29 March 2012

for what it's worth

second run, last night.  found a park i can imagine spending lots of time in, right in the middle of a sweet little neighborhood, just a street over from my own.  afterward, i did a sixth chakra workout--no tears, but DAMN, the mantra pose KILLS me, every time.  i love that work out, though.  i love the rhythm i've built this week.

 it's been a hard week, and i'm not entirely sure why.  all i know is that it feels heavy, right now.  i don't say heavy in a negative/positive way, just as a neutral statement.  things feel heavy, right now.  some of that is Lent, and allergies, and some of it is just life at this very moment.

had a total meltdown, yesterday.  not pretty.  emotional leftovers are even worse than the last scraps of thanksgiving dinner you find at the back of the fridge the week you clean it out, so you can do your christmas shopping...icky.

everything is kind of fuzzy around the edges--between the rain, constant mold bloom (it's super-humid in happy valley, y'all...), and pecan pollen all the deuce over everything, i'm living off a steady diet of benedryl and caffeine.  i feel bad for my kidneys.

off-day on running, which is a good thing since it's raining cats and dogs...yoga, tonight.  trying to decide between doing chakras 1-3, or a combo of 4&7...decisions.

mil besos,
rmg





28 March 2012

real things

yoga workout, last night...heart chakra...i cried halfway through the warm up.  i had this really frustrating conversation, and just allowed myself to descend into this shame spiral, the deep and painful kind that i sort of used to live in.  it was gut-wrenching.  i couldn't relax or concentrate on my breathing.  all i could hear, instead of the yogini or the soundtrack, was this litany of criticisms.  this voice in the back of my head was telling me over and over how silly and stubborn i am, how naive and ridiculous i can be, how i'm too particular about the way i live my life, how strange it is for me to need time to myself, or instructions on what i should do to take time for myself, how i never ask for help, how i never this never that miss the mark, no matter how big the bullseye is...it was exhausting.  maybe some of those things are even true.  and as much as i have asked G-d to make me sufficient, not fabulous, not abundant, not unshakable, not inviolable, just sufficient...someone who makes sound decisions, someone who thinks of others first, someone who stands on her own two feet, someone who says please and thank you and is not afraid to apologize when she is wrong, i am aware that i am a work in progress.  i know that in the final analysis, and in whatever kind of experience comes after this life, it's really only between me and G-d, all that business.  but...damn, sometimes...we leave marks on each other.  and sometimes, it is hard to still the voices that linger long after the phone call ends.

but every single day we wake up on the green side of the grass is a fresh start.  and as i worked through my tears and willed myself to focus on being present, not rehashing the phone call, not feeling like a total failure, and just allowed myself to feel how i was feeling, i found one of those spaces i wish i could crawl into and stay in forever.  every time i do yoga, i am reminded of the breath G-d breathed into me when i was born.  sometimes, when i practice, it's like i can feel that first breath, feel the Presence hovering over me, swaddling and animating me.  the will to do one more pose, one more mantra, one more breath washes over me, and nothing but that single and solitary experience of Now and This and Right exists.

run #2 tonight...

mil besos,
rmg

27 March 2012

mile marker

i went for my first run, yesterday, in the neighborhood just around the corner from my apartment.  (as a side note--definitely not renewing my lease...gunshots, pretty close, twice in the last six weeks, and the cops showing up all strapped in their vests and pounding on the apartment upstairs and across the way from me helped me make up my mind.  holy canoli...) at any rate, the run went much better than i anticipated.  running in public did not induce the shame-spiral i was sure it would, which was a nice thing.  that was the furthest i'd run since i was probably eighteen or nineteen years old.  i was pleasantly surprised.  

then, wonder of wonders, i did a whole hour of yoga, after my run.  

this is really happening.  

mil besos,
rmg

26 March 2012

countdown to awesome...

eighteen months from today, i'll be 35.

what. the. deuce.

in the next eighteen months, among other things i can't possibly foresee:

i'll finish the book.

and train to run the marine corps marathon in october 2013.

get excited.

mil besos,
rmg

21 March 2012

being here

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

--dylan thomas
"fern hill"

in the midst of doing this new thing, in this new place, knowing and seeing all my imperfections and weirdnesses, i am constantly amazed at how good life feels, right now. sure, there are ups and downs, and about a million and one questions that i'd love to have answered...but, seriously, you guys...the last two mornings, i've woken up with a smile on my face. a smile before a cup of coffee, before seven a.m., even.

to be here, to live here, to feel this way, for however long it lasts, is worth everything it took to get here.  i mean that, with my whole self.  the last year was absolutely terrifying and scary and lonely and hugely formative.  i can't help but be grateful for it, even as i am so glad it's over.

adventure isn't just looming, it's in the now. life isn't something i wait for...it is something i consume daily. there is no more waiting, there is only now, and there is only this, and when now is later and this has become that, i'll have a whole new backlog of stories and faces to sort through and fall in love with, all over again.

once i gave myself permission not to know everything, not to get it right on the first try every single time, once i told myself that all falling down meant was that i had to get back up again, and once i finally remembered that grace is unlimited and bottomless and all around me, it was like i could see the sun, again...feel it on my face...it is good to remember. it is hard not to forget. i set up little reminders for myself, all over the apartment, all over my office, all over my conversations...i don't want to forget, again.

it's ok to struggle. it's ok to not know. it's ok. it's all ok, and it always was ok, even when it wasn't.

shit happens. grace abides. love conquers all.

mil besos,
rmg