One Page at a Time (Blog #692)

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Today was delightful, just delightful. This morning I had a lovely breakfast. Then this afternoon I ran an errand to the vitamin store (because I can’t stay away from the vitamin store), then went to a coffee shop (a different one than the one I went to yesterday because I gotta keep it fresh) to finish reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Oh my gosh, y’all, it was fabulous. Drop everything you’re doing and go read it for yourselves. (Finish this first.) The book tells the true story of a murder that took place in Savannah, Georgia. Four days ago when I started the book, I thought, Three hundred and eighty-six pages is going to take me forever to read. But the story was so delicious, I plowed right through it.

As they say, it was a real page-turner.

While I was at the coffee shop, my friend Bonnie stopped by to visit. That’s always good, seeing a friendly face, catching up, being reminded that someone’s in your corner. After she left, I continued to read. However, the room I was in was reserved for a church group, so I had to move seats. And get this shit. Yesterday, at the other coffee shop, there was a kid who was witnessing to one of his friends. I mentioned him in last night’s blog because he was being loud and I couldn’t concentrate on my book. I was like, Come on, be like God–speak in a still, small voice. Anyway, after I moved seats tonight and just before I finished my book, I noticed the same kid was sitting quietly alone, reading, not five feet away from me. The same kid!

What the hell? The universe can randomly connect me with a total stranger two days in a row, in two different locations, but it can’t introduce me to my husband?

This evening I had a tasty dinner–two burger patties with guacamole and a sweet potato–along with a juice I made that included pineapple, cucumber, celery, and ginger. Juices are something I’ve been trying to add to my diet, just for the extra nutrients. Last night I logged into my gym account and figured out I’ve been 28 times since joining in mid-January. Anyway, it just seems like a waste to spend all this time rehabbing my knee and working out my upper body and not support my health by eating well. Plus, I’m always chasing that beach body, and they say abs are made in the kitchen.

Crap, I said kitchen. Now I’m thinking about chocolate cake.

Our stories unfold one page at a time.

For whatever reason, after weeks of feeling discouraged, today I feel hopeful. Not that my body feels dramatically better than it did a month ago, but it does feel better, and I just have this sense that things will keep improving. Last year at this time I was in between rounds one and two of the flu (I think), and hell, I made it through that, so the body is capable of a lot. And whereas I want instant results in both my body and my life (I have dreams, ya know), it’s just not the way the world works. Things take time; things take patience. Our stories unfold one page at at a time. Thankfully, the next page doesn’t have to look like the last one. At any point, our lives can turn around.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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It’s enough just to be here.

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On Ritual and Good Results (Blog #690)

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All day I’ve had my nose stuck in a book–Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt. I rarely read fiction, but this is delightful. Plus, it’s not even fiction; it’s nonfiction, a true story of hospitality, weirdness, and murder in the town of Savannah. This afternoon I plowed through two hundred pages, half the book. I can’t wait to finish it. Alas, I have things to do, places to go, people to see.

Yeah right, Marcus.

Every day, at least lately, I make it a point to do three things–practice chi kung (a meditative/healing art), write this blog, and go to the gym or otherwise rehab my knee or work out my upper body. I don’t know, it’s like I can breathe a sigh of relief whenever I check those items off my to-do list. Not that those things in and of themselves keep the world spinning, but they do provide a certain amount of structure to my otherwise unstructured day/life, so they keep my world spinning. They’re grounding. Again, it’s not the specific acts, it’s the rituals around them.

Something about the idea of ritual, of at least repetition. In the acknowledgments of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, the author says it took him years to pen his tale. This struck me because what what took him years to write will probably end up taking me days to read. But for years, I’m assuming, this guy had to repeatedly, as one writer says, keep his butt in a chair and, well, write. And now, over twenty years after the book was first published, I’m able to enjoy it because he did, because he had a ritual.

Earlier tonight I received several messages on Facebook from someone wanting to know about Lindy Hop, and it made me want to dance again. Like really dance, more than the basics. Unfortunately, thanks to my knee, that’s not going to happen anytime soon. But again, it made me realize that part of the reason I love dancing is because I’ve invested so much of myself into it. I couldn’t even begin to count the hours I’ve spent learning, practicing, teaching. Is it big deal in the grand scheme of things to lay off several months in order to get back to what I love doing? Absolutely not. Is it necessary to be ritualistically dedicated in my efforts to get to where I want to be? Absolutely.

Good results come from ritual; they don’t just materialize.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this. I guess I’d like to be clear that having a ritual, although it provides stability, is often pretty damn boring. Think about brushing your teeth. Do you LOVE it? Probably not. But do you LOVE having clean, sparkling, cavity-free teeth? (I know I do.) Well, it’s the same with dancing, writing, or transforming your body. Learning the thing–dragging your ass to class or the gym, sitting down to write every day–isn’t fun. But there’s a sense of pride and accomplishment that comes after the fact, a payoff that’s greater than the sum of its parts. That’s what I’m trying to remind myself, because I have things I want to happen that won’t until I start the not-fun work, that good results come from ritual; they don’t just materialize. It’s just a matter of getting into a habit.

And no, not a nun’s habit.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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There’s a power that comes when you meet life’s challenges head-on. Those are the times you breathe the deepest. Those are the times the waters come forth and your heart beats every bit as loud as the thunder claps. Those are the times you know more than ever—no matter what happens next—in this moment, you’re alive.

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