Believe It or Not

Drowning my sick guinea pig sorrows in Gilmore Girls tonight, I perked right up when one of the characters requested this old fave as his official campaign song:

Look at what's happened to me,
I can't believe it myself;
Suddenly I'm up on top of the world,
Should've been somebody else.

Believe it or not,
I'm walkin' on air,
I never thought I could feel so free;
Flyin' away on a wing and a pray'r,
Who could it be?
Believe it or not, it's just me.

Just like the light of new day,
It hit me from out of the blue;
Breakin' me out of the spell I was in,
Makin' all of my wishes come true.

Yep, this is one of those songs that it is impossible for me to be in a bad mood while I'm listening to it, even when, say, our family guinea pig is spending the night at the vet school to the tune of hundreds of dollars worth of tests to say why she's lost so much weight:

Believe it or not,
I'm walkin' on air,
I never thought I could feel so free;
Flyin' away on a wing and a pray'r,
Who could it be?
Believe it or not, it's just me...

Fresh

The happy hikers

What a phenomenally gorgeous day! With our camping trip canceled because of our sick critter, I think we were all relieved when we arrived at Devil's Lake today for our hike.

With the possible exception of the swarms of people and asian beetles, we had a wonderful time.

My kids' only other complaint was the radio station I was playing on the way home.

Come on! Who doesn't love a little Kool and the Gang?

Conversation is going 'round
People talking 'bout the girl who's come to town
Lovely lady, pretty as can be
No one knows her name she's just a mystery

I have seen her maybe once or twice
The one thing I can say is, she's very nice
She's a lady, one I really want to know
Somehow I've got to let my feeling show

She's fresh, exciting
She's so exciting to me
She's fresh, exciting
She's so inviting to me, yeah

I've been thinking about the way you walk
Baby, I like the way you talk
Tell you something I really can't hide

So grown up!

Heaven must have sent you to be by my side

Fresh and lovely like a dream come true
I'll give anything to spend the night with you
What a feeling and I can't stop it baby
Miss frisky lady take me away

She's fresh, exciting
She's so exciting to me, yeah
She's fresh, exciting
So inviting to me, yeah

Fresh as a summer breeze
She'll take you by surprise
She means so much to me
I'll do whatever to make her mine, baby
Oh yeah

Speaking of fresh new things, guess who was behind the wheel for the first time today?

Live Like You Were Dyin'

 A fire's not quite the same in the driveway!

Ever since my trip to Copper Harbor, I've been daydreaming about waking up in the tent with my little birds. When I saw that the weather was supposed to be beautiful this weekend, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to go camping.

I was wrong. My son didn't feel comfortable leaving our sick guinea pig at home alone, even for 24 hours. So we compromised: stay home tonight, leave in the morning for the state park where we were going to camp and at least spend the super warm October day out in nature.

My daughter and I went to the hardware store and purchased a fire pit so that she could cook her hot dogs and the kids could eat s'mores. Not having a s'more -- because it is day 19 of the Whole 30 for me -- sucked. But I managed.

My daughter and I have also spent a lot of the day -- actually a lot of the last three days -- laughing together, which has felt pretty awesome.

I've had this song in my head for DAYS, and while our adventures were curtailed this weekend, it does feel like we are embracing life the best way we know how:

He said I was in my early 40's
With a lot of life before me
And a moment came that stopped me on a dime
I spent most of the next days, lookin' at the x-rays
Talkin' 'bout the options and talkin' 'bout sweet time
Asked him when it sank in, that this might really be the real end
How's it hit ya, when you get that kind of news
Man what ya do
And he says

I went sky divin'
I went rocky mountain climbin'
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull name Fumanchu
And I loved deeper
And I spoke sweeter
And I gave forgiveness I've been denying
And he said someday I hope you get the chance
To live like you were dyin'

Like tomorrow was a gift and you've got eternity
To think about what you do with it,
What could you do with it, what can
I do with with it, what would I do with it.

Tomorrow is most definitely a gift, as was today...

Better Together

Sunrise on my bike ride this morning

Last night I went to a power flow yoga class with a couple of friends. Power flow isn't my favorite style of yoga but I had already done Ashtanga and I do enjoy the person who teaches the Tuesday night class. He reminds me a bit of my favorite cousin whom I adore and my friend and I always end up giggling in his class.

During savasana, he played this song, which came back to me on my bikeride to practice this morning:

There is no combination of words I could put on the back of a postcard
No song that I could sing, but I can try for your heart
Our dreams, and they are made out of real things
Like a, shoebox of photographs
With sepia-toned loving
Love is the answer,
At least for most of the questions in my heart
Like why are we here? And where do we go?
And how come it's so hard?
It's not always easy and
Sometimes life can be deceiving
I'll tell you one thing, it's always better when we're together

And I thought about the change I've undergone in the last six months or so. I now know, in a way that I didn't before, that I am an amazing partner in so many ways. And I know I deserve an amazing partner. And I know I didn't have one with my last boyfriend. And I know I will have one when the time is right.

