One Page at a Time (Blog #692)

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Today was delightful, just delightful. This morning I had a lovely breakfast. Then this afternoon I ran an errand to the vitamin store (because I can’t stay away from the vitamin store), then went to a coffee shop (a different one than the one I went to yesterday because I gotta keep it fresh) to finish reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Oh my gosh, y’all, it was fabulous. Drop everything you’re doing and go read it for yourselves. (Finish this first.) The book tells the true story of a murder that took place in Savannah, Georgia. Four days ago when I started the book, I thought, Three hundred and eighty-six pages is going to take me forever to read. But the story was so delicious, I plowed right through it.

As they say, it was a real page-turner.

While I was at the coffee shop, my friend Bonnie stopped by to visit. That’s always good, seeing a friendly face, catching up, being reminded that someone’s in your corner. After she left, I continued to read. However, the room I was in was reserved for a church group, so I had to move seats. And get this shit. Yesterday, at the other coffee shop, there was a kid who was witnessing to one of his friends. I mentioned him in last night’s blog because he was being loud and I couldn’t concentrate on my book. I was like, Come on, be like God–speak in a still, small voice. Anyway, after I moved seats tonight and just before I finished my book, I noticed the same kid was sitting quietly alone, reading, not five feet away from me. The same kid!

What the hell? The universe can randomly connect me with a total stranger two days in a row, in two different locations, but it can’t introduce me to my husband?

This evening I had a tasty dinner–two burger patties with guacamole and a sweet potato–along with a juice I made that included pineapple, cucumber, celery, and ginger. Juices are something I’ve been trying to add to my diet, just for the extra nutrients. Last night I logged into my gym account and figured out I’ve been 28 times since joining in mid-January. Anyway, it just seems like a waste to spend all this time rehabbing my knee and working out my upper body and not support my health by eating well. Plus, I’m always chasing that beach body, and they say abs are made in the kitchen.

Crap, I said kitchen. Now I’m thinking about chocolate cake.

Our stories unfold one page at a time.

For whatever reason, after weeks of feeling discouraged, today I feel hopeful. Not that my body feels dramatically better than it did a month ago, but it does feel better, and I just have this sense that things will keep improving. Last year at this time I was in between rounds one and two of the flu (I think), and hell, I made it through that, so the body is capable of a lot. And whereas I want instant results in both my body and my life (I have dreams, ya know), it’s just not the way the world works. Things take time; things take patience. Our stories unfold one page at at a time. Thankfully, the next page doesn’t have to look like the last one. At any point, our lives can turn around.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Some days, most days, are a mixed bag. We cry, we laugh, we quit, we start again. That's life. In the process, we find out we're stronger than we thought we were, and perhaps this is healing.

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How You and the Seasons Change (Blog #540)

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Tomorrow is the Autumn Equinox, the day that marks the official beginning of fall and one of the two days during the year that has the same number of “light” hours as it does “dark” hours. From now until the Winter Solstice, the “days” will grow ever-shorter. Not to be a pessimist, but this means that darkness will be gradually taking over for the next three months. (Dun, dun, dun.) Still, this also means that the stars will be out for increasingly longer periods of time, and I do love looking at the stars.

This afternoon, after a full five days on my new “add a little exercise to your life, damn it” program, I made the mistake of stepping on a scale. And whereas I assumed that I would have lost, I don’t know, maybe a quarter of a pound, I actually gained an entire pound. This could be for a number of reasons, of course, including the fact that I weighed at a different time of day than I did before or the possibility that I’m gaining muscle. (Grunt.) Maybe I’m retaining fluids. (Do these jeans make my butt look big?) Regardless, it was still a wah-wah moment.

Every day when I work out, I tell myself that I’m NOT working out for immediate results. (Good, Marcus, because you’re not getting them.) In other words, I’m not working out for today, I’m working out for some future day. Specifically, I’m working out for March 20, 2019, the Spring Equinox, and THAT means that starting tomorrow I have 179 days (91 days for fall and 88 days for winter) to get myself in shape. What that looks like, I can’t exactly say, but I can say the MOST important thing for me right now is to establish a routine, to set aside time every day (or almost every day) of the week to take care of my physical body by exercising, stretching, and so on.

Currently I’m at a coffee shop. There’s a sign behind the counter that says, “Excellence is not an act; it’s a habit.” What this has to do with caffeine, I don’t know, but for me it’s the perfect reminder. You don’t transform your body or soul in the blink of an eye. No, to get from one season in your life to the next requires a process, and processes happen one day at a time. In alchemy there’s an expression that says, “Pray, read, read, read again, toil, and discover.” To me this communicates the same idea. You don’t go instantly from asking for something (praying) to receiving it (discovering). There are steps you have to take. There’s work you have to do.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Stop buying your own bullshit.

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