The Way Joy Makes You Move

 

(^Isn’t my home lovely? Sometimes I truly can’t believe my luck at being able to walk two blocks from my apartment to soak in this gorgeous setting.)

 

 

{I am off on a rather impromptu trip to Whistler early tomorrow morning. I’m really looking forward to some road trippin’, alfresco fun and the chance to temporarily reboot/unplug. In the light of all the emotion, anger and sadness of these recent days, I am trying to find gratitude for the reminder to cherish what really matters. Perspective seems an understatement. I hope you all have a wonderful rest of the week!}

Returning

*I wrote this late last week. Today as I sit in the sun (the sun! that foreign bulb in the sky!), working on my laptop to the heavy “Call Me Maybe” beats pumping from the open CrossFit gym windows, my words of last week sound somber and heavy. But they were still my words, and I will still share them:
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I lost myself for a wee bit there. And now gradually, gratefully, I am returning to me. I got weighed down in a bog (of worry of hurt of patterns of fatigue), and it was murky in there. (I was giving off bad energy, and I was getting back really bad energy… An ugly, ugly cycle.) Man, did it feel murky.

And it’s not that I was unaware of being stuck; I tend to always know what’s going on. (This knowledge frustrates me even more. “First-world problems,” I hiss at myself in cynical moments of self-disappointment and shame.) I was just snagged, caught, unable to flow on by.

It wasn’t entirely foreign, either, where I was just then. (I’ve been there before, and chances are I’ll at some point return.) Because, if we’re being honest, we all get grounded by that bog sometimes, don’t we? Floundering around, making an effort to remember the good, scolding ourselves for not embracing the good that we KNOW is there.

But the curtain of mist is rising now. I feel it, and as I catch radiant glimpses of pure, emerging light, I too feel more light. The levity returns.

The fear is not gone, but she no longer stands alone. Hope and promise and trust and omnipresent love (love that has been there all along) now stand by her side.
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Photos of some things that have made me super happy as of late: (like food bank visits/perspective, reunions with friends I dearly love and miss, photography inspiration, unexpected music everywhere, delicious dishes shared with new friends, parades of painted naked people, DJ Mullet, skies that take my breath away, an abundance of turquoise)…

What’s making you smile these days?

Some grrrreat things about home

(Aside from, of course, quality time with my family and some of my best friends in the whole world. Being pampered by my parents is also pretty luxurious, I must admit. I’m a lucky lass.)

But also of note….

~GOOD nights of sleep

~a coffee table covered in Oprah mags

~a box full of tea options that’s bigger than my head

~getting to cruise in a car (I miss driving sometimes!)–windows down, radio pumping (even if I swear most stations around here are playing the same songs they played when I was in college!)

~meals out in familiar strip mall eateries (the NoVa burbs sure are a funny place)

~finding forgotten goodies in my closets and drawers

~decadent brekkies of Greek yogurt, blackberries, walnuts, honey (thanks to stocked cupboards and full fridge shelves)

~an excuse to be decadently lazy

~so many worries and cares feeling a million miles away (and growing smaller and smaller with some good perspective)

Happy Friday, friends!

 

Bucket List: Snowshoeing!

Yesterday gave me the fresh air, the space and the perspective that I so needed and craved this week. It was my first time snowshoeing, and I think I’m hooked!

“Whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It’s your mission on earth. And when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”~Paulo Coelho