Mindful Monday

When I first set out to write this post (you know, just a couple of days ago), I contemplated titling it "Mirror Monday," but landed instead upon "Mindful Monday" (other contenders were "Monday Madness" and "Mental Monday"--ok, I admit, I adore alliteration). "Mirror Monday," as it was originally intended, was going to be a time for reflection on the week, but "Mindful" sounded so much more thoughtful. Events of yesterday and this morning have made that title even more fitting.

The following account will probably not read like much, but to someone (like me) who is battling to overcome the slump that I've fallen into, it is amazing.

Saturday I took a not-as-pleasant-as-hoped trip to the mall in which I found the fitting room to be an enemy (the mirror in particular). I have gained a bit of weight in the past year. I am still a very small person and most people would hit me for saying that I am unhappy with how I look. But that's not for them to judge. I don't mind the numerical change in my weight or the change in clothing sizes, if anything they are goals that I have never been able to reach. But it is the look of myself in the mirror that I do not like, that baby fat I haven't ever quite lost (not that I ever really tried...) that really gets me. So in my frustrated state Saturday night I decided it was time for a change. So I found a YouTube channel (Yoga with Adrienne) with beginner-level yoga I felt I could follow along with and keep up with. My thinking is yoga would be a good place to start for me, and I'm hoping it is smooth enough to not aggravate my sciatica pain too badly, and that when/if I decide to do something more traditional (? I want to say intense, but I understand yoga can be intense, but I mean like, high-intensity...you know...workouts that aren't yoga) then I will have strengthened up enough to avoid aggravating it more than necessary (last time I tried working out I stopped because I hurt for so many days afterwards).

Saturday also found me on edX as my late night anxiety about employment began to rear its ugly head. I don't remember what I originally went on there for, but I realized the Walt Whitman poetry course I enrolled in has begun (and I love Whitman), and that Berkeley has some "book club" courses coming up. This is really exciting, because not only do they feature classics that I intended to (eventually) read, but also because I'm hoping they'll be a way to continue thinking about literature in a critical way with others.

Yesterday was a nice, dare I say warm day out (after the cold we've had the last week (?) or so). We woke up, had simple sandwiches for lunch (which were delicious, and I didn't have to make them), and went out to a few stores in search of something for my husband. It was an unhurried kind of outing that we don't get much, and it was really nice. One of the best parts is that we were able to talk. Not that we can't or don't while we are at home, but there is something for us about riding in the car that makes conversation so easy and flowing. I began to feel an old part of me (or a real part of me, I don't know what to call it, maybe both?) re-emerge, a part that I really like. It talked excitedly about my thoughts and ideas and it has been so very long since that has happened. I feel like the realization of that emergence of my old/real/true(?) self was a turning point.

When we got home little boy was tuckered out so he took a nice, long nap, and we each got to do somethings we've been wanting/needing to do. I (finally) took down the Christmas tree and got everything put away. I caught a cleaning bug and cleaned more than I have in probably a month (save for dishes and laundry). It isn't necessarily the things I accomplished yesterday, but the spirit in which they were done. I had energy and thoughtfulness that I haven't in a long time.

And so that brings me to this morning. When my husband left for work I got up and tried my yoga workout for the first time (which was really nice, and I spent some extra time with it, too, while my son was sleeping). I was feeling quite thoughtful and calm, and thought some poetry seemed like a good thing, so I pulled out She Had Some Horses by Joy Harjo and read/contemplated some poems for a short while.

So that is why "Mindful" seemed so appropriate, not only have I been looking at myself, but I've also been contemplating.

I feel alive and human and happy and I have missed myself.

Julia