Because it’s summertime, (meaning a weather forecast that doesn’t linger at two degrees) and the living is easy (read: few social or entertainment outlets), I am happy to say I have time to do the things I always said I’d do “later” or “when I have a bit more time.” Indeed, there are no newspaper deadlines for me, no Monday night council meetings or Wednesday night aerobics classes.
Not that my life was so crazy bad. Like, I was nowhere near the point of an overworked, intervention level. I am an A-type personality who accomplishes much with a packed-full schedule and thrive in busy days planned by the hour. Some cringe at such a daytimer, but not me. Now? Now, when I have one thing, one errand to accomplish, it’s a days-drawn-out affair of “tomorrow I will drop off that application.” Then, “Oh, maybe the next day I’ll swing by the post office.” Slowed right down.
This is where the little angel on my shoulder pops up. Or as I like to think of it, a little Buddha, wearing spandex shorts and sweatbands. He reminds me now that there is this “time” I was always waiting for, it’s time to work on me.
Yikes, I even hate how cliché that sounds. I don’t mean in the twentysomething “I have to FIND myself” kind of way. I mean there, alright, we have very little to do, so let’s use that time to accomplish some personal shifts. As in, shift back into daily yoga, shift back into the kind of dinners that take awhile to prepare from scratch but taste soooo good because of it. The kind if shift that prompts me t read on the back deck rather than watch another damn episode of Tila Tequila’s Shot at Love 2.
I’m re-reading books I remember as interesting, even…get this…SCHOOL texts! I know! I am catching myself in bad habits, or trying to, like touching my face all the time. I had no idea how much I rested my face on my hand, or swiped at my forehead. Near crazy levels! I’m writing letters to friends and family, by hand of course, and even pitching quirky columns to the Whitehorse paper again, just to keep journalistic. And, of course, to get paid for writing again, which is nice.
More importantly though, I’m doing all these hokey hippie things like Feng Shui and meditation and having smoothies with weird things like what germ in them. Things that I think make me a better, more mindful and healthy me. Hence, the spandex-clad Buddha on my shoulder.
It’s my happy-healthy tag team against the general sadness vibe of Ross River. I’m going with the “I’ll smile at you until that one day you might smile back at me” practice.

Labels: reflection, Ross River, yoga