Rest for My Soul

So, I haven't really been running. For a while there I was doing okay, slowly building up my base mileage again. But now it's cold, and dark too early, and I don't have any proper running clothes, and I need new shoes, and running isn't giving me the pleasure it once did. So maybe my return to the streets was short lived. Maybe I'll try again once spring rolls around.

This has been a hellish, stressful, busy week. Two 13-hour shifts; being in a screaming speeding police car resulting in close proximity to a fire after three of the people I work for interrupted each other to call us pathetic for two and a half hours; a lovely dinner with a friend but I still reeked of smoke and pathos; a filthy apartment; neglected furry creatures.

I can barely take care of myself this week, and I'm just one person.

Some Girls Wander By Mistake

I wish I could compose a post as thoughtfully apologetic as Matt's as to why I haven't been writing much lately. But I can't. And I won't try.

I'm here. I've been travelling. Working, yoga, running, blah blah blah.

My life is a little weird right now. Up until my mid-twenties, things seemed to move in several-year stages. Three years of middle school, four years of high school, four years of college, two years of graduate school. And now I've just finished up my third year of full-time work, and I can feel myself getting antsy, not because I've lost my contentedness, but because the pendulum has swung back, the rhythm started over, and my life's clock says it's time for something new.

I also might be getting a little too comfortable. That frightens me. I don't
want to be too comfortable in my life. I want to be challenged and improving and a little afraid. Not afraid, excactly, but I don't want to become too accustomed to God's graces. I want to be awed by them continuously, and thankful, and most of all, I want to steward well the gifts He has given me and continues to give.

I Need a New Head

I have a cold.

BLAH.

A Gentle Start

Earlier today I was feeling just plain weak. Weak-willed, weak physically, weak spiritually. Generally just feeling like I sucked. Feeling short and scrunched up and inflexible and impure.

The driving rain and whipping wind that plagued me today didn't help my condition, but a nice, gentle, beginning level yoga class did. Immensely. I went in there feeling as though the only difference between me and a first-week beginner was that I had the Primary Series memorized. But soon enough my chest opened, my back lengthened, my hamstrings... well, not so much, but my mind settled down, and now I feel long and lithe and clean.

Yoga is like the Fountain of Youth. Seriously.

It's Raining and I Forgot My Umbrella (and other pathetic tales of woe)

It's raining and I forgot my umbrella and have to spend most of the day outside running from office to metro to other office to metro back to office.

My muscles are all scrunched up from hours and hours in the car over the weekend and I feel like I'm back to square one with my yoga practice.

I'm on "Ladies' Holiday" this week and won't be doing much yoga anyway.

My tea doesn't have enough milk.

I need a haircut (this is hard).

I wanna go home and go to bed.

Dreary, rainy day.

Road Trip

In a silly little PT Cruiser.

Ciao!

Why I Can Never Get Anything Done

Open Letters

Dear Kind Stranger,
Although, like dear Ralph Waldo, I am bent on self-reliance, and like venerable Betsy, banner-builder, I grip the reins of my independence by its needle and thread, I offer you my deepest thanks for giving me your Metro seat this afternoon. I was not feeling well -- indeed, the horn call of my personal liberté, égalité, fraternité blared not from my bosom (see next letter) -- and was thankful to avoid the stomach-rupturing stench of the slob crammed aisle .
A thousand thanks,
Di

Dear Starbuck(s),
I supped last night on magnificent cuisine (of which the Proof was in the pudding, though I had none), and was, needless to say, unprepared to gorge myself on one of your one of your average-at-best pumpkin muffins during our morning routine. The shock to my system was truly earth-shattering; indeed, having choked down the brick, I felt as though I was doing damage to under-foot with every step as I plodded, pumpkin-esquely down the sidewalk. Were it not for that the Crisco sheen aided in the application of my cosmetics, I would have retributively left you the crumbs.
Resentfully,
Di

Home Again

I did a lot of running this past week down in Georgia, but not much yoga. So boy, was I feeling my hamstrings (and lower back, and calves, and shoulders) this morning in class. I purposefully took a Level I class because I knew I was going to need to ease back into things... god, I had it when my body is weak.

Two short weeks ahead, and a road trip to which I'm very much looking forward.

Ciao for now

I'm off for a week of top-secret training in a top-secret location.

Talk to y'all next weekend.

The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts...

I used to think that Christianity was stupid;

I used to think that in order to be perceived as having good taste I needed to criticize everything I saw/ate/read;

I used to hate olives;

I used to confuse arrogance and intelligence;

I used to think that being strong meant never needing anything from anyone;

I used to think that no one in the world was truly happy in their marriage.

..................................

I'm still afraid to answer a question unless I'm sure I know the answer;

I'm still afraid to try anything creative;

I still starve myself as punishment if I feel weak;

I still can't stop interrupting people on the phone;

I still can't do a yoga headstand;

I still enjoy dining in a restaurant by myself.

City Skyscape

She just can't get it quite right..

... so lately I have been taking the bus to work, which is actually quite nice. I like to look out the window and watch my city go by.

