Solo

I've been away from my boys one week a year since they turned two. Solo, alone. I don't travel for work, no. I travel for sanity. And I am a very blessed woman for having a partner that has allowed that space for me.

This time, this week, is different. They left me. Headed down South, my three boys, to work on the old house, touch base and reconnect. I have been alone in our new home, albeit temporary home/apartment. But it is my first time alone in Our Space, with their Lego scatterings, Tim's socks that need washing, our dishes and coffee paraphernalia.



I have come out of sleep each morning listening. Looking for a small silhouette in the doorway asking if it is was daytime yet, Mommy. And yet it is quiet, the early sunrise over the hill pulling light into the day, softening their room in its glowing. Made coffee for one, donned work attire, checked in by phone. Headed out.

Returning to a home undisturbed and silent is disconcerting. Knowing it is temporary is comforting. I have progressed in the way of sorting and quilting and 'catching up' in general. and I thank the blessed gods of all for this not being my norm.



They bring light and true Life to my days. In their churning chaos and needs, they define me. The library pulls but not enough. Making of dinner calls but not quite enough. Making is there to fulfill but also fill a hole. Me time is relative when there becomes just too much of it.

I love being a mother and wife and worker and woman and person. I love taking the time to realize that. I miss my babies, babies no longer, I admit, but I miss mine own.

I am grateful to love my life. I am eager for their return. I am trying to embrace the quiet. I am not so good with it.

Solitude vivifies; isolation kills. -Joseph Roux

Settle In

Set·tle    /ˈsɛtl/
verb (used with object)



1.to appoint, fix, or resolve definitely and conclusively; agree upon (as time, price, or conditions).
2.to place in a desired state or in order: to settle one's affairs.
3.to pay, as a bill.
4.to close (an account) by payment.
5.to migrate to and organize (an area, territory, etc.); colonize: The pilgrims settled Plymouth.
6.to cause to take up residence: They settled immigrants in urban areas.
7.to furnish (a place) with inhabitants or settlers: The French settled this colony with army veterans.
8.to quiet, calm, or bring to rest (the nerves, stomach, etc.).
9.to stop from annoying or opposing: A sharp word will settle that youngster.
10.to conclude or resolve: to settle a dispute.
11.to make stable; place in a permanent position or on a permanent basis.
12.to cause (a liquid) to become clear by depositing dregs.
13.to cause (dregs, sediment, etc.) to sink or be deposited.
14.to cause to sink down gradually; make firm or compact.
15.to dispose of finally; close up: to settle an estate.
16.Law .
a.to secure (property, title, etc.) on or to a person by formal or legal process.
b.to terminate (legal proceedings) by mutual consent of the parties.



This is Me now. All of it. All 16 parts speak to me in some way. But for the most part my Soul speaks right now and so the definitions just make sense. Because I am settled in a way I have not felt in... forever? A calm; a lesser need and a greater need.

And the calm that has descended into my depth and made me settle into a Center that does not feel like swirling right now but more like sediment, layers slowly shifting and deepening, creating a base that feels solid, like concrete. Breathing solid concrete.



Things that were once so scary are less so. Things I did not want to do are seen in a different light. People I want to be near are people I want to be near... but there is new space for people that I should want to meet. I am grateful for the ease of transition, for the lovely Marcie I met at the park with her babes that came equipped with costume bag, snacks and an eager desire to find a friend like me as I wanted to find a friend like her.

Who do you thank when you profess to not really pray anymore? I turn to the Universe in general.
Thanks, Universe. You are tops.

An appendectomy and Adieu

Our 17th anniversary started with a sponge bath. A very thorough sponge bath. Not a sexy role playing thing, it was a bath of necessity.

As I helped Tim wash away 2 days of hospital funk, scrubbed his hair, his scruff, I thought "So this is what they mean about sickness and health". I told him that thought.

We've been together a long time, almost half of our lives. We're weathered together, our skin, our souls. We've come through.


I had his ring on my necklace for two days, he gave it to me pre-op, a quick exchange before they took him up for an emergent appendectomy. It is a major minor surgery, usually quick if not painless. But still my heart hit my throat when I saw him on the gurney, spoke with the surgeon, watched them wheel him away, sat in the stuffy waiting room.


