Tag: vocab

Dear feet,

Oh, how I relate to you with complexity, challenges and discomfort.

A dear friend reminded me today of “rooting in my feet” and it is something for each day. I asked him if he would “keep reminding me about rooting in my feet.

You are such a fraught place within my body as I continue to adjust how and where I place you and position myself over you. I stumble with how I use and locate you when I stand or when I sit. You are a place where I habitually do not take up space where I cower in the first four inches up from the ground in an attempt to take up less space, which feels both uncomfortable and agonizing. I will continue to recognize that you are the roots that nourish the trunk and branches and limbs and appendages that the rest of me rises from.

In another conversation today, another friend said how the arms of an embryo extend from the heart which immediately made me ask myself where do the legs and feet extend from? My guess is from the sacrum and/or hips and/or spine which makes me curious about how I might feel differently about you if I was constantly acknowledging how you are a continuation of my spine and my back and that the gap the torso to you is small even though the legs are vast, as are the three sets of joints in between you and the hips.

For much of my life, I’ve appreciated the lengths and places you’ve taken the rest of me. Yet, I have been negligent towards your care and the pristine nature of who and what you are. I read last year how researchers cutting up cadavers noticed how 40% (or so, if my memory is in any proximity to what was written) of the tension and strength within the arch of the foot does not come from the familiar arch on the bottom side of you but that 40% of the muscle capacity is in an arch in the top of the foot.

As I searched to find a reference for that dissection history, I came across how much written about you is in terms of pain and how many bones and muscles inside of you. Names that are unknown and bewildering and some things to learn more about …

… here: the talus and calcaneus in the hindfoot + the 14 toe bones and 5 metatarsals in each forefoot + the 5 tarsals of the midfoot

… and here: like the muscles of fibularis longus and fibularis tertius and fibularis breviary

There is so much about you that I have yet to heed. And for this, I thank you for your patience and guidance and for your inability to run away and leave the rest of me behind.

The joys of the libraries

Even in COVID times, the act of checking out a library book is delightful. We could not go inside the local branch. Instead I wrote a few authors and titles on the back of scrap paper that I handed to the librarian as one child walked through the grass and another rode a bicycle back and forth. We waited on the personalized attention as the librarian walked through the stacks pulling the books that we listed. And I saw one more sitting on top of the shelves nearest the door and asked if we could have that cat going cross country (skiing?), too.

Library books and lending are endless gifts of infinite curiosity. For a few years, I have searched for “publisher: Enchanted Lion” and a few series like Mercy Watson [“the porcine wonder”] by Kate DiCamillo, Dodswortb and Duck by Tim Egan, King and Kayla by Dori Hillestad Butler and the Brambly Hedge by Jill Barklem. I’ve read multiple books (approximately 24 different titles) by these four authors more than 200 in the last three years.

Yesterday’s haul included a few Mercy Watson stories along with books on whales, other marine life and volcanos. It was most special because they were the first library books that we checked out in three months — the longest stretch of not borrowing books in five years.

Now we are back at it in a new library system with no limit on the number of books that we can borrow. But a system that does have late fees, so hopefully I will be more diligent about returning borrowed materials back on time. Better than I was 15 and 20 years ago, when I’d incur late fees but it was paying $.10 a day per book to the libraries and though I never saw the budgets of the library, I never had remorse about paying fees that paid for such a renowned institution.

the failure of “I’m busy”

Note: an old post (circa 2012) that never uploaded to the cloud from my local network. So today, I try again.
_____________

Choice is a powerful thing. As I find ways to slow down, I am amazed each time that I hear someone state: I’m so busy. So stressed, exhausted.

It is easy to fall into a state of hyper-activity. It is the norm in this day and age. An addiction that cuts across classes, generations, nations. There is a strong gale force wind at our backs bombarding the seemingly few hours in a day, a wind that feels unwelcome and stress-inducing. A wind that causes people to feel that 24 hours is just not enough. Such a feeling and attitude makes inadequacy inevitable.

Yet, we can live big lives. Honor the enormity of our souls. Grant ourselves the grace, the benefit of the doubt of what it is to be imperfect. Thus, embrace the bigness of our lives where so much happens in a 24 hour period.

