Baby steps with some falling down

 I really have no idea how I learned to walk. Fortunately babies are close to the ground when they fall.

I do remember having many skinned knees. A strange phrase actually, because it was the scabs on my knees which were always most interesting. I would pick at them. What can I say, even when told not to, I have fingers which just go for things that itch. You wouldn't want to have seen me when measles or chicken pox happened. And don't forget I survived all kind of childhood ills without medicine thanks to Christian Science (but we did get bandaids at least.)

But for now, my baby steps are to try to move forward with the move. I keep stumbling along however!

The manager of the Durango apartment called today, and sent as attachments to an email, 8 pages of the application which needed correcting. So that took over an hour...because even though she spelled out complete directions, I kept only finishing half of them. I'd then scan the incompleted page, save it, and then notice I had to do another change on the same page, so would delete the first scan, make the second change, scan, save, etc. again. (Yes I know there's redundancy to say etc. and again.) There was lots of effort and mistakes made.

I took a nap after that. I woke after 40 minutes and thought, nope, this nap needs to go further, and it did.

Did I mention that I started to pack dusty books, while wearing a mask....but I started having strong coughs...which were not easy to clear. The nap helped a little.

Then I had another issue to deal with in thinking about moving, how to clean the apartment for the final move-out inspection. I may have chased another cleaner away with my being too particular in giving comments and instructions, so once again I don't have a regular cleaner. There is the possibility of just doing minimal cleaning and letting the management do the rest and charge it against my deposit which is due to be returned. My son and I had a phone discussion on this.

More paper work is waiting for my attention tomorrow, as well as those dusty books. I think it's time to work on the closets finally! But first I'm going to listen a while to my Anne Hillerman book and sleep some dreamless sleep. I enjoy reading about Navaho country before I move to the area.

Day Five - Living till Dying - Dragon-Woman

 I thought I skipped yesterday, May 4th, in order to have the days of the month match my days counting forward for Living till Dying. (I ended up posting something anyway!)

Of course when June comes along, if I actually continue to have something to say here, it will be out of kilter (whatever that means.)

OK I looked it up for you. Kilter comes from older English Kelter, meaning good health, in order.

Some demonstrators on May 1 representing the Unitarian Universalist association.

So the last thing I was thinking about was how to get myself to do something new...rather than procrastinate, rather than continue doing whatever I already was doing.

It's a law of physics. Whatever is in motion tends to stay in motion. Whatever is NOT in motion, tends to stay NOT in motion. Equilibrium or stasis. Thus myself. Sitting typing, sipping something. Getting up every now and then to stretch my legs and move my body. But start something else?

Ach! Not easy to do.

So I'm thinking back to how my life began...being rudely pushed out of a warm damp womb where all my needs were met and I was constantly lulled by mom's heart beat and other sounds of her digestive tract, as well as her voice and those of my father and grandparents too probably. Laughter with the interesting bouncing against mom's ribs. And just as soon as the pushing squeezing stopped, I was cold and stretched and in brightness and noise, and wrapped in soft but dry blankets and clothes. And screamed my lungs out to get back to comfort again.

So I started life. And now I need to start the next thing I'm going to do. I will take baby steps.

Remember how much I wanted to find out things? Curiosity drove me to explore, to move....crawl, then walk. Balance on 2 legs! I just knew how. But wait, there had to be the necessary growth of muscles and brain support.

Baby Steps. I know how still. Just reach for the next thing, just do it (thank you Nike). So I was able to demonstrate this skill to my own satisfaction, putting the laundry away... no not doing the washing and drying. A friend kindly did it a week or so ago, and folded it. And now I've finally put it in closet and drawers. There are more clothes lying about the room. Am I curious enough to see what's under them? To see them hanging in the closet? To fold them and stack them in correct places in cupboards?

I have also accomplished washing the dishes after making bread. All the kitchen is ready for the next useful thing that needs to happen there!

Whoo hoo! I am woman! And I am dragon-woman! The dragon energy is needed these days to combat the elder sick status which tends to be-fog my being completely.

Fire breathing if you please! 

My last dragon at a women's circle ritual

Living till Dying Day Two

 It's the First of May...

