#haiku

I have an Instagram account that I post to about as often as I post here. Except my Instagram posts include more poetry--haiku, specifically. This feels a little like cheating as far as blog posts go, but I thought I'd share a few of my instacritter posts with you:

Other chores await

But sleepy lap cat says no.

Chores will keep waiting.

  Why are we stopping?

I love hiking in the snow!

I don't like stopping.

A freaked out feline

Found at a local Goodwill.

Treasure left behind.

You know it's cold out

When the radiator sprouts

A fluffy cover.

My Morning Mile

Oh hai!  Where've you been?  It seems like it's been ages since I saw you all.  Dunno if you remember this, but about a year ago I was wondering what my winter/spring would have been like if I hadn't been training for a marathon.  Turns out that it's like major depression.  The kind that makes it easy to give in to my cravings for sugar and other carbs.  The kind that makes it difficult to do anything beyond the absolute minimum required.  Plus the minimum required at work has gotten pretty maximum in the last 4-5 months.  Plus other changes (and make no mistake--even good changes are stressful).  It's been tough. 

It's getting easier, at last.  The "I don't know how this is going to work" has settled into "we're finding our way through this."  The changes required more time than expected, so workouts have fallen to the wayside.  I went a full month without lacing up running shoes or unrolling my yoga mat.  Yes, yes--exercise is the #1 antidepressant--but sleep deprivation doesn't make depression any more pleasant to deal with either.  Still.  I keep waking up half an hour before the alarm goes off, so I decided to use that time to do something besides lay quietly and try to rest my body while my mind runs circles around my to-do list.

Yep.  That early.  (found the pic here with 10 tips to shut up and run)

One of my new roommates is a dog--a lovely husky/lab mix who is a bit neurotic.  I've seen similar behavior in purebred working dogs who have no work to do.  Working dog breeds seem to be more settled if they have activities similar to the ones they were bred to do. I thought that perhaps I could help us both.  About a week ago, I got up as soon as I woke up, laced up my running shoes, snapped on her leash, and went out into the cool of the dawn for a teeny-tiny, one-mile run.  I've done the same thing each day since then.

My running buddy, mid-wag

She gets very excited when she sees the running shoes go on my feet. She's also getting better at running on a leash and beginning to get used to the sustained effort the run requires.  She's learning to sniff things briefly without actually stopping our run.  She's learned a couple of commands and is slowly accumulating more. I'm not a morning person, so mostly this early running makes me tired and hungry.  However, it feels good to know that I'm becoming a runner again.  Plus, it's over before my sleepy brain realizes what I'm doing  (just like the motivational signs say).  

Found the poster here with 7 reasons to exercise early

And it's nice to start the day by making some creature ridiculously happy.

Three Good Things 1.17&18.15

Some of my gloom is lifting and I had a fun, relaxing weekend so finding three good things was pretty simple.

1. Spent the weekend with a surprise guest—one of my favorite dogs.  Bailey’s fear of the giant dog was eclipsed by his need for treats, and he managed to come out of hiding for dinner and snacks.  He even sniffed noses with the “monster” one time.  Brave little cat!
2. Had a fun afternoon of crafting and sushi with friends.  We didn’t accomplish everything we set out to do, but we had fun doing what we did.
3. Split a tasty bottle of Cava (Spanish sparkling wine) with someone who didn’t subsequently run 8 miles.  Fizzy wine is not awesome running fuel, but it feels tremendously decadent to have it with brunch.

Speaking of running fuel, I really need to start getting the long runs in before the weekend gets rolling.  I learned my lesson with trail rash last year—no alcohol the night before ANY trail run.  I am WAY too good at falling down.

Not my actual knee, but weirdly similar to scrapes/bruises I got last year

C'mon Spring!!

 

Critters

First Bunch of Critters:  Viruses.  There is some sort of cold/flu virus going around our area.  The symptoms aren’t particularly horrible but it leaves you feeling completely exhausted.  I was sick for at least 2 weeks, home from work for one of those weeks, and I’m still feeling pretty wimpy.  It thawed enough on Sunday for me to at least try to do some trail running, but it was more of a hike interspersed with a bit of jogging.  Baby steps.  Yuck.