I signed onto the caring for others almost the same year we came together. I've been doing both for a very long time now. I can say when the two intersect, it may not be my strong point. It is one thing to care for a stranger for 45 minutes and then walk away. Quite another when it is someone you love, when that someone is your spouse.

He is on the mend. A bit of a surly and anxious patient but home and on the mend. He walks strighter by the half hour, things seem to be righting, the surgeon was pleased with the simplicity of a sometimes complex surgery. The boys welcomed him home, all shouts and questions, happy that their daddy only lost something inside his tummy.


We've postponed our leaving all with well wishes and little issue, folks sending healing thoughts and prayers, friends bringing funny gag gifts that even made the surgeon laugh.

(That's a ceramic Lassie. She has a new appendix for Tim in her mouth. Clever sweet friends)

Weathering another storm, this one quick and hard, waking to a New Year's Eve day hard, bright and hot. All clear.


I wish I could tell you about how Tim saved me this night 17 years ago but the details are a little compromising. He was there though...kissed me, bundled me up and took me home, let me use his toothbrush...the first of maybe what is a 1000 times now. We've not been apart since. Distance at times, struggle at times but the relationship? Right there.

That night when I used his toothbrush I was, ah, seeing things. I was in his bathroom brushing my teeth when I glanced into the mirror and there I was, about 89 years old; not Me young but Me old, so old. And that's when I knew. I was right where I was meant to be. A big thing to realize at 19 but unavoidable in a way.

I don't know if we'll make it to that vision in the mirror together, wizened old ones. But the last 2 days, the last 17 years actually, well, they are just proof that I would like to.

Happy anniversary, MCD. Glad you are okay.
Good night, 2011. Hello, 2012.
All the lighter for the loss of an appendix.

Inked

Bones knit themselves in the most beautiful of ways. When you fracture a bone it is apart, the strongest part of your body. It repairs the damage first by laying a new structure, a filigree really. Over time that delicate web fills itself in and becomes what is called a callus. The callus is never really the bone it was before, it is never as elegant, never as joined. But that callus marks that spot, where that bone fractured, bears the mark until the bone is dust again. I think sometimes that human souls are the same. Human souls can fracture but they heal…by building a network…and filling it in with a callus. Forever marked but whole in a new way.

I spent a weekend with some fantastically beautiful women and finished it by building a new structure on my body. I took some time for myself and ended up coming home marked forever in a way I feel completely comfortable with. There was a moment when I went breathless, sitting in that chair in that parlor, feeling the deep stinging pull of the needles and the question formed in my mind… What does this mean to me? But then I let it go because it is what it is.

I did yoga in a room that gazed out over what has been called a meatgrinder sea. On this day it was not, it was flat and yet not. The wind would sail across it and smooth it and push it and ripple it and then throw it but a gentle throw, nothing like I know. Nothing like my sea. I was in a room with women I had come to adore in 24 hours and shared what I find to be a most scared experience, the practice of yoga. There is something that happens when you breath in unison, you become a tribe.

I think humans souls knit themselves like fractures…possibly if they are lucky, possibly if they are strong, possibly if… but no, that is wrong. We live and breathe and so we heal and that is really the only possibility. It is what it is.



One of the amazing things about the human body is its complexity and its ferocity when it is in need of healing. My fascination with this process makes me what I am, it is why I do what I do. But forever I will turn to breathing in unison and chanting a mantra in a safe space as my healing choice for the soul. When you chant you lose all boundary of Self because if you didn't, well, you would just feel ridiculous. Those moments shared, chanting with women I love sealed a conviction I have long held true, one I find hard to articulate as maybe all truths are.

And so I went on that Monday to a man named Lee and asked him to put that seal on me, where I can see it. In a way it felt like the most fitting healing despite infliction. And now home again, I glance down and I am happy for the moments that led to this. And ready for the next moments.



When the Universe speaks and if you want to listen, you just do. And then you smile, rub some ointment on your healing wrists and go along.

MIA

I don't mean to be MIA. I don't want to be MIA. I do that thing where I write blog posts in my head or make comments on some of the amazing writing that I get to read every so often. But it does not translate, the words to page or rather screen.

I spend a lot of time working lately. It crept in, the hours incresing as they had to. In a way I decided I wanted to practice a little, anticipating that I might have to actually go 'for real' full time. First it was three days, then I added a fourth day and now it is five. Funny how time can creep away so easily, so quickly, given readily. I have not been angry or upset about the change, it feels right to be working this way, testing myself. But it does leave very little time for anything else.

