Grist in Everyday Ramblings

Ah, with Thanksgiving over one’s thoughts turn to the end of year holidays. All those marvelous sparkly lights to compensate for the starkness outside, at least here in the Northern Hemisphere. I have some somewhere, sparkly lights, I may actually deploy them this year.

This is the big bald cypress up on the hill behind my place I have been solo walking on the last few days. Once I identified it, I wanted to see what it does in the fall.

As unfavorite holidays go mine was actually pretty nice, though I did have low expectations.

My big goal was not to be out and about and exposed to too much suffering. That was pretty easy to do in lockdown. The only tent I saw on my selective walk was someone with one set up in a marked off parking area, very neat, next to a nice SUV.

I had a lively video chat mid-morning with Kes and Most Honorable and then Mrs. Sherlock came over in the early afternoon and dropped off a warm plate of scrumptious food. It is such a gift to have a close friend who not only is a gourmet cook but one who likes to share.

It was sad not to be able to be at their place and share food and a movie but under the circumstances I felt so blessed to have the decadent pleasure of not having to go anywhere and yet enjoying such a great meal.

On Wednesday evening, feeling a little frazzled I ended up having one of the most challenging classes I have ever taught. If I wasn’t already aware of how much suffering is going on out there, this brought it to the fore.

I have a long-time student that all on her own with no family nearby is having some mental health issues and is not comfortable with the Zoom technology. She experienced a physical crisis this last week and ended up in the hospital with no support. She needed to talk it through. Right before class on Zoom was not the place to do it and she tried to settle down and make small talk.

But because she needed more than any of us could give her right in that moment, she made a few comments of a political nature that deeply offended a new student who had no perspective on the situation.

Oh, and Diego decided to use his box in a nearby room and poop during class.

The newer student left the class very early on and so missed the abject apology of the woman who started everything off at the end. She then wrote me a complaining email about how this is not why she was taking yoga and she was planning on sending a check for next month but was now reconsidering it. She knows Kes, who was also in the class, and copied the email to her too.

This new student is struggling as well, on her own, her beloved dog is ill and may not make it until Christmas and was going to be spending maybe even her first ever Thanksgiving alone, with her daughter in lock down up here.

Sort of a recipe for hurt feelings and unexpressed anger and frustration and loneliness to bubble up and I tried everything I could to de-escalate, distract and ground the whole class.

Everybody involved in the drama has now been soothed and I am talking to my longer-term student tomorrow about what is going on. It sounds like some scary stuff.

When we went into our original lock down in March, we were averaging about 35 or 40 cases a day, now we have in the 1,500 range. It is terrifying. I hope with all my heart we can have some sort of breakthrough and the case numbers start going down by Christmas.

I made the lemon cookies again today because I had all the stuff, the recipe only makes 24 cookies, and I am walking with Charity, Mrs. Sherlock and Frieda tomorrow morning so I wanted to share. They were even easier this time.

This next week I am adding a third Zoom Yoga class into my rotation. It is going to be different from my other two in that it involves getting on the floor and doing yoga things down there. I am going to record it and one of my other more chair-oriented classes so that the students who subscribe can do the recorded practices on their own schedule. Of course, they miss out on the community that way, which in spite of what happened a few days ago, is normally a lot of fun.

At least for 99.9% of us, the election is over.

Last updated November 28, 2020