Time for a Rambling Post

I feel a rambly post coming on. I've watched two Super Soul conversations online. Oprah interviewed Stephen Colbert and then I watched her interview with Lin Manuel Miranda. I cried because creative people talking about their craft cracks something open in me every time.

I play a game with myself seasonally. I see how long I can go without air conditioning or heating. I turned the AC on in May and then we had a bout of cooler temperatures and I turned it off. I haven't turned it back on. I know, I know...it's insane. But here are my rationales:

• We have an attic fan that keeps the air moving all the time.
• I am gone so much of the day, and am freezing in my office everyday.
• I've been bit by the gardening bug, and so even when I'm home I'm not inside much.
• I bought a hammock that's in constant shade.
• I was gone this past weekend and will be gone next weekend.
• I'm from south central Kansas. One set of grandparents never had air conditioning and we visited them every weekend. Our summer visits were outside under shade trees.
• Humans have dealt with extreme weather for eons.
• I'm on my own more than half of the month during this summer. I'm the Woman of this House and I get to decide.

And now a storm is blowing in, and with the windows open, it feels amazing. I also want to see how much lower my bill is. Unless we have an unseasonably cool July, I can pretty much guarantee that I'll turn it on next month.

What is this blog post even about? I'm not sure myself. I'm writing my way to the answer.

I woke up around five a.m., which is quickly becoming my regular wake up time. I have no idea why, but I'm not resisting it. I've always been a morning person.

Things have felt a little stagnant in my day job world. I am grateful for my colleagues and the benefits the job grants me, so I've decided to not resist the stagnation—at least for the time being. In the interim, I have transformed the way I think of the hours I spend outside of my day job. I am working to make those hours so rich [do not read busier],fuller of the things that are important to me to put my work day hours in perspective.

So when I woke up at 5:00, I decided to get up and spend some time in my backyard working. It would be cooler and I have the most energy in the morning.

I dressed in jeans and a long sleeve shirt, grabbed my gloves and tools and worked for more than an hour. I set out to gather up the piles of yard waste that I had accumulated last summer and never done anything with. I wanted to take advantage of tomorrow's yard waste pick up. I accomplished my original goal in fifteen minutes and moved on to the next pile. I now have a clear path for how to proceed without being overwhelmed by the visual foliage clutter.

On a roll, I went inside, preheat the oven (because without AC it would be cooler in the morning than after work) and baked chicken and roasted veggies to have for lunches and dinner. By this point, I'm feeling like a domestic boss and it isn't even 8 a.m.

Here's where this post is going. I was so productive this weekend during my down hours from yoga teacher training. Having done my yard work this morning, and crossing my fingers that the rain will fall, so I can let Mother Nature do her work, I've got a little time on my hands.

Generally, I love time on my hands. I have a million ways to fill it, but tonight this is what I know I need to be doing and I don't want to: work on memorizing my first sequence for yoga training.

I signed up for this class and love it, so why don't I want to work on it? Because it requires memorization of a lot of words, and I am not strong in memorizing and I am scared.

There, I said it. I am scared that I will devote the next month to this assignment and I will still not make it. I have spent the past three days thinking about all the ways that I can meaningfully work on this memorization and get the words down.

I'm going to have flash cards. I'm going to create fill-in-the-blank worksheets, I'm going to have Mighty Girl and other friends who have offered, be my students as well as my proctors. I'm also going to do the poses and read them out loud as I do them. I believe that may be the most effective tool. I need to use muscle memory in this process.

Do you see what I've done?

See how I answered my own question? How am I going to do this big, scary thing?

I'm going to write to clear my head, pave a path forward, post this ramble, and get on my mat.

There, I did it. I gotta talk this stuff out. And if I'm solo, writing it out does the job. Thanks for reading and joining me on this wild ride.

Namaste.