Snow-rain-sleet stopped and the roads are looking better after the morning rush. My day  looks clear and it takes no time to fill it up with the gym, cooking, maybe baking, the wash, reading, and finally sending out a resume for what appears to be a ‘perfect’ job. Julia is in school late today so she can go to the Harry Potter club. The after school club rules require that kids first go to a homework club right after school and so she will come home without her usual math sheet. Reading and cello practice will be all that is on her agenda for the evening. She will rush through both so she can get back to her sewing. Julia is still hand sewing and using felt most of the time. I am determined to give her a good sewing machine lesson during the upcoming long weekend.  She still does not think in terms of what the machine can do for her.  I don’t want to stop her hand sewing but a quick, strong seem is a lovely thing!  And it stays together.  I question if she should learn pattern following right now or whether coming up with her own should just continue.  I am thinking of sewing along side of her, using a pattern.  Will she notice?

Isn’t it still January? 

Ok, no.  But. I am dragging, just a bit and the gym is a chore today. I am still so far out of shape and sometimes I am still sciatica hurting, albeit without pain meds now.  My patience for this turtle slow recovery wanes. My eyes are on the prize of spring gardening and summer traveling but <whine>, <whine>, I can almost believe that I’ve never, ever been in any kind of shape to get back into.

Yes, I feel sorry for myself.  I want instant recovery, so I can sink back into lethargic days of reading and writing.  Process sucks.

And more on process.  Last weekend’s Quest retreat plus yesterday’s MBSR class, during both of which I had facilitator chores, drained more energy than I anticipated. I hope that I can build some facilitator muscles too.  Soon.  And be able to bounce back to activity quicker than I seem. To be doing now.

More impatience with recovery.

Throughout the retreat and class, I heard about judgment, or rather the lack thereof.  I can talk that talk, and walk it during my cushion time, but in my daily round my judgment muscles work long and hard.  The lists, practical house to-dos and writing to-dos and reading/studying to-dos, are long and I generally don’t satisfy myself with what I get done each day.  Not enough check marks!  I can stop for Julia, and I think I stopped for David, but it is hard to stop for myself.  The last few nights I’ve fallen asleep over the laptop while I worked at my daily Italian lesson.  And still there are times when I don’t feel like I’m living life full out as I’ve sworn to do.

Last summer, in Italy with my Turino friends, we took almost an entire day driving to a small town and eating lunch.  It was one of those ‘best times’.  When I think of it now, I don’t know how to balance those times with my ever present lists.  It is balance but understanding mortality as I do usually tips the scales.  It is not that I am so important to the world but the world, my corner of it, is that important to me.  So although I feel more back to myself than ever, balance remains elusive.  Returning emails and phone calls and social interactions get lost in the rush of all those lists.  In a quiet moment, I reason that perhaps one day when I am once again partnered, balance will come easier, but isn’t this just another thing to work out for myself, by myself and for myself.  And without some phantom partner?

Another ‘best day’: two weeks ago when Cheshire and Linde were home for my birthday, we had a birthday gathering.  Many people gathered at a friend’s house.  They brought food and cakes.  We feasted and talked. And talked and talked.  It was the first year in the last 6 that I wanted to celebrate.  And here, I want to send up thanks to those friends who took me out and observed my natal day the last 5.  I appreciated but real thanks were not part of my vocabulary then.  Chasing joy and insisting on it are now part of the vocabulary.  I am so grateful.  I could slip into wondering how I ever became worthy of such a community but a generous, thoughtful, exciting community is just a gift.  There is no ‘worthy’ activity to qualify for it.

And the carrot cake!  Ah, the cake was divine.  I can’t remember one better.  And it wasn’t even the only desert.  Such riches.  Such riches.