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Rest period.

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You know you need to take time off when you start to seriously contemplate calling in sick and then you realize that it is your day off. I’ve crammed so much stuff into my days off that they aren’t days off. I still do just as much work – I just don’t get paid for it.

Now, I’ve come to realize how important momentum is for me. If I laze about all day, then I tend to keep doing that. I’m a binge lazy person. Doing nothing is the same to me as eating sugar is to some people. Once I start, I can’t stop.

Well, I can, but I don’t want to.

I think the trick is to set limits. I have to allow myself time to do nothing. From this time to this – say from 12 until 3, I’ll do nothing on my day off. Nothing at all. Lay on the couch and read, or make jewelry. Something for me. Something fun. That sounds like a good plan. Maybe I’ll do it someday.

Right now, I’m playing a bit of catch up. I decided to skip going to my yoga class. The teacher is more challenging than the first one, but she needs to change things up to keep it interesting. I really get bored if nothing changes. I need to be challenged. I need to try different moves. If nothing else, I need to hear different music. I’d like to think that a yoga class with a real live person is different than watching a videorecorded one.

However, even though it is dull sometimes, I need the discipline of getting up and going. I need to be out of the house early on a Friday, otherwise I’ll stay in my pajamas all afternoon long and not get any of my chores done. And then I start to think – is that so bad? Is it bad to rest? Is it bad to actually take a day off?

It is for me. I feel guilty if I rest.

I have a bad relationship with rest. I really am starting to like the idea of the Jewish Sabbath. One whole day where you are commanded to do as much nothing as possible. You can’t feel guilty about doing nothing – you are supposed to do nothing. You are supposed to feel guilty if you do something. You are to rest and recharge and refuel.

We just don’t have that in Christian culture. Sure, we sometimes refer to the day we go to church as the Sabbath, but we don’t treat it with anywhere near the preparation and seriousness the Jews approach their Sabbath. And I think we suffer because of it. Imagine how cool it would be to have a holiday once a week. Once a week you take a vacation from the world, and enter into a special time where there is nothing you have to do except rest. Sounds just like heaven to me.

I have a bit of the “get things done” feeling in part because my parents died young. I feel like it is important to not waste time. I see how quickly time slips by and then you are either too old to do something with your life, or too feeble. Some things take time to get going. Better start now.

But then I am starting to understand that I need to rest too. There are rest periods build into yoga. It isn’t go go go. The human body just can’t handle that. The space between the notes is what makes the music, so says Claude Debussy.

This is why I’ve signed up for another retreat. It is a time of silence and rest. All my physical needs are taken care of. There is a place to sleep, and food is prepared for me. All I have to do is show up and be present. The only electronic device I use is my Kindle – and I use it to write. I don’t check email. I don’t check Facebook. The only input is from God.

I think that I need to do this more than just four times a year. I need to set aside a chunk of time to just listen, and by that I don’t mean little snatches of time. The more I pack into my day, the more God can’t get a word in edgewise. I pray throughout the day, but it all seems to be in five minute pieces.

Sure, bills have to be paid. Sure, the housework needs to be done. But if I don’t take time off, time to just be, then I’ve become something other than a human. I’ve become an automaton, a robot, a thing. I’ve become a human doing, and not a human being.

So I still wrestle with this. I feel like I’m in overeaters anonymous. Having a bad relationship with food isn’t like having a drug addiction – you have to eat food. You can give up heroin. You can’t give up food. So how to you create a healthy relationship with something you have to have in your life? I think boundaries are part of it. I can allow this, but not this. I can allow this time to be work and this time to be free. I think it is important to self-police too. I think it is important to not allow my free time to become work time.

I’ll report back on whether this works or not. As of right now, I’m still in my jammies and it is 1:30. I think I have to wrench myself free and go out for a bit, just so I can say I’ve done something. My head gets a little fuzzy with too much nothing.

Tree pose without doing tree pose.

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I know a lady who dislikes going to the grocery store. I understand. I feel the same way. It isn’t all the food. It is all the people and color and noise and choice. It is all too much and it is overwhelming.

She does yoga, so I suggested this – do tree pose, without doing tree pose.

