getting back on my mat

    Yesterday was a crazy busy day at work, I was trying to wrap up some system support issues, trying to get back to all of the testing I really need to get through, and of course there were meetings scattered in between everything. 

   But it was also Wednesday. Thank goodness. Because on Wednesdays I make time for yoga. 

   One of my best friends, also one of my longest enduring friendships (see how I didn't call either of us old?) is a friend who happens to be a yoga teacher. She was a part of bringing the first "hot yoga" studio here to the Madison area, and she convinced me to try her insanely warm yoga classes. I loved it. I didn't die! I didn't even pass out from the heat. Although, I was admittedly terrible at pretty much all of the hot yoga poses, there are a lot of them, and they're pretty twisty. But somehow I always felt amazing after her classes. 

   And then work got busy, my schedule was hard to work around, and I stopped taking classes. For some reason I stopped doing yoga very often, even on my own. How crazy is that.

   Once the pandemic lock-down began a year ago however, my teacher friend began offering classes online. I had a chance to do yoga again! From my own living room! And the timing could not have been more perfect. My anxiety over the virus, politics, the crazy world, keeping up with my job, while adjusting to working from home... alone... it was a lot. 

   Just breathe... So yeah, my teacher reminds me to just breathe. To focus on my breath. To slow down my breath. She reminds me to connect my breath with the movements of my body. 

   So there I was on Wednesday, on my crazy busy, spazzy day, I signed out from work, and sat down on my yoga mat. My head was everywhere. Monkey mind running amok, and all of that. We began the class, but I was distracted. Cats climbing all over me (they are very helpful when I'm sitting on the floor), and a billion thoughts spinning through me about all of the things I should be doing. 

   And then her voice got through the noise. And I was listening. And breathing. And slowing myself down. Moving with the breath. Focused on her voice, focused on movement, focused on how my body was responding to gently unclenching me from my "hunched over laptop" pose. Some gentle twists, a few minutes of balance, all sorts of gentle stretches, hearing my back and shoulders snap, crackle, and pop as they loosened themselves up. 

   I wasn't into it, when I sat down on my mat. I was everywhere but there. But just making myself sit, and then start to go through the motions, and then without realizing it, I had stopped spinning, my mind was quieting down, and I felt so much better. 

   I don't know why I don't do that every day, either in her class, or on my own, because yoga is the one thing that always feels good. 

   Anyway, go try to do something good for yourself. Take a yoga class, it really is for everyone and every body. Do something active, it doesn't have to be hard. And don't forget to breathe. 

one year later

   It's been a year. A really long year, in a lot of ways. Most of us are still here, though not all of us. We lost my cousin Todd this year, way way too young. I lost two neighbors, one elderly, one not. Probably every one of you lost someone this past year. I don't think any of us could have imagined how we would feel after a year of "social distancing" and "safer at home". 

   Did you find new hobbies? Did you make changes in your eating habits? Hah, did you gain those 20 pounds that a lot of people gained? Hopefully not. I learned that keeping a regular sleep schedule really helped with my sanity, and with my focus at work. Were you able to work from home? Are you one who lost their job? I sure hope you are all doing okay. I was lucky in that my job transitioned pretty easily to my home office, and I might keep doing that going forward. I don't miss the commute time, or having to get up earlier in the mornings. I do miss my coworkers and friends. I used to enjoy driving, though now I just take leisurely drives to get out of the city once in a while, as opposed to a daily drive. 

   I read a lot more books this year, still not as many as I thought I would, but it's an improvement. I didn't watch as many movies or binge as much tv as I imagined, so that was probably good. My mom and I must have done about a billion jigsaw puzzles, or maybe more like 50, but it was quite a few. I've finished about a dozen paint-by-number paintings, and I think my next attempt will be a blank canvas and making something on my own. We'll see how that goes. 

   I still want to read more. I still want to work out more (at all) some days. That has some room for improvement. I learned how to use my bread machine, which is both good and bad! Ha, warm fresh bread is a wonderful thing, and I'm possibly enjoying that a little more than my waistline should. 

   These are all things that even though the weather is warming up, and more of my friends and family are getting their vaccines now, we can keep as takeaways from this experience. We've found the free time, we've found a quieter, less hectic pace, maybe we've found new hobbies too. So keep doing the things you like, get back to the things you miss, reach out to the people you've lost touch with, and hug and squeeze the ones you've missed. Get your shots, when they are available. Stay safe until then. 

   We have an opportunity to write our "new normal", and there's no reason it has to be anything like our "old normal". Keep the good things, learn from what we have all been through, and make this next day, and the next week, and this next year, even better. 

learning to paint

 What would you do if you had more free time? If you could learn something new, or take up a hobby you used to enjoy? What would you attempt for the first time, if you knew no one would see it? As if we were at home alone, and had nothing else to do with our free time? 

 Oh wait, we are. We are home alone, we have all that time we used to spend going places, running errands, being social, getting together, shopping, traveling. We have free time. Maybe not our workdays, a lot of us are working at home, but we still have our evenings. And what are we doing with this new found time? 

 I have always wished I could draw. Or paint. Or water color. Something artistic. I still love photography, and it's sort of satisfying in the same way, creating something. But when my mom's neighbors gave her a paint-by-number kit, a pretty porch scene with an adirondack chair and some sunflowers, I decided to get myself a painting kit and work along side with her.  Luckily my mom and I decided to be in our own little "pod" back in early March, so we have been able to spend time with each other.

  And I'm loving it! Painting is so different than anything I've tried before. And yes, it's paint-by-number, but I feel like I am learning a lot about how light and shadow works, about adding a highlight or outline to an object, and what that adds to the overall painting. Plus it's a great escape from watching the news. 

  So try something you've never done. Then try something else. I may have mentioned this before, but there are really no rules!