And when I do, this will be true, I am quite sure:

Mmm, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, we'll look at the stars when we're together
Well, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, it's always better when we're together

And all of these moments
Just might find their way into my dreams tonight
But I know that they'll be gone
When the morning light sings
And brings new things
For tomorrow night you see
That they'll be gone too
Too many things I have to do
But if all of these dreams might find their way
Into my day to day scene
I'd be under the impression
I was somewhere in between
With only two
Just me and you
Not so many things we got to do
Or places we got to be
We'll sit beneath the mango tree now

Yeah, it's always better when we're together
Mmm, we're somewhere in between together
Well, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, it's always better when we're together

Mmm, mmm, mmm

The Weight

This morning on my ride to work, I decided to take the scenic route along the lake. We've had the most gorgeous Fall so far -- so lovely and warm. Today it is supposed to be 70!

I'm also happy to report that the inner jukebox, which has been quiet lately, provided not one but two songs for my journey, both with the same theme. I love it when that happens! One I've blogged about in the past -- Carry That Weight by the Beatles.

And the other:

Take a load off, Fanny
Take a load for free
Take a load off, Fanny
And (and) (and) you put the load right on me
(You put the load right on me)

Well, I learned something about this second one -- I always thought it was take a load off Annie!

In any case, the message that the music is trying to deliver is pretty clear to me: Take a load off. Stop carrying that weight.

I'm trying. My body is definitely changing rapidly on the Whole 30 -- my practice partners can't believe that I can now bind and put my feet together in Supta Kurmasana. (I can't cross my feet yet and I can't do it myself -- but I was so far from even being able to fold forward that much before I went on this anti-inflammation diet!

I'm hoping and thinking that I will be able to let go of other things I've been hanging onto in the process, just like my friend Fanny:

Take a load off, Fanny
Take a load for free
Take a load off, Fanny
And (and) (and) you put the load right on me
(You put the load right on me)

Into Dust

It's been a bit of a rough stretch and today didn't feel any more comfortable despite some good things that happened. I decided to give myself a double dose of yoga (which sometimes helps when I'm just not feeling comfortable in my own skin).

I'd never been to the class before, but I had been to one other class with this teacher. She's lovely, but I wanted to kill her when she had us hanging out not once, not twice, but three times in Malasana (a deep squat). Yep, those hips of mine are holding onto stuff -- and if other yoga teachers I've had are correct -- both our exes and our parents (!) live in our hips.

Somewhere along the way -- not sure if it was squat number two or number three -- the tears started to come. I didn't want to give into them too much in a room full of people I didn't know -- so I kept my grieving quiet until the teacher had the audacity to play Mazzy Star's Fade Into You. (You need only click that link to read the short post I wrote nearly five years ago now about that song).

Luckily it was during savasana (where everyone is lying on their back with their eyes closed), because the tears definitely picked up steam when I heard Mazzy's voice.

Since I've already used the song that played in yoga today, here's a song from Mazzy with a more apt title for what became of that once-so-promising love:

Still falling
Breathless and on again
Inside today
Beside me today
Around broken in two
'Till you eyes shed
Into dust
Like two strangers
Turning into dust
'Till my hand shook with the way I fear

I could possibly be fading
Or have something more to gain
I could feel myself growing colder
I could feel myself under your fate
Under your fate

It was you breathless and tall
I could feel my eyes turning into dust
And two strangers turning into dust
Turning into dust

Gravity Rides Everything

The sky on my bike ride to the soccer game

Last night I had a nightmare about dead mice being stuck in all sorts of crevices in my house including between the windowpanes. Lots of dead mice. Shudder.

So when I woke up I did two internet searches -- the first to see what dead mice in dreams is believed to signify:

"To see a dead mouse in your dream implies that you are not letting minor issues bother you. You are not letting your own fears get in the way of what you want. Alternatively, a dead mouse indicates that there is something that you have ignored or neglected for too long."

Hmmm. The main thing I am ignoring is that there very well may be another dead mouse on my basement floor, but I've been too afraid to go check it out.

When it comes to my work, I'm not letting my own fears get in the way of what I want. Not so sure about my social life/love life. Maybe it was just me, but I felt like the teacher at the yoga class I went to on Friday evening was targeting me each time he suggested the need to open our hearts. I'm trying!

I'm definitely feeling the need to branch out a bit and plan more activities on the weekends when I don't have the kids. I was feeling pretty pissed off again about not getting to eat what I want and then I decided to bike to my daughter's soccer game. Although it was chilly, it was also beautiful and enlivening.

I've been really tired this weekend too: Sleeping eight hours and then still wanting a two hour nap. Not sure if it's the change in the weather or the change in my diet but dang, that's a lot of sleep!

Anyway, the second search was for a Modest Mouse song, and this one felt apropos for this bicyclist yoga teacher:

Oh gotta see, gotta know right now
What's that riding on your everything?
It isn't anything at all

Oh gotta see, gotta know right now
What's that writing on your shelf
In the bathrooms and the bad motels?
No one really cared for it at all
Not the gravity plan
Early, early in the morning
It pulls all on down my sore feet
I wanna go back to sleep
In the motions and the things that you say
It all will fall, fall right into place

As fruit drops, flesh it sags
Everything will fall right into place
When we die, some sink and some lay
But at least I don't see you float away
And all the spilt milk, sex and weight
It all will fall, fall right into place

On some level, I believe this to be true. It will all fall right into place when it's ready. In the meantime, it's my job to figure out my role in the process, and right now it feels like I'm going through a transition...