Furry Wombat

H and I are planning a paddling trip to Barkley Sound for late September. I look forward to unplugging for a couple weeks.  I have a media consumption problem.  I used to procrastinate by cleaning the house, baking, etc.  Something of value, if not the thing of highest priority.  Now I procrastinate by reading the news, reading analysis of the news, reading metaanalysis of the analysis.  But, really, it’s avoidance.  Usually, it is avoidance of work that needs to be done but makes me feel bad for some reason.  Absurdly, sometimes the reason I feel bad is for having avoided it already.

I don’t have a television.  This used to save me from myself (the only way I can avoid an all-night binge when in a hotel room is to never turn it on – otherwise it’s rerun after rerun of Law and Order), along with the 28.8k modem that prevented any web-surfing when I was writing my thesis.  But the interwebs have advanced, and I seem to be helpless in the face of the onslaught.  I put LeechBlock on my work computer.  It helps a little.  I brought in a timer to the office last week — an attempt at a college studying trick to keep me on task.  I could disconnect the internet at home, but that seems extraordinarily draconian.  Instead, I have been trying slowly to address the problem of avoidance.   I started on a goal/task making program at the suggestion of a therapist I saw last year.  This is fine, as long as I do it.  But there’s the rub — in years past I made lists of goals/tasks automatically, but the reservoir of desire seems to be low.   And my successful-daughter-of-the-second-wave, mid-life angst is just as annoying as it is stereotypical.   Ah, yes, feel that surge of annoyance.  Annoyance isn’t apathy!  I will stay with the annoyance energy and end this paragraph.

The solution is to identify the things I want to do.  This is a solution of privilege, but ennui is a problem of privilege.  Which is why I romanticize subsistence agriculture – thinking that the problem is privilege itself.

But then, there is no problem.  There just is.

ADDED:  A certain wallowing wombat may need to get her wombat head out of her wombat a** and get on with her wombat activities.  Like digging for roots and crushing predators against the roof of her burrow with her strong hind legs.

The katydids and crickets are loud. From the left, I hear shshshsshshsh shshshsSHSHSHSHSHSSHSHSHSHS shshshshshshshhsh, from the right chechechechchechecheCHECHECHECHECHE-CHE-CHE-CHE. Then the quieter hum of the bumblebees flying closer and then away, zzz zzzz ZZZZ zzzz. Oh! and here’s the loud, low hum of the hummingbirds zummmmm, ZUUUMMMMM with shimmery green feathers and a brilliant red chin.  And the whoo-wHOOO-whoo-whoo-whoo of the doves and the chirps of the bluejays  and chickadees. It’s been a long time since I was in an eastern forest. (oh! an indigo bunting!)  I’m on the back deck of my friends beautiful, unfinished house. There’s a tragedy here — a house that was built big for children they couldn’t conceive and a financial hangover from the effort.   But there’s salve in the low hum of life, busy with hummingbirds and katydids, and an over-ambitious gentleman’s farm with orchard and berry patch.   (There’s a goldfinch!)  Even the weedy plants are pretty — queen ann’s lace and chicory at the overgrown edge of the yard.   Up in the mountains a bit (perhaps 2000ft here?) it’s not as hot as the lowland suburbs where I grew up in northern VA.  It is humid, but not oppressive; thunderstorms are a possibility most afternoons.  There’s always a breeze.  My friend built this house with many, large of casement windows and no AC.  I sat on the couch yesterday afternoon, and it was breezy enough to imagine that I was outside if I closed my eyes.  And the butterflies!  One just alighted on the deck.

I return to my usual paradise tomorrow.

It’s getting dark, but the french doors are open to the lanai. The geckos chi-chi-chi-chi-chi.  I’ll have to close the doors soon for fear of flying roaches. But it’s such a pleasant temperature. A bee just flew in. She flies slowly. It’s too late and dark for bees. I can hear her wings rattling wings against the curly compact fluorescent. I turn off the inside light and turn on the outside light. Perhaps she’ll find her way out before I close the doors for the night.

Update: She was waiting to be brushed off the door jamb, then I shut the door.

I am not very good about keeping up with friends. The ones I keep are the ones with whom occasional but frank and honest contact can be maintained. The friend I mentioned a couple posts ago who is getting divorced (and who I have known for fifteen years)? We hadn’t talked in almost a year.  But I called two friends today that I hadn’t spoken to in months.  It was wonderful to catch up.
Why call now? Or, why not call before? It’s not very sensible, but I think I avoid calling when I feel unsettled or unsure of myself.  I won’t pull any punches if a friend asks me how things are going.  But I am a bit embarrassed when I don’t have things together, and embarrassment is a potent emotion for me.  (That would be 2: intersubjectivity.)

Anyway, it’s not very sensible.

Regular practice today: primary through baddha konasana, second through laghuvajrasana.  Distraction level: 3/5.  As I left, CL and her assistant were deep in conversation (with sketched diagrams!) of the differences in mula bandha between sexes.  Love the yoga nerdiness.

