What Behooves Us in Everyday Ramblings

Our version of snowdrops. The black grass is popular here.

I have a busy week ahead so I am hoping I can rest and restore my vital energy for being out and about more than usual. I have a follow-up appointment in person with the new young doctor and then later in the week, my annual get naked, full body skin check.

I am also starting the 8-week bodyweight strength building program. We meet online twice a week for that.

Thursday is Kes’s birthday, so I am taking the train down on Friday after morning class to celebrate and clean her house. She has been sick and the one thing she wanted more than anything was someone to wash and change her sheets and clean her bathroom.

When she was up here on her nap outing and snuggle with the cats she commented on how clean my place was. Ha!

We’ll make it fun. She can tell me what to do. :)

When we were kids, on the rare occasion that our parents had an outing, the four of us would put on Peer Gynt by Grieg and run around like dervishes cleaning. It was so much fun. We had a sense of both doing good and agency. It helped to have older siblings that knew what they were doing.

It will be a long day, but I am taking Business Class on points, so I get to wait in the luxury lounge in the historic train station here in Portland.

Mr. Sherlock has recovered from his fall and is getting some attention paid to his Sundowner’s Syndrome. That has freed up Mrs. Sherlock to get back to hiking and snowshoeing. She suggested an easy hike today for us to catch up as we are not seeing each other in person anywhere near as often as we used to.

It is gray and cold but not wet or under freezing so it will be nice to get out and chat.

I have been thinking a lot about ableism lately, and am going to teach on how it intersects with challenge this next week. I offer modifications in my classes for movements that might be unavailable to an individual, but I often wonder if folks feel “less than” if they choose a modification. I used to feel that way about props… I am a big girl, I don’t need that block, when in fact, because my arms are a bit shorter than normal… I do need that block.

How do I make this okay? I try so hard to celebrate body diversity in the practices. But when I say…do this to the best of your ability today…does it signal to folks with limitations that they are less than something, somehow?

My current teacher is 35. I find the way she navigates this interesting. But at the same time most of her regular class students are more fit than average. I feel like I am trying to thread a needle here.

The important thing is to encourage people to move. Particularly if they have limitations. Mrs. Sherlock took one of her hiking companions up to the sports medicine center I went to back about 5 years ago on Thursday and after they did the testing on her, that’s what they said to her. Make sure to move.

They also gave her a program at the attached gym facilities and a trainer to work with for 3 months. This is a person that leads hikes and snowshoe outings and drives herself and pushes and pushes. But she is only doing it in a very limited range. She shuffles.

It is sort of like me, who is afraid of what they call breath hunger and breathes through her mouth, which in most circumstances is inefficient. That is one of the limitations I work with.

We don’t know what forces are at work on other people.

It behooves us to be kind. And not to hold ourselves apart. And to learn to tolerate inconveniences for the greater good. No matter how tired of it, or frustrated with it, we might be.

Last updated February 05, 2022