Time management issues-ish...

I grew up in a house where we were always late to everything. I try really hard to not be late. I don't always leave myself enough time to get somewhere. It isn't THAT bad...I've known people who get in the shower at the time they are supposed to be arriving somewhere. If I'm not right on time, I'm usually running an average of 5-10 min late. It still stresses me out beyond a healthy point though, and is something I would like to work on.

Yesterday, I got ready to leave for yoga class and one of my rescue dogs, Sophia, had gotten sick on the floor. She got spayed yesterday, and is recovering from surgery. I cleaned that up, made sure she was okay, and hopped in my car. Instantly, I started worrying I wouldn't make it to the yoga studio in time. Of course, I hit every single red light on the way. Every one.

I caught myself clenching my teeth, gripping the steering wheel, anxiously scanning the radio stations. That simple drive across town became a challenging exercise in controlling my stress levels. Finally, I pulled up at the yoga studio ten minutes after class was supposed to start. I grabbed the door knob, and it was locked, but a woman inside was walking from the bathroom back into the yoga room and saw me. She walked over and unlocked the door for me!

I slipped into the room and quickly jumped into the pose they were in at that point. There were only three other people there. After the first pose, I realized I needed a blanket and some blocks from the prop shelves across the room. On my way back to my mat, I looked over and noticed that on the mat next to me was a poet I haven't seen in a while, who has been studying in Vanderbilt's MFA program!

The whole 90 minutes, I was just so grateful to be there and to have made it to the class. The instructor said several things that I felt like I really needed to hear....mostly, she talked about the three steps of yoga:

1. set up a form/pose

2. fill it with breath/energy

3. witness what happens without ego

The third step is a challenge for me right now....to not look down in a pose and be mad at myself for the shape of my body or frustrated that there are certain poses I can't do as well as I used to. It was good to have her there to remind me to release self judgement in that room, but I realized I need to carry those three steps into pretty much everything that happens outside of that room also.

(The image above is a sign I saw while walking with a friend in Tucson one night. I didn't know what it meant at the time. I took this picture so I could look it up later. It is the Latin phrase of "Dare to know.")

Unexpected call...

Right in the middle of writing the first post for this blog yesterday, my house phone rang. It wasn't a number I recognized. The credit card companies have been calling me more than anyone else lately, so I normally don't answer if I don't know the number. I did answer though, and on the other end of the line was a sweet woman I don't know, but I'm pretty sure we're going to end up being great friends. We have a mutual friend, and this mutual friend knew we were going through similar things right now, and decided to connect us. The fact that she took the time out of her busy day and her own life struggles...she owns TWO small businesses in town (I can't even imagine)...well, that was just amazing. Within the first 30 seconds, I found myself being more open with her than I have probably ever been with a complete stranger....heck, with some friends I've known for years. From what I can tell so far, we're very similar, and it feels good to have a strong, positive female friend who is gracefully (in the midst of a very ungraceful situation) moving forward in her life. We're going to get together for coffee or lunch soon. I just felt like sitting down to start writing opened the door for goodness to start flooding in.

(The image above is a photo I took of the sidewalk in my neighborhood in Tucson. I walked past it daily on my dog walking loop.)

Okay Okay

For the first few months I lived in Tucson, I used to walk Gus past this yoga studio near my house. I kept thinking, "I should really start doing yoga again." Every single time, I would convince myself that I needed to stretch and do some yoga at home first so I would be in better shape and more flexible before going to the classes. I didn't want to embarrass myself, but I also never actually did anything once I got home.

One day on my regular loop, I noticed a sign on the front door of the yoga studio. It said, "STOP MAKING EXCUSES. SHOW UP TO THE NEXT CLASS!" I almost fell over. I'm sure the sign wasn't written specifically for me, but it sure felt like it. I walked Gus home and went to a class that evening. That first class was insanely hard, but there was something so wonderfully humbling about how exhausted I felt at the end, and how proud I was of myself for actually showing up. I ended up working at that studio while I lived there, and at one point was seriously considering going through all of the training to become a yoga instructor. I loved that for 90 minutes out of the day, it was just me and a pink yoga mat.....and a room full of other sweating people, but you know what I mean. I didn't think about the things happening outside of that room, work, relationships, etc. I just focused on individual muscles, breathing, moving. Yoga transformed my body, but the biggest change I noticed was that I was much better at staying calm in the middle of stressful situations.

