One Mile Down, 999 to go

I joined the gym today for one month. If I go consistently, I will join again when my month is up.  My journey of a thousand miles began with my 20 minute walk today.  I walked a mile in 18 minutes (I used to walk a mile in 15.5 minutes). I was pleased to just meet my goal of walking 20 minutes. My plan is this: for two weeks, I will walk for 20 minutes, 2-3 times per week.  For the next two weeks, I will walk for 30 minutes, 2-3 times per week. That will be the end of my first month, and then I hope to pay for another month and start walking 30 minutes, 5 days per week.  In terms of miles I walk, hopefully, the more I walk, the faster I will get.  Maybe I will actually get close to 2 miles in during my 30 minutes of walking, but that is not my goal right now. Minutes are my goal. Regardless, I walked roughly 1.1 mile today, so I have 998.9 miles left to reach my long-term goal of "my journey of a thousand miles." I don't have a date in mind as I am just going to try to do what I outlined with the minutes per week, but I'll keep up with the miles, too. By the end of this month, at my current pace, I will have walked the following: (1st week: 2.2, 2nd week: 2.2, 3rd week:3.3, and 4th week:3.3), and if I walk the maximum of three days per week, it will be (1st week:3.3, 2nd week:3.3, 3rd week:4.95, 4th week:4.95), so that equals a minimum of 11 for the month and a maximum of 16.5 for the month. If I walk the minimum, I will only have 989 miles left, and if I walk the maximum, I'll have 983.5 left. If I continue walking at the current pace but increase my days to 5 per week, that will be 8.30 per week and 33.2 for the month. It will only take me almost 3 years.  That's fun! It's good to have goals. I'll be almost 63 by then and hopefully in better shape and hopefully much thinner.  I don't aspire to be skinny.  I aspire to be a healthy weight for my age and height--about 150-160.  That's doable.

Snappy New Day

All night long, I was singing, "It's such a good feeling to know you're alive./It's such a happy feeling that's growing inside/And when you wake up ready to say/I think I'll make a snappy new day/It's such a good feeling, a very good feeling, the feeling to know you're alive." I don't remember exactly how the words go.  This was a song Mr Rodgers sang on his show.  I also kept saying, "And I'll be back, in a day or two, and I'll have more ideas for you/And you'll have things you want to talk about/I will, too."  Again, I am not exactly sure what the words are, but these are close.  Having these refrains run through my mind for several sleepless hours during the middle of the night is likely connected with the fact that I watched the Mr Rodgers documentary last week. It was an interesting look at his life.  My youngest texted me a few days ago and asked if I had watched it. He said it made him cry.  He said kindness like that is something people don't show in this day and age.  Either they don't feel it or they get ridiculed for sharing it. He said it hurt him to think of how some people viewed Mr Rodgers in a negative light and ridiculed him when he was a genuine man.  To read my son's words that he cried touched my heart.  To picture him being that moved by a film about a man who set out to make the world feel a little safer and more gentle for all children allowed this mom to see the kindness inside his heart and his genuine concern for how cold and unfeeling so many people have become. He allowed himself to feel vulnerability, which is so incredibly important as Brene Brown points out in one of her books (Daring Greatly, I think).  But, I digress.  I didn't come here to write about the songs stuck in my head last night.  I came here to write down an axiom/adage/saw/old saying--whatever you call those motivational quotes or little tidbits of wisdom.  I came to say that I am going to Fitness Formula today to get a month's membership so I can start walking at their indoor track.  No one but me understands that this is my Everest today.  This is that incredibly daunting task of climbing a mountain with absolutely zero training, no natural aptitude, no real understanding of why I'm going to climb the mountain other than the fact that it is there, and I will feel a sense of accomplishment and the desire to climb more mountains when I complete this one. And, then there is the view of the world from the top. The astounding beauty of the world.  Though I do exaggerate here, the analogy is fitting.  I am terrified.  I am embarrassed for others to see my fat person walking in there. I am sure someone will be snickering and talking about "the fat woman thinks she can walk her way thin" kind of thing, but I must make a change. And, that's where that old adage comes in, and I can't remember exactly how it goes, but it's something like this: The journey of a lifetime begins with a single step. Now, I am going to look up the lyrics to the Mr Rodgers songs, type in "adage" and see what comes up and type in the adage I wrote down to see exactly what it says.  As a matter of fact, I'll do that now and add the responses I find right here before I post this.  Here I go: 

The song:

(Song)
It's such a good feeling
To know you're alive
It's such a happy feeling
You're growing inside
And when you wake up ready to say
"I'll make a snappy new day."

