It’s six a.m. and as dark as the time we got caught in an underground tunnel in the middle of the night and suddenly all the lights went out. So dark it makes no difference if the eyes are open or closed, the sense of touch will find the light switch long before sight will. Yet this won’t last forever; just until this coming Sunday when daylight saving ends. It will still be dark at six in the morning, yet not quit as dark. Things change. For example, I used to have a full set of eyebrows. Not anymore. Now I have half-a-brow. They start out just fine but come to an abrupt halt at the half way mark. I’ve no idea where the rogue halves wandered off to, but they are gone. Now I take the eyebrow pencil and pick up where the originals left off and fill in the blanks. It drives me crazy. No one ever prepared me for half-a-brow. But then I never knew I’d be one of those people who are overheated all the time. I’ve spent most of my life freezing to death. But now, I find my coat coming off before making it…
Month: October 2012
Isolate
With autumn, comes the beginning of exercise classes and reconnecting with the ladies I left behind as summer blew in on an old sailboat. I’m not one to go to the gym or yoga studio when the sun is bright and warm and encouraging me to do my workout outside in the warm fresh air. But this time of year I can hardly get myself out the door under the blanket of gray skies, clouds, and wind, to so much as take the dogs for a walk. So, I’m loving my yoga class. This morning’s class got me thinkin. We were practicing the art of isolating our muscles by doing exercises such as clenching a fist without tightening the shoulder, bicep, or forearm. I found it nearly impossible, yet loved the whole idea. What concentration and self control it encouraged! Have you ever tightened your right glut without having your thigh, knee or calf tighten also? It’s tough but it’s fun to do and it shows us how connected everything in our bodies is. It’s a challenge to isolate one muscle and flex it without several others joining in, yet a great practice. I had a tooth ache once, a…
Battening Down the Hatches
Battening down the hatches describes our activities this time of year, don’t you think? It’s all we seem to be doing these days, in one form or another. The patio furniture has been stored away, even if all that means is stacking it on the side of the house and covering it with a tarp. The barbeque grill is under cover and the Velcro straps are all secured, the flag has been taken down for the season and the boats are out of the water- engines winterized and tarps bungied from one side to the other. And the sailboat? Well, it’s in the marina with the brass padlocks securing the hatch. Let the storms begin! We are ready…or are we? There may be more to battening down the hatches than all that. The word batten means to secure. And what is a hatch? It’s a small connecting door. So, battening down the hatches is the same as saying secure all small connecting doors, regardless of where they connect: to the cabin of a boat, to an attic, through the floor to a crawl space, or maybe, just maybe, something as totally unexpected as to the door to our hearts.…
Getting Back in the Groove!
I’ve missed blogging! Life got in the way BIG time but I’m ready to get going again. Blogging keeps my writing life in order, my goals on target, and my mind sharp. Stepping out of the routine for such an extended period of time has proven to be fatal. Time to regroup and get back to it. I’ve spent the past six months taking care of family and friends and although I feel blessed to have had the chance to be there, it’s good things are settling down now because my keyboard is screaming for use. Words have gotten backed up in my brain and need to be released. They are fluttering around looking for a landing place on a page where a story is forming, questions are being asked, and emotions are shown. Words so full they explode like the sweetness of blackberries in peach cobbler or sparkles in the sky on the Forth of July. So, I’ve settled on a word for the day. Today’s word is inertia. It means the inability or unwillingness to move; to act, kind of like I’ve been for half a year. Well, it’s time to move, time to act, time to…