not dying – allergic to central texas

We are experiencing a blessed cool front. Only 94-deg F on this 19th day of September. My body feels as if it’s fighting a low fever while my head is throbbing. I could be dying, but aren’t we all. I am not dying – not even ill – it’s just the mold and weeds of central Texas.

Over 20 years ago, the first fall I lived in Austin rather than just visiting family, I became so sick I couldn’t get out of bed for days. Finally, I dragged myself to the college clinic and declared, “I have contracted meningitis. Nothing else explains this pain.” The nurse said meningitis testing requires a spinal tap and I should just take a boatload of allergy meds. She was correct and every year since I have throughly stress tested my liver with allergy meds.

another month

It’s been a busy one- started a new gym that I love and am trying to not go too hard. I want to build strength and I can do that there, but only with consistency and that’s my focus. Not to fret over how much (or little in my case) weight to lift, but to keep showing up at 5:30am, 3-4 mornings every week and lift with good form. Progressive weight will happen and with consistency & good form it will happen faster.

My kiddo has started senior year and there are big emotions that I’m doing well at keeping simmered down, but they are there, at the edges of my vision. Do I stay here after all and keep a place she knows, a place to come home to til college is over – a place to return and visit with friends she’s had since they were toddlers – or at least she has her own apartment somewhere? Do I leap when she leaps; letting her know wherever I am she can be – safe and held with a love that lets her be who she needs to be?

**

I wrote the above another almost month ago …

No decisions have been made.

The gym was amazing, but too rich for my current budget so back to far too sporadic apt gym workouts.

I’ve been hit with deep sadness lately – not even sad in the classical sense, but more doldrums perhaps. Malaise of end days perhaps. End days seem constant now – news cycles stewed in and showcasing the worst of human nature. From FBI director ignorantly testifying about beastiality to serial killer snug filmmakers to a pathological so-called president to 100 degree September days.

Then there is my 9.5 year old dog who now practically has to drag his back legs up the stairs to our apartment – diagnosed with a sarcoma encroaching on nerve bundles. My 83 year old mother who is thankfully self reliant – but on the edges of my mind as I know one bad day can flip her into a fully dependent situation.

Then the cars … that’s just being an adult and dealing with maintenance of older cars purchased because newer cars were out of the budget requirement.

Anyway … how am I doing? Oh I’m fine. Breathing and moving forward. Just. Fucking. Fine.

just write it out

there’s nothing particular that is on my mind, but a little stream of consciousness is good for the soul

i’ve starting lifting weights and today i did hex cage deadlifts – i think that’s the term- i know it’s dead lifts but i’m using a trainer for the first time ever and she’s tracking everything for me. i’d love to keep her on my team but i could only afford 8 sessions and so soon i’ll be finding a new, traditional gym. anyway, this morning at 6:30 I found myself deadlift 35kilos or about 77lbs – plus whatever the cage weighs – you don’t get credit for the weight of the apparatus that holds your weight, but I digress. the point i’m making is I did 6 reps at 30k and then 4 sets of 8 reps at 35 kilos which calculates to a total of 1300 kilos or 2860 lbs, thereabouts. when it adds up it’s kinda mind blowing.

presently my trainer writes out all the numbers. soon i’ll need to do that and i’m not looking forward to it but also it will be interesting to watch the numbers and how the correspond to my changing body. same goes for tracking food.

it all feels a little obsessive, but successful change doesn’t happen by chance. to make change last, for consistency to become transformative you have to stay on top of things and systematically create the consistency in your life. Or at least that what i’ve read from a lot of people who seem to be making change last.

new things

I found an old journal from high school. The entries feel awkward and painfully earnest- cringe is the term one could use- but they are real, unfettered, and filled with a sense of absolute certainty. As a teenager, everything feels immediate and intense because it’s never been felt before and there’s no possible way anybody else could be having These Big Feelings. Only later do you realize EVERY ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS was having those Big Feelings. In my writing, the only thing bigger than my feelings were my plans for my future. A numbered list was nearly printed in the front cover and continued through the 2nd page.

