Words are inadequate

In my experience, the usual pattern for the beginning of summer in Vancouver is for the long weekend to be sunny and Pleasant and feel like summer is here! and then for the temps to drop and the clouds to return and "Juneuary" to take hold. Then summer proper gets into gear just before Canada Day.

In the event, it was Too Warm a few weekends ago; last weekend was the long weekend and my understanding is that it was rainy and chilly. (I was up north, where it was also a bit rainy and chilly.) It's been clear and warming up the last day or so, though. Yesterday I was vaguely irritable and lethargic all day, which has an obvious source that I didn't even consider. I was, of course, Too Warm. I didn't realise this until I woke up at 12:30 in an absolutely stifling room. Set up and turned on the fan, and that was enough to get me back to sleep until 4:30, and after a bit more tossing and turning until 6:30ish. So, that's like eight hours of sleep, which should have been plenty but due to interruptions left me feeling grumpy and, well, tired. But not the "falling back asleep" kind of tired.

So I grumbled and got up and did an hour of yoga for the second time this week, and ... that seems to have helped. Most exercise doesn't. Sunlight reliably helps my mood, but exercise as such does nothing for me. Except, for whatever reason, for yoga, when I can manage it.

I am also reminded that my body likes to do physical things, and likes to get better at them. On Wednesday I biked from Joyce Station to the optometrist, about half an hour, and then from the optometrist all the way back home. No trouble at all. (I also got to stop and read my book under a tree for half an hour or so, which was entirely lovely.) Tuesday morning I did a round of yoga; Tuesday night my muscles and joints ached from being stretched weirdly, but it was the kind of ache that I knew would go away if I just did that a few more times. My breathing's improving, at least when there's not a ton of smoke in the air.

I used to land somewhere between hating my body unerservedly and thinking about it as little as possible. Since Erin and yoga, I've been able to come to more of a detente, off and on. It's complicated. But it's nice that it's complicated, instead of straight-up loathing.

Anyway, the cold robot is active today, which is good because it's been up around 27 our there, and things are mostly alright. It's nice.

The plan from this spring was, I'd go to yoga classes in the mornings when I was in Vancouver.

This plan has not exactly worked out. Partly it's just been easier not to go, which is always the bane of such things. Partly it's that one week of yoga is not enough to offset ~3 weeks of inactivity, and so the one week started feeling awful instead of refreshing/restorative. Whatever, since at least May I've not been going to yoga.

Attempts at in-house exercise have fallen through as well. The vaunted seven-minute workout feels like, well, work, which makes it much less likely that I'll actually follow through. I got myself a cheap exerbike over the summer and used that for awhile, biking and watching an episode (or half an episode) of something over lunchtime. I'm not sure why that dropped off, other than "it just did." Maybe, again, it felt like something I was pushing myself to do, which meant that when I got overstressed it was one of the things that fell off. And there's yoga classes offered in town, but always one a week or so. That would have been better than nothing but not nearly the consistency that I'm looking for.

But a couple of weeks ago a yoga studio opened up in town, offering daily morning and evening classes. So Erin and I did maybe a week's worth of those, and... it felt good. Good to be stretching again, good to be doing something regularly. It's not hot-yoga, which is okay (especially because, think of the heating bill in the winter). Less intense, I think; probably for the best. It's also just a different style than I'm used to, which means that a lot of the poses are the same, or similar, and her ways of getting us into them are wildly different.

With that as a refresher, this past week in Vancouver I've made it to morning yoga every day. I don't think I was doing that very much even when I lived here. It's been quite good. By Wednesday I was able (mostly) to get back into eagle-arms, which I hadn't been able to do since at least August. And, I dunno. I feel better. I ... somewhere between "feel more like me" and "like me more". I am not the most reliable observer of my own mental state but this seems to be a thing that I enjoy, and I can't tell why either.

In some ways I feel better about it than I did when I lived here. I've mostly accepted that sleeping-hero is just not a pose that I can do, and that while I can do floor-bow I am better off just repeating locust, because for whatever reason kicking my feet back into my hands is extremely difficult. (I can, mostly, do dancer, but getting into it on the left side takes some doing.) And I've given up on trying to do actual prayer-twists (squat, hands together, elbow to opposite knee) and instead do the opposite-hand-to-knee, other-hand-to-back, twist variation, which works for me. Anything involving bending with straightish legs is also Not On but I've known that since kindergarten. ("Bend over and touch your toes." "Okay." "No, without bending your knees." "... I can't.")