At this time, I live in such a way that I have the time to write. As I write, I am making the time to observe the use of language. The quirks of what arises and what is repeated and common by people around me. Growing up with a father who I referred to as “a walking dictionary” I placed value on correct spelling; though I have been less concerned with correct definitions for certain words.

One recent list has been my list of words that I refrain from using, scratching from my vocabulary. Among the first to make this list with the accompanying feeling and reasoning why it is on my vocab non grata was:

I’m busy | being busy is a choice. a choice to mirror the hyperactive, over-committed, lacking sleep cultural dominance of these times. there’s no time like now to drop some old burdensome, time-consuming deadweight in your life.

I used to feel like my days were frantic. Where all of the phone calls, emails or things to do tomorrow corroded my ability to sleep the night before. I would wake up exhausted because I had tossed around between 3 and 5 a.m. Where it would be 6:00 pm, and I hadn’t known what happened to my day. Where I was squeezing text messages in at red lights or as I walked down the street. I once ran into the car in front of me, at a red light, by texting wiht my fingers while removing my right foot from the brake pedal. I had multiple too-close-for-comfort shoulder brushes with other pedestrians unable to avoid me because they were tapping out a text, too.

Now, I find a red light a welcome respite. Most times that I hear a horn honking, I note how urgent, speedy or rushed the person is who must be late. Who feels late, even though they may not be. At least, not from where I stand.

So much of what has changed has been my perspective and my own views of myself, which has altered my views of others. My perspectives about past/present/future are less pressurized because I spend much less time trapped in the past or preoccupied about the future. As a result, I get to feel and sense what it is like to think about the present. The present that is this moment-by-moment. Doing so has offered me a way to feel how each moment is different from the previous and the next. Where I am not struggling, attempting to keep things as they were just a moment ago, because living organisms are forever changing.

I am not responsible for keeping something just as it was.

Just like the ‘river that flows by itself,’ the cells in my eyes, capillaries, toes and throughout my body are constantly in flux.
Our bodies as people. Our bodies of water. Our bodies of dogs, chameleons and amoeba.
I spend more time outside. This requires and results in me spending less time in front of a computer screen.
I make fewer phone calls, trusting that I will call upon friends when the timing is just right.

There are a few phrases that we use at home. That we choose at home:

  • – In the nick of time.
  • – Just at the right time.
  • – Moment-by-moment.

I began to say “moment-by-moment” two years ago, when I realized that I was feeling a moment-by-moment sort of love. Where I had no idea of what love would be or feel like in a few weeks, but that was irrelevant. In that very instance, I had the power of love emanating from deep in my chest.

The most recent addition to this list of the fluidity of time and timing is:

  • – Before/After.

When exactly something occurred is less significant. Rather than getting consumed with the specificity of it, just acknowledging that it was some time before. Similarly, that something else happened or will happen after.

——-

This talk of time, and the perceived impacts of the pressure and constraints that it places upon us reminds me of a reprinted book of a 1920s era book by Florence Schovel Schinn (sp?). The moral of that story was captured in a single line of prose:

God provides all the time that we need.

Hooah: anything + everything except no

I heard about this brilliant campaign video earlier that brings together Senators up for reelection, entitlement, corruption, the Gulf of Mexico, the oil spill. I hadn’t known of VoteVets previously, but I’m now glad to have the acquaintance.

That lead me to wanting to figure out how to spell ‘woo-ha’ that i remember Jake Gyllenhall hollering in that Swofford movie a few years back. It turns out that it isn’t spelled like that, and there’s a good deal of history. I shouldn’t be surprised that there is such history in military matters — reminds me of the question, What’s your military story?

Here are two tidbits:
From HOOAH!Bar —

The word “hooah” (pronounced who-aw) is an expression of high morale, strength and confidence that usually means “heard, understood and acknowledged” but can mean almost anything except no. It may have originated with the British phrase “Huzzah!” that dates at least to the 18th Century, although many other explanations are offered. It grew roots in the Army infantry and has now spread to the rest of the U.S. military.

Then in wikipedia —

Hooah (pronounced /ˈhuːɑː/) is a U.S. Army battle cry used by soldiers “Referring to or meaning anything and everything except no.”