Kicking myself in the pants

Just a video today folks.




How about you? How do you get yourself back on track when you find yourself energetically veering?

Thanks for listening.

ambiance

Ambiance, a triptych.

(aka pumping at the tradeshow)

righteous tenderness

Sometimes after a big ramp up to an event or deadline, I find myself in sort of an energetic never never land. Not aimless, but a bit unmoored. Sometimes this shows up as a pathological need for sleep. Sometimes (ok, often) a need for chocolate cake.  Usually cured very quickly by a project, idea, goal that coalesces in that place not too far out there called the near future.  But before the coalescence, there is a bit of in-betweenness. And with that comes some tenderness.
I always forget this and am caught off guard when it happens every  single  time.
I ask myself: it is the phase of the moon? (tiny sliver of a crescent, so lovely last night in a twilight sky clear as glass)
I wonder about hormones.
I wonder about life purpose.
I look for something to blame.

But really, it's all me. Me, in-between. Me, doing this part of the energetic pattern. Ramp up. Frenzy. Decline.

So, here I am on the downside slope after a big ramp up and long-ass day trip to a trade show in Chicago that I will write about soon, and, surprise! I am feeling tender today. Not raw, but I noticed I am quicker to tears, quick to respond or react emotionally.   As always, I looked around for something to blame, forgetting all I know about how this goes. Ignoring the pattern until I sat down just now and decided to really take a look at what is going on for me.
Ah ha. Oh yes, I remember now.

I have to remind myself that my sensitivity is one of my best attributes, even if sometimes it is a giant pain in the ass.

I wrote to a dear friend today about sensitivity/fierceness and how I think they are related. But after I hit send, as some sort of proof of my hypothesis, I searched my soul for fierceness. Hmm. Hello?

I guess I can be fierce: fiercely protective of loved ones and freedom of speech. I can be fierce, but I am not fierce. I am not fierce in any way that anyone else would recognize.

So what? So. I guess in that moment, in this moment, I realized I want to redefine fierce to make it something I can feel I can be.  I like fierce. I covet fierce. Fierce is not mean or predatory. Fierceness has intensity of purpose, focus, clarity, righteousness. Fierce is energetic. Fierce is strong. Fierce Does Stuff. Fierce is protective, maybe even (gasp) proactive.

So today as I attempt to make amends with my tenderness, I want to say that, upon reflection, I have a righteous tenderness. A fierce tenderness. And somehow this little bit of reframing/redefinition makes me sit up a little straighter.

Dread

Just a quick update to say that Doug is on the mend after several dramatic and rocky days of purging. Della is fine fine, and I finally feel like my own self again. This virus sucked.  Having Doug get it, and go down for the count, made me feel slightly less wimpy. All I could do was lie there and whimper and while he did not whimper once (out loud)-- I could tell it was bad.

So, we don't have to dread it anymore.

Odd thing, dread.  Dread is often bigger than the thing itself, certainly more thorny, much more complicated since all the possible scenarios must be attended to with sufficient worry and contingency planning.  And now? Dread-be-gone. Reality happened, as it tends to do.

Ode to apple juice and life in 24 hour increments

So-- not a fun week. It began as a fun week though- a great visit with Sprogblogger and a few other on-line friends in the best-luck-ever-club of having babies in spite of infertility.  Babies! Great food! Friends! Then
the barfing began.  To put this in perspective, I do not barf. I just don't. I spent the first n months of my pregnancy feeling all out shitty,  but I never actually threw up. But Monday night? Almost no warning and then the drama began. The drama played out with me lying on the floor outside the bathroom door. Or briefly on the sofa. Or with my head on the toilet seat (OPEN). Icy chills turned to fever by tuesday. And while Tuesday was mercifully barfless between the hours of 8am and midnight (with one last hurrah at midnight before going away all together), I felt I was dying of thirst, had a fever, and could barely stand upright long enough to do anything.  PathetiKate. Indeed. All night I craved ice cold apple juice with a nearly (well, actually) pathological intensity.  During the long Della labor, it was what sustained me. Apple juice and ice chips.
Della was fine. So I figured it was food poisoning from my Monday dinner.  Della was fine, so it could not be the flu, right? Right.
So off to daycare she went with Doug, and he brought me apple juice (best.thing.ever).
And I got over it slowly and pathetically with much moaning.  I felt like crap, people, no kidding.

But days passed, I got better except for insane fatigue, and Della somehow was fine. News came in from the sunday gathering-- the barfing, apparently, was indeed a flu. And it was making its nasty rounds through the families from the gathering. Felling the adults, and scaring the children.
But Della was fine.
was.
Night before last, with no warning whatsoever, she began to barf the bewildered barfing of a little one. Shocked face, hands full up in all of it.  Amazing amounts for such a small container.  Luckily it was all over me, so we did not need to change sheets, just clothes, and clothes again, and again. Towels and clothes.  And a mostly sleepless barf filled night ensued.
Then, by yesterday morning, after one last hurrah at dawn, she was fine.
I spent the day on high alert, but she is fine.
Really.
And Doug? I think Doug is probably screwed but I can hope.

But this week of snow days and barf days and bone crushing fatigue and feeling like I am falling farther and farther behind in just about everything... well, here I am on Sunday afternoon trying to create on demand and decided to veer off into saying hello here--Hello!
I have a post brewing about resonance, rather than regurgitation, but sometimes you have to take what you can get.