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! 

music is the answer

 I miss live music. Live, in-person, being with my friends, a night out, dancing and singing with the band. Live music, like it's meant to be heard. 

 That's probably the biggest change during this global pandemic, not being able to go to concerts, theater, clubs, bars, arenas, even outdoor festivals. Not being able to gather with a community of friends, neighbors, and fans. 

 But the saving grace in all of this has been artists who have been, and continue to perform online shows for all of us to enjoy, from the safety of our own living rooms. 

 One of my absolute favorite artists has been giving us online shows every week since early spring. Michael McDermott had the unfortunate timing of releasing a new album in the summer, and had his entire European tour cancelled. So he and his wife, singer Heather Horton, began doing online shows. 

 They've both performed online shows in the past, but mostly for remote fans across the country or overseas to be able to join in; or in between big shows, he would do an acoustic solo show to tide us fans over. But back in March, they committed to this. To bringing us music, to being there each week, giving us something to look forward to, and bringing our community together for a show.

 It has been such a wonderful thing to have something to look forward to each week. And Michael has mixed it up, performing completely different songs each week. Not that he's ever been one to do the same show twice. And he has the most extensive song catalog that you could even begin to imagine. He's written more songs, more wonderful songs, than we'll probably ever know. 

 And the very best part, aside from great music, is that this is where my friends are. The people I would choose to hang out with after work anyway, the friends that I would always drive each weekend to meet at a club, have dinner and drinks with, then enjoy some music together. My friends are all here. 

writing it down

 Originally, I thought I would blog regularly during this global pandemic, so that I could look back and remember what was going on at the time, and how we felt, and what we did during all of this. That's still my intent, not just to post photos but to help myself remember this. 

 First of all, I've been working at home now for over six months, and I think I can say I'm getting the hang of it. It was really isolating and kind of scary at first, realizing why we were all at home, and why we were staying apart. Feeling like I hadn't spoken out loud, except to my cats, for days on end. 

 The first few weeks I barely left the house. I think it was around week 5 that I went back to the grocery store for the first time. Luckily I had bought groceries right before the lock down in March, so I was fine until then. Wearing my mask, hand sanitizer in my purse, shopping list in hand, I went into the store and tried not to hyperventilate the whole time. Anxiety and breathing through the mask for the first trip out was overwhelming. I picked up only what I was going to buy, didn't touch anything else, did not touch my face, rang up my food at the self-checkout, and went home. I remember it took me over an hour to get my breathing back to normal and my heart rate down after that outing.  

 Then all of the decisions even after getting the groceries home... wipe them all down? Leave them in the garage for a few hours before bringing anything in the house? Not initially being able to find toilet paper, alcohol wipes, hand sanitizer, even paper towels in any store. People were hoarding supplies, which was absolute craziness. 

 My mom and I decided right away that we would be each other's "person", that we would isolate from everyone else, but carefully be able to see each other. Neither of us have contact with the public, and are taking care if we need to run to a store. It is harder not to see my brother or my closest friends, though we have had a few "driveway chats" and are able to keep in touch over the phone. 

 Now, we're all adapting and keeping in touch with facetime, video chats, zoom meetings and google meetups. And yet no one knows how long this will last. Too many people are becoming complacent, and the numbers keep rising. We need to learn from this, take care of each other, think about someone other than ourselves. It's the only way we'll all get through this. Together. 

my new normal

Captain's log: Day 6,548? No idea. It's been close to six months now since I last saw my office, or my coworkers, or most of my friends and family. Are we getting any better at all the distancing, at spending so much time without other people? One thing I know is I'm finding a lot of comfort in routine. 

My work day is pretty much the same. I'm still so thankful that I can do this job from my home, and fairly easily at that. Not everyone is that fortunate. And I determined pretty early on during stay-at-home that I needed to stick to a fairly normal bed time, or I'd be way too tired in the morning. Without my morning commute to work in which I'd have almost an hour to sing along with the radio and drink my coffee, now I pretty much wake up and log in. My coworkers are so great, they even name our daily group chat with the day of the week, since none of us know what day it is anymore. 

One of my longest friendships is with my friend and yoga teacher Natalie, and one of the things I most look forward to is doing online yoga with her a few times every week. It's the best thing about Wednesdays, for sure, and if I wake up in time on the weekend that's how I start the days too. It is really helping me to get through what sometimes feel like never-ending work days, to have things to look forward to, and yoga is a bright spot. 

Back in March when we all locked ourselves into our homes, I was looking forward to cooking and baking, and making really good use of my free time. To some extent I'm still trying to do all of that, but when I need something to look forward to -- I think about what I'm going to order out for dinner. Of course it's not that hard to justify supporting my local restaurants either, but I definitely spend more time thinking about food than is probably normal. 

As far as all of the projects and things I thought I would spend my newfound free time on... I have done a little more cleaning, sorting, tossing, selling. And I'm doing more cooking and baking, although not at all like I thought. Social media is both good and bad, on the one hand it is my main point of contact with all of my friends and family, as well as the outside world, but I'm spending probably too much time scrolling through facebook or instagram. 

Photography is one thing I am managing to do more of, which really makes me happy. I've spent time photographing murals around Madison and Monona, I've spent more time outside taking pictures of the birds who visit. And I'm taking a billion cute photos of my cats, but who can blame me for that one? I have ideas for photo projects that I'll work on eventually, maybe post some of those here. 

Are you typing again? Is it about us? Can we help? 

The other thing I wish I were doing more of is reading, and in writing this I realize I will work on that more purposefully. There are so many wonderful things I want to read! 

I hope you are all finding your new normal, settling in with whatever your routines are, or making new ones. Spending time keeping in touch with those who are important to you, and reaching out to others. Find things that you can look forward to, things that make you happy, and take good care of yourselves. 

well past the two month mark

Today was a good day.

Sometimes they are, even on a rainy Monday. Today was a good day because I felt smart. My brain worked for me. I could put two thoughts together. I could think something all of the way through. The anxiety didn't fight me so hard. That's one of the (many) things that it does. The fog, the confusion, the inability to hold a thought in my head. Some days it is truly a battle.

I'm sure anxiety, and stress too, affect all of us in a zillion different ways. The racing heart, the mind that won't stop spinning, you can't sleep, don't want to eat... So many things. None of them good.

Thankfully, for me, I have people in my life who are trying to help. To listen. Understand. To reach out. My boss has been completely understanding, helping me to prioritize my work, to focus when I just can not. And by taking things off my plate so that I can struggle though some other task. I honestly couldn't ask for more from her. My coworkers who are picking up more work than they rightfully have time for. My friends who listen, who ask how I'm doing, check on me when I'm quiet. My family. My family. What can I say? They are everything. My safety net, my sounding board, my little tiny village, my heart and soul. They're keeping me together too.

So I'm thankful. Grateful. I am getting through this. Day by day, getting through. I hope you all are too. And I hope today was a good day.

Gratuitous cute cat photos, just because I can: