A moment for day 19

Today was reminder of how nice it is to have something to do, essential even. When I woke up this morning, the first thing I decided to do was go back to sleep because I had no plans for the day and didn’t want the boredom to hit quite as fast. The result of this decision was that I slept through the hours of nice, bearable temperatures and instead crawled out of my car into the scorching sun, already angry at the world… I knew that the best way to remedy these emotions would be to move my body, drink some tea, journal, or meditate. However, I also knew that those activities would require some extra effort and I for some reason was not willing to expend any.

I read a book for a long time, but then it made me sad and frustrated. Even though I had already sabotaged myself by refusing to participate in activities I know help me, I had the forethought to stop reading before I sent myself into a spiral. That is worth a bit of celebrating! Next, I listened to the rest of the Manhattan Project podcasts and finished a crochet project I had been working on. I also spent a lot of today watching Tikvah “hunt” after squirrels, always foiled by the damn leash… Not a lot happened today, and that is okay. While it is okay, that nothing happened, I am not really fulfilled by how I spent my day. It feels very empty and meaningless. I really thought that I would have maybe nothing to write. I think that I need to take a page from the cycle of normal life. Having something to do means that you have already agreed to spend you energy on something, so you are far more willing to spend a little bit more here or there on activities that will help you complete said something. It is important to have tasks or little goals so that you have a reason to get up in the morning. I think the benefit is compounded by it being something that you have chosen to do.

The days where I am driving somewhere new and far away are the days where I have spent time on my little routine of yoga and tea and meditation of some kind. Why? Because I had a task I chose to do and in order to complete it safely I had to be aware and alert and calm. Tomorrow is going to be another day of not having to go anywhere, but I have decided that I need to pick something to do because that gives me the motivation to do everything else in my day. Tomorrow, I am going to write up and post the tree pose blog post that I have journaled about and thought about for about the entire trip… In order to help get me in the correct frame of mind, it only makes sense to get up early to enjoy my tea and move my body with intention and perhaps even practice the tree pose. By setting this goal, by having something to do, my day has meaning and intention and I have a reason to wake up before it is 90 degrees.

Talk to you soon about tree poses… which is kind of going to be a way to talk about this whole trip.