On Friday and Saturday I got to take yoga and guided visualization classes with Gina, my favorite yoga instructor from the Y. She no longer lives in the Bay Area but was in town for a couple of days and put on a series of classes and workshops. It was such a treat to listen to her soothing voice, feel the movement of my body and enjoy the journey that she took us on. I was able to bring a friend so she could see what an incredible teacher Gina is, and it was a real joy for both of us. The next day we took an awareness through movement workshop which brought some great insights, particularly an exercise where we thought about an issue we are grappling with and then came up with movements that expressed how we felt. For me it was figuring out what’s next in my life and popcorn is what came into my mind. Feeling like I am bouncing around all over the place, there are so many ideas and possibilities and I feel like I’m going in all different directions, sometimes feeling crazy. I closed my eyes and moved as if I were popcorn popping in a pan, and it felt really good to physically move through these feelings. After that, we did an exercise where we moved our bodies into the shape of a five pointed star (I’ve also seen this called a power position) and we thought about how we felt being in this position. For me, it felt like I was able to give people what they wanted. If they were cold, I became the sun to warm them up, If they were hot I gave them a cool wind, if they needed Magic, I sprinkled glitter down on them, etc. Then as I thought about what that popcorn movement feeling symbolized for me, I got a very different perspective. Instead of seeing popcorn symbolizing feeling scattered, frenetic and negative, it changed to seeing that there were lots of different possibilities and paths that were open to me, and many of them could give me what I was looking for – just like popcorn kernels are all shaped differently. but they all pretty much taste the same and give similar satisfaction. It made me feel a lot lighter and less anxious about trying to figure out what’s next for me. No wonder I slept so well that night, a lot came up during that workshop!
Emmy and Eddie got home safely from their New Zealand trip and had a fantastic time, they loved all of their adventures and really want to go back, especially to the South Island, there was so much more that they wanted to do but didn’t have time for. Winston was very happy to see them, I don’t think he left Emmy’s side the rest of the day. Poor guy probably thought they were never coming back, they had never been away that long before. When I got home, I found I had received a T-shirt from a company called Stay Vocal, which is focused on encouraging people to reuse things instead of buying new. Their main way of raising funds is by selling recycled T-shirts, some have a message silk screened on top of an existing pattern, or some have a a panel sewn on the front. The T-shirts are all ones that have either been preowned or were printed incorrectly and would’ve been thrown away. Taking the reuse message to a higher level, the packaging and information that came with the shirt were all recycled as well. The shirt came in a Pringles can, the thank you note was written on a sports trading card and the information about the company was printed on the backside of scrap paper. Very impressive! And the T-shirt is very soft as well.
On Sunday afternoon I headed to Kieran and Kourtney‘s house, I have not seen them since just before I left to go to New Zealand and it was so good to spend the day with them. Bentley, their German Shepherd, met me at the door very excited to have a new person to play catch with, so we headed out to the backyard so I could throw the tennis ball to him dozens of times, and he never tired out! Kieran and Kourtney showed me the improvements they’ve made to their place including painting one of the walls in their dining room a lovely forest green color. They have done a great job, making all kinds of improvements, including Kieran making their bedroom furniture, he’s such a handy guy. After another round of playing catch with Bentley outdoors, we sat and chatted while Whiskey, one of their cats, snuggled on my lap. I am looking forward to getting to house and pet sit for them later in the year when they go on vacation. Kieran barbecued tri-tip and made homemade mashed potatoes with the skins on for dinner. It was a delicious meal! The only downside to the day was the drive back home which normally takes 2 hours, but ended up taking almost 3, because of an accident on highway 80 that slowed everything to a crawl for quite a while.
I was up early this morning and went on a walk up a couple of steep hills in the neighborhood where I could watch the sunrise. I passed a house with a very barky dog and noticed there were a couple of sections of the fence that had a mesh portion on them, and above each of those was a little nameplate, one said chien lunatique (crazy dog) and the other said chien bizarre (bizarre dog) – the dog definitely lived up to those nameplates!
