a week or more gone by
Jul. 22nd, 2022 09:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishErin came down to visit last weekend, and it was really nice. We worked companionably in the same space on Thursday, and then on Friday she went and did Vancouver things while I worked and had some alone-time. We had oysters and Mexican and crepes and talked and watched Elementary and just generally had an extremely pleasant time of it.
I'm really glad. I was worried, and still am somewhat, about what would happen to us after I moved down here. But whatever it is, it's not gonna be the 'oh by the way i'm not actually talking to you anymore' that I got from Emily. (I know it's unfair to worry about that but one does extrapolate from past patterns.)
I've started doing yoga again. Way back at the beginning of the plague I bought a couple of multi-class cards from my yoga studio, in the interest of keeping them afloat. I've been to a few yin classes so far: they're not requiring masks, but the yin classes are sufficiently low-exertion that I'm okay with being basically the only masked person there.
More importantly I'm doing it on my own again. I'd been doing it for awhile and then just stopped, pretty early on in the plague. I don't really know why. But I'm going again, and I think I might be able to stick with it. A probably incomplete of things that make it easier:
It's nice that my body remembers the shapes, and can generally even get into them. (My legs have somehow managed to get even tighter / less flexible in the last few years. Even sitting-kneeling puts a bit of burn on the fronts of my thighs.) And ... every time I get back into some form of exercise, I'm always a little surprised to rediscover that my body enjoys working. It likes doing things, it likes getting better at doing things.
I'm mostly hoping the yoga will have a salutary effect on my breathing, which has never been good but got worse early in the plague, and then again after I had covid in April.
This week I reread The Club Dumas. I like it a little less than previous: the pages-long scenes of people telling each other things they already know, about trivia that are mildly interesting but only tangential to the plot(s), began to wear on me about a third of the way through. But I really admire how Pérez-Reverte plays fair with everything that's going on: he lays out the facts, he doesn't obscure important information, but he does let Corso obscure it for himself, and draw all manner of wrong inferences. And near the end, the last conversation between Corso and "Irene Adler," that's absolutely lovely.
It's also still my favourite book-shaped object, by far. And it seems likely to remain so, Subterranean seem to favour larger oversized editions these days, which are much less pleasant to hold and read.
I'm really glad. I was worried, and still am somewhat, about what would happen to us after I moved down here. But whatever it is, it's not gonna be the 'oh by the way i'm not actually talking to you anymore' that I got from Emily. (I know it's unfair to worry about that but one does extrapolate from past patterns.)
I've started doing yoga again. Way back at the beginning of the plague I bought a couple of multi-class cards from my yoga studio, in the interest of keeping them afloat. I've been to a few yin classes so far: they're not requiring masks, but the yin classes are sufficiently low-exertion that I'm okay with being basically the only masked person there.
More importantly I'm doing it on my own again. I'd been doing it for awhile and then just stopped, pretty early on in the plague. I don't really know why. But I'm going again, and I think I might be able to stick with it. A probably incomplete of things that make it easier:
- A better yoga mat
- Hardwood floor instead of carpet
- I dug up a list of the modo sequence online, so I'm not going by flaky memory and can look at the list and say "oh, right, that's next"
- Yoga music in the background (Youtube search for "yoga music" and pick one), which so far keeps my brain from getting too bored with the whole thing
- Strong motivation to regain lost flexibility/strength/etc
It's nice that my body remembers the shapes, and can generally even get into them. (My legs have somehow managed to get even tighter / less flexible in the last few years. Even sitting-kneeling puts a bit of burn on the fronts of my thighs.) And ... every time I get back into some form of exercise, I'm always a little surprised to rediscover that my body enjoys working. It likes doing things, it likes getting better at doing things.
I'm mostly hoping the yoga will have a salutary effect on my breathing, which has never been good but got worse early in the plague, and then again after I had covid in April.
This week I reread The Club Dumas. I like it a little less than previous: the pages-long scenes of people telling each other things they already know, about trivia that are mildly interesting but only tangential to the plot(s), began to wear on me about a third of the way through. But I really admire how Pérez-Reverte plays fair with everything that's going on: he lays out the facts, he doesn't obscure important information, but he does let Corso obscure it for himself, and draw all manner of wrong inferences. And near the end, the last conversation between Corso and "Irene Adler," that's absolutely lovely.
It's also still my favourite book-shaped object, by far. And it seems likely to remain so, Subterranean seem to favour larger oversized editions these days, which are much less pleasant to hold and read.
At lunchtime I bought a huge orange --
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave --
They got quarters and I got a half.
And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It's new.
The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I'm glad I exist.
--"The Orange", Wendy Cope
no subject
Date: 2022-07-23 10:12 am (UTC)Funny how I saw this right after spending the morning thinking, yeah, maybe I should try yoga again. Not that I've done any very seriously in years, and I'm not sure how well I'm going to stick with it!
no subject
Date: 2022-07-24 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-07-24 06:01 pm (UTC)I think for me, carving out the time to do it might in itself be important -- taking the time to not be physically welded to my computer and remember to do other stuff just for me. Plus I think spending some time being connected to being embodied will be good for me.
no subject
Date: 2022-07-23 03:49 pm (UTC)I like that poem.
no subject
Date: 2022-07-24 04:09 pm (UTC)Wendy Cope has become one of my favourite poets, between that, Spared (the second-best 9/11 poem I've seen), and the Waste Land limericks.
no subject
Date: 2022-07-23 05:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-07-24 04:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-07-24 02:46 pm (UTC)You are quite industrious to begin yoga again. :)
no subject
Date: 2022-07-24 04:23 pm (UTC)Thanks. I desperately need to be doing something, and yoga has advantages like "not going outside" and "low barrier to entry."
brain stuff
Date: 2022-09-17 11:55 am (UTC)It is beautiful in its joyful simplicity.
I need to do a post on here about what my brain has been doing the last couple months. Its very, very strange. I'm not a depressive mess. And the strange is that the underlying dark, thoughts are gone too. My brain literally feels different than it has since I was like 10.