The title of today’s post is the little benediction I say to myself at the end of each practice.

I flew back from Cali today. A good visit with some honest conversation at the last minute. It’s always at the last minute — who wants to ruin a perfectly nice visit by discussing difficult things. We do have such fun together and yet we have created for ourselves a geographical impasse that we need to figure out. I am reassured that we will.  Channels of communication are back up and running and that is the most important thing. Open heart, open heart, open heart…  Even typing that, my shoulders relax.

H observed the disconnect between my compassionate, sweet, talks to animals self and my professional, competitive, social dominant self.  Perhaps one day, these selves will be better integrated but, boy, they sure can cause each other trouble.  I find it continually surprising that I have a social-dominant self.  I learned over the years to project a confidence that I didn’t necessary feel and, as a result, have mean-girl potential that I was unaware of.  When I was growing up, my initially shy but evolving social-worker mother taught assertiveness training groups.  There were books around the house called “Don’t say Yes when you want to say No”.  I wonder if the effect of this on a little girl who perhaps didn’t really need assertiveness training was to make her a little too socially dominant? Kind words, kind words, kind words….

We went to visit my folks in LA for the weekend of the 4th.  They called me a few days before because when they cut a trip short due to the sudden death of a dear friend.   They needed to be home to help their newly-widowed friend through the first few days.  This called for a visit, so we did.  And we walked on the beach! And we cooked!  We made sticky buns, Thai curry, and a patriotic sponge cake with fresh fruit and cream.  I’m glad we went.

Practice this morning was good.  Kara was teaching today (it’s Wed), and I got an adjustment in prasarita padottanasana C.  I’ve been worried about this adjustment for a while b/c the AC joint in my left shoulder has been tender for quite a while.  I’ve also been convinced that my hands must be more than a foot off the ground because my shoulders are tighter (I used to be easily adjusted to hands on ground).  Well!  The adjustment helped.  I didn’t fight it or even try too hard to make my shoulders do the “right thing” (more on this in a minute), and, lo and behold, my hands touched the ground.  Now, some of weight had come out of my feet, but still!  I was surprised.  And no ill effects from the adjustment — might even feel better.  Yay!  So, practice was pretty normal, backbends felt a bit better than Monday, the IT bands and psoas are going to take a while to loosen back up.   And, inspired by Patrick (who seems to have had a breakthrough reflected in his blog lately!), I did some ashtanga style pranayama today after uth pluthi.  He blogged about his recent intensive with Tim Miller and reminded me of a retreat I did in ’06 with Tim, where I learned the first few pranayama techniques.

So, what is the “right thing” to do with the shoulder in prasarita paddotanasana C and, perhaps, purvottanasana, the marichyasanas, and pashasana: (i) open and back, (ii) rolled forward and under, or (iii) some middle way (why do I know that (iii) is right?!).  To explain, in the standing inhale before folding forward for prasarita paddotanasana C, one could (i) pull the hands down toward the ground and roll the shoulders forward or (ii) pull the scapulae together in the back and open the chest by rolling the shoulders back.  I think I used to do more of (ii) but have been corrected to do more of (i).  Anyway, I was thinking (i) today during the adjustment and that seemed good.  However, adjustments in Mari C often seem to emphasize chest opening, so  tend to respond by rolling should up and back, rather than down and forward.

In other news, a dear friend called me today and told me she was getting a divorce.  20 years.  wow.  She and her now-ex both seem to be well, but it’s still sad.

I leave to see H tomorrow afternoon.

If I were brave, I would step off the moving sidewalk.  I dream of large gardens, pygmy goats, chickens, canning, worms, earth.  But the moving sidewalk is propelled by proposals, self-promotion, academic angst, deadlines, performance.  I tire of living in my head and on the computer.  I want to be animal.  I will be animal in death.  Why not sooner?

H called late last night.  We tucked each other in and stayed on the phone on as we went to sleep.  He wants to play for a few days when I get there before we talk about stuff.  That’s good, actually, and we have some adventures in mind.  A friend of ours is having a big retirement party next Saturday, so we are planning to bike out to Sonoma for the party (~70mi).  And we have designs on kayaking on the Carson River with a good friend of H’s.  I need some not-work-related adventures, so I’m looking forward to this.

In other adventures, my friend from Virginia responded, and it looks like the Blue Ridge adventure is on.  I could always rent a car, but I’m hoping that we can finish building out my new bike while I’m in CA so I can take it with me.  I hope H will come, too.

Four dives off Barbers Pt today.  I needed a nap when I got home.

Will go see H on Thursday as planned.   Would rather go sooner.  Like, tomorrow.

Fireworks tonight, like every Friday night.

Nice sunset.  Difficult day.  A graduate student in our department who was working in Australia died suddenly.   H is selling the boat he bought for me.  I’m not sure he wants to play with me anymore.  He’s not sure either.  I’m very sad.  And  scared.