A drop in the ocean…

My husband and I actually had a DATE this evening!  Friends who own a coffee house were holding a fundraiser for their nonprofit organization that provides job training for homeless young people.  (*Editorial rant below.)  So we got dressed up (or I did; my spouse had to meet with bigwigs at work today, so he already looked good), and spent the evening listening to live music, eating fantastic food, tasting wine, and meeting some of the folks in our community who try to make good things happen.  The really amazing thing?  We get to go out again tomorrow, this time to a birthday party in a bar.  I can’t remember the last time we went out two nights in a row without kids…it was probably before we had kids!

*(A travesty of our foster care system is that kids whose lives have usually been in turmoil for years and years–hence the need for them to be in foster homes–get kicked out at the age of 18.  Happy birthday!  You’re homeless!  There are many other reasons that young folks end up living on the streets, too, but this one makes me particularly mad.)

Not only was it the fall equinox, but it was also a glorious, sunny, perfect day, and it just so happened that I had an errand that took me to West Seattle.  I decided it was the perfect day to recharge my personal batteries.  I dropped the kids off at school and made arrangements for my preschooler to stay for the full school day, and then I went to yoga class.  Did I do my usual 40 minutes of cardio first?  NO.  I read a book while waiting for class to start!  Afterwords, I showered and headed to my favorite Value Village because I needed a pair of fancy-schmancy black shoes for an upcoming evening out…and there they were, for $4.  Then came the really great part of the day:  I drove to Alki Beach in West Seattle, where the city skyline is visible in the distance, as are the Olympic Mountains to the West, and beautiful beach stretches along Puget Sound.  I ate my very favorite sandwich (Avocado-Salmon) at the Bamboo Bar and Grill, and then took my notebook and a Tully’s Intense Dark Mocha to the beach.  The sun was warm on my back.  The seagulls sat around lazily, not paying me any mind because I obviously didn’t have any fried food to beg for.  Children I didn’t have to be responsible for laughed and played nearby.  The waves lapped quietly at the stony beach, then rushed in with sudden vigor when the wake of a ferry or freighter reached the shore.  I wrote a little bit.  I collected some pretty stones and some beach glass.  I drank my mocha and closed my eyes to feel the sun soaking into my hair, my shoulders, my soul.  I watched the endlessly varied parade of interesting people going by (Alki has some of the best people-watching I’ve found anywhere).  I hummed to myself.

By the time I had to leave, to pick up the kids, I felt like a new person–a relaxed, happy, pampered person who lives a life of privilege and ease…and I remembered that I AM, in fact, that very person.  I am privileged to stay home with my kids, to have a husband who helps take care of them and me, to have a job that makes me happy, and an artistic talent that both challenges and recharges me.  I am female in the best century yet to have ever been female (at least in my culture), in one of the most free and affluent nations in the world.  I have healthy kids, loving family, amazing friends.  Life is really, really good.  It’s important to take a bit of time to remember that once in a while.

Upstairs is another world.  It mainly consists of one large, mirrored room with big windows at each end and honey-colored sprung hardwood flooring.  A ballet barre runs down the length of the room, and the walls are warm shades of gold and rust.  This is the group exercise room, and not only is the room itself largely unchanged, many of the same instructors continue to teach there all these years later.

That room is one of my sanctuaries.  There, a core group of us who have been members through all the changes continue to show up several days a week, to be put through our paces by our beloved team of Lycra-clad tyrants.  We lift weights, do yoga and pilates, and jump up and down in all sorts of ways.  We also chat a lot, and leave sweatier and happier than when we arrived.

One of this group is a woman in her mid-70s, who is probably the busiest person I know.  She knows everyone who is anyone in our town (including my boss).  She is on committees, and panels, and who knows what-all.  She has a 99-year-old mother she spends a lot of time with, and an 80-year-old husband, and five children, and umpteen grandchildren.  She takes yoga, and step, and weight-lifting, and kick-boxing.

This morning, a group of us with school-aged children were sitting on our yoga mats before class, complaining about being tired for all the usual reasons, and agreeing that watching TV in the evenings is a poor substitute for going to bed early, and reminiscing about the good old days when the gym had a coffee bar upstairs. 

Then Thelma came in and announced that last night’s fundraiser was entirely too much fun.  She had a hangover. 

We all promptly agreed that we want to be her when we grow up.  (Minus the hangover, thankyouverymuch.)

What to do?  Create yet another schedule, one that includes blog-reading time?  Or substitute blogs for bedtime reading?  (I think not!)  For now, I pick and choose, read a few one day, and a few the next, and try not to forget to do the laundry and the dishes in the process…

Today, I started cleaning out the garden, pulling up the plants that are no longer producing food, digging up yet another round of weeds, and getting ready to put in a cover crop for the winter.  I am struck by just how eager the soil is to be fertile–just this spring, I turned over some of the hard, heavy sod that makes up our lawn, and now, a mere season later, that same soil is lighter, looser, darker.  Amazing what can be done with physical labor, a few dollars’ worth of seeds, and water!  It wasn’t a stellar garden year here in the Pacific Northwest–the tomatoes are mostly green still, and everything else was lackluster, except (of course!) for the the zucchini and the chard. 

I am setting for myself the very small goal of updating this blog every day for a week.  We’ll see how it goes.  It’s not likely to be earth-shattering, given the state of my brain at 9pm.