Summer Rain

I bought a new car yesterday. I traded in my 20 year old beauty Sabine and after they took her away I sat on the couch and sobbed, unable to even go outside and look at the newly manifested beauty I had wanted so much.

I was NOT a person who *could* buy a new car. It's amazing how much I feel the need to really hit that one home to the world at large. It was a completely farfetched idea, and I was just crazy enough to start looking online for Prius C's in baby blue. Just to dream, and maybe get the cosmic ball rolling. I would name her Charlotte. 

Turns out all you have to do to buy a new car is find it and promise the people you'll pay money every month. Turns out I can do that. Turns out from start to finish my impossible notion became reality in under two weeks.

Looking at Charlotte was uncomfortable, driving Charlotte was uncomfortable. I did some errands, sizing her up fiercely in the parking lot each time I returned to her. IS THIS ACTUALLY CHARLOTTE....IS IT REALLY HER....THIS IS NOT MY CAR. Sometimes it was a whisper, sometimes a scream. 

I realized that I was uncomfortable, not because this isn't my car, but because it is.  

Here's to blowing what we *can't* do out of the water. 

Charlotte and I will be just fine. As we headed out for dinner and some music last night it began torrentially raining, wild storms completely out of the blue. For a state that is back to being all but on fire after the terrible flooding this spring it was a miracle and a spectacular blessing.

I had a sudden moment of clarity, and asked Will if he remembered the factory name of my car's color. 

I saw the same realization twinkle in his eyes and he smiled. 

"Summer Rain."

"I am a person who _____________ ."

I woke up yesterday morning and worked out.

That statement probably doesn’t mean much to anyone but coming from me it means a great deal. 

It was the first time since I was obsessed with this ridiculous (but awesome) Jane Fonda VHS tape as a teenager that I have gotten up in the morning and really moved. And not only did I move but I did deliberate things to build muscles that today are sore enough to make me feel like I was hit by a truck.

I truly want to be healthy. I truly want to feel good. I even like (reasonably) early mornings well enough. My mom and I have both had the goal for as long as I can remember to do a push up. She’s worked real hard at for a while now. I haven’t. 

I don’t actually believe that I’ll ever be able to do a push up.

OR

closer to the truth is that I’m terrified of the body that would be able to do one, because it wouldn’t be mine.

My body has stayed roughly the same since I was in fourth grade. It has grown in weight since then and my knees are not so painfully knobby, but for the average observer there are no real ups and downs. 

I know I’m lucky. If I eat as badly as possible (and as a teenager I pretty much ate as badly as possible—anyone else binge on Jiffy peanut butter, PB Captain Crunch and Aunt Jemima’s on Wonder Bread in the middle of the night? Anyone??) or if I eat like a saint (at least compared to some) my body will look the same. 

People assume that slender people are healthy. People assume that I'm healthy. It’s been a weird thing feeling the need to assure them at times in my life that I really wasn't. Where the heck does that come from??

I'm not unhealthy; I can climb a flight of stairs but might get winded doing so. I could probably run for my life if I had to but am really crossing my fingers that I won't have to. I like healthy food, though many of the things I like best to put in my body (coffee, alcohol and honey greek yogurt to name a few) aren't. 

I started playing a game in the last year or so. It's called "I am a person who __________" and the game is to fill in the blank. The goal is to fill it with things you want, and notice even with small somewhat meaningless things how much resistance there can be to a statement. 

I played it one day by wearing a belt. I never wear belts. I put one on, declared "I am a person who wears belts," laughed out loud and went out into the world to do errands. It was weird, but I rocked it. It felt good. I got home and my mama called. I answered the phone and there was silence for a few seconds. "Shawnee?" she finally asked. She didn't recognize my voice. That's the power of play.  

In general "I'm a person who likes change." I love new places, new experiences, new people, new songs, new clothes, new understandings of myself and my world.

But I'm terrified of changes in my body.

My body is the one I've had forever. It's familiar; I know it inside and out (well, not a lot of the inside but some). Even the parts I'm not super stoked on are better than the unknown. If I could suddenly have the body I "wish" I had I doubt I'd be able to enjoy it. Because it's not me. 

The voice that would be able to say "I am a person who works out (or does yoga, or runs, or even stretches for god's sake!)" has not been willing to speak, not even a whisper.

But I woke up yesterday morning and worked out. 

And guess what? Just like that a 20 year streak was broken. A hard and fast rule in my psyche was demolished. It wasn't perfect. Certain things were difficult and painful, and my body was subject to many awkward and compromising positions. 

BUT

I did it, and that's all it took. One action, one morning in May, and I am now a person who works out.  

Whaaaaaaaaaaaat??

That's power, and that's beauty, and really, it's just plain fun.

I bought work out clothes. If I can move tomorrow morning I will most definitely get up and do it again. I'm excited to work with my body and see what happens. 

And if I can change that big one so easily...what else is possible?

Now read out loud and fill in the blank:

"I am a person who ___________...."

Make A Wish

Make a wish.  it used to be the most magical thing in the world.  do you remember?  it was the best thing ever.  i mean really, what was better than making a wish that all of your wishes would come true?  Or just making a wish that your heart believed in more than anything else that had ever come before?

for as long as i can remember, when it was 11:11 or finding a dandelion or blowing out birthday candles, i have wished the same thing.  i’m sure there was a time when i wished for a toy (or another toy...), and then for my skin troubles to go away, and then for a certain boy to fall madly in love with me.....the list goes on, but that magic of making a wish and believing in that magic (in one form or another) to make it come true seems not to have followed.  i’m trying to get that back.

i started pretty early on to wish for what seemed like the only logical thing left after those other distractions were laid aside.  i wished to not let fear hold me back from doing the things i wanted to do.  it was that simple.  i’m not one to let myself regret, but if i did it would be just as they say: regretting the things i didn’t do.  i catch glimpses of what i’m truly capable of, firework flashes of what it would feel like.  i’ve lived a long, long time, but still feel like i’m just getting started.  fear will never “go away,” but it is no longer welcome to hold me in my tracks.

our lives are in our hands.  i know it’s hard to believe in magic.  i know it’s hard to believe in a lot of things, but if we stop making wishes then it’s all over.  you don’t need an excuse, though 11:11, dandelions and shooting stars are all rather good ones.

let the universe show you that you’re a part of everything.  let her show you that she’s listening.  let her show you that she can help.

make a wish!

make a wish!

make a wish!

*above photo prints available at https://www.etsy.com/listing/113199205/dandelion-seed-in-red-flowers

Good Thoughts, Bad Thoughts

it’s interesting that we’re so afraid of our our bad thoughts.  “step on a crack and you’ll break your mother’s back”....yikes!  and there are people who won’t do it, no matter what.  either they’re convinced it will happen, or it’s just not worth the risk.  

these words were written on an airplane, and who hasn’t had the inner dialogue of the devious devil daring the plane to go down an the exhausted angel desperately putting out the fire?  

we’re afraid of the bad thoughts, because we fear they might come true.  why don’t we think the good ones will come true as well?  no one worries that if they hold a positive thought for long enough it will come to fruition.  instead we think the positive thoughts don’t really matter, and won’t let ourselves get duped into believing them, just to be disappointed time and time again.   

you would be impossibly hard pressed to get me to stand in a dark room and say “candyman” three times in the mirror, but there are times when it’s just as difficult to look in the mirror and say good things as well.  sometimes it feels like lying, sometimes it feels like we don’t deserve it, sometimes it feels like we’re being tricked into some sort of woo woo fortune teller stuff.  

i’m just saying, if we think some of our thoughts are powerful but not others, i think that deserves some re-examination....  

don’t you?