There is a certain deliberate calmness you have to adopt to do tree pose. You have to pull all of your energy into yourself. When you are there, you can balance. You can breathe better. You can stand strong, even though it is only on one foot. You aren’t holding on to anything, yet you don’t need to.

You are strong. You are centered. You are whole.

Do that. But without doing tree pose. The pose is just a reminder. The point of the pose has little to do with the physical balance you gain and the strength you develop in your ankles.

That’s nice too. Not getting hurt from twisting your ankles anymore is a nice side benefit of yoga. But it is only part of it.

The real part is what happens inside. The real part is what happens deep down. The real part is the balance and the centeredness and the calm that you are able to call on when life is too much and too crazy and too full and too much.

The real part is that you don’t even need to stand on one foot to get there once you’ve done it enough.

Recommit

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Sometimes my energy gets really low. It isn’t a great feeling. I don’t want to be up all the time, but I certainly don’t want to sink into the doldrums either.

I have let my flame get really low the past two weekends. I have noticed it and recommitted myself. I find it is important to commit to a practice of mindfulness, of intention, of purpose. When I stray from that practice I don’t notice it right away. I notice a week or two later when everything starts to not work correctly.

Perhaps some of this comes from being bipolar. Perhaps it is normal for humans to have mood swings that can leave them feeling so worthless they don’t want to get out of bed. I don’t know. I know I’m bipolar and I know that this is what I experience.

Sometimes getting out from under this funk feels like pushing a rock up a big hill. It feels like I never get anywhere. It feels like it is all work all the time and it never gets easier.

But I’ve been here before. I remember. It is slow going and requires patience and discipline, but it gets better. The problem comes when it gets going really well and I stop doing all the things I know I should do and I start to slide back down that hill again.

I was off last Friday, as usual. I didn’t have any solid plans. This is always a bad start. There were some things I could do, but nothing I had to do. I was tempted to skip yoga, but I knew that would mean I would stay at home and the funk would get worse. I pulled myself out of bed and went. My heart wasn’t in it but I knew that I was doing something good for myself. Just doing that gave me a little more energy.

A Hasidic Rabbi pointed out once that you can’t burn down a tree with a match, but if you chop the tree up into little pieces, you can. This is a useful thought. In part it means that it is OK to break up tasks into little pieces. Sometimes we think that if we can’t do it all, we shouldn’t even do a little bit of it. It also means that just doing a little bit of something can give you enough energy to do a little bit more of it.

When my flame is low and I’m recommitting myself, I have to be very intentional about what I do.

I avoid all fried food.
I eat no meat.
I skip spicy food.
I go back to my exercise routine – walking, yoga, water aerobics.
I craft in some way – bead, draw, paint.
I write.
I avoid processed sugar.
I avoid “retail therapy”.

I already have given up smoking and caffeine. These two are really bad for mental health.

Sometimes something as simple as washing the dishes or doing the laundry can be healing. It is something that when I notice later I’ve done it, I feel better. Vacuuming doesn’t seem to have this affect – it doesn’t produce a visible result. Sometimes just noticing that there is less clutter helps my head.

What is it about doing these things that makes me feel better? Is it eating vegetarian that makes me feel better, or the fact that I have chosen to do something that I feel is good for me? Half of this is getting past what the Buddhists call “the monkey mind.” That is the part of your mind that is all “gimme gimme gimme”. It doesn’t care about what is healthy or right or good. It is your inner toddler.

It is hard to fight the monkey mind. It makes you think it is you.

I try not to go overboard on this. I have learned to have patience with myself. It is a slow process of re-entry. It isn’t wise to swing the pendulum too far one way or another. When you are sick, you don’t want to run a marathon. It is good to do things carefully.

It is just like driving. If you notice you are getting out of the lane, you don’t want to yank the steering wheel too sharply. You are better off gently steering back into the correct lane. If you yank the wheel, you might veer off in the wrong direction.

If you are in a yoga pose and you notice you are getting wobbly, you don’t want to over correct. You are better off making micro adjustments. If you overcorrect you’ll likely fall.

This is exactly the same thing. The only problem is that when your mind gets out of the lane or wobbly you don’t have a lot of feedback. You don’t have a way of noticing it. You notice when you crash into the guardrail. You notice when you fall on the floor. Good mental health requires you notice before that happens.

