circles

new round glasses, new round pearl ring, old earrings with circle cut-outs, beautiful round onion rings (is there a tastier food?)

certain motifs keep reappearing this week: visual, thematic, sounds, etc.  maybe i've been paying closer attention?

1.  circles.  i love the look of circles.  my new round sunglasses, chosen for me at target by ingrid, these beautiful onion rings we ate tonight on our date at timp freeze in midway, new round pearl (not real for heaven's sake) ring,  earrings with the cut out circle in the middle, and this tiny adorable cake from cakes de fleur we picked up at the store in midway after dinner.  we'll eat it later tonight when the ice cream i made in the new ice cream maker hardens (i think i successfully recreated snelgroves' burnt almond fudge.)

six-inch buttermilk cake from cakes de fleur.  adorable.  no preservatives.  whole ingredients.  it's hard to buy a good cake in utah.

and, finally, "o" for "om."

whereas we used to each eat an entire order like this, we now share.  we both feel reborn after too many years of not feeling good.

2. transitions.  tonight lula went to her first dance.  sob! which means. . . i can't even think about what it means, so i'll focus on the practical implications: we need a new date night babysitter.  we are all on the cusp of the new school year, and eva is transitioning into her new life in salt lake.  it's exciting, and a little terrifying, too.

since i can't think about lula liking boys, i'll think about finding a new date-night sitter.  hey.  timp freeze in midway's a great hangout spot.

3. transformations.  i've been longing for some major change or breakthrough, the moment where i feel, yes!  this is what i was after. this week i felt a little discouraged about how many years i've felt stuck (maybe eight?).  tonight i had a little boost of encouragement while we were eating dinner.  c. and i were looking at our order, which we were splitting, and talking about how bad our health was a few years ago, before we both lost a significant amount of weight.  we were laughing (and crying a little, too) about how, in the old days, we each would have eaten one of these meals, plus a couple of shakes, no problem.  we've both changed a lot over the past few years.  i remembered tonight, looking at my greasy box of onion rings, that i can change, and have changed, but it sometimes takes a while.

so patience and more patience is in order.

sadhguru of isha yoga is my meditation teacher's guru.  she claims meditation totally transformed her.  i met someone in nyc in may who told me the same thing.  can't hurt to try it.  i promise i'll never quote deepak chopra.

4.  meditation.  i went to a workshop today and got an overview of some basic meditation practices.  i decided for the next forty days to try a morning meditation of ten sun saluations, a few hip openers, and 21 oms.  this seems simple enough that i actually might do it. i'll let you know how it feels, and if i can stick with it.

my inspiration for listening was this book, another meditative text that changed my life.

5.  listening.  every morning this week i've gone on the back patio to write my morning pages and eat breakfast.  i've been spending  a few minutes each morning listening to the city start to waken.  there's a whipporwill who lives in our back yard, a neighbor who gets up early to work on his backyard pizza oven every day, and construction a few blocks over.   there's also a really beautiful sounding train, clear on the west side of our valley, that passes in the morning.  because of the high mountains, these sounds are soft but audible, echoing off the tall rocky walls that stand sentinel next to our house.

listening has brought a lot of peace to my morning.  i don't know why.  give it a try, if you want.