There is another woman who waits for the 6:36am bus with me, but she seems very confused and I don't think she actually checks the schedule. The bus, in my experience (and I don't take it every day) comes on time or within two minutes of being on time, yet this woman, right around 6:35, always starts to get really agitated and will give up on the bus. She'll hail a cab, and then the bus will usually come right after her cab has driven away.

She only takes the bus four blocks to the metro, anyway, so I don't see why she just doesn't walk... why take a $6 cab four blocks every day?

I've told her that the bus is supposed to come at 6:36, but I think she gets to the stop too early and feels like she's waited for ever, so she gets impatient.

I dunno, it's just a weird morning ritual to witness...

In Which Di Struggles To Keep Herself Intact

Lordy!

For some reason work has been really overwhelming all week. I have been falling asleep after work but still keeping up an evening yoga/running schedule, which is good, otherwise I would be turning into a completely useless lump.

The stress is enormous but the work (mostly) satisfying.

I need a moment of vanity to say the following: I'm so freaking competent at work. I rock. The volume and complexity of work I produce is truly awesome, the potential impact is life-saving, and I'm very, very proud of myself.

Run Report!

Today I began running again after an eight-month haitus. I ran a 3.3 mile route and finished in 36 minutes - not exactly a praiseworthy time, but I came in strong and felt great afterwards.

Mile 1: The beginning of my run was a struggle to run slow enough. Yep, that's right - slow enough. I'm trying to build my confidence again and set myself up to build a good base of endurance. The last thing I wanted to do was try to run my former pace and crash out early. The first part of my route is pretty much straight uphill, but I felt good.

Mile 2: The middle of the run was more difficult. My body kept trying to find it's own pace, which is ordinarily fine, except that my body's own pace was, for today, just too fast. So I consciously slowed myself down and distracted my mind by composing this post in my head.

Mile 3: By this time I had my second wind and was sailing right along - albeit slowly. I fought the urge to check my pace, fearing that knowledge of my slowness would cause me to try to speed up, which would then cause me to hit the wall and crash.

The finish: I just let my body open up for the last .3 miles or so. The finish is downhill and I was well into my second-wind at this point.

My plan is to take a yoga class tomorrow and try the same 3.3-mile route on Wednesday. I really need new running shoes, but the ones I have will do for another couple of weeks or so. I also need running clothes, being that I got rid of a lot of mine earlier this year, anticipating that when and if I started running again I would want to reinvent the wardrobe, anyway.

New Goal

I am blessedly (but, surely, momentarily) free of existential crises, so this post will be rather bland.

I'm thinking of putting on my running shoes again. My faithful readers will remember that I stopped running about six months ago to see if I could affect positive change in my hamstrings and thus open up my yoga practice.

The verdict? Uncertain. My hamstrings feel more open but I'm not sure if it's because I stopped running or because I increased the hours I spend on the yoga mat.

But with this lovely fall weather and the drop in humidity I find myself itching for a run, so I think I'll spend the rest of the year building up a good base of miles and after the First begin a serious training program to ready myself for the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler in April (thanks to Matt for the idea!).

I guess the dust hasn't cleared

Yesterday after work I hopped on the L2 bus to come home and found a young woman screaming at her toddler to take his time eating his cookie. Just after I sat down, she slapped him three times and took the cookie away because he wasn't 'eating it properly.'

The kid didn't flinch or whimper at all. His startle reflex has already burned out.

A few minutes later she was crooning happily to him and then announced to the bus that today was his birthday, he's turning one year old.

She gave the cookie back but still wasn't happy with how he was eating it, so she filled his bottle with some of her Diet Pepsi and shoved it in his mouth. He started crying and couldn't hold the cookie, bottle, and his blanket all at once so the bottle sort of fell in his lap. He continued to sob a little and his mother picked up the bottle, shoved it in his chest and shouted that the bottle is RIGHT THERE and she doesn't know what else he wants from her.

They got off the bus at the National Zoo and I thought that would be a nice birthday afternoon for a one-year old, but instead she crossed the street away from the zoo entrance. We were stopped at the light there and I watched her push the stroller into the liquor store.

My heart broke for that little boy and today I am still thinking about it today.

The Great Reminder

Plato said, "Be kind, for those who you meet are fighting a harder battle."

If there's one undercurrent to an education in the classics it's that anything meant to cultivate and improve the mind necessarily involves a certain amount of labor, and labor with no discernible end.

It's so easy to get absorbed in the work itself, the winter work of persistence and consistency and rhythm. The progress truly begins to come, however, with the realization that the fruits of all this labor lie outside of the labor itself. Disproportionate focus on the work is like looking at the finger pointing to the moon and missing the moon itself.

It's always been tempting for me to find my salvation in work, in the law, in the rules. Doing feels good, it feels productive and meaningful; in some ways it feels good to suffer and to punish myself for any perceived weakness.

Be gentler with me than I am with myself.

Trite

Sometimes you don't realize how valuable something is until it goes away, or almost does. I guess that's what's called 'taking for granted.'

I feel anxious and jittery. I've been cleaning and pacing. I'm not calm.

I miss yoga.

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?