Dear Reader:

One subject that I have not delved deep enough into on this blog is my relationship with my cat.   Again, I can feel some of my dear readers switching to a new tab on their browser as I write this - a giant whoosh of move away from this page!   Hey, if I can talk about my weight, my hair, my psyche, and my neuroses, what else is left?   Ah yes.   Kitties.   It is the internet, after all.  

I would just like to point out that I have a suitcase in my closet that I've been meaning to get rid of - it's about 20 years old and I recently bought a new one.   But, you guys, there's this:

He just loves it in there.   So, you know, I'm just going to leave it on the floor in there for a few weeks (read: years).   Presto is a giant cat.   Actually, he's a mountain lion, I'm pretty sure.   Since all of my former cats (Trista, Darcy, Percy) have been indoor cats, I had no experience with a cat that needed to be indoor/outdoor.   Presto schooled me on the ways in which he was going to operate in our household.   He is so cuddly and his purr is sooooooo loud.   But, also, he's a freak.   I'll be washing dishes at 9pm in the kitchen after the kids get to bed.   It's dark outside.   And, I will see this cat LEAP UP ABOUT 4 FEET AND HURL HIMSELF AT THE KITCHEN WINDOW.  You know, just to let me know that he wants to come in now.  Freak.   He will also hide behind doors (I am not kidding) and leap up at my torso and bat me (no claws come out).   Just because.  Freak.   But, I love him.   I love how he crawls up on my face from the back of the couch while I'm typing this entry.   I love how he can actually open the back screen door by himself - yes, that's right.   I love how he likes to stare at the neighbors through their windows at night, freaking them out.   His freakishness is endearing.   If I'm sick or depressed or stressed, he seems to sense it and will want to be near me all the time.

I'm definitely a cat person.   I think I could be a dog person, too, given the opportunity (I have an urge to get a puppy or a dog quite often!  Usually, good sense prevails - after all I have to take care of a lot of people and things in my life.  I probably don't need to continue adding things/people).   But, there's no question that my kitty makes my life better.  

All right.  That's all.   No more about my cat or my hair or my weight right now.  I'll even spare you the riveting story of my e-filing taxes with 2 1/2 hours to spare.   Although, it's full of drama and magic.  (I'm totally kidding.  It's not exciting.)

I will, however, share two things that I've been pondering this week.   The first is that I think I've been spending too much time reading and consciously thinking about wellness and self-help.   I have started putting a lot of pressure on myself to inspire myself.   To push myself to figure things out.  To keep my own spirits up.   I have this perception of myself as someone who HANDLES all things well.   Who is constantly striving/growing.   But, as a creative person/artist, I know that sometimes things just need to sit and be ignored for a while to bear fruit.   Really.   Out of boredom or even neglect some new insights can occur.  I do not have to constantly focus on transformation.  I am beginning to really understand that I have a hard time just letting things be the way they are without trying to fix or improve or move them forward in some way.  I am good, I think, at seeing things the way they really are.   But, I'm not at all happy to let them be (cue the Beatles song - which should become my mantra right now).   So, in a way, I am mindful, but for some reason I am not content with being mindful.   I've got to change things.  Which really takes me right out of the mindfulness the minute I feel it.  A catch-22.    Here are two quotes which really spoke to me this week:

"I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit...The thought of some work will run in my head and I am not where my body is -- I am out of my senses.  In my walks I would fain return to my senses.  What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?" -  Henry David Thoreau

"Our habit is to think there is a particular cause for our happiness—the new green in early spring, the sound of a child’s laugh, or the sensations of playing in the ocean waves. But what actually allows us to be happy is the background space of silent, allowing presence. Each time we meet aliveness with presence, presence intensifies, and awareness senses itself. The living green awakens us to this inner space of presence, the laugh to presence, the sparkle and splash to presence . We are inhabiting our wholeness and are happy being who we are." - Tara Brach in "True Refuge"

Silent, allowing presence.   I have a hard time being silent (metaphorically speaking, of course).  I have a hard time allowing.   Maybe I just need to spend more time in my front yard with these sights:

This is Korean Spice Viburnum.  The scent is so lovely - very similar to lilac.

I love the colors of these tulips.  Vivid!

I have yet to use the spiralizer, but it is coming and it will be fun, I promise.   I decided to shift some of my weekday smoothies to lunch instead of breakfast.   I am trying to read more fiction and less self-help non-fiction.  I am trying to walk as long as I can every day.  Some days, it is long distances and some days, it is just a few feet.  Acceptance.   Mindfulness.   This is so key for me.  I'm convinced about this.   So, dear reader, I am going to not "try" so hard (I realize that there is a danger that I'll try too hard to not try hard - see what a freak I am? - Presto and I are very similar!).   After all, there is no try, there's only do.   Right, Yoda?  Let it Be.   Stop the over-analysis.   Be in your body, happily and comfortably and with ease.  Love your people.  Play the piano.  Read stories that inspire you.  Who cares about all the other stuff, right?   

Thanks for reading!