49 – Ready. Set. Go. Pt I

The sky was a lovely fuscia pink with lacy streams against the pretty blue. I closed my eyes and when I opened them again, the sky was erased leaving only a faint trail of pink dust on the page of blue.

My aesthetician, Barb, does a cheerleader kick on the way to the room where she makes the lines of my face magically disappear. Her little dance step catches me off guard—it may just be the way she does life, but it communicates in some fun way that she is expectant and excited about what she anticipates for me. This is gonna be good! You are going to be amazed at the results!

I realize that I feel this way for my students, doctoral candidates writing their dissertations. Barb and I are on top of our best game today.

***

And yet. Guiding dissertation writers and authors is not enough. I’m having that same crazy anxious, restless, need to create buzzing in my body. It must be March. James and I have such a hard time getting on the same page at this time of the year. I have big dreams.

I want to hunker down and birth something. I want dirt under my nails. Why can’t I just bake a cake or hold a baby or plant some seeds in dark soil instead of fighting these technology issues and being harassed by online marketers selling, selling, selling?!

My love focus has waned.

My butt is bigger.

I want NEED sunshine, but am not even taking good advantage of the lovely 45 degrees outside. I’m bored, but not wanting to be with anybody. I want to read and escape and watch too many movies.

This is the first big sag after the first of the year. I need to get back to my goal list. I’m not reading my Bible. It all takes so much damn time. Time is precious. I can’t get around it. And then I discover that because of my past imbalanced choices, my birthday is going to suck. My life sucks.

I am leaning toward my next year. I’m not going to stop writing. I’m going to read my Bible.

We can start talking about Brazil and Peru Macha Pichu. San Diego or Brazilian Beaches? Peru?

My daughter. She  has a road trip planned through Bozeman (storage units) to OH and then to DC. Hey, it just might work.

I go for that run that is calling me from my prison of indecisive procrastination:

Footfalls on the soft cushion of muddy trails… Sheer love for this trail draws me into its muddy embrace, into its bogs as if I were a child thrilled by its squish. I wish I had mud boots right now; I’d plow right thru the middle.

Instead, I’m dodging dog shit along the trail edge (reality amidst the romance). Flattened and greenish against the dark earth. [How do parents of young children do this?]

I turn my focus to the soft whispers of spring breeze in the evergreens at Lindley Park. I pause and let them sing to me their lullaby to the savior. They sound like ocean waves.

The snow glows on the Spanish Peaks as if the light emanates from within. Crisp white peaks against mere shadows darker in the sky.

Mid-fifties (the temp) create challenges all its own, as does the chronological age of a person, I presume.

Of course all of this on the day before packing my now mud-encrusted tennis shoes to travel to the coast where I’ll be with my students. I scrub each shoe on a chunk of snow in the park.