Anything else; blogging falls into that category. I love words but spend hours tapping our patient care documentation, it is not fancy stuff and the obligation sometimes sends my wrists into a spiral of stiffness and pain and I realize it bleeds me of the desire to tap out more for myself. But then I read something from last year, something like this and it makes me realize.

I love this space for many reasons but those reasons have taken a backseat of late. I have little time to read and connect and comment and engage in this realm. But I know it will be here, when the time comes for me to be here. And I want to keep placing words here because when I glance back into my own lives and words here, it connects me somehow. It is truly the height of Me-ness, to put words here for Me. But I kinda' feel like that is okay too.


Insta-life. I love it.

In the mean time I am holding onto to the tether that Twitter and Instagram have become. As the time comes for packing and rearranging our lives and (gulp) big big moves, it is nice to have a place to reach out and find you all.

And as for the move? It all came through so far. The job, slated at part time with benefits for all of us, the timeline we needed. A trip North to find a place to lay our heads is in order. Holidays are in order with the whole family coming down to gather one more time.

But I am going to go through with 365 though. It looks like we will be picking up the moving van on December 31st, figure that will make a great last photo for a year that is shaping up to have been one somewhat light on words but packed full of actions.


no Halloween recaps this year but here is a glimpse


On my bday last month. Pretty happy.

Good Stuff

I want to tell you so many things. I want to tell you about feeling good. So good.


Because more than one person and place told me I was needed and valuable and would make their place better. Because we wandered through open places where homes sprout out of the earth, homes that I dreamt of but forgot of that dreaming until the doors opened wide. Because yesterday a wide open opportunity cracked light into a place that has laid quiet and dim for many years.

It has been five days of immense change, possibility, opening. It started with a long drive North with my partner, you know, that one who lays next to me in the dark hours and struggles to hold the daily grind of life at bay in the light hours. The one who I forget to cheriah at times when the grind of life grinds on me. It was a good drive, full of talk of dreaming and doing. And also some loud ranting on my part that is always received so gently and taken so readily.

And then Thursday morning I walked nervously into a setting where I was anticipating grilling, questioning, proving. But the space was not that, it was courting. The courting of Me, my skills and person. I was blushing by the end of the two hours there. And I was encouraged and totally sold. The rest of the day we spent on winding roads, framed by old old oaks, winding into a town that is my kind of town. Old and new, seamless. A library that has a whole floor for children, tucked down creaking stairs and opening to space that says 'We love and value small people who want to read and learn'. Tiny local stores full of handmade and whimsy.

A school on a hill that advocates learning outside of the classroom. Victorians and cottages that beg to be owned because they cost a fraction, a reasonable fraction.


And then Friday, another interview. Her first laughing line to me when I walked into her office? "Oops, guess I should have told you it is casual Friday," (giggle) as I stood in my 'dress up' clothes. The giggle put me at ease immediately and I liked this woman, one who could be my boss. I sat at a table with 6 people, my colleagues, told them about myself. And then got really pass-out nervous by the attention but they gracefully stepped in to give me a minute to recover. Then we just talked. About our work, what they want and what I want and the Universe said 'Bam!'. Because they need Me. Exactly what I am. They need someone who lives in that town that I was in yesterday, they need an experienced neuro specialist, they have plans, big plans. And they want me to be a part of it. I did not blush this time, I fiercely lobbied. Because I felt it, that click, that this was it, what I was wishing; for accomplished confident colleauges seeking growth and community and support. The only drawback is the position is not full time. So I have decided it is not a drawback only a sign for me to get in there and remind them why they need me there full time. I was offered both jobs which is so awesome, but Job #2 is it. I am hoping the Universe continues to speak to me, to help make it happen.

And then I met my baby niece, the newest person to join the expanding world of my blood. Giant eyes, lashed for days, animated beyond belief for her 4 weeks.

So wonderful, to hold her close and talk to her Mama and hug my brother, fiercely again, to see him move into this place in his life, to know we could be just down the way from them.

And then Tahoe, where I feel like my cup has run a little over. This weekend in Northstar there is a fundraising race and event. It is organized by Tara Llanes, a pro-mountain bike rider that was in a terrible crash that resulted in a spinal cord injury. She hosts the event every year and we have been there for three years in a row. Before I transitioned to home health, I was a neuro specialist, mainly stroke and brain injury, but I treated persons with SCI often. I make it a point to be there to contribute but I always wanted to do more than just show up.

