Lean Into the Wind

photo by cadmanof50's

Last Thursday, the sky was blue, the air warm, the wind strong. I put on a new pair of black workout pants with hot pink racing stripes and set out on a walk around the neighborhood. I moved quickly, pushing my feet against the pavement, my body against the wind, my mind against distractions. I don't exercise enough, and this was my chance to burn some of the calories that accumulate while I sit in front of a computer all day.

Step-step-step! Walk-walk-walk! Push-push-push!

And then suddenly, somewhere on Danbury Drive, I remembered the pleasure of just walking. I used to just walk all the time: On hot summer streets as a teenager, with no escape from the small-town high school dramas in which I starred, looking for some privacy beyond my bedroom walls. Around my small, green, safe college campus, alone or with a friend, in-between classes or late at night with a clove cigarette. In London, to the outdoor market or in public squares, trying to blend in with the crowds, lonely, and desperate to make a connection. I used to just walk.

Now, I suit up, head out, stare ahead. I try to maximize my effort, combine my exercise and relaxation into one multi-tasking jaunt. I'll stop and smell the roses, but I'd better break a sweat along the way.

But on Thursday, I slowed down and just walked. I felt the wind blowing hard against my front, pushing against me. Instead of trying to power through it, I let it wash over me. When I dropped my own resistance, the wind became just another element in the landscape surrounding me. I turned a corner and the wind was now at my back, pushing me forward ever so slightly. I turned another and it swept over my face, making my ears cold and blowing my hair this way and that. And still, I just walked. I slowed down, uncoiled, and did an extra lap around Quincy and Brattleboro just for the joy of it.

In all life lessons, symbols, and metaphors, the leap from the particular to the universal is inexact. What does it mean if I tell you that on Thursday I learned to lean into the wind? Should I spell it out with musings on "accepting what is" or "going with the flow"? I can link to this useful little post by Seth Godin about solving problems by leaning into them. Or should I leave it up to you to find the meaning in that phrase: lean into the wind?

I walk every day, even if it's just around my house. I should walk more. I want to walk more. It's easy, natural, thoughtless. Walking is a kind of meditation. And yet, some days, it feels so difficult. Sometimes my body is tired, my legs feel out of sync with the rest of me, and every movement forward requires great effort, as if I've never walked before or have been walking for a lifetime without end. Walking feels herky-jerky, cumbersome, laborious. On those days, I just want to sit, exhausted and still, resting all the parts of me. But resting turns into something else, and soon my mind is doing all the walking, frantically rushing from this problem to that worry. It's on those days that I remember to go out and just walk. And on the best days, everything flows.

Monday Mood Lifter

Need something to lift the Monday blues? Take two of these and call me in the morning.

"We are the ones that we've been waiting for."

"In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything that's false about hope."

"Nothing can stand in the way of the power of million of voices calling for change."

"Yes we can."

Letter to My Body

My Dear Body,

Oh the times we've had! Do you remember when...

Birth: We came out mooning the world! Our poor, petite mother was forced to give birth to a breach baby. We came out butt-first, which was a good indicator of how we'd relate to authority and being told what to do later in life.

Age 4: Remember when we had to drink that thick, pink stuff and stand on a little moving platform at the hospital, after complaining of tummy aches? Yeah, that was weird. Dad later discovered us drinking water out of the bathroom sink stopper. And that explained a lot.

Age 6: Until we had our adenoids removed, we couldn't really smell anything. But after the operation, it was like a whole new world. Manure was a big first. Remember that time we drove past the farms on the way to Aunt Mid's house and asked, "What's that smell?" Mom and Dad said, "It's the cows." And we said, "I don't like the cows!"

Age 8: Ohmygosh! Remember our Strawberry Shortcake bike? The one with the training wheels, pink and white streamer handles, and the plastic, white wicker basket? It was so fun when Dad took us to the parking lot below our house and taught us to ride. We even got good enough to take off the training wheels. And it's true what they say: You never forget. We got on a bike recently after a 15-year hiatus. And it was still fun -- legs pumping, wind in our hair, laughing all the way!

Age 10: We rushed around the rink on white roller skates, feeling the stale air blow past our face. For brief moments, it was like flying -- all to songs like "What's Love Got to Do with It?" by Tina Turner. Indeed, we didn't know.

Age 11: We were tall. Until sixth grade. Then everyone -- boys especially -- started to catch up with us. We were no longer one of the tallest kids in the class. And our friends started to call us the Incredible Shrinking Woman. That was funny. (It wasn't so funny when they changed it to the Incredible Shrinking Slut because we had so many friends who were boys. How could we be a slut? We hadn't even kissed a boy!)

Age 12: Tristan, our childhood sweetheart, finally kissed us! It tingled, didn't it? And he didn't seem to mind our braces, even though we felt self-conscious about them. When he finally French kissed us some time later, we instinctively knew that he was doing it wrong. After all, if you're going to use your tongue, it should do more than just lie there like a dead fish, right?

