Words ‘n Moves

So, care of the delightful Danielle LaPorte, I came across a very cool Challenge called 21.5.800.  The gig is thusly: do yoga 5 days a week, and write 800 words a day, for 21 days.  It delighted me on many levels.  I love to write, plain and simple.  And I think I’m rather good at it; on some days, one might even think I am witty and perverse.  (It is possible that I am that one.  Just sayin’.)  In my long journey back from the black void of injury, I have recently discovered that yoga makes a huge difference in how my back feels and functions.  A positive difference.  You would think that would be reason enough to make space for it on a daily basis.

But if you did, it would become immediately clear that you don’t know me very well…pfft, to think that I would help and care for myself when I could sabotage and victimize myself?  Clearly, my dear, you just don’t know me at all.  Which brings us to day one of said Challenge.

I had big plans to hunker down to some yoga.  It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve done any, and my body is still pretty fragile on the best of days, so I knew I’d have to start light and slow, and work my way in over time, as dictated by my body.  Because, beyond all else, I am the world’s biggest proponent of LISTENING TO MY BODY.  But first things first.  My living room – the only place in the house I really have enough floor space for yoga – was a disaster zone.  It looked as if Home Depot, ToysRUs, and the Children’s Place had collided, leaving a trail of Barbies, Bakugans, miraculously folded laundry by the ton, single mismatched socks, and screwdrivers…why so many screwdrivers?…in their wake.  Add a few guitars, a piano, and a whole mess of computer and office equipment.  And computer cords (the bane of my existence.)  And underneath it all was some oversized furniture and a whole mess o’ crumbs n’ dust bunnies.  May I just mention at this time that my living room is about 13′ x 13′ -ish.  Not a large space.

So the first order of business was to clean the living room.  I’d been successfully putting it off for two weeks.  But it could be off-put no more.  I put my three short minions kids to work.  “Put away your laundry.”  “Take these baskets of stuff I’ve sorted and put it all away – this basket is yours, this one is yours, yours is over there.”  “Go get the broom and sweep the floor.”  “This is how a vacuum works, honey.”  By the end of it, I felt very Miss Hannigan-like.  Right down to the drinking problem.  The problem was, I still ended up doing so much bending over and picking up, my back raised high holy hell after about an hour and a half.  At which time we were ~ mercifully ~ pushing the furniture back into place and straightening the rug.  My parents arrived for a family dinner just at the moment that I was elbow deep in the freezer, desperate for ice to load up the ice pack intended for my back.  A shot or nine of tequila wouldn’t have hurt at that point either, but strangely didn’t materialize.

By the time the family dinner was over, it was all I could do to not run screaming for the tequila.  (Pain, not company-induced.)  But instead I tucked my little girls into their little beds like a good little mama.  And then I went straight for the tequila. And then I headed straight for bed, I was so bone-tired.  (Did I mention I slept through 6 alarms this morning, or turned them off without waking up, and managed to be an hour and 45 minutes late for work?  I am a rock star.)  When I was about to crawl into my bed, I realized I had not ever gotten to do any yoga, because by the time I had the space cleared, I was in too much pain, and had a house full of people.  (Although, the thought of saying, “Excuse me, I’m just gonna do a little Downward Dog here, don’t let me bother you!” is really quite entertaining.)

So I managed to haul the old laptop over to my bed and scratch out this post before taking one more handful of painkillers and laying my head down on the pillow for the night.  It may not be my Huck Finn, but I think my millions of readers will bear with me through this one.  After all, tomorrow is a new day.  And like Scarlett said, “Well, fiddle-dee-dee.  I’ll think about that tomorrow!”

Day One:

Yoga – fail.  BUT space has been created for yoga from here on out.  So maybe its not really a fail after all.  Because isn’t yoga about making space, inside and out?

Writing – win. 820 words baby!  And still in bed by 11:15.  Happy mama.