This year a new company called CORE was part of the event. Click the link to know more but basically a young guy named Aaron Baker started the first fully adapted gym for people with functional limitations, things that might keep them out of a 'gym' setting. He opened in January, all equipment is designed for individuals that have need for special equipment and it costs 60 bucks a month to join. He wants to spread this love and by god, I am going to help him do it. My mind jumped immediately to opening one up here at the base of Tahoe, for those that have need for this 'niche' gym, as he called it.

I feel so passionate about this for many reasons. My greatest challenge when I worked in rehab was not the treatment, it was the discharge process. Telling a person "Your rehab is done, now go out and do your best in a world that does not accomodate many of your needs". I had a few resources to refer but they were all short term, anemic when you think of time in terms of years of recovery. No matter whether that person was 21 or 76, there is no place to tell them to go once their rehab dollars run out. But now there is, there is a vision that Aaron realized because he has a high complete cervical SCI and he never said to himself, "I can't".

The amazing thing? He walks, people. He is a high cervical complete SCI and he gets up out of his chair and walks. This is both miraculous and encouraging for anyone living with an injury. Actually, this is mindblowing. He says it is because he never stopped training his body to recover. I believe him.

So, wow. The Universe and its voice these past few days has floored me.

I am grateful and joyful and so very happy. And that is such a good thing.
That is what I wanted to tell you. And that I hope you are too, want to give some of it to you, my friends. It feels like so much right now, I have plenty to spare.

240 and Ticking

I started 365 on January 1st. I wanted a challenge, a recording. I wanted to pick up my camera daily and work it, work my eye and my equipment. I wanted the discipline. I am 240 days in with a few missed days here and there which is not too hard to shrug off.



I am finding that I may be getting more than I thought from this year of shooting. I may have recorded the last year we will live in this house, this space, these hills, this Home. Hard to believe so much (and yet so little) has happened in the span of 240 days.

In January Tim and I took a solo trip North. We needed kid-less time and we wanted to explore. We headed North into the land at the base of Lake Tahoe, rolling foothills not very different from our own but with so much more space and possibility and promise. The promise tasted sweet and unfamiliar, an adventurous taste reminding us of those days pre-family and pre-home ownership when we used to leave ... to Africa, to Ireland, To Oz. It was a heady thought, the leaving and relocating. We returned home, immersed back into the Home we have now, the work, the friends, the lives. But we could not let it go.

We talked about it. I Mondo Beyondo'd it in a very quiet internal way. We incessantly perused Zillow and Redfin and had discussions with my live in parents about logistics and possibilities and hope for a different place, a Future that was not so shaped by the Past.

And then we went, three weeks North with our boys, seeing family interspersed with more searching and finding, a deepening well of assurance that this was right. We left reluctantly, afraid to re-immerse and reconnect and maybe forget our resolve.

The day before we returned I screwed up the courage to look into one of the larger healthcare providers in the area. They had no less than 5 jobs open in my area of practice, 5 jobs in the area we want to call Home. But I stalled, hesitated to apply online, frozen in the headlights of such big change.

I spoke to my supervisor the first day back about my desire to move and the very real possibility of leaving my position. She was supportive and encouraging and even gave me ideas about what my salary should be up North. I still did not apply.

It has been a month since we returned. Last Monday I put in my application. I received a call back that evening. I talked with a recruiter Tuesday then had a phone interview Wednesday for a position, Friday for another. The medical system is stellar, the people I have spoken to make me smile, the jobs offer fully paid benefits for the whole family and a whole lot of other bells and whistles that had me jumping up and down in my chair. We are headed North again, Tim and I, two in-person interviews scheduled for later in September.

I am giddy, I am so damn nervous and I am marveling at all that can happen in 240 days. Some days have felt mundane and unoriginal, slogging through paperwork, later seeking a glimmer of light for that picture I 'have' to take.


But if this all happens in the way it may happen, I will forever be amazed and grateful for recording the Year Our Lives Changed A Lot.

Going to keep going to see what the next 125 days hold.

A pie for Mikey

I work in health care. I work in home care. I work with the sick and sometimes the dying. Many of the people I see are more in the ebb than the flow. It is what I do and I feel that I am in it because I do it well.

