A Good Day in Everyday Ramblings

It is raining and snowing. Sigh. Luckily it isn’t sticking.

I was very cautious yesterday about committing myself to being out and about and even though I did use buses judiciously I still ended up walking over 7 miles. The very good news is that my back is fine. Yippee.

This morning I was able to do all my physical therapy without issue. I didn’t do any of it yesterday. Resting is as important as anything else we do.

It turns out Mrs. Sherlock had to cancel our Saturday morning walk because her close male friend thought he should go to the emergency room because he felt so very bad. It was this awful flu.

He is about five years older than me and has both kinds of arthritis, and so has to limit his movements due to stiffness and pain. I am so lucky I am healthy and can weather something like this in a weekend with just one day of feeling truly awful. I did go to bed very early yesterday just to make sure and I am feeling much more normal today.

At one point yesterday, still a little ditzy, with glare blaring into my transitional lenses I stepped off a curb funny and twisted my ankle. (It is totally fine today.) I am incredibly grateful that I have ankles that are strengthened daily by what I do with them. I am intensely aware that I am in the minority and that we all suffer from some sort of mobility issue most of the time.

I went to church (to meet Mrs. Sherlock) and we had a guest minister who grew up about an hour outside of Portland in a trailer park in a very poor family. When she was a kid they would come into town to our church every once in awhile. Our minister at the time was educated at Harvard and she said particularly her mother felt like with all that distance between them he was speaking directly to her.

Even after making some unskillful choices and having a child at nineteen in the end this young woman felt called to the ministry and was able to get a full scholarship to Harvard. Wow. It was a very moving story. She hadn’t been back to our church since then.

I had a hot chocolate with Mrs. Sherlock after and we talked about how frustrating it is that we get lumped into categories in terms of our political leanings and how challenging it is for her as a very liberal person who owns property she rents and is against abortion to be fully herself and speak honestly about her feelings in certain settings. Most settings. We had a little celebration between us about the gray areas.

And then after going grocery shopping I walked back to church and went to my first Death Café. It was very well attended, there were about 60 people there. We ended up with six of us at our table with tea and coffee and scrumptious treats. One of us was a facilitator. I knew one of the women a little as she sometimes comes to my classes.

We were all women; though about a fourth of the folks in the room were men and one of the women at my table was transgender, man to woman. Everybody was interesting. Mrs. Sherlock thought I was nuts to go but I often feel like I want to talk about death and feel constrained because it causes so much discomfort.

It was great. We talked about all kinds of stuff, all the details of which are confidential. Deaths we have experienced, our feelings about our own deaths, the idea of dying alone and how it almost seems like a moral imperative to not want anyone to go through that. We talked about reincarnation and helpful prayers and wanting the transition to be beautiful and to have some control.

I was afraid it was going to be like a grief group but it wasn’t at all. The two hours just flew by. What a cool idea.

And then I went and bought some beautiful dark green yoga tights I had my eye on and sent them to be shortened and came home and took a bath, played with the cats and went to bed.

In spite of the nasty weather it was a full rich day.

Last updated March 06, 2017