Slight Shifts

 #1 - I went to a yoga class this morning, as I've done the previous 2 Saturdays because I can easily walk there, and it's not  intense.  The last two weeks I could feel the internal scrunched up/scowl on my forehead, that is just ever present.  It is not something I am able to consciously relax or control.  It is just something I carry with me.  It has become a part of me.

Today the teacher said something - I don't recall at all what - and I responded by smiling.  I RESPONDED BY SMILING.  I know the last two weekends at yoga there was zero smiling coming from my direction.  This reaction/emotion was not accessible to me.

I know I wrote a similar gratitude here on Monday.  Those moments are so rare and precious right now that they stand out like a beacon.

#2-#3 - This morning I was able to write a letter to a friend (on paper) and read.  Being able to read in the morning. Usually my mind is too cloudy for that until at least mid-afternoon.  It did tire me out and I had to sleep (I was already on the couch).  When I woke up I was sure I slept a while and wondered if I'd missed yoga (I had set the timer on the stove for that reason) but I hadn't heard it go off. I went to check the timer, and it appears 15 minutes was all it took.

#4- I remember a quote my mom would say, "Progress not perfection," though the sunlight in the trees outside my window is perfection.  “Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.”

― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson's Essays

This morning I am carrying it inside.

#5 - Early this year, I looked thru all the workshops at the Omega Institute in NY.  I was curious if anything would call out to me.  I went all the way thru their catalog (April-Oct) before I saw anything that did - Cheryl Strayed (author of Wild).  Something lit up when I saw it. I didn't have a desire to travel to NY, however then I saw that they were going to offer an online option.

This summer a friend let me know that Strayed's husband died last spring. "Wow she is going to be in a really different place in October than she envisioned when she created that workshop," I thought with a weight of sadness.

Well I could say the same for myself.