Little Heart, Big Heart in Everyday Ramblings

It is a holiday here in The States and I am so happy to have the day off. We all need down time and as I get a little older I find, just like many of you, I need to honor that more.

But! My inner pony is very happy. I have been experimenting with running again lately. Run a lap, walk a lap, walk a lap so fast I break into a trot, walk a lap. This morning I was able to run an easy relaxed two continuous miles and still enunciate my vowels. This is a huge breakthrough for me in my active life. If I can canter or lope for two miles, I can run a 5K.

After wearing the heart monitor and having the stress test and having no defect come back in the functioning of my heart and lungs, I am developing a theory about all this. I have a little tiny pediatric sized mouth, ear canals and sinuses as multiple doctors and dentists have mentioned. On the bus the other day chatting with a lovely retiree from Boston about Weight Watchers and bunions, she exclaimed, “But you have such tiny hands!” I am thinking my heart and lungs must be tiny too.

The other thing is that I finally have given up drinking Diet Coke. My last bad habit except a little controlled drinking of vodka now and then.

I am sending everything I earn that is above my budget up to the Seattle family to help with the medical bills but I wanted to buy a gift for Kes and Most Honorable’s beautiful remodeled new kitchen. I was trying to justify the expense. I made a deal with myself that I would give up drinking soda (the evil elixir I call it) for a certain period of time (29.5 days, I do numbers for a living remember?) so that I could afford the gift card at their local cooking shop.

Kes and I are both deeply addicted to Diet Coke. It is an addiction plain and simple, long standing for both of us. I started drinking more of it as I was losing weight because it helped with sweet cravings particularly in the evening. Every time I tried to cut back I ate more and gained weight. It happened this time too but I started allowing myself to have a little honey or agave instead. And lo and behold three weeks out my weight is stable and I am not craving it at all. Not at all.

I am pretty sure all that artificial sweeter (yes I know it is horrid but so is heroin and nicotine) was seriously messing with my blood sugar.

So today I believe that to be the pony I want to be, (my knees are fine because I have always been modest and judicious in my use of them), I need to stay small and free of fake sweet and I’ll be good. Olga and Gary (my beloved yoga teachers) think I am crazy to want to run, but heck other people’s opinions, no matter how much I respect them, haven’t stopped me from writing poetry that creates a world I want to live in (and may not make sense to others) or take pictures that take my own breath away (which only happens now and then) and trying with all my might to make my tiny little heart big enough to contain the whole world.