Over my years in home care I have come to appreciate so many things; the way people feel when they are finally home, in their own clothes, surrounded by their familair things, allowed to have their routines. I worked for years and years in the hospital setting; the world of gowns that lay you literally bare when you dare to move out of bed. Later I moved to the rehab setting where you are allowed to wear your own clothes but you cannot because your left arm and leg do not work so your spouse goes to walmart and gets a hideous pair of pull on sweats that leave your frame swimming and exposes you in a totally different way.



I am trying to say I love home care, love what I do now. And I am digressing far from what I was trying to actually say. Friday night I made a pie. I made it because of a father and mother, husband and wife, family and life that was broken by unforeseen tragedy. She asked for pies in his memory and I felt as if it was a small thing to do in light of the wave of huge loss, maybe a small current sent her way as she reshapes everything that she is.



I see loss on a weekly basis because we have a hospice component to our services. I take hospice patients regularly. It sounds a bit anomalous, rehab in the hospice setting. In these times I go into the home to teach a family member or caregiver how to help make their loved one more physically comfortable, I teach them how to protect their bodies as they struggle to not only care for this dying person but take on roles they never imagined. It is a great privilege to be a part of this but it is never not wrenching.

So, I see death in many forms daily. But this death, this loss, it strikes a different chord. It is one thing to try to accept the process of loss, another to have no say, no warning, no time. It is truly a terrible loss. And so despite the fact that she is a stranger, a person not met yet, I made the pie. I read her post and made the pie and cried as I shopped for the needed items and felt that the loss was not distant.



The pie is still being eaten. My sisters are in town and the little cousins keep running in and out and people keep scooping bites and pieces and asking how to make it and hearing the about the loss of this man. Loving the pie but not the reason for its presence.



Yes, we will all go someday. And none of us know the how or when or why. Won't know. But I do know we are here now and can live best by embracing it all, the big huge messy picture that is our Life. It is not too late to make some pie. Or give some love. Or change things you do not like.





My beloveds.

Blogher11 :: Unmoored

Last year I attended the annual Blogher conference in NYC, my first. I posted about it the day after and I still feel strongly in my conclusion that Blogher is whatever you make it to be.

I went to Friday of the conference this year and I do want to speak of the experience but cautiously, very cautiously. Because for me this year felt totally different and although not terrible, I am not putting 'different' into the 'better' category.


Let me say this; I do think tacking on a conference that entails the gathering of three thousand women at the end of a three week journey may have been a bit much. I feel like I entered the space already exhausted, not energized or enthused about blogging. And Blogher is really about just that, women blogging. The conference has grown exponentially and with it the topics, the numbers and the sponsers. There was a lot going on and information and people speeding by at a rapid pace. And stuff, so much stuff.

There was also a few intimate moments meeting the ones I love to read and know online and letting their physical person take shape in my life, getting that hug and learning little bits of information that rarely slip out online in our measured blog posting and twitter clips. But when these things happened in the quiet of a hotel room or at the edge of a pool, both places not technically included in the conference space, well, that was when I have to question just why I am there.


I found the pace and information and the sheer seas of people to be too much for me this year. I found difficulty staying in it and wanting to stay in it and I actually ended up leaving Friday evening, calling my lovely husband who was juggling the boys that day and asking him to grab me early and bring me back to our little rental cabin thingy where the boys were wreaking havoc and there was a horizontal space to lay my head. I did stay to see the one part of Blogher that I think remains true to the initial spirit and purpose of blogging, the Voices of the Year speakers.

I listened to Bon and Kate read and then listened to other women speak their written words and cried and laughed (hard) and then cried again. That part will always be like that, I think. That part is the reason why I read and sometimes write in today's blogging world. You should read that part, and you can here, but man, it was good to hear the words spoke clearly and purposefully by their creators.

I did attend the Thursday night parties which were low key, except for the seven feet in heels drag queens wandering the halls.

I did wander through the Expo hall where the sponsors set up booths to entice and engage the bloggers. For me it was definitely zoo-like. The Jimmy Dean sun guy from the commercials was there, there was a lot of sausage, some free Dove bars .... a lot more, oh lord, a lot more. I think so far as I dig down into the bag of swag which followed me home, I have yet to find anything that I would buy, endorse. I did get a free copy of this book by these ladies, the book went promptly to my newly pregnant friend and I do hope it is a help or at least a laugh as she navigates this new part of life.

