Tag Archives: Self care

Faith, February 29, leap, Still Life

Leap!

Today we leap! February 29, 2024. True confessions, I was more of a slug today, wrapped in a blanket reading and listening to the wind throw down arctic temperatures. Urge to cocoon, not cavort. I could not turn on the news. Trying to figure out just where the heck 2024 is going. Overwhelmed by a need to have GOALS and PURPOSE and PRODUCTION and CLARITY immediately. Which is of course the curse of all of the above.

I am reading a book, Still Life by Sarah Winman, a novel with engaging characters including a parrot that roam between England and Florence, loving and losing and loving again, eating fresh pasta and drinking shots in a pub. Humor and wit and sadness and art. Adore every page. Have cried twice in the last chapter. Feel propelled to book a ticket on the railway.

February is traditionally rudderless — beware the urge to give yourself bangs. Yes, the sun is setting later but it still gets gloomy at 4pm. I am tired of comfort food. I am in need of a pedicure. I want to wear a swishy skirt and feel sun on my shins. No leaping here.

Perhaps the word I am looking for is traction; my toes firmly digging into this day. Appreciating what I have done instead what I am not doing: that I have a clean essay to send to twenty submission calls. That I have had an amazing time with my family this week. That the daffodils and cherry blossoms are blooming, though a bit soggy, when I return to Seattle next week for book readings, workshops and hikes.

Is this going to be a ‘leap of faith’ year? Not about bangs. Really. For me, I need to trust myself. That may be on the couch. That may be jumping into the unknown. Faith in self.

Pat yourself on the back. Today you have done an amazing job of being here, there, or wherever the day landed you.

This guy, just mere ounces of feathery bone, braved the arctic wind for a few crunchy seeds and posed for his cameo shot. It’s all in the toes, do you agree?

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Commitment to health, Grapefruit season, wellness

January Goals: Take One.

I am eating a five dollar grapefruit this morning.

Let’s face it. Every mirror glares the truth back at me; I am a vague mushroom color. Winter has taken ahold and wrung moisture from every pore. I believe that is why I crave the tart-sugar juice of a red grapefruit. Both the vitamins and the extreme pleasure of eating this object of beauty puts color in my cheeks. Full disclosure, I also crave Gin martinis in January, tall and clear-headed in elegantly stemmed v-shaped glasses, the three olives sunk deep in a neatly angled line. That pleasure would be twenty dollars on my favorite bar stool. So I look at a monstrously priced grapefruit that drips down my chin, eaten at the sink with a sharp-tipped spoon, as a healthy bargain for January.

What I did not bargain for was my upcoming commitment to healthy, happening next week: a PRP procedure that needles my plasma into my torn tendon and hamstring, all balled up and sitting on my sciatic, a casualty of either before, during or after the hip was replaced 18 months ago. I have dragged myself kicking and screaming to this, the urge to wait just a little while longer, the pain isn’t THAT bad, who needs to do half moon on both sides?

But everything is an investment now: citrus, elective procedures, shimmery martinis. I am taking care of self, not putting it off. I want the end line to look like a twenty-mile hike in Provence and a roll in the lavender. I want the last meals to have three martinis. I want to pluck the ruby fruit from the tree.

So wish me luck. I face a twelve-week protocol of strict behavior to grow back tissue, rehabilitate the stiff thigh and, eventually, add jumping jacks back into my repetoire so I can yet again defy statistics.

Carrie Bradshaw’s only goal post-hip was to wear heels again. I am a little more complicated, and proud of it.

See you on the trails. Clink.

A.

Latona Pub, Seattle.
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