Wow, this feels more vulnerable than I thought it would...

Inspired by the resurgence of Matt's Primal Eloquence blog, I just attempted to outline my own two-week workout/weight loss plan right here in public.

But I just can't do it.

Matt, how do you make that sort of thing public and still... be okay??

Maybe it's just me, but - I hate talking about food in terms of dieting. Describe me a gorgeous eat-with-your-eyes-first haute cuisine dining experience and I'll beg you to go on forever, but talk to me about your low-cal this and non-fat that, how much you're eating and at what times of day and I just want to scream and poke my eyes out.

It's a horribly uncomfortable topic for me.

That said, Matt, I am following your adventures and you have my utmost support in your journey! Just don't ask me to talk about it with you over dinner the next time we go out, okay?

My Mood

Thanks to my Annapolitan for encapsulating it perfectly:

Now all the truth is out,
Be secret and take defeat
From any brazen throat,
For how can you compete,
Being honor bred, with one
Who, were it proved he lies,
Were neither shamed in his own
Nor in his neighbors' eyes?
Bred to a harder thing
Than Triumph, turn away
And like a laughing string
Whereon mad fingers play
Amid a place of stone,
Be secret and exult,
Because of all things known
That is most difficult.

--W.B. Yeats

Relapse

The culmination of my exceptionally challenging and stressful day came about an hour ago via panic attack while at yoga. I was literally hyperventilating in Adho Mukha Svanasana. A few poses later, I told Keith that I wanted to go home. He asked me to finish the standing sequence, after which he let me go with the promise that I would leave this behind me and show up anew on Thursday.

Now I am home in my cluttered and filthy apartment. My body is clean but my mind is a wreck. I feel disgusing and useless. I'm afraid to practice the banjo because my confidence is so shaky that a few bad tunes make me feel like never playing again.

But my Annapolitan offered a keen insight: it's the days when you don't feel like practicing that practice is so important. We talked about how that sets serious musicians (and athletes, and academics, etc) apart from the masses: anyone can practice their talent when it suits them, when it's easy. It takes true dedication and discipline to practice when it's hard, when you don't have time, when it's not going well and when you feel like quitting instead.

I quit yoga for today, but I am going to pick up the pieces and try to make something productive out of the rest of my evening. Wish me luck.

Still Alive

It seems as though leaves of absence are going around in the blogosphere these days.

I've been absent from most things lately - yoga especially. And reading. And prayer.

The Music is alive and well in my life, though, and that is an immense comfort to me.

Onward.

Purging the Healthy Way

No Mom - I am not bulimic.

I am in a mood to throw things away. Getting rid of excess is not just for spring cleaning, you see. I think it's wise to continuously pare down one's belongings and evaluate one's attachments to what one owns.

The problem for me is my definition of excess and the way I view any sense of affection for my possessions as being unhealthy and in need of dissolution.

For example: I do not like having two of anything. This ranges from black skirts to place settings to easy chairs to bottles of shampoo (and sometimes to kittens... NATASHA WILL YOU QUIT RUNNING AROUND). Sometimes, though, a person really needs multiples of things. I have been trying to come to terms with this. I have four whole wine glasses and two plates. I have two mugs for tea. And I have three black skirts. Yes, this makes me anxious, but I am trying to be okay with it.

I am not very attached to anything I own except for my kittens and my instruments. In some ways, I would like to have very few possesions that are exactly what I want and that I love. In other ways, I would like to feel as though I could give absolutely anything I own (with the aforementioned exceptions) away to someone who needed them without shedding a tear or looking over my shoulder. Sometimes I test myself by getting rid of things that I like, just to see how it feels. If I feel sad, then I have a nice talk with myself about the important things in life and how you can't touch them.

I am hereby acknowledging that this behavior is extreme. That is why, istead of getting rid of my coffee table or something else that I could justify "needing," I have decided instead to clean out my closet and purge worn out yoga clothes, unwanted apparel, and other useless clutter. Clutter being the key word, not anything that I am actually using.

And then I am going to meet up with Matt for MONGOLIAN BARBECUE and he has a very mysterious 'favor' to ask me, and hopefully it won't be something that makes my boyfriend want to maim him...

Untitled

It can be really overwhelming to think about a significant event in my life by tracing all the little details that led me there. It's scary because sometimes events are set in motion in such a way that, upon looking back, it seems incredulous that it all actually worked out and that nothing got in the way, and had I been ten seconds later or hadn't felt well or burned my dinner, that it would not have worked out the way it did.

In times when I can't fathom how our Creator has set in motion the events that have been ordained for us since the day we were born, I remember that even the hairs on our head are numbered. We are the answer to His question, and the question that He answers.

I Can't Relax

We got home pretty damn late last night (near 2am) and yet I still managed to drag myself to work. The day was pretty intense, and when I got home I fell asleep for about two hours. Which brings me to now and I hate this feeling, like I should be springing into action to make up for my weak will and lazy body that just crashed in the middle of the day.

I frantically did the dishes. Now I am thinking of re-stringing my banjo. And my bouzouki. And I should do some yoga since I will probably be skipping class tonight. Is David going to disown me? He'll at least be disappointed. I should clean. I should study. I should watch a film and return it to Netflix. I should check my work email. I should jog up and down the stairs a bit. I should go grocery shopping. I should clean my closet.

I should take a hint from my kittens and stretch out in a sunbeam and scrunch shut my eyes and breathe deeply and do nothing at all for the rest of this evening which I've dedicated to myself alone.

Why isn't that, like, simple?

Home Again

I apologize for the absence, dear readers (or as Patrick would say, I haven't been blogging enough blogging blog), but I've been up in New England for the past few days helping my grandparents celebrate their 60th wedding anniverary.

Sixty years. Can you believe it?

I'm finally home, and while I wait for my Annapolitan I'll be investigating the mystery of the Two Cute Kittens Who Did Not Get Taken Care Of Like Claire Said They Would. I'm more than dismayed. When I arrived they had no food or water in their dishes and yet there was food left in the bag - and there shouldn't have been if they were fed yesterday. That should have been all of it. Also, Natasha has a bloody gash on her shoulder. Now, I know my little girls tussle with each other from time to time (they are sisters, after all), but I've never seen anything go down between them fierce enough to draw blood. They must have been in the state of agitation that shelter kittens can regress to when left with dry plates.

Poor little girls. I'm glad to be home.