I think what I am trying to say is that this year I realized Blogher is not for me. I don't believe I will take my dollars, hard earned that they are, and direct them towards another weekend next year. Not because there is anything fundamentally wrong with Blogher or sponsers, not that there is anything wrong with me or the way I choose to blog. Mainly because we are not a great fit, Blogher and I. I would rather hoard those dollars so that on some future weekend I can travel to new place that holds old friends where there is no session schedule or party to make but just people and tea and couches and drinks. All the laughs and fun that happen at Blogher but scaled down to just the people and not why they blog or if they make money or do it right but instead what they love and believe in and plant and think and do.

I will say, there was a great moment where I received a detailed description from this lovely woman about how to bale hay and dispose of feral kittens and that was pretty cool (please say that like Miley Cyrus as you read those words because that is how we use them around this household and it makes us laugh every time).

But hell, who knows, now that it is NYC again I might just use it as an excuse to travel, not buy a ticket and just crash people's hotel rooms.

Adios to another Blogher.

From the Road

Sheepishly trying to jump back in ...

It is mid-July and we are in the first few days of our long weeks away. We worked our asses off for this, juggling the boys and the stress and trying to remain calm and trying to get all the proverbial ducks in a row before leaving.

For once I finished every bit and speck of paperwork and left the office Wednesday free of work laptop and work obligations, shedding the layers of patient care and responsibility gratefully. Instead we hauled a big box containing our new HP faux-iMac up on which I type right now. I am deeply in love with it already.

We are planning days here at Tahoe where Tim will ride and ride and shed some of the layers of stay-at-home-dad-starting-a-fledgling-business-in-his-'spare'-time. I will try to hold my sanity as I spend the days with my energetic and lovely but often trying boys. I will also seriously contemplate checking them into the Northstar Kids Day Camp even if it stretches the budget.

This is the place we want to be forever, not Tahoe proper but its rolling foothills, sitting at the base of our very favorite place on Earth. So we will go down the hill and talk to our realtor and search the area for our new home and our new jobs and new schools. It is so scary to say that out loud but I know now is the time to just say it. When we hit the Right Place on the 80 we both looked at each other and smiled because it felt like coming home. And there is just no denying it anymore.

So we will play for a few weeks with a few obligations here and there. And I hope to muster up some writing around here with all this spare time, my trial of Lightroom, my trusty camera and acres of pretty things to look at.

These pictures were my first foray into using Lightroom, a program I think I am going to love. I like how it made the mundane moments before vacation still seem a little bit special.

Wahe Guru

Something happened to me today. And it was wonderful.

Ten days ago I made a committment to practice yoga for 21 days. Every day. The decision was prompted by a Yoga Journal article from January of this year. I skimmed it and realized I needed to do this. And so I embarked on daily yoga practice. I did not think it would be such a big deal. I usually take 3 or 4 classes a week, have practiced in some form since I was about 10.



I was so wrong.

I am in Day 10 and something happened to me today that has not happened in a very long time.



I finished my asana practice and settled in to savasana, relaxing into meditation state. I was listening to a beautiful piece called Wahe Guru by Mantra Girl. And then I felt it. You can call it prana or qi or Life force but it began to resonate in my hands, my hands open at my sides as I lay supine. It built, the heat and life. I felt it and tentatively invited it in and then it moved slowly, waves of it up through my wrists and then through the crook of my slightly bent elbows, up through my biceps and the hollow of my armpit and the waves from each arm met and crested and enveloped my heart, pulsing with more than beats now.

I was weeping, completely present and completely overwhelmed. And I felt a connection that I have not felt in many many years. A connection to everything, and then to Nothing. The song faded out and I slowly came to sitting and gratefully curled forward, bowing namaste to the trees framed by the window in the room where I was practicing.



I came out to my boys, usually so animated, quietly playing with legos. Tim was on an errand and I just sat with them, letting the experience settle into me, expecting it to go. And yet it stayed, has stayed, I can feel it this minute while I type.

I looked up the Sanskrit translation of Wahe Guru, it means 'Wonderful Teacher', interpreted sometimes as god. I realize I want to feel that way everyday, every moment but there is also the realization that I am not sure I could remain that open and function. I am glad to know where to find it again, to fill the well.



