Free to Lie around

Today was a lazy day. Laaaaaazy. After mucking through Friday where I forced myself to stay out of bed and be a "productive" human being and a Saturday that was spent running and running and running (with family in tow)... and a rather mundane yet on the go Sunday... Today was a mandated lazy day. 

Silas got the stomach bug that been making rounds 'round here so he stayed home. These days are mostly spent chasing him around, trying to keep up with his unending energy and enthusiasm, doing my best to stay in the eye of the storm rather than in its aftermath. These days there isn't a lot of cuddling. Certainly not like the hours we used to spend napping together, snuggled up, face-to-face- breathing the same breaths, just being together. Now he's 2- with words and ideas and philosophies all his own. He is a marvel and I love it. But I also miss the long stretches of tenderness that have been replaced by kisses on the run and momentary snuggles. So today, while I am still decompressing from finishing school and interviews and life decisions and anticipating the long days and weeks ahead... we lounged. All day. No one got out of their PJs until well into the afternoon. We laid on the couch, vegging out to PBS, drinking sips of water, eating the juiciest pineapple and breathing together. Each of us took turns between awake and asleep. And while I certainly don't wish illness on anyone, most especially my little one, I loved having a day when we could both slow down together.

Last week I commented to a friend that I felt like my vacation time was going by too quickly. April is almost gone and I feel May and June streaming by even though they are not yet here. Her response, "Can you slow down?" A simple concept- much harder to practice. Today I got my shot. No errands, no lists, no unpacking, no tidying, no organizing, planning, running, hoop-jumping, preparing. A revolutionary day. Lying around.

When Silas was tiny, I used to wonder about the concept of baby therapy. Holding and rocking and breathing baby breath, sniffing baby head, nuzzling baby necks. Today my baby, whose babyhood is slipping away, healed me. Again.

Why I love Vermont

Preach On Bernie!

Loving Kindness

It seems so simple.  Love.  Be kind.  Somehow this can become an elusive art.  Most especially with those we hold the closest.  It seems an almost innate behavior.  Young children reserve their outcries and outbursts for their parents.  As teenagers, the words "I hate you" seem to slip effortlessly from our lips.  And now- I find the person I rage with and at the most is my partner.  This person with whom I've chosen to spend this live... this person who I agreed to love and care for... this person who has chosen the same.  Somehow, he bears the brunt of it.  It is commonly understood that we reserve our worst behavior and our worst selves for those we trust and love the most.  As if that was a good reason.  As if this excuses the bad behavior.  "See, this unbridled anger and frustration and exhaustion is really showing you that I trust that our relationship can sustain this assualt."  Bullshit.  I think the reasoning is probably right on... but I think too often it is used as a way of abdicating responsibility.

After getting into an outrageously loud and non-sensical fight today, a friend simply suggested "Remember to be kind".  It seems so simple.  At its core and in its practice it can be more challenging. 

I'm not one to meditate.  It takes the practice of sitting still and quieting one's mind.  Not something I (or many of us these days) find easy.  One meditation I have worked with in the past is on Loving Kindness.  It begins by working first with focusing on being kind to yourself- as a foundation of loving others and the universe.  

May I be filled with loving kindness

May I be well

May I be happy

May I be at peace.

Seems like a radical first step.  I'm going to try being with this for awhile, repeating it in my heart.  Turning off the radio and reciting it while I drive.  While I do the dishes.  While my mind drifts off to sleep.  

And you?

Five (really) good things about (today)

An invitation from Liz in the ethereal "blogosphere"...

1.  A quiet morning in my new house.  I slept in a little and, after getting J & S out the door, am enjoying a huge cup of french pressed coffee.

2. Warm, persistent sunshine.  After what even hardy Vermonters have called a long winter, we have enjoyed a full week of gorgeous weather.

3.  Gardening.  Over the weekend, my mom dug a bunch of her fool-proof perennials and I've gotten them in the ground.  Sweet pea and I planted loads of Cosmos seeds that are reaching high.  I'm going to pick up a composter for our new home today.

4.  My renewed gym membership.  I let it lapse this fall as I was working a lot and on the road often.  Not good.  Not good at all.  After spending several weeks revisiting the university gym and remembering why I hate going there (do I need to see the thong emerging from your butt shorts?  do I care that the bouncer overlooked your obviously fake id?  do I want to hear about your walk of shame?  That would be no, no and NO).  I went to yoga last night and am off to Zumba this morning.  (Try Zumba- it's so fun!)  I love my gym- great hours (even when I'm working a lot), great classes, great pools (even a splash one for S).  Love it.

5.  My sweetheart.  Who didn't grumble while I danced the night away when he wasn't feeling so hot.  Who lovingly and patiently puts his nose to the grindstone and gets stuff done while I pursue my dream.  Who is an amazing parent to our little guy.  Who challenges me and comforts me- and forgives me when I am not so kind.  Who has the warmest heart and softest arms to snuggle into.

I am so lucky.

A Sense of Balance

Even though yoga has been part of my life for years now, I'm not very good at it.  It offers so much of what I strive to include in my life: balance, quiet, presence, breath.  A non-competitive arena for challenge and self-acceptance.  A place to let go and let be.  It is the opposite of the rest of my days.  Still I am drawn to it, love it, am fulfilled by it, enriched by it.  But it takes all of myself to quiet my internal monologue of competition and self-doubt, list-making and planning, agonizing and worrying.  And still- the moments are fleeting that it all comes together.  I am in my body.  I am not worried about my dripping sweat, my protruding belly, my things to do, my places to be.  I am not running over and over the events of my day, the what is next, the where to and the what for.  The moments are few and far between- but they exist.  And when I remember- I work to cultivate that presence (or absence?) of mind off the mat.

Currently I am suspended between my two lives.  Actually- I am fully immersed in my home life.  I am working hard every day to get my new house set up and organized so that when I start working 80 hours a week, it will feel like a sanctuary not a storm.  I am working hard every day to love my partner, to endear myself to him so that he may remember me not pushed to the edge of myself.  I am working hard to store up lovely time with my sweet pea... so that he will fully know that my love is with him even when I am not present.  It is a binge.  It is an immersion.  And the pit in my stomach has already started to churn- anticipating the Next Big Thing... concerned yet again about preserving some sense of balance in the craziness of my metamorphosis.  Our metamorphosis.  So I do my best now to squirrel away that time- to stay with my little guy and watch him amass a truckload of pine cones when I can think of 10 other things that need to get done... so that I may remember the sweetness in his face, the determination in his brow, the sunlight in his hair.  I do my best to take in the smell of my honey, breathe in his embrace, really listen to him about his day.  I'm worried that I will forget these things- or forget to pause for them.

Tonight in class, we spent what seemed like hours in balance poses: Tree, Warrior 3, Side Plank.  I was reminded to breathe, reminded to quiet myself, reminded to be.  Tonight I did it- and just maybe, I can take it with me.  Moments of quietly breathing and being.  Amidst chaos, confusion, criticism: Let's breathe.  Let's be. 

Moving On Up...

This place... which has been our center and stomping ground for 2 years... already has started to take on that vacant air.  It was only days ago that we were living full-fledged in this space and now we're mere transients.  Moving on to the next thing.

This has been a lovely home for us.  It was my place during my intense year at home.  It has seen us through transitions- highs, lows, fights, rages, loves, tears, passions, sweetness.

Now we move on to our new place.  We take with us many fond memories shared and leave behind blessings of love to those that follow us.

Thank you, house.

Haiku for you

this spring emerges

forcefully from snow and ice

to sun and flowers