Dear Reader:

I feel like you need to know that there are exactly 38 days until the first day of spring.

You are welcome.

Seriously, though, I am feeling the "blahs" of midwinter.   And, I fear that my vigilance over this food/eating/mindfulness stuff is slipping a little.   For instance, I ordered a pizza and wings on Sunday.  And, ate two and 1/2 pieces of the pizza and 4 wings.   Probably not the best decision.  And, I had some fries today.   Again, not the best decision.   But, here's the bright side.   I did hit the treadmill and increase the intensity for 45 minutes this evening.    And, I have successfully avoided the doughnuts during some semi-stressful times.   And, really, if you knew how much - how very much - I wanted those doughnuts, you would be giving me a standing ovation right now.

I haven't gained any pounds, but I feel perilously close to losing motivation sometimes.    I really need to break free of this plateau which seems to be lasting forever.   And, I'm heading into a pre-recital, mid-semester, adding-daily-meetings-about-arts-center-and-interview-candidates-and-admissions-policies-and-collaborations-with-regional-symphonies-and-potential-chamber-music-summer-gigs kind of FRENZY.   I might become a little insufferable for the next few weeks.   So, I'm trying to figure out how to manage all of this and my kids and my 14 jobs (ha, ha - OK - it's not that many...) AND make myself and my mental/physical/spiritual self a priority!   Part of it will include (I think) planning things out enough in advance so that I am not called upon to make any decisions in the moment.   Here's an example, for instance, of my piano practice schedule for the week:

I think it is too late for me to achieve this in terms of meal and snack planning for myself this week, but I'm going to strive to complete one of these bad boys for eating next week.  That way, all I have to do is look at the chart and pick up whatever food it tells me to pick up.   Abdicating any kind of responsibility for making a decision in that moment.   This seems smart, right?   

I've also decided to lay out what I'm going to wear (and what the kids are going to wear - although, I have already done this kind of thing for a while) each night before I go to sleep.   Because I had forgotten how much I love this color dress until I saw it in the back of my closet this morning:

    

I love teal and purple and magenta and royal blue and emerald green and all of those jewel tones, especially.  I'm kind of a color person...   I think I might have a slight tinge of synesthesia sometimes, because tastes and sounds often remind me of colors.   But, I have noticed that I have fallen into the habit of not wearing these colors, probably in an effort to make my "flaws" invisible.   So, maybe increasing my color quotient will help me feel more like I'm enjoying my body and how those colors reflect what's going on inside that body/mind.  

Anyway, here are the stats for today:

Total calories consumed:  1616 (even with the fries)
Total calories burned:  257 (45 minutes on the treadmill - increased intensity to level 3.5)
Total pounds lost:  holding fast at 27.  SERIOUSLY, I NEED TO GET AT LEAST 5 MORE POUNDS OFF HERE TO MAKE MYSELF FEEL SOME MOMENTUM.  Sorry for the caps.

Breakfast:

Complete with raccoon valentines and a little Hindu god statue that my brother brought me back from Nepal.   Everyone has those with their breakfast, right?

Lunch:  No pic - grabbed a small chili and small FRIES at Wendy's in the 30 min. I had to run an errand during the day.

Dinner:  No pic.  OK, I was planning on going home and making a sandwich, but, folks, I got done with my preschool advisory board meeting at 6:45pm and my kids were not going to make it home without killing me or themselves because of hunger, so I stopped at the local eatery and had one fish taco and a cup of broccoli cheese soup.   Epic planning fail tonight.

Here's what I wish I had been able to have for lunch and/or dinner:

 Panera Bread Hummus Bowl Pic, courtesy of my blogger friend S.

And, here's the inimitable Laura Ingalls Wilder (heroine of my childhood) saying what needs to be said:

So, I am going to exert a great deal of effort over the next few weeks to stay in touch with myself and be honest and truthful and make the most of what I have and be happy with simple pleasures and have courage, OK?    Because:

Which brings me to my next point which is about "happiness"...    I have spent a lot of time lately thinking that the "pursuit of happiness" is just about the most quixotic and pointless pursuit there is.  Don't get me wrong.   I certainly would love to have good things, good feelings, and good people in my life, but I think we/I often spend too much time trying to achieve a "state" of happiness, rather than simply noticing and breathing in what we already have and what really "is" rather than what we aspire to...   And, sometimes we/I are/am so intent on trying to be happy that we/I miss recognizing the potential for joy.   I make a distinction between joy and happiness.   Joy is the thing for me.   There's this perfect little William Blake poem that encapsulates my feeling here:

Eternity

He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise.

I do realize that this is a difficult thing to do, but the lovely thing really is that, after really and truly fully experiencing and/or attending to a joyful moment,  you can actually bring it to mind fairly easily and feel a slightly muted, but still enjoyable memory of that feeling.   Isn't that what Marcel Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past" was all about?  I don't claim to have read all 5 gazillion pages of that tome (who has?  If you have, dear reader, you are quite clearly morally superior to me), but he does spend an awful lot of time (in the excerpts that I remember) talking of the scent and taste of a madeleine.

Here's a list of things that I was thinking of just today that were moments of joy in my life (an interesting thought that I had was that joy is not always unalloyed pleasure - sometimes there's a little bit of yearning or a bittersweet element):

1) The look on my son's face as he sees me walk into the preschool to pick him up and barrels right at me with all of his excitement and enthusiasm and energy.

2) The way that my son will be running towards some enjoyable activity (playground, exploring a stream) and will throw in a skip or two along the way - as though he is dancing a jig in anticipation.

3) The way my daughter will hum or sing to herself with a complete lack of self-consciousness or awareness when she concentrates on something (painting a picture, cutting out shapes, doing a puzzle).

4) The way that my daughter smiled and nodded, just last night, in a half-asleep state with her eyes closed when I stroked her hair and told her that "Mommy loves you.  And, I'll stay with you for a few more minutes."

5) The way it felt to sit at the piano and hear the orchestra right beside me start the Ravel Left Hand Concerto on the night that I played it at the Young Artist Concert.

6) The way it felt to realize that I was falling in love for the first time (during college) during a symphony concert dedicated to Mahler's works (after having corresponded (actual letters!) all summer with my first love about the poetry of Ruckert in Mahler song cycles).  Yeah, I was that girl.

7) The way it felt to sit quietly on the deck of a rustic cottage in Ontario for hours on end with my Dad.  I was reading "Anna Karenina" while he read Bonhoeffer's "The Cost of Discipleship" during a father/daughter fishing trip.

8)  The way it felt to fall asleep in a tent on the Maasai Mara with my mother while on safari in Kenya - listening to the hippos, the baboons, the warthogs, and the vervet monkeys just outside our tent.

9)  The way it felt to laugh long and hard with a friend last week, during a walk, about the imagined effect of giving inappropriate hugs to our colleagues.

10)  OK. One last thing - is it wrong that this little video immediately fills me with joy?  I mean, seriously, EVERY TIME, dear reader.  EVERY TIME.  Enough that I actually want to take tap lessons this summer and learn the whole routine.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4FYNF02yEM

OK, I'll stop boring you with my moments of joy.  But, the point is that I can't imagine experiencing these moments without being present with myself enough to notice them happening.  And, the same thing which makes me want to numb myself with food sometimes makes me want to distance myself from the reality of my life/self and the sources of stress that I may be feeling.   But, that distance is alienating and cuts me off from other sources of comfort.   So, no.  Not going to do that.  OK?  OK.

I'll turn in now and start afresh tomorrow.

Thanks for reading!