Fast forward to today. I have wished on more than one occasion in the past few years that I had never stopped practicing yoga, and that there was a button I could press to get back to that point. There isn't. I've made so many excuses. I used money, a busy schedule...and yes, again, not being flexible enough, all as excuses to not show up with my mat. About a month ago I went to a yoga class. It felt amazing. As I gathered my shoes, I almost started crying. The people around me had no idea how huge of a step I had just taken or exactly how long it had been. What I felt was pure relief. I went to another one a few days later. I felt inspired. Then, I don't know what happened. I guess I grabbed some old, familiar excuses and stopped showing up again. 12 weeks to 30 & today I'm going to stop making excuses and show up. 2:30 Kali Yuga Yoga in East Nashville....and I'm going to continue showing up.

Poetry always finds me in the oddest moments...

...which is probably exactly when I need it to find me. My favorite example of this happened a very long time ago. I really needed a job at the time, and I agreed to go on a blind interview (kind of a like a blind date, except you don't know the job position you're applying for, instead of the person you're having dinner with). Let's just hypothetically say I was wearing a suit and I somehow wound up in Cookeville, TN, walking around selling office paper door-to-door in the rain on this job interview. Because I'm extremely graceful, I fell down the wet steps of an office we had just left, and when I landed at the bottom of the steps, minus one high heel, I looked up and there was a cafe across the street. The name of the cafe? Poet's. It was one of those moments I found myself so far off track that I needed a literal sign in front of my face to snap me out of it. I smiled and went home.

In the spirit of seeing inspiration in daily life, I want to mention something that happened yesterday. I was juggling a long to-do list with not much time. One of the things I had to do involved dropping something off at a client's house. (I've been working part-time lately as an assistant to a fashion stylist.) The client asked about the tattoo I have on my left arm. It is a fragment of Sappho's, and the whole fragment reads:

Some men say an army of horse and some men say an army on foot

and some men say an army of ships is the most beautiful thing

on this black earth but I say it is

what you love.

(translation by Anne Carson)

The last portion "but I say it is what you love" is what I have on my arm, but it is in the ancient greek dialect Sappho wrote in. I got the tattoo when I was living in Tucson and getting a Masters in poetry. Sappho inspires me. She is the first recognized/famous female poet. Ever. She wrote in 630 B.C. in ancient Greece, but her writing can exist and communicate in the present moment, thousands of years later, with amazing clarity and profoundness. All we have left of her work is one tattered papyrus scroll. There are holes in it. There are edges missing. Those remaining fragments are brilliant, and somehow, even the spaces that once held words that were worn or ripped away are also brilliant. Her work was widely appreciated while she was actually alive. From what I can tell from her writing, she was fiery, mysterious, smart, emotional. I just plain dig Sappho.

I get asked about the tattoo on my arm all the time. In a way, I knew that I would be asked what it says a lot, and figured it would be my opportunity to share poetry with strangers in unexpected locations, at any given moment of any given day that someone happened to ask.

Anyhow, so there I was, standing on the front stoop of this man's house, reciting a fragment of Sappho to him. After I finished, he said, "I write poetry too!" Before I knew what was happening, he pulled out his iPhone and started reading to me. I nodded along, distracted by the fact that I had left my car running in his driveway and I was wasting fuel and polluting and the vet was about to close and on and on. He read through two short ones. I wasn't listening. Then all of a sudden it hit me. I wasn't being present at all in that moment. Here, this man was being so emotionally vulnerable and brave and generous with me...and I wasn't even paying attention. Here, someone was offering me poetry in a random location and unexpected moment, and I wasn't even able to quiet myself enough to hear it and appreciate it. The universe was giving me a gift, one of the things that really feeds my spirit, and I was feeling annoyed and acting like I didn't have time to accept it.

I took a deep breath, told myself that there was nowhere in the world I needed to be more than right there, listening to his poems. I felt my stress level drop. I listened....really listened to the next two poems he read. I thanked him for sharing his work with me. I made it to the vet in plenty of time. My day didn't fall apart, because I took a few minutes to slow down....it actually got better. I completely let stress take me out of the present moment....and thankfully, I was able to recognize that and quickly find a way back to that moment, enjoy it, learn from it and find inspiration in it.

I have a sneaking suspicion that if I can learn to pull myself back into the present more often and keep my eyes open, I'll start finding inspiration everywhere.