I catch echoes of a tune from "Camelot" which a blogger used to post every year. She was called HecateDemeter. I miss her posts.

Today I added this quote to my regular blog about May Day.

We are bodies. We do not have bodies... If all our ‘inputs’ are visual and textual, and all we touch is frictionless surfaces, and if we have not reinstated the rich and varied physical life that lockdowns and contemporary electronic habits have stolen from us, then we will, very simply, be somewhat ill. One birth right of humans is a place in the ongoing physical life of earth. Without it, we are without context, (literally - not in the fabric), sullen, and prone to dubious medications peddled by the Machine.

Am I asking you to roll on the ground in the sunshine or push your faces into the hands of willing friends? Well, that would be a good start, as it would deliver a life-enhancing dose of the a vitamin we are mostly all deficient in - foolishness. Pioneers such as Moshe Feldenkrais and Thomas Hanna based their lives' work on returning people to natural movement. I would encourage us all to urgently attend to the state of our tactile lives, to touching and being touched, to feeling things under our hands and feet that are not manmade.

SOURCE: 

A Low Slanting Ray - Antidotes to the Hubriscene part 4, from the archive

by
Uncivil Savant <carolineross@substack.com>

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I post it again here after reading some blogs and making some comments. I need to get up and away from the computer soon. But it's definitely addictive to me.

Self-care is my mantra today.

I keep giving all the details of my current health on blogs, and am so grateful to have a supportive community here, but I think I'm failing myself. I'm not doing the care that I should, and I wonder how much that contributes to poor health.

Not just eating right....but also

Taking long hot soapy showers or baths.

Skin care.

Dental care.

Hair care.

Digestive care.

Household upkeep

Doing laundry.

Changing the sheets on the bed.

Doing dishes.

Making phone calls regarding medical care

Going to appointments (I'm pretty good about this!)

Car upkeep!

Exercise! Oh my yes...getting myself to just DO SOMETHING!

OK, that's the laundry list of where I know I'm not doing as much as I know how, as much as minimally is needed to be healthy. NOBODY else is responsible for these actions.

So maybe each day of my recovery should have just one of these as the focus. I know I am unable to accomplish all of them daily...even weekly! 

So I lean back into my bag of counseling tricks. What is in my way? 

Not laziness and procrastination...because they are constants about everything except a few bodily functions that break through and I do pay attention to them. 

Denial? Perhaps. Like the one about dying eventually and have I done anything/everything I can before then? I'm writing here as a step in that direction!

I do have a mental barrier about lots of these things...psychologically I mean. The first thing listed is showering, and I do minimal daily cleaning of my body. But getting into the shower has become rare. 

A big part is the evidence that shower leads to wetness in the bathroom, which leads to mold inside the walls, window frame tracks, and the drains. I am so afraid of mold these days. It's a big thing, and I'm avoiding it by not showering at all. I do so weekly so my hair gets a good washing. And then pay attention to drying off the areas in the room that I can. I have 2 fans I use (the ceiling one, and a portable one on the floor.) The maintenance man put a little pot of white and yellow beads on the floor that's supposed to absorb dampness. The dampness is under the floor and behind the fiber-glass shower unit...and gets worse after rainy days. Of course having high humidity each night doesn't help dry the building out.

I just remembered, I have an appointment to have a haircut (with hair wash included) next Wednesday. Shucks, I'm not going to go that long without washing my hair. So today it's full blown shower. And focus on drying the room out afterward. 

Sorry if this is way too much information about rather mundane private stuff. But this is what I'm trying to change in my life, and I make these kinds of attempts to change ever so slowly...just like how long did it take for me to stop having daily showers? It was very gradual. And it has probably been supported by being able to read blogs first thing with my coffee...rather than shivering to dress afterward, and doing all those demanding routines for drying off the room. As the apartment warmed up, I could easily go get cleaned up and dressed after an hour or two...and the easiest way was what my mother called "spit baths" or harking back to using warm water in the basin and washcloth (washrag would be mother's term) with soap. I could dry off in no time, and be dressed.

I want to keep track of my acknowledging this as something needing my attention. This is my baby step today.