Showing up for day 3 of my writing challenge (write every day, even if it’s for 10 minutes). Today may be a 10 minute kind of day. White is floating around in the sky.
This morning I drove to an interview for a summer yoga teacher position, teaching kids. The interview was in the same city I live in and yet I got lost for a few minutes (not a surprise to those who know me and my spatial challenges): my GPS lead me astray –recalculating, recalculating, GPS lady bellowed.
Recalculate is now one of my least favorite words.
I realized on the way home from the interview that, although I enjoyed the conversation with the man who interviewed me, the position wasn’t right for me. I feel disappointed and other deeper feelings about my wayward career path and purpose in life have come to the fore.
Do your yoga now, my higher self (the wiser self) pipes in. I shrug. And feel my clenched jaw. My constricted throat. I try to breathe into those places but it feels half-assed. It’s interesting: when we most need the tools at our disposal we don’t want to reach for them.
With each sentence I write a bit of tension is released. My heart softens. I regain my sense of humor.
Recalculating.
The little snowflakes are hustling to reach the ground now. They went from meandering around to being on a mission.
The act of writing, formulating sentences, pinpointing feelings and releasing them to the page (or screen as it were) is healing for me. It’s like having a conversation with yourself; it creates space between you and your bad mood, or whatever event is causing you to feel stressed.
I am thinking about writing at the same time every day, in the morning. Sy Safransky shares his rituals around his writing practice in the February issue of The Sun. He wakes every morning (or most mornings), before the sun comes up, to write. I write at different times each day; erratic even within the consistency. I understand how the ritual of waking each morning to write can put you into a rhythm, a forward motion, which is easier to step inside of. I want to step inside of that.
I am not a morning person. I avoid mornings, sleeping until the last possible minute, yet feel a sense of loss at having missed the sacred morning hours, having rushed through them to get to where I need to be, and then feeling plagued all day with a need to “catch up,” to fit in everything I want to accomplish.
It’s time to face the morning. What am I so scared of anyway? The sunshine?