It's such a good feeling
A very good feeling
The feeling you know
That I'll be back when the day is new
And I'll have more ideas for you
And you'll have things you'll want to talk about
I will, too

The definition of adage (incidentally, my sentence is not an adage nor an axiom):

Definition of adage

: a saying often in metaphorical form that typically embodies a common observationShe reminded him of the adage: "A penny saved is a penny earned." 
The actual saying:"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" (Chinese: 千里之行，始於足下; pinyin: Qiānlǐ zhī xíng, shǐyú zú xià; literally: 'A journey of a thousand Chinese miles (li) starts beneath one's feet") is a common saying that originated from a famous Chinese proverb.

The Gun and A Boat

Last night's dreams were far from pleasant. I woke up with my heart pounding. I was dreaming about a young man who was going to shoot me with his rifle.  I was sitting in a beach chair with my feet in the sand though I did not see nor hear the ocean anywhere around me.  I saw buildings and concrete.  To my left, one of my former supervisors and her husband were also sitting in beach chairs though it seems they were also in a boat, but, again, there was no water anywhere that I could detect. I had noticed the young man off to my right. He was bothering a man and child who were sitting on a blanket in the grass. The man looked like someone I went to high school with.  The man grew tired of the annoyance, and he and the child left.  The young man, who appeared to be about 16, and a younger child who appeared to be about 8, came up to me. The young man pointed his rifle at me and said, "I'm going to shoot you." He had the rifle pointed low and to the left part of my lower body near my hip. He tried to fire, but the gun jammed. He tried again and again and kept saying he was going to shoot me.  He tossed that rifle down, and started to take a bag off his right arm to get another weapon out.  I grabbed the rifle and said, "You aren't going to shoot me! What in the effing hell do you think you're doing!" I then started swinging the rifle at him in an attempt to hit him in the head and knock him out or disable him from getting another gun.  I remember swinging the rifle wildly but I couldn't hit him.  He was loading another gun when I finally struck him on top of the head with the rifle. I hit him several times, and then he fell to his knees with head lowered. I saw a target of some type at the base of his neck and hit him there, too.  He was then passed out.  I remember yelling for someone to call 911, but the child who was with him seemed completely unfazed and mute, and my former supervisor and her husband were still sitting in their chairs as if they could not see nor hear any of the commotion. It was as if they were enclosed in a protective barrier which only allowed in sunlight, pleasant sounds, and calm. I woke up with my heart pounding.  Earlier in the night, I was dreaming that I walked into a church and saw an old friend who said he was getting ready to do a reading. I thought he meant a poetry reading, but then a man entered the church and got his Bible out. My friend repeated that he was getting ready to do a reading.  This time, he sounded like he was uncomfortable, and I realized he was meeting with someone in AA to spend time reading the Bible. I excused myself and said I would come back later. I then remember standing over a garbage can and peeing everywhere. I could not stop peeing, and for some reason, I did not go to the bathroom but chose the trash can.  My friend came into the room as I was trying to clean up my mess and told me the toilet was a mess and he didn't know what to do about it. I looked in the toilet and saw books, cigarette butts, lots of toilet paper, and long black bugs. That dream segued into another in which I was in that same room with two attorneys--a man and a woman. Both were very attractive, intelligent, witty, and charming.  It was obvious to me that the man was very interested in that woman, but she wasn't showing the same level of interest in him.  They were laughing hysterically at something, and then we were on a boat in a swimming pool. The boat was taking on water, and they were still laughing. The boat then entered a large body of water--a lake or an ocean.  It was no longer taking on water, and they were still laughing.  The sun was so bright, it was as if I were seeing them in negative mode. I can still see their laughing faces--beautiful faces with the whitest teeth.  Dreamland is a strange place.  I can't wrap my head around writing poetry right now, so I may as well write about my dreams.

