and finding stuff to do with B. on weekends that is physically oriented. Piece of cake.
3. I gave myself 45 minutes to work on my grad school application essay this morning. I intend to continue carving out time in the next two months to complete that, plus following up with the folks who agreed to write reference letters for me. This one is just a matter of sitting down and doing it, as much as I loathe the process of writing about myself and my interests.

This feels good. A strategic plan of my very own…… And we’re not calling these resolutions, but positive steps right?

I went skating today for the first time since last winter. Last winter I went skating for the first time since I was a kid. Not only is it all a little wobbly, but I got a blister this afternoon from my new skates and I fell hard on my knee once. Ow, right? But that’s how I expect I’ll get stronger and more steady (not to mention break in the skates), even if right now I feel a bit silly for my re-found desire to ice skate.

The timing of all this worked well for today’s prompt which is about body integration – as in when in the last year have I felt the most integrated, at-one with my body. Which is a rare situation for me, I have to admit, except when I’m physically stretched to my limit or in pain. Like today, in the moment of falling and — ow, fuck —- I really was only in my body and not at all in my head. Likewise when I was going to step-class regularly in the spring and almost killing myself doing mid-air kicks off the step in between gulping lungfuls of air. At these times my body is all momentum because if any logical thought was to creep in, I’d be getting myself out of the aerobics studio pretty damned quick.

My real truth is that I rarely get there because I live so much in my head. So much of reality for me is not what I see or feel or touch, but the backdrop of inner chatter, and it divorces me from myself and the physicality I crave. I’m not one of those people who can go to Yoga and feel at one with anything, because the whole time my mind is telling me that I’m not good enough or not doing it right. Hiking up the side of a mountain involves some noticing of my environment, and a laundry list of tasks running through my mind as I guilt myself for taking time off to go outside and play. This is at the root of so much of what I need to overcome in order to feel more at peace – and yet I never stick with working on it for long.

Besides learning to focus my mind through meditation practices and cognitive behaviour techniques – my integration of my body is total when I am experiencing real challenge. Whether that is just intensity level or learning a brand new set of skills, my internal voice and critic is shut up when I am working on that plane of physical pain/struggle. Hm.

Body integration or no, I am going to start skating lessons in the new year at Trout Lake rink, and I’ve returned to the gym lately after a four-month hiatus. I am reconnecting with my body after a few stressful months in which I had drifted further and further away – and even if I rarely get to the holistic state we are all “supposed” to achieve – at least I’m working on my skills and state of health.