It’s been a long day and I didn’t even get up to the studio today.
Last night a veneer fell off my front tooth. I was eating a banana. I know that I am getting older, but I didn’t expect it all to be quite this comic. No one was home – E. is offshore – but I still felt terribly uncomfortable. I had no idea I was this vain. So this morning began with a rush visit to a new dentist whose face I never saw (yay, Corona).
I finished the edits on the layout for the new book – but my brand-new printer is smearing ink over the very expensive sheets of 200 g paper. It just got worse from there. Small drips – enough to wind me up. I did lazy yoga on the mat while Leonard tried to coach me. Then we went for a walk. From the sound of the wind and rain against the window now – we got back just in time.
My head is fill with practicalities. To-do lists. Remember this chants. “Find time to … ” I am finding it difficult to slow down. Everything in me is immediate, rushed, speeding. I think it always has been. But you’d never guess it if you met me. Stanislavski talked about internal rhythms and external tempos, and actors work to make that internal rhythm visible. But mine isn’t.
My ex-husband was a man of very few words, and he commented after the divorce that we lived in two different tempos. It took him years to understand that.
People have always called me intense. And they mean it as a criticism. I bite my tongue every time, and am always just as surprised that anyone would think it is okay to comment on another person’s… what? Mind?
When my oldest son was 4 and my youngest began crawling for the first time, my oldest was furious. “He’s not supposed to do that!” It’s human nature to want other people to conform to our fixed ideas of them. Sometimes I think it’s the primary way we hurt one another. There are the obvious issues like racism, of course. But in such tiny ways, too. When someone changes their hair, or their wardrobe. I once saw someone fly into a rage when a person they offered some chocolate to said they didn’t really care for chocolate. “You’ve always liked chocolate!” Ridicule will wedge someone back into their box.
We cling to our world views. Our views of one another. Maybe this is the place to begin when trying to find equanimity. Sometimes when I move through the yoga sequence I sing “Let it Be” in my head.
Let it be. Doing anything else is futile. Because it all falls apart. Even expensive dental veneers.
moving through the day
two steps ahead of myself
like a prophet
of some sort, fixed on the plan
getting myself in trouble
OK, an inferential response to your post, and I do adore your yoga pose with red clown nose. Once upon a time a group leader said everyone come to all meetings with a foam clown nose in pocket. Never said why – but I understood. Not take “things” too seriously (harder to really do than it might seem; no, harder than that). Though we never were asked to use our noses! Long lost now.
Let it be. World views/personal “stories”? Same same? I do have a story, but the story is not who I am. Easy to confuse? Or just sing?
I have another insta account just for yoga – I wear the nose to subvert the insta-body-beauty-bullshit 😉
I love your attitude that you have a story but the story is now who you are. You’ve given me something interesting to think about this morning! (so glad you drop in here, Neil!)
Teeth, spine, wrists, knees, hair, all those things that we didn’t think were about beauty or about how we present ourselves to the world…or things we did not realize how much we needed…
As to the speed of getting through the day: you sound like my husband, and my son. They move at a pace that awes me. They are intense. I think it’s admirable!