(Un)fortunately, I shared this journal with my daughter & we had tears in our eyes laughing through some of the entries. I let her keep it, but now she claims to have never seen it. I am wagering she took it to share with friends and it was misplaced. I’d be terrified to tell me, too, but it’s a Big Emotion I’d hug her through because those pages show I knew as little about the world as we all do at the tender age of 15, 16, 17. The thing about that journal & the dreams within its pages is that I completed very few of them, but I also have done things I had yet to know existed or that I’d love.

At 51 years old I’m just beginning to live a whole new version of another life. People talk about getting older, bodies hurting, and the word ‘can’t’ seems to generously pepper to many conversations. I recently had someone ask me, “Why are you doing so much? What are you training for?” I had to smile because I have barely gotten started, but I answered, “I’m training to be able to do whatever I damn well please when I am 90.”

I am blessed to have avoided injuries or to have worn out parts of my factory model, but that’s in part because I was not a sports kid. I was fairly strong and had decent endurance while in the Navy, but didn’t really start getting into strong condition until my kid was a toddler and I decided to train for a Tough Mudder race. Then single parenting hit and I more or less stopped. Then got serious about Krav Maga for a few years. Then Covid stopped the world. Now, I am getting going again with weight lifting, learning to breathe fire, and reconnecting to dance.

I can’t wait to see what unfolds when I have access to a strong body I’ve built to climb, lift, dance, swim far better than most people ”my age” who made choices not to find the new things, but to regret what they never did.

Keep moving. Live Large. Don’t say can’t.

dory’s birthday

Today, I woke in a room, of the home of friends, I call family. We’ve been through the wringer together & have come out as different people. I love these people in ways I may never love some family because they love me in ways my family doesn’t understand. In the past, through misunderstanding based on half stories, I burned bridges across these friendships to a degree most would never forgive, but when I recognized I’d burned down the wrong bridges, these friends listened. They cautiously trusted and extended a hand, a willingness to rebuild. It took time, but here we are building lives and growing another year older together.

The birthday we celebrate today is of a man who spends his life celebrating others. He’s a master of arts that are not placed on walls but in the hearts and souls of the thousands he has touched. For decades he has fed artists building impermanent Big Art that will only physically exist a short time, but will live within each person that interacts with the art for their lifetime. Through food & community, he creates safe spaces for people to recharge and return to their work and play.

He’s a diva of high order, with a collection of hats and manties, only to be outshined by his fabulous voice. And all of that is second, when you witness the love he has for his wife. The world they have created – it truly is an oasis of love, art and comfort.

To my dear friend, thank you for being born.

get on it

I just had the auto-renew kick in for this page so I suppose I should write here more often. Lawd knows I am writing everything and keeping a journal and all those things, but all those things don’t end up here.

Shyness, fear of vulnerability, imposter syndrome, fear of success, fear of failure… fear that know one will come to my party.

Maybe all of that … but imma work on trying to post more … for future me if nothing else.

an improv life

Through postponing dreams I learned how to be with myself. I learned to listen more than talk. I learned the power of patience. I learned that life is not a train to be ridden in whatever direction you hop on. You can get off the train at any moment because there is no script – Life is improv – and with that I will spend the next 20, 30, 40 years beginning each day not with what I wish could be but with the joy of choosing: yes, and.

silent listen

listen is the active form of silent-

each is the other and in being silent we can listen – 

to others, to ourselves, to the whispers of the future that is leading us to it and the past to which we remain in until we allow ourselves to be silent and listen to our present, which will present our future.

as we conduct, we must listen & honor the necessary pauses in the symphony that is our life. Silent moments are still active. Passive motion is rest and in rest is the restoration needed to play the next verse.

silent … listen