Twelve Weeks to 30.

Less than twelve weeks, to be exact. I turn 30 in 83 days. On my 29th birthday, I made a promise to myself to feel better than I've ever felt on my 30th birthday (physically, spiritually, emotionally). That promise was made not out of fear of entering my 30s, but more out of excitement to be starting a new chapter, prepared and energized. The last three years of my 20s have been beyond challenging. I'm grateful for the lessons I've learned, but ready to move forward.

My initial reaction is that I've already broken that promise to myself from a year ago. I'm in the middle of getting divorced, I'm completely broke, I am overweight, I feel like I'm constantly struggling. When I type it out like that, it sounds flat out depressing, but I'm not depressed. Somehow, I have always managed to maintain a positive attitude about life....especially my own life. I was born an optimist, and I plan to stay one. It is a hell of a lot more fun than the alternative.

I've decided today that maybe I haven't broken that promise to myself as much as I thought, but rather I have been keeping it in less visible ways I am not fully aware of yet. And there is still time! I still have 83 days to get to feeling my best. As I move out of this unhealthy relationship, I am waking up and realizing that alone might be the biggest gift I've given myself in the past year, and the biggest part of keeping that promise.

I've never regularly weighed myself, except for visits to the doctor's office. I have never been concerned with that number, but I know I'm overweight. I can feel I am past a healthy point. I have never even owned a scale, so last year I bought a cute little vintage scale at Goodwill for $5. It has been sitting underneath laundry near the washer and dryer since. Today I dusted it off.

Here is the moment where I start getting really honest with myself (and whoever might be reading this) and stop living in denial. Deep breath. 140 lbs on the nose. I googled "healthy weight for a 5'1 (and a half inch!)" woman. 115-129lbs for a "medium frame." I think I'm a medium frame? The Weight Watchers website says the ideal weight for my height is 105. (Cue panic attack.)

I don't like the idea of basing everything off of a number. I was a consistent 101 lbs throughout high school, but I ate junk all the time. I would have eating contests with the football and hockey players and win! I was tiny, and apparently had the metabolism of a hummingbird, but that doesn't mean I was healthy or in good shape. About four years ago I was at my healthiest/most physically fit point in my life. I was walking for about two hours a day as just a part of my daily routine (walking dogs, walking to/from teaching, walking to dinner with friends, etc), doing yoga three to four times a week, and eating well. I have no idea what I weighed then, but I am guessing I weighed around 115-120. I was all lean muscle and I felt great.

That means I am now 20-25 lbs heavier than I was then. That might not sound like an insane difference, but when you're as short as I am, that is significant. The strange thing about my weight gain is that it has more to do with stress than food. I eat healthier than most people I know, but I have also been under more stress over the past few years than most people I know. I think I have used both of those as excuses to not DO something about it.

Over the next 83 days, I'm going to focus on eating healthier, going to yoga 4 times a week (thanks to a very generous package of yoga classes my Mom gave me for Christmas last year), being more strict about my meditation/spiritual practices, reading and writing more poetry, working on tackling some of my financial debt. Basically I'm going to attempt with all of my might to transform into the healthiest, happiest, most fulfilled version of myself so far. I am going to fill this blog space with honest thoughts I'm having throughout that process. I don't pretend that I am or this blog is any different from any other "woman approaching age milestone" or "woman getting divorced and finding herself again" -kind-of-blog that any other person would write. If anyone else wants to follow this, great! If I'm the only one who ever reads it, that's okay too. This blog is about keeping myself fully accountable while I approach September 21st....and the rest of my life! I am going to fill this space with images and words that I find beautiful. I think I've let myself get to a point where I don't feel inspired by much of anything anymore...even though I know inspiration can be found in absolutely every moment. I can do this. I can do anything. I am determined to not let myself down or break my promise to myself. Watch out, 30, here I come!

Love,

Jen

(Image above is a section of the Berlin Wall that is now on display at a museum outside of London. I stood in front of it in the summer of 2003. The photo I took that day has been on my fridge for years now. I often think about the person who painted it and what they must have been going through and feeling at that point in his/her life. Whoever painted it, wherever they are, I have a debt to them for inspiring me to have the courage to change when I find myself at points off course and for reminding me that we all have the power and the ability to change. I'm constantly in awe of how connected we all are.)