Getting on the mat daily, practicing the asanas I love and also the ones I hate has shifted something inside of me. It is making me a diffrent person. I feel both frightened and encouraged by this as I feel it strip away and strengthen the core, not just the physical one but also the one that lies at the very heart of my Self.

Daily yoga is directly changing my life right now. A part of me is astonished that it took me so long to find this shift. Another part wants to learn Sanskrit. And another is just so grateful for those moments today.

Now is the Time

Now is the Time for This.

It is a new practice that I am taking to, telling myself the above daily.

This changes constantly; it may be work or the dishes, reading to the boys or cleaning up after them, taking a photo or being in the garden. I am trying to remind myself that 'Now is the Time for This' in order to stay, not wander so far from the moments.

And so Now is the Time for This ... This post.

~ Hello, friends. I know some are still out there though so many feel far away, I feel far away. I wanted to say hello and that I think of you often, still glance into your lives via blog posts and flickr streams. I still see you and hope you see parts of me too.

The Now of this Post was mainly to say just that. And that Thoughts and Blog posts and Ideas to share still swirl around in my head, but the This of life keeps pulling in all directions.

I trust we will all find contact in some again as we move through our individual This. I hope my Hello finds you well.


Monday This :: Hike



Tuesday This :: LEGO mess and too much TV

~ Until next time. amiee

To Run or Not to Run ...

Last week I decided that it was time to start running. Because here I am, 35, watching friends and friends of friends on Twitter do the Couch to 5K and I suddenly thought that this is something I could do. Me, the girl that loves yoga and having her feet firmly planted on the ground unless they are firmly fitted to bike pedals. Me, the girl with a generous ass and thighs that go right along with it. Me, that gasps for breath after a sprint to catch the boys before they do something really bad. Yes, me. I decided I too can run.

The C25K program is a good one, a gentle one that lets you transition from never ever running to possibly completing a 5K. Last week was week 1 and I felt great; three runs with Tim, each one a little easier than the last. But then Sunday I woke up and my knees were aching something awful so I skipped yoga and decided to try a day of rest. Then came Monday afternoon and we headed out for the 30 minute session with plans to repeat the first week because I am not sure I am ready to move on yet. And oh my god, my knees, a fire-like piercing pain in the right one which gradually started in on the left by the end of the ‘run’. It was hellacious. But I stretched and did my yoga class and figured I would take it from there.



Yesterday was the second session for the week and it did not happen.. At all. I barely limped home and collapsed on the floor and resigned myself to being that girl that cannot run. It was quite disappointing and really painful.

This morning I was doing paperwork and a light bulb hit. I am a PT. I am the person that people go to when they cannot run because they are in pain. Well, I am not that PT, my specialty has never been orthopedic injuries. I am the brain injury/CVA wunderkind but never been one for the old ‘it hurts when I run’ treatment routine.

I spent 20 minutes in self diagnosis this morning, zeroing in on the problem. Now, I know my body well, yoga keeps one fairly linked in, I would like to think. But apparently not as well as I thought. I started at the patella (knee cap in laymen speak) to measure my tracking and Q angle. First thought on my R knee was “Holy sh*t!!! When did my knee start to look like that?” Because my Q angle is not looking so good. The greater your Q angle, the worse your tracking, the more you risk scraping your poor little patella out of the femoral groove leading to even more pain. So I did a little squashing and pushing and pulling and taping and it began to track a bit better and I began to feel a whole lot better.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because this morning I was reminded of something. Well, a few things. That I am a PT for real and I know a lot of things about the human body, its failings and its healing and something I can do about both. It also reminded me of the fact that I am getting older. My knees are getting older and tracking in ways that I never thought I would see on me. My heart is getting older which I why I wanted it to pump more so it can be trained like my knees. My bones, my flesh are starting to change, not fall into some deep spiraling decent but just age. Moving towards that inevitable place we all end up.

It was also a reminder that I may never be a runner despite my will/wish/want. I can still do yoga and hike five miles a week with my feet touching the ground the whole time (I might have to hike a little faster and harder to get that cardio effect though). So, I may just fail at this Couch to 5K thing. Which I think is okay despite the fact that I hate to fail.

Ah, to be a person that is aging. I am not sure I feel comfortable wearing that role quite yet. But I know from my work that it happens to us all. And I know that staying on the move is the best way to welcome it, this aging thing. Now off to something I know I can do …