Precious and Short

My aunt G called on Saturday morning to let me know that my cousin's 58-year-old father had died.

As I drove to the pool later in the day, remembered how I hadn't seen my cousin's father in ages when he greeted me outside the funeral home where my grandmother's service was held.

Thought about my cousin's grandmother who was living with her 58-year-old son and thought about my grandmother, other relatives and silently wished for a do-over while almost immediately telling myself that there are no do-overs.

When I arrived at the pool, the guy who told me about Errol Flynn in Jamaica was at the check-in desk. When I asked him how he was doing he replied, "Still on this side of the grass" and that's always a curious response to me...

Anyway, swam and had the entire pool to myself for quite a while. Got in 22 laps then decided to go to JC Penney as one of my favorite blouses is from there and I could use at least one more shirt. Didn't find anything but when I got in the car, realized that my Fitbit was not on my arm so I went back into JC Penney and back into the dressing room and walked around and couldn't find anything.

I hate losing stuff. Had to ask myself if a tracker has made that big of a difference in my life. Got online to see about a replacement and found out that they no longer make that style. I also have a back-up that I'm not that fond of but couldn't find the charging cord so it's not really a back-up.

I'm hoping that maybe the tracker fell off at the pool...

Was listening to an earlier episode of Gaslit Nation as I ran errands on Saturday and a guest talked about how we need to support people that we like and have a grassroots effort in place. She mentioned that many people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cruz but that AOC is not a superhero and cannot fight the good fight on her on...

While on Twitter, saw a TMZ post about Kobe Bryant and was shocked. I don't really follow basketball as much as I used to but I had also seen a post just the day before about him congratulating Lebron James on surpassing him in scoring.

After the shock,  had to tell myself that he was mortal; it just seemed otherwise on the basketball court...

Went to a YTT Q & A and was talking to my trainer's husband who was also shocked and as we finished up our conversation he said, "Life is precious and short" -- a reminder that we all need once in a while.

The Walk

We were allowed to leave work early on Friday because of inclement weather.

Yesterday was reminiscent of the previous Friday in that it rained and rained. Last week, I stayed home and alternated between reading Pachinko and watching Jack Ryan.

While the cars and trees were iced, the ground wasn't affected and I ended up going for, an hour, to Stacy's yoga teacher training. She sent out a call for several volunteers and I had no idea why she wanted us there for but she said there was no need to prepare.

As I walked in, it became apparent that the trainees were on there social justice unit and I sat down as one of the presenters, Shawn, said Our liberation is tied together...

Shawn and Liz finished with their presentation and the volunteers introduced themselves.

We ended up doing a Privilege Walk, which I had never heard of. There were at least five people in the room who had done the walk before. The exercise left me very sad and practically speechless. When I get upset, my throat literally aches; there's almost an instant soreness...

I miss my Saturday Zumba routine. Wasn't feeling it but I decided to go swimming. I was texting with Alison beforehand and told her how I missed Zumba and she responded "Tell me about it."

Alison hasn't been able to attend Zumba classes because of ongoing knee issues and I told her, yeah, I thought about that right after I sent the text.

So, I went to the pool and I had that feeling that I've had before of not knowing whether or not I'd be able to swim a single lap but I swam that lap and 21 additional laps and I felt better afterwards — emotionally and physically.

Side Note

Read a yoga book by a local author and when I finished, I checked this podcast that I don't regularly listen to because the guy rants for, like, the first 10 minutes but I took a look anyway and he had just interviewed a person that the local author referred to in her book so it was very cool to listen to the interview even though I had to fast forward through the introduction.

Listened to a December episode of The Moth which was actually reruns of several episodes, including one of my faves The Phone Call by Auburn Sandstrom which I've listened to about three times just over the last couple of days.

I was also glad to find that the author of The Body Keeps The Score, Bessel van der Kolk, was a guest on On Being. We read his powerful book during yoga teacher training...

One of my yoga classmates posted that it was the start of a new semester at work and, therefore, the "Sunday scaries" were extra scary. I also think that after the holidays, Sunday scariness is worse and might have been the reason that I couldn't, initially, sleep. I stayed up until 12:30 a.m. watching Jack Ryan because I just didn't feel sleepy. Thought about how my aunt Alice would have really liked JR...

It's Tuesday now and the Sunday scaries have morphed into international scaries...

A side note to the 'Fugee: unbelievably, Bessel van der Kolk sounds like Istvan...

Daze

There seemed to be an unprecedented amount of holiday, food gifts which made me think of Shonda Rhimes' book Year of Yes.

About losing weight, Rhimes concluded that she was saying "yes" to being overweight. I have many truffles, cookies and candy. Definitely not planning on eating it all but it's tempting...

During our Christmas dinner, my uncle said it was Thanksgiving and, later on, a family friend thanked my aunt for the Easter plate. Perhaps, it was the unseasonably warm weather or the fact that we have similar food for the holidays or maybe it's the daze between Christmas and New Year.

On New Year's Eve, I watched the bulk of YogaWoman which seemed like a fitting activity -- for me anyway. I was not looking forward to midnight as people have been clowning with guns on NYE. Unbelievably, the gunfire started around 11:30 p.m. I fell asleep but totally knew when midnight hit because the fireworks and gunfire was off the chart...

A massage therapist that I used to go to returned to the area for the holidays. Couldn't believe that it had been two years, slightly over two years actually.

I went for a session and noticed her Keep Calm and Do Qigong shirt as she greeted me. She talked about how, after two years, her new state is finally starting to feel like home. People weren't sure why she and her partner wanted to move somewhere where they didn't know anyone. She was  like "Maybe this is just a brief stop. Who knows?" I admire her willingness to pull up stakes, start over and go with the flow.