belize

in t minus two weeks or so, we will be here.




staying in one of these:













probably drinking something with an umbrella, reading in the shade, snorkeling until the sun goes down, and seeing the rainforest before all this goes down.

oh, my

it's been a really rocky last few days for me, and i'm learning that my intuitive response when things get rocky is anxiety. i guess i've known this for quite some time, but it always feels new when the emotions are so strong and all-consuming.

so here's the tricky part: how do i change my intuitive response? what practices do i need to take on to get a better gut reaction? because sometimes, even when i want to seek after growth, i get anxious instead.

this morning

everything in me wants to complain right now. about being at work, about leaving vacation, about not getting to see the ocean enough and my desk being too messy and our house being too messy and missing my friends. i just want to feel bad for myself, complain, pout, and daydream.

actually doing anything about this would, while possibly having the consequence of being productive, ultimately put me in the position of having to be moved from this posture of complaint, and if i must be honest, i really like being in this posture right now. i enjoy building a case in my mind whereby i am a victim with no active responsibilities, especially because it means that everyone else is responsible for making my life better.

and this is where i start to run away from myself, from the hard work i need to do to become better. this is where i leave who i am and ask everyone else around me to fill me up, when really, only one thing can fill me up. when i leave my self-centered mind, i cling to the truth that henri nouwen writes about:

"be patient. when you feel lonely, stay with your loneliness. avoid the temptation to let your fearful self run off. let it teach you its wisdom; let it tell you that you can live instead of just surviving. gradually, you will become one, and you will find that Jesus is living in your heart and offering you all you need."

comparative yoga

and again, it all comes back to yoga.

i went last night. laid out my mat in the usual spot, stretched, and no sooner had i laid down for my pre-yoga nap than my mind began to race with the comparative competencies of the people around me. the guy with the curly hair who does the hop-up thing reeeally well, but otherwise just sits in prayer position most of the class. the woman in all black with cropped blond hair who, even with a wrist brace can do a headstand that puts the rest of us to shame. the new girl in the magenta top--ooooh, she's grabbing one of the studio's mats. she doesn't even have her own; she's in over her head.

really, who am i kidding? this started before i even walked into the studio, when i started wondering who would be in class and who i would be better than and who i could try to beat. in yoga! has my need for recognition really grown so trivial that i need to win at yoga? then again, i guess, the need for recognition is inherently trivial and immature. still, this feels like a particular low. but that's what happened. i compared and compared all class long, with intermittent guilt breaks. when does it start to get better?

You teach people how to treat you.

thanks, mom.

puppy diddle

i cried over dog pee last night.

zack and i had just gotten home, both from wonderful weekends in different places. we had missed each other, but i was moving quickly toward my sunday night meltdown, wherein Laura Realizes What She Didn't Get Done This Weekend And How Close Monday Morning Is.

and our adorable, energetic, frenetic, five month-old puppy (see above) had, quite predictable, lost control of his inordinately large bladder during the four hours we left him home alone. he peed on the kitchen floor.

it's a lovely kitchen floor--spanish tile, raised, so that any time you spill a glass of water it forms little rivulets that run like streams down the grout to the back door. no big deal when it's water, but extremely tricky when it's smelly puppy urine.

and i saw it, and zack didn't, and he thought he had already cleaned everything up. he was proud, glad that artie had stuck to his little pee pad. but he hadn't, and i pointed that out with just a little bit of i-can't-believe-you-didn't-see-that-this-is-probably-your-fault in my voice. which is when i started to tear up--those hot, stinging tears of frustration that pool up in your eyes and blur your vision, that make your nose tingle and make you realize that there's other stuff going on behind the dog pee. but really, if a puppy drives you to tears then GOOD GOD how in the world will you ever deal with CHILDREN?

there they were, sliding down my face and collecting underneath my chin, and after awhile they dripped off and i was there, with my tears and the smell of diluted bleach and the dog trying to lick my toes, and then all of a sudden it was our house, a very very very fine house, and the dog pee was gone, but it would come again. you know? it always comes. it's always something. but it's our house, and life is easier with you. someone cleans the dog piddle, and someone cries, and then the next day it's someone elses turn to cry while the other one cleans the piddle.

books n books

I discovered this incredible website today, bookshelfporn, and have spent the last twenty minutes poring over all the different ways that you can display books--stacked, shelved, strewn, by color, by title, by author, on racks, on the floor, on ladders, and (my favorite) as a stairway. can you imagine? "to get to the bathroom just walk up the books. careful on the fourth step; that's first-edition flaubert."

Right now we've settled for a lovely (truly) Ikea bookshelf and way too many stacks of seven and eight books in inconvenient locations throughout the house. as gorgeous as the stacks in this photograph are, you can do a lot more with sleek design and fashion coffee table books than with short and chunky philosophy volumes or every copy of pat conroy you've ever seen because you might have one more friend you haven't given his books to. those just aren't the prettiest books out there.

luckily, though, i now have a decorating scheme for my pied-a-tierre on the champs elysees.