I'm also beginning to accept that I do not have terribly good spatial awareness of my body. I whack into things all the time. In the Coal Harbour apartment, there was a particular bookcase that I walked into enough times that it was memorable, without ever mentally absorbing that "the hallway is narrower than i think at that corner". (This is also a source of some amount of my unhappiness around clutter: it requires me to constantly be aware of where my limbs are at all times.) For whatever reason, in yoga that's okay. It may be to do with "for the next hour i am gonna be hyperfocused on my physical being" and so it doesn't come up as much, or I can correct for it, or something. I'm honestly not sure.

But I walked into the studio on Monday morning, dark and warming-up and mostly empty, and rolled out my mat and hooked my towel over one corner to stretch it out, and... it felt like home.

Thoughts on completing my first yoga class in close to three weeks, and my fourth in the last six weeks:

1) Ow.
2) Damn I needed that.
3) Ow.

It's fall weather here. It snowed a couple of times last week up north, which seems a bit uncouth for "not even the fall equinox yet", but I'm okay with September acting like actual fall.

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Results of various unpleasant tasks this morning:

1) Emailed Chris the accountant regarding what looks like an audit letter from CRA (Canadian for "IRS"). He got back to me quickly with "yeah, they send that to everyone who claims foreign taxes, send me the letter and any docs you've got and i'll take care of it." So I get to do that tonight.
2) Called the remediation contractor. They're still waiting on the strata management company to call them and tell them to start work, despite me having called strata management mid-last week to tell them to call the contractor. They kindly said they'd call strata management themselves and bug them about it.
3) Called the actual IRS about my %&$ tax return, which should have been deposited in mid-May, then by early September. Apparently there have been additional processing difficulties but it's actually through the system now, so I should have my money within four to six weeks, just in time for me to not travel to the US.
4) Have not yet emailed Emily with my last proposal for buying out the condo, but I am not convinced it matters much since I don't think she'll take me up on it anyway.

Regarding #4, even if she were to take me up on it, that would just shuffle the difficulty from "moving" to "finding a roommate," and it almost certainly makes more financial sense to sell the place anyway, and hey, if I'm not going back east in October I can use the time I've already booked to be off work to pack and find a place to live.

So, I moved back in on Saturday.

That went remarkably well. Tranquility are still fantastic movers. Towards the end when I was starting to run down a few friends showed up to provide support, and we got the bookcases where I (think I) want them and the games on shelves.

Since then I've been spending a ridiculous amount of time and money getting the apartment, mostly the kitchen, to a functional state. I think it's nearly there: there's some random stuff I still want, like a dishdrainer or a trashcan (!) but it's definitely tipped over into 'functional.' And I need to do some serious grocery shopping, of the kind where I don't (wisely) give up halfway through because I'm hungry and tired and cranky. I also also need to get some spices, more than just "salt" and "pepper" and "cinnamon".

The spare room's a wreck, there are boxes of books all over the living space, and I still don't have a real dining-room table. But it's starting to feel like ... like home. Like my own place.

Still not sure how I feel about that.

Also I badly need a real bed. The queen-sized Ikea futonesque guest bed is alright but definitely not a long-term solution, and its replacement is worse. I threw money at Emily to buy a bed for the couple of months she had a renter in the condo, thinking it would be for longer. When I moved I left the other behind, planning to sell it to whoever moved into my room at Mya's. Turns out the new bed is a full-size not a queen, and it's the hardest and least-comfortable bed I've ever slept on. It's gotta go.

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On Sunday the yoga studio had a special class and small party for people who'd done more than seventy-five classes last year. I was kinda startled to see that I'd done ninety-four, especially considering that a) I started in April and b) I'm gone one week in four or so.

I'm still enjoying yoga. Reluctant to quantify what precisely I'm "getting out of it" but ... I like it. I'm usually happier after a class, I like having a better sense of my physical body. It feels like it's worth waking up early for. And I may even be getting some flexibility in my legs, which is not something I ever thought would happen.

I suspect that my ideal yoga schedule is something like two days on, one day off. That keeps it fresh, keeps it from feeling boring or like something I /have/ to do, and gives me a chance to rest up a bit while not losing everything I've learned or developed.

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I haven't been writing since I lost my writing group in the aftermath of the breakup. In fairness, I was barely writing for the first half of the year at all. But I signed up for the Rainforest Writers Retreat again anyway.

It's in mid-March; by then I ought to have my house in order (literally if not figuratively) and be able to settle into some sort of schedule. So if and when it provides me with a "right, this writing thing is actually pretty fun" kick, I can hope to be able to turn that into writing a bit each day. I mean, that or it'll convince me that fiction writing is, in fact, a thing that can safely be laid to rest by the wayside for now.

In some ways I don't feel like I'm in a holding pattern anymore, or not as much of one at least. Movement. Growth? Anchoring. Maybe having something that I can make into a temporary home, and doing the work of making it a temporary home, gives me the security to reach back out.

