The quality of light is changing in that gorgeous and subtle way that August has; almost precious here in Los Angeles where sunshine is taken for granted.
We're traveling to NYC in just about a week and I'm giddy with excitement although my face doesn't show it. It will be good to step out of my routine here. And what that really means is I'll be getting outside everyday, not something I'm doing these days unless I have to drop A off, or run an errand.
I watch endless hooping videos on youtube, wondering if I'll ever be able to contort my body as I desire, knowing that sitting here watching videos, (instead of practicing), isn't going to get me any closer to my goal.
We sold our house in New Jersey, our tenuous connection to the east coast severed in the most delightful way. Now, if we ever choose to return East, we'll go back to Manhattan, (or Brooklyn), which is where we should have always been. Although I'm not sure we'd have moved here, and I definitely think moving to Los Angeles was a really, really good decision. For all of us, but especially M and A, although check with me on a different day and I might lament my own tale of woe.
I can't muster the energy to get a regular exercise thing going, even though exercise would probably be the one thing that would really help. Acupuncture has helped, in fact I think the regular, weekly appointments are saving me from a grim walk down a dark and twisted path that I try very hard to keep at bay.
Images that play behind my eyes recede and the stress and trauma that my body has absorbed continues to present itsself and pisses me off. I feel let down that my body displays what I'm trying so hard to contain; clearly trying to contain is the wrong approach, otherwise my body wouldn't be reacting. I laugh with my acupuncturist about my petulance and relax into the acu-high once the needles are in place.
I'm preparing for the fast approaching Fall, (school starts for miss A 8-31), and looking forward to a mini, mid-week getaway in early October, an early birthday present before I have to hunker down.
2011 has been a continual stream of motion. Having to do and be, without the time to worry about any of it. I've grown in ways that I wouldn't have thought when I chose the word grow.
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Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is is you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is is you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
-The Summer Day, Mary Oliver
