Slowly but surely, I'm getting back into walking and running. Went out for a nice 3 mile walk the other day.
And it was a walk, not a run. But that's okay. Actually, it was great.
At 17 minutes per mile, I wasn't exactly tearing up the streets
I walked at a good, solid pace, and explored, walking down streets I hadn't gone down before. There were hills. I got sweaty. It was good.
Afterward, I felt happy with my calorie burn, and that I'd just got out there and done it.
More, please.
So my girl Katie and I made a plan to get out of town for a getaway weekend. We were going to go to a cabin in the middle-of-nowhere (which as it happens, is only about 90 minutes outside of Washington DC, who knew?), and she was going to get to be little, and I would be big.
I decided to read her a story. I went looking for an old familiar favorite book I loved as a kid, that I could read her at bedtime. It's called The Girl with The Silver Eyes. It's about a girl (who is also named Kate) who has silver eyes and is telekinetic.
It's kind of a grammar-school x-men pre-story. The book came out in the 1980's, and isn't available as an e-book.
I ordered it right away, and it came a few days before our trip.
I loved reading it to Katie as she drifted off to sleep in bed next to me. It was a sweet, tender experience. I actually ended up staying up way later than Katie, because I got wrapped up in the book.
Reading it as an adult, and as an author, was so different from when I first read it as a kid. All the stuff I loved was still there. But I could see "how the sausage was made", and did find the book lacking in many places. There was some really ham-fisted foreshadowing, and some plot elements which didn't quite click. It's funny too - the book very much shows its age. There's no Internet, no cell phones, and a certain sort of social naivety to the book which make it very, very dated. But I could still see the essential magic that made me like the book in the first place. It makes me want to go back and read lots of stuff from when I was a kid.
I especially want to do this with Katie. I like reading to her.
Another great Buddha Doodle.
"I let go. Now WHAT?!?" "Keep doing that."
I actually saved this one to use as one of my backgrounds on my work computer. Mindfulness is a practice. Lately, I've been really aware just how much I move through this attach-aware-release cycle. Heck, not five minutes ago I was doing so about things I need to do today. Every single time I let go, it feels just as good.
About three weeks ago, I got an early morning text message from our friend Krissie, saying she and her husband David were okay. I hadn't heard it on the news yet, but there was a huge gas explosion in Greenwood, the Seattle neighborhood where they live. It was close enough to their home that it shook the windows, woke them both up, and scared them very badly.
Sometimes it really takes my breath away, how dramatically life can change at any moment. I don't have any wise, pithy, or funny things to say about this. I'm just glad that people I care deeply about are okay.
I love these Buddha Doodles cartoons.
"Thoughts... are just thoughts. Not who you are."
I frequently get swept up in my own thinking. It takes an act of will to get away from them. Each time I remember this, and do it, I'm grateful for it.
