Splash

I should be thrilled. I've run my errands; the fidge is stocked; dinner prepped, ready for the oven, and large enough to supply lunches all week; and I even cleaned out the last two gutter sections on the house. It's a beautiful Fall day, if a little warm, and I laid in the sun and read for a bit while Kaylee joined me for some sunbathing too. Got the laundry done yesterday and today I picked up two new thermals for work while I was out running amuck. So why can't I cheer up. I am so grateful for many things in my life, and I know full well that there are many would do much for the creature comforts I have, but this pain just sucks the life out of me until I am blue with despair.

I've been doing my exercises and I have been walking and icing and taking my pills and yes I expect a miracle.  I expect my body to rebound like it was 20 instead of 57 and no amount of common sense can convince me otherwise.

I think it's time for a drink.

Oh, and the splash is me diving into the pity pool.

2 Mile

The morning was cool and foggy, and heading out for my walk I couldn't help but admire the enriched colours and clean lines that the fog had left behind as it touched every stalk and leaf with it's gentle bath. The tall golden grasses, the dark bark of the trees, everything looked fresh and new and ready to be immortalized in a picture. Further down the road my quiet was broken by the raft of ducks that had collected in a morning chorus on the pond. What a racket! I love this path that runs between and betwixt the pond and the channel where egrets were hopping about with their head plumage spiking as they faced each other in their morning dance. And one great white stalking grandly down the bank, holding court for all the common egrets at play.

My thought this morning as I dressed to go walking was that there would be a sunrise to enjoy at one point, making it worth the dark and chilly effort. Nevertheless I was surprised by the light as I rounded the park to turn back towards home. Across the park and beyond the pond and even past the golden foothills there it was, a golden disc gleaming brightly behind the dark silhouettes of the trees that dotted the landscape. Sending to earth it's golden shafts that reached to the lawn in brilliant fans, I could barely drag my eyes away and walked with sunspots for the next quarter mile. I must have stopped a dozen times admiring the view and holding my hands up to frame a shot of the light beams that shot between the trees -why am I not carrying my camera with me; so crazy.

Finally back home to find Kaylee perched on the arm of the couch waiting patiently for me. The two mile walk is too long for her until I feel her paw is completely healed, and upon seeing her expectant little face I promise to take her out later for a short jaunt just to the pond and back.

I felt so many things this morning; first a tiny bit grumpy at making myself go out and walk, then grateful I was able to go out and swing my arms and feast my eyes on so much glory, and finally warm and a little sweaty and proud of myself for a walk well done.

Wool socks and crocs - very comfortable and warm to walk in on a dry cold mornings so no more excuses. It has been a good weekend of walking and healthy food, and I hear a Garden Pie calling my name for dinner. I think I will even make a little gravy using a little coconut oil and garbanzo flour: I can imagine the smells of it baking already.

oh the pain

My shins are killing me - two days of walking in my Nike's and I wonder how I ever did this five miles at a time. I also remember constantly stretching my calves and despite my best efforts waking up with a charley horse in one calf or the other during those years. Bananas were the solution, ramping up the magnesium and or potassium (?) seemed to reduce the chances of waking in panic and pain. Funny how it never occurred to me either then or back in my running days (a couple of lifetimes ago in high school) that the pain meant I wasn't suppose to be doing what I was doing, rather than that I was deficient in some way.

To this day I include a banana with breakfast, either in my green smoothie or on my toast and nut butter.

Now I just want to find some warm neutral heel winter walking shoes and do the same 2 mile route and see what happens. It is really the shoes or is it just me being out of shape; wow, it is so easy to find a roosting place for inadequacy on my shoulders. More years later than I want to count and it's still about me not being good enough? Somebody please send me a psychotherapist! Or not, I'll figure it out.

But not this morning. It's cold, I have oatmeal bubbling on the stove, and my walk can just go take a hike this morning - pun intended.

I will walk at lunch in my crocs. And weather permitting (yes I am a fair weather walker) I will take Kaylee out when I get home from work. Sigh, my road to hell is so well paved.

Walking

I have been following Dani's walking blog, switched my foot gear to monkey shoes, and despite these efforts have not made much progress in my efforts to try a new approach to getting healthy. Or healthier. Or not so gross. Whatever. But this morning I discovered something. It was too cold to wear my new shoes, my toes were frozen just from my brief excursion into the back yard to put peanuts out for the squirrels and blue jays. And I had just mapped a walking route at Map My Walk after reading about it in aforesaid blog. The idea of trekking out for two miles with cold toes kept me in my chair for about an hour while I finished up  my 'farming' chores online. Then it occurred to me that instead of waiting until I had the perfect 'winter neutral heel walking gear' I could just wear my Nikes. Millions do.

So off I went, without Kaylee because her paw is still healing, determined to make it the whole route. It didn't take more than a dozen steps to realize I was walking differently. Like my body had a different center of gravity and I was using my thighs more and my feet less. Over the course of the next hour while I walked I noticed that as I became accustomed to the shoes the tendency was to push off harder with my feet and my shoulders would hunch and my head would begin to strain forward. I immediately relaxed my shoulders, brought my head back into alignment and took the tension out of my feet - how great it felt!

Gone is the stress of not walking correctly; I will wear my monkey shoes in mild weather to remind myself how if feels to walk, and the tennys when it's cold or wet until I can find something better now that I know I can reign in the impulse to walk out of whack, so to speak.  I think a trip to Dom's today is in order, maybe they have some good winter walking shoes.

Also while walking today I realized that I keep trying to piece meal out my writing.  The reality is that I can't write about one thing (food, walking, craziness) without all the rest. I am all of it, and I should keep it all in one place.  And this is the logical location. I like the new Map My Walk site, I think it will keep me motivated to be able to schedule different 2-mile walks and I am hoping other facebook friends will join me there. But this is where I will write and tie it all together.

Yes, it's feeling a little manic this morning. But it feels good after a bout of crazy.

September in a nutshell

I celebrated the beginning of September with my daughter's birthday, and my head swam as it tends to at this time of year with plans for losing some weight before the holiday season. Then as my son's birthday loomed all my plans went out the window in favour of stress eating. And I disappeared for a while. This past Sunday I woke up feeling better, and could feel the depression lifting like fog off a lake. I'm having to battle my way through though, it hasn't been a clean  on and off switch, more like the dimmer switch is being turned to lighten things up a bit at a time. But at least it's turning ..... mostly ... at least I think it is ... that light isn't attached to the front of a train is it?

I slept in my own bed last night instead of the office - it was strange not having Kaylee tangled around my legs but I slept rather well and it was nice to have the house dark and quiet for a change. And yesterday I was listening to 'The Long Goodbye' by Brooks & Dunn; guess crying on the way home is better than eating in the car. Isn't that what recovery is all about? Trading food for feelings?  But it made me think that I need to let my heart break so I can get over it instead of lingering in this limbo land. If my mind is so made up why can't I just let go? God I make myself crazy.

Come on October, bring it on!