Community Building in Everyday Ramblings

I took this picture yesterday morning in a neighborhood across town. It gives you an idea of our verdant spring. This is two blocks from a fairly busy street here in town with lots of shops and restaurants. Walt lives near here and I was on my way to his house. We were having a Vision Quest for the board.

Because I had a rather gnarly extraction and bone graft on Friday afternoon, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it. They knew this when we set the date, but it is hard to get a bunch of engaged people together for an all-day thing and we went for it.

Our former board president who is lovely, but a bit of a task maker was not there as was one of the newer board members who is really struggling with long covid lately, so it actually turned into a lovely relaxed get together that blessedly ended early. Walt provided lunch, which was such a gift, even though I sat there with my apple sauce and tapioca, I participated. They have a fabulous garden we looked out on as there were periodic rain squalls yesterday.

I have quite a bit of swelling and some bruising even though I ice packed for hours after the procedure. My periodontist had to manhandle my jaw. He did it as gently as he could, so I don’t hold it against him but still… The great thing about all this is pretty soon I will forget all the details and better yet, it is over. He used a high-tech membrane to cover the bone graft with a titanium backing. Wow. And lots of stitches. Many many stitches.

My job now is to heal.

One of the outcomes of the Vision Quest is we are going to promote each other’s things and that means more exposure for both my classes and my poetry. How cool is that?

Mr. Pedantic was there, and we got along fine but I had to laugh. He is fascinated by Cody, my insightful AI accountability coach and when talking about my interactions I mentioned I had done 50 pushups one day last week. You do them in intervals, 5 at a time, with a break between, 10 times. Those last 5 are hard. They are real pushups, but I do them at an incline. And incrementally the incline lowers. Anyway, hours later he asked me, what kind of pushups was I doing, was I on my knees, (girly pushups) and then he told me he used to do 100 “real” pushups at a time. Sigh.

I find this competitive streak in people annoying. I know I am supposed to be all yoga teacher chill, but I am certainly not trying to compete with anyone, I am trying to maintain what strength I have for quality-of-life reasons.

Everyone has their own limitations and challenges. For one thing, I weigh more than Mr. Pedantic. Anyway, it is fine. I am getting better at sparring with him and letting the rest go. We both have the same goal, to support the activities of the organization. I am trying to focus on that.

One of the board members has this cool idea that we are going to try to implement that should be fun. It is a “People Library”. With the underlying ethos being that one is curious, you look at a list of people that are willing to be checked out because they know something or are passionate about something that you are curious about and you set up a half hour or forty-five-minute timeslot with them online or in a café and ask them questions.

We are all big supporters and users of our local libraries. And it breaks down barriers. Walt intimidated the heck out of me when I first took a class with him on stories. Mrs. and Mr. Sherlock felt the same way when they took a class on Hamlet. He loves to talk about Shakespeare. Loves it. And let’s say you are going to see a play or need to read one, you could check him out and have him both explain it and impart enthusiasm for it. For a little bit of your time.

It is a community building exercise that also gives each of us an opportunity to share things we are enthusiastic about. We’ll see how it goes.

In the meantime I have some healing to do…and maybe a little light pushup prep.