After all that, the weekend was pretty decent.

( people, housing, stuff )

The tops of my thighs are serious about letting me know that they have been Used. Yoga this morning may have been an error in judgement; even on a good day 'powerful pose' is the devil incarnate, and today even the prayertwists were rough. Hoping for good things from the "continue to work/stretch those muscles rather than letting them freeze" plan.

Had my first dropped chain yesterday. I turned to head up a steep hill, shifted down to low gear in front, and couldn't figure out why I was pedaling and still losing speed. Walked up the hill, took a look, and convinced it to reseat on the gear with minimal fiddling. YAY I FIXED THE THING.

First ride in the light rain this morning. (Not that Vancouver really gets any other kind.) Rather pleasant, honestly. Kept me cooled down, kept me alert, feet didn't slip off the pedals too many times. Suspect I'm gonna want a rear fender sooner than later.

I spent some time yesterday and today studying the city's map of surprisingly comprehensive bike paths. Makes me want to get out and ride the seawall. Or Stanley Park. Or, hell, just through some of the more pleasant and interesting East Van neighborhoods.

Friday evening I'd intended to meet Emily for dinner at the only source of gator in Vancouver and then catch a music performance. On the way to the restaurant we passed a theatre advertising that this was the last weekend they were showing Angels in America Part 1, and figured we'd go to that instead.

Only, I'd started feeling a little chilled after I left work, and noticed myself drinking a lot of water at dinner and generally feeling kind of ... not really lightheaded, not really spacey, not really achey, but ... feverish. So instead we went home, and Emily finished her sign for the Vancouver Science March ("Be part of the SOLUTION not part of the PRECIPITATE") and I took an hour and a half hot bath.

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I woke up the next morning feeling pretty much okay, and saw Emily off into the damp while I waited for Erin. We'd been kicking around the idea of going down to the States this weekend with some other folks, but I think we'd settled on just having a calm couple of days at home.

On the way there I got to experience my first moving vehicle accident. Not very fast moving, but still. Erin had just pulled out to turn left when someone who'd looked like they were turning right didn't.

I've been in several other accidents, from the time when I managed to come to a stop but the person three cars behind me didn't to the time when a concrete pillar at a gas station scooted into the passenger-side of my rental car at five in the morning. There's something different-- more visceral-- about being fully in motion at the time, and also about not being the one driving. Couple days later I'm still occasionally flashing back to the moment of impact, because I happened to be looking in that direction. It's not horrific or frightening, it's more "i can't believe this is actually about to happen."

Erin's car was rendered undriveable: body crunched up, tyre shredded, likely a snapped axle, possibly some engine damage. Probably totaled, since those things will cost more than two grand to fix.

We retreated to the safety of my place, and eventually made our way to Erin's, and the day turned from "quiet relaxing" to "recovery" and then "buying a car." Erin's out of pocket all this week for a school thing, and had been planning on driving her car, with a bunch of her stuff, up north the middle of next week. Which meant that she needed a car, pronto.

So Saturday was spent looking for cars, and on Sunday I rented a car (I'd been planning to anyhow) and we drove up to Squamish to test-drive one, and she ended up buying it. But that still took up much of the day, and much of the rest involved her frantically packing for a week away on a school trip, and then heading out past Maple Ridge for that. Not precisely the restful weekend I'd been hoping for.

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Enterprise put me in a Hyundai compact that reminded me a lot of Straylight, my last car. Straylight was a low-riding Saturn coupe that I bought after my previous car caught fire on I-81. It was no hi-performance sports car but it was still fun to drive, and I enjoyed the existence of the trick third door as well. For city-driving or traffic-driving I would have preferred a somewhat more maneuverable Smart; for highways or just point-to-point, Straylight was wonderful.

(When I moved north to the land of carlessness, I sold Straylight to my friend Stephen. I believe it had an unfortunate encounter with a tractor trailer in the Affle House parking lot a few years ago. Sic transit gloria transita.)

By the time I left DC I hated driving, partly because I had to drive to get anywhere but mostly because driving in DC means traffic. Looks like five years was about enough time for that to fade. I genuinely enjoyed driving up and down the Sea-to-Sky. Even the backroads of the camp I left Erin at were kinda fun, though also stressful, due to rain and hunger and uncertainty as to exactly where I was going.

I miss road trips. I miss the freedom of getting anywhere without concern for transit schedules and flaky buses. I miss Straylight. I never thought I'd say that.

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At least there was yoga this morning. I feel much better for that.

There's something bubbling under the surface about yoga and about things that make me feel more like me, and how that's changed, but it's not ready yet.