Every Day

I hesitate to share this because it sounds egoic/bragging to me, but if it were a day of writing gratitudes in my journal I would definitely include this, so it only seems right to put it here.  I exercised every day for the month of January.  

 At first it wasn't on purpose.  It was because we didn't have skiable snow until the very end of Dec and the warm temps and great snow meant that it was around Jan 7th or 10th and I thought.  "I've exercised every day this month thus far, I wonder if I could do the whole month?"

These are my favorite types of goals, ones that begin of their own accord, kind of arising by themselves instead of manufactured by my brain.  I have a few routines - Michael and I usually do yoga together (that I improvise) Monday mornings.  He has some resistance bands so we've been using those once a week to find an online work-out to do.  Then I usually do an online class with my local yoga studio.  And the weeks that Michael's daughters are here - the oldest and I do a work-out on her phone.  So lots of small routines pile up.

There was one Sunday that were it not for my goal I wouldn't consider exercising. I thought that morning, "I could make myself do some video online or something."  But that would have just been ego, so I could say, "I did it."  That wasn't the energy I was looking for, plus I had other things I wanted to spend my time on that day.  I let the goal go and thought, "Oh well." I think it was Jan 17th. 

Then that afternoon a couple friends I asked if we could meet on Zoom, preferred to be outside during the day.  So I went to one's house and we were either going to sit by a fire pit or go for a walk.  I brought some ice cleats for our shoes, as it was super icy.  "So you want to walk?" one asked.  

"Either is fine.  I just brought these as an option."

We ended up going for a walk and when I got back to the car I realized we had walked for about an hour and a half.  "That counts!!"  I exclaimed to myself.

Today I finished the month with an outdoor cross-country ski with my brother and family.  My brother mentioned how my mother would have liked that they can ski/walk to a course the high school uses.  

That is true, she loved to ski and would walk to a tiny park a couple blocks from where we grew up, where she'd make a loop, or even in our backyard.  I can hardly imagine a more boring ski setting to go around and around a tiny circle.  Growing up I rolled my eyes at her, but now I marvel at her contentment with little things.

Last night I held a reflective Zoom gathering, using my birthday as an excuse for a bunch of friends.  There were a few people that had told me they were excited to come and then didn't show up.  One in particular had been one of the first people to respond to my idea, with great enthusiasm and then later said how much he was looking forward to it.

So I emailed a couple of them to say I appreciated their support of the idea and I hoped that whatever reason caused them to miss was a happy one.  They both responded that they remembered too late, one woke in the middle of the night.  I mentioned to them, as I did last night, that preparing poems and writing prompts for this made me want to do something similar on the anniversary of my dad's death which is fast approaching.  And if at least one other person would like to spend some quiet time in reflection about loss (any sort of loss) that it would motivate me to make this happen.  One person emailed me that the day after my dad's death will be the 2 year anniversary of her dad's death.  Wow.  Ok, I've got one person, that's all I need.

Then my enthusiastic friend who woke up in the middle of the night said that in March will be the 2 year anniversary of his dad's death.  He is coming too.  As is the other woman who missed last night. 

 #1 - Wingspan - the board game I gave the family for Xmas, finally all 4 of us played together.  It is the 4th time I played and I seem to get worse - or maybe I try to do strategy now that I understand it and my strategy failed.  But we had fun.  #2 - Michael said it was a cool game, and I got it with him in mind so that made me happy.

#3 - I spent quite a while this morning reading poetry, mostly Mary Oliver.  I picked out a few to share with my monthly poetry group and also maybe to honor the anniversary of my dad's death which is approaching.

#4 -  I'm planning an online introspective activity at the end of the month and the invitations I've sent out have led me to corresponding with people I usually don't hear from.  It's been super fun.  AND fun to hear that a co-worker/friend from 20 years ago who had a flirtatious relationship with another co-worker has been talking to him again recently. 

#5 - I learned to play a d/f# chord on guitar, an easy version of it.  And finally with repetition, I was able to play it fast enough to accompany Wailin Jenny's Heaven When We're Home.

Zoom Party

#1 - I don't make new year's resolutions, however, I did decide I needed some modified/intentional social activity especially in January this year.  I decided to organize an online meet with a couple people each week, accumulating in a more structured/formal bigger online gathering at the end of the month.  When I thought about who to invite to the larger event I knew geography was no limit so I could invite quite a lot of people.  But who would be interested?  The more I thought about it, the more I realized I would never be able to guess who would be interested, so I just needed to extend the invitation and let people decide.  This led to some vulnerable invitations - like my soccer team.  It seems a bit silly that I hesitated to invite them, but we play soccer together, not do personal reflection, so it felt vulnerable.  I thought, "If even one person is interested though it will be worth it."

Despite me telling them they did not need to RSVP.  Today the second person on my team said he'd love to join my "Zoom Party". (I hope he realizes it will not be party like.)

#2 - This has also given me an excuse to reconnect with people.  I just left two vm's with long ago friends to make sure the email invite I sent got to them.  And it made me happy just to hear the voice recording.

#3 - I made a preventative doctor appointment.  I didn't go in for my annual exam last year, both because of Co-Vid and because my doctor, whom I loved, retired.  The replacement doctors at my clinic do not have a holistic focus, so I thought about trying to research moving to another clinic and did some research but eventually gave up on it.  Today I got a reminder that I'm overdue for a visit, so I'll just try one of the doctors at my old clinic and see what I think.

#4- Despite making many phone calls, my father still gets more mail (forwarded to me) than I do.  Today I called the American Heart Association to get him off the list and the woman's southern accent and shpeel were actually soothing to me.

#5 - Call me a research assistant - because my partner has some family members that believe in the election fraud - my partner wanted the details that negated fraud.  He wanted evidence reported, ideally on public radio, and was complaining that they were refuting the election fraud without providing the in depth reporting/reasons.  So I sent him a bunch of links on their reporting the details.

Shared Politics

 #1 - I asked my partner if he wanted to do gratitudes with me since he is sitting beside me.  The first gratitude he listed was, "running into a hot guy on the ski course" which is the positive spin on him running into me.

#2 - We were skiing at the local golf course, which is less than 2 miles away, and he has never skied there.  Now I hope he will be more likely to consider it.

#3 -Yesterday afternoon and evening I was pretty captivated by the news.  When I turned off the computer I thought, "I want to talk to my father."  This afternoon I joined a monthly writing group on Zoom.  One woman in her first write talked about how she suspected her father might be in support of what happened at the capitol yesterday, but she didn't know because they no longer communicate.  This mention of being the political opposite of her father reminded me of my thought last night and I wrote about one of the easy things with my father - politics.  #4 - I just read that writing to Michael and it felt good to read, good to write, good to read.

#5 - I have a bright orange wool sweater that I've already tried to sew and now has a couple more small holes, so today I used it as a ski sweater for the first time.  Perfect, purpose transfer.  It even has a great/long turtleneck.