Every Day

I woke up many times in the night. I ate way too much food yesterday, and I ate foods which cause intestinal distress, and I paid for it, but I didn't sit down here this morning to write about that.  When I woke this morning, I was dreaming about a man I have never met but knew quite well in my dream and with whom I was in love.  In a room reminiscent of an old, plush movie theatre with muted red draperies and velvety seats, several people had congregated. They were there for me and for him. He was supposed to have met me there, and when he didn't show up, everyone in the room became concerned. I was near the stage, pacing, with the other people congregated in small groups, their worried faces speaking words I could not hear.  I turned around, and he was coming toward me. His hair was black and cut fashionably though it looked unkempt. He had on khaki pants, a white shirt, and a black jacket. He said, "I'm so sorry, Margaret. I..." At that point, I put my arms around him and just held him. He embraced me, and then I held him tighter. He responded likewise. We started moving, rocking at first and then slow dancing.  We did not talk.  I finally looked at him and said, "Baby, I love you. We all love you. You see everyone here? They love you. We can get all of this sorted out. This with your father.  You'll see."  He started crying, and then reached inside an inner pocket of his jacket. He pulled out a white envelope with my name written on it. He then ripped open the envelope which contained a letter and a small baggie with white pills.  The letter was a suicide note outlining his plans and telling me goodbye and explaining why he felt he had to take his life.  I could see the writing and a few words. "I'm sorry.  Digitalis. My father. I'm done. I want you to be okay."  We were both crying then, and he said, "I couldn't do it. I was ready, and I heard your voice calling out to me, and I stopped. I've already told my father I'm done with the business. I'm done with it." As I was waking, I just kept seeing his grateful face.  I thought to myself: " This is what love is. Maybe I have never known how to love before." There was a sense of hopefulness in my body as I roused myself awake and headed to the bathroom.  The man in the dream was attractive, but he wasn't someone I think I would be interested in. He was slightly overweight and younger than me.  He was like someone walking out of a foggy forest canopy into the blinding light of an unknown place.  He knew I loved him, and he knew I saved his life.  I wonder, sitting here this morning, if he was me. I read somewhere once that we are the characters we dream about, and perhaps, he was some part of me.  God knows what he said, how he looked at me, how he'd had an epiphany about his life and its value all spoke to me. The part that was not me was the suicide part.  I have never wanted to take my life.  Of course, I spent 10 years of my life working with individuals who had attempted suicide or were contemplating it, so I think that factors in. I think it is representative of the career part of me.  Perhaps I am wanting to return to work, but I am not sure. I want to get better.  That I know.  Maybe that was the hurting me (him) facing the me (the actual me) who wants to help me work through all of these issues that still haunt me at age 60.  I don't have much time left on Earth--at least not as much as I had when I arrived here 60 years ago unless changes in technology still find me here at age 120, but that is not likely.  As Andy says in The Shawshank Redemption: Get busy living, or get busy dying.

My Grandmother's Love Letters by Hart Crane

My Grandmother’s Love Letters

Hart Crane, 1899 - 1932

There are no stars tonight 
But those of memory. 
Yet how much room for memory there is 
In the loose girdle of soft rain. 

There is even room enough 
For the letters of my mother’s mother, 
Elizabeth, 
That have been pressed so long 
Into a corner of the roof 
That they are brown and soft, 
And liable to melt as snow. 

Over the greatness of such space 
Steps must be gentle. 
It is all hung by an invisible white hair. 
It trembles as birch limbs webbing the air. 

And I ask myself: 

“Are your fingers long enough to play 
Old keys that are but echoes: 
Is the silence strong enough 
To carry back the music to its source 
And back to you again 
As though to her?”

Yet I would lead my grandmother by the hand 
Through much of what she would not understand; 
And so I stumble. And the rain continues on the roof 
With such a sound of gently pitying laughter.

 

Carry

I watched a little of the Free Minds Book Club tonight. The book they chose to discuss was The Things They Carried.  I want to write about it. I felt such deep conviction and emotion as I watched even though the comments and thoughts did not seem to reflect the book. At least these incarcerated men chose to read this book and to openly share their thoughts.  I had so much I wanted to say, but I am wiped out now. Cried too much.  Only 55 degrees in here. Wanted to go to a hotel. Husband said no reason for that. Stayed here.  Pissed off and cold.

Home From Nashville. No heat in the house.

Just a few pics of my sweet grandbabies. It is 50 degrees in here. Too cold to do much.