Age 13: Ah, this was the start of the ankle issues. Remember? We walked past Angela on the way to gym class. She was hobbling down the steps with her crutches. We thought to ourself, "I wonder what it's like to be on crutches." We were a little naive and thought it might be kind of fun. Half an hour later we were sitting on the cold basketball court, crying and grasping our ankle while the other girls kept running around us. That layup went wrong and we ended up with a nasty sprain that put us on crutches for two weeks. (That was our first lesson in the power of thoughts to become things.)

Age 14: We sprained the other ankle and ended up on crutches for another two weeks. This time we were running away from a boy for a prank we were pulling. We overestimated our ability to take the steps in a flying leap. Jumping six at a time was a bit much.

Age 16: About this time we learned the intoxicating effects of alcohol. And boys.

Age 18: This was the summer we had our tonsils removed after being sick every month of our senior year of high school. We'd just finished a big research paper on sleep and grilled the anesthesiologist about how the anesthesia compared to different phases of sleep. He said he didn't know. We worried about his professional expertise.

Age 25: Weight, which we've always considered an issue, suddenly got much harder at the quarter-century mark. Maybe it was the birth control pills, or possibly the effects of sitting at an office job for two years. Even now we wonder where these hips came from.

Age 31: We overcame a huge fear and started going to the gym. We finally understood all that blather about endorphines and energy from exercise. (Isn't it about time we got back to that?)

It's been a whily-twirly ride, Body. Sometimes we remember too much of the bad. And sometimes we're much too hard on the way we look. Let's look in the mirror and say "Beautiful!" Let's give thanks that all our parts still work. Let's dance in the living room more often, feel the warmth of the sun on our skin, savor the taste of fresh cherries. Let's give yoga another chance. Let's be strong and confident and sexy. Let's focus on pleasure, not decadence. Let's look forward to looking back on another 32 years of living together.

Love,
Your Mind & Spirit

This post is part of BlogHer's Letter to My Body Initiative.

Green Birds of Your Youth

photo by babasteve

To A Daughter with Artistic Talent

I know why, getting up in the cold dawn
you paint cold yellow houses
and silver trees. Look at those green birds,
almost real, and that lonely child looking
at those houses and trees.
You paint (the best way) without reasoning,
to see what you feel, and green birds
are what a child sees.

Some gifts are not given: you
are delivered to them,
bound by chains of nerves and genes
stronger than iron or steel, although
unseen. You have painted every day
for as long as I can remember
and you will be painting still
when you read this, some cold
and distant December when the child
is old and trees no longer silver
but black fingers scratching a grey sky.

And you never know why (I was lying
when I said I knew).
You never know the force that drives you wild
to paint that sky, that bird flying,
and is never satisfied today
but maybe tomorrow
when the sky is a surreal sea
in which you drown...

I tell you this with love and pride
and sorrow my artist child
(while the birds change from green to blue to brown).

~Peter Meinke

I love this poem, even though it ends with a sense of loss. Meinke envisions the girl growing up and losing her childlike faith and wild abandon. The fantastical green birds change to a more subdued blue, and finally to a common brown.

Why do green birds sound so outrageous? Maybe it's because those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere don't see a lot of green birds. Perhaps we picture sparrows and robins when we think of birds. But green birds exist! Some parrots are vivid shades of green. Even the more common male mallard duck has a brilliantly metallic green head. No, green birds are neither impossible nor improbable. Green birds are real. As are red, blue, and yellow birds.

So what is Meinke getting at?

All too often, the artist that lives within us fades away as we age, consumed by responsibilities, self-consciousness, and well-meaning —- as well as ill-tempered —- adults. We let fear, social propriety, and the search for perfection stand between us and our natural desire to create.

Although the poem ends with sorrow, I take it as a cautionary tale and a reminder that it doesn't have to be this way. The gift of creation -— whatever form it takes -— is an enigmatic present. It is a gift that is given to us, but also one that we are delivered to by way of our choices. Like a muscle, our creativity strengthens with use and atrophies with neglect. Creativity is like a language: the more we use it, the more we can understand and the more we can say with it. Like the ideas of faith and love, it is simultaneously an intimate and elusive entity.

What are the green birds of your youth?

For Love of Words

photo by starmist1

If you know me at all, you know that I love words. And if you're reading this, I suspect you love them at least a little bit, too. So in honor of words -- their beauty, their power -- I share these gems with you today.

I found this little meme floating around some blogs I love. It goes like this: Pick up the nearest book and open it to page 123. Find the fifth sentence. Post the next three sentences. (And tag five people.)

I cheated a little. I chose a book that was behind me on the bookshelf, not one of the books sitting on the desk next to me. But then I was a good girl and followed the directions. Here's what I read:

When night falls, there will be armloads of branches and flowers on the street, all neatly tied with rope, ready for the trash pickup in the morning. The women who are called to the lilacs will arrive to see that the hedges have been chopped to the ground, their glorious flowers nothing but garbage strewn along the gutter and the street. That is the moment when they'll throw their arms around one another and praise simple things and, at long last, consider themselves to be free.

(from Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman)

In the spirit of community, I tag Allyson, Melissa, Lisa, Pink Shoes, Kelly, and anyone else who wants to participate.

also...

because i like lowercase and needed a poetic shot in the arm, i bring you mr. e.e. cummings:

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)