Second Bunch of Critters:  Brain Chemicals.  Part of being sick and exhausted was an inability to ignore my seasonal depression.  My favorite technique for dealing with SAD is to simply be completely unaware of the depression.  I cruise along like a blindfolded tightrope walker, getting things done in spite of the yawning abyss below.  “Don’t look down” is my motto from January until May.  However, any real drain on my energy (see First Bunch of Critters above) makes it tough to maintain my forward momentum.  I’ve had a few really unpleasant days lately, but at least I got a decent poem out of it:

Just Before the Dawn

Lying awake
With a mouthful of the unsaid.
No tears, just a grey heart
And a vague wish for sleep
In the deep charcoal
Of 0dark:30

Yeesh.  Hey, don’t let that get you down—it’s just the winter blues, okay?  C’mon Spring!!

Third Bunch of Critters:  Adoptable Dogs and Cats.  In December, I started volunteering at a local no-kill shelter.  I had to skip a couple of weekends because of the bleeping virus, but I’m back on track now.  So far, the cats I have most wished to adopt have been adopted by someone else.  Bella is always relieved to hear that bit of news.  Since she is “allergic” to dogs, I won’t even consider adopting any of them.  I managed to talk a couple of friends into walking dogs with me on Sundays, just to get the poor critters out of the kennels (and some of them need real help learning to walk on a leash).  It’s not always fun or convenient, but I love playing/cuddling/giving treats after the work is over.  Doing this distracts me from my own whining.  It’s so comforting to see the cats settling down to happy naps once the cages are clean and fresh or to watch a dog relax into the back seat of the car after a good walk in the woods.

In looking for a poem that I’ve always used as inspiration for getting out of my own head, I found this blog post.  Go read it—it’s pretty short so I’m sure you have time.  It includes the poem as well as a couple of very good ideas:

• PTSD and depression can be tackled without medication, but not without reaching out to others...
• Happiness always follows a good deed, if only for a moment, but that's how we live anyway--moment to moment one day at a time.

“Do something for somebody, quick!”

Bright Spot

This has been a less pleasant week than I originally thought it was going to be.  Today I went for a walk on my lunch hour to work off some stress and I saw a lady with her dog.  She was tossing a tennis ball deep into the tall weeds and the black lab would take off and search for it (and retrieve it.....'cause, um, it's a retriever?)  They both looked like they were having so much fun, it just cheered me right up, at least briefly.  So, thanks bunches, you dog people--I needed that.

How is your paradigm?

Animals are so cool.  I needed an emotional boost, so I was scrolling through the Cheezburger Network stuff and discovered a link to this great story about a puppy.  The one thing that really struck me was a quote from the dog’s physical therapist.

“Her brain kicked in and by the end of the first session, she was like, ‘Oh, I can do this,’” McCartt said.  “She’s a walking miracle.  She’s a real testament to a dog’s determination to get up and just go.”

I’ve been getting those emails from the Thoughts Become Things people (that I mentioned in this entry), which are helping me look at many things differently (but not everything—no worries, I’m not turning perfect or enlightened on you or anything—that would just be annoying).  But the quote made me wonder, what could we accomplish if we just thought “Oh, I can do this” whenever we were presented with a challenge—just hit it with the belief that we are more than ready to run that race.  Would we discover that we are truly capable of anything?

On a side note, a friend that I was afraid I had lost has gotten in touch again—yay!  And in other news, I am going on a date for the first time in 15 years—eek!  These two things make me feel very smiley and I noticed that when I am grinning happily, I look a lot like a deranged rabbit.  Ha!  It’s all part of my crazy charm, right?

Putting my OCD tendencies to work FOR me. Well, sort of.

In the spring of 2010, I decided it was time to get in shape for real.  I had been walking regularly for a few years, but it just wasn’t enough.  I chose to try running for several reasons:  low start-up cost, no classes or clubs to join, could be done outdoors, and people get obsessed with running.  I’ve tried a variety of ways to get fit over the years and got bored with all of them eventually.  I thought the combination of being outside and possibly getting obsessed just might do the trick.

It worked.

I am a little astounded at how well it has worked.  I get antsy whenever I can’t get out for my run now.  People who have known Sedentary Sarah The Bookwyrm (I’m looking at you, disbelieving family members) are still finding it hard to believe.  Not that I blame them—I find it hard to believe, too.  And yet, there I was on Sunday morning, running in the woods with one hand broken and my friend’s dog leashed to the other hand.  I ran carefully and walked over any chancy terrain, but I ran.  And it was GREAT.