Friday wasn’t a 10. It was more like a 5. But I know if I’d not paid attention and started to steer things in a better direction, it would have been a 2. I’m ok with a 5. And I know that tomorrow I’ll try again.

Sometimes, just being able to do forward fold is a big thing.

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This last Friday was the first time in three weeks I could do a full forward fold. For three weeks I could barely bend forward at all, much less put my hands flat on the ground. I could touch with my fingertips, and then with my knuckles. But the full expression of this pose eluded me.

After I slipped a disc in my back things got a lot harder, and a lot more frustrating. I’d been making really good progress for a while. I had gotten to the point where I could do full wheel. And mermaid. And side plank. And full cobra. And bound side angle.

These are all pretty cool moves. Not near as cool as scorpion or firefly, sure, but still pretty advanced for me. Then I couldn’t do anything. I was stuck. Just sitting was hard. Bending my neck forward was hard. I could stand or lie flat. Transitioning in between wasn’t easy.

But Friday was the first time I could even do something as simple as a full forward fold. It wasn’t just that it hurt before. It was that my back was too tight and I couldn’t reach that far.

I was dismayed. I felt that I’d gone twenty steps backwards. I felt a little betrayed too. Surely all those exercises that I’d done for all these years would mean that I’d insured myself against such indignities like a slipped disc. My self-righteousness got a good hard kick in the butt.

But this too is yoga. It is showing up, and giving it your best, and not judging. It is not judging others or yourself. It is doing your best, and forgiving yourself if doing your best means just wanting to go to yoga class but you just can’t make it this week. Or this month. It means being OK with the practice, wherever you are in it.

Just wanting to is part of the practice. Falling is part of the practice. Getting back up, body and ego bruised, is part of the practice.

I remember how I felt when I did headstand and handstand a few months back. I felt like a rock star. Those are pretty amazing moves. Sure, I was braced up against a wall so I wouldn’t fall over, but I stayed up. The strength in my neck and in my arms held my entire body up. I never would have imagined I could do it. I’m glad I tried. I felt invincible.

Funny thing, this Friday, when I did forward fold for the first time since I hurt my back, I felt the same way.

Maybe that is the secret. Be content with what you can do, right now. Don’t judge it, and don’t expect it to stay that way. It is what it is. Take your successes but don’t gloat about them.

Yoga is…

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Yoga is –

A caterpillar/butterfly
It is seeing the butterfly in the caterpillar, and the caterpillar in the butterfly. It is also seeing the beauty of the caterpillar as it is.
It is stopping to see these tiny little creatures and appreciating them and their very short lives. It is contemplating how amazing they are – perfect and complete and yet so small.

Water.
Yoga is water. It is water in all its forms. It is ice, mist, hurricane, the ocean. It is a glass of water at the restaurant, served with a slice of lemon. It is the rain that waters your flowers and it is also the deluge that washes away your home.

Work.
Yoga is at work. It is paying attention to each customer and each part of your job to your fullest attention. It is also forgiving yourself for when you are too tired to pay attention.

Food.
Yoga is about what you eat. It is about eating less and eating better. It is about being aware of the consequences of what you eat – for yourself and for the planet.

Tattoo.
Yoga is about getting a tattoo. Not some flash off the wall to show you are a rebel. It is getting a tattoo to mark a milestone or to set an intention. It is about being a witness to pain and transformation.

Yoga is mindfulness and being in the moment. Yoga is acceptance of things as they are, yet also not settling. Yoga is, was,and shall be. Yoga is you, on the mat and off the mat, doing the best that you can exactly as you are right now. It is about not comparing yourself to others or even yourself.

Yoga is about showing up and being present, to the best of your ability and not judging yourself. Just showing up is a big accomplishment.

Yoga is about taking the time to work on yourself and knowing it isn’t a quick fix. It is about knowing you are in it for the long haul. Self-improvement is a lifetime process.

Yoga is about finding your limits and gently pushing them. It is also about being OK with the times that you can’t push because you are sore or tired or angry.

Yoga isn’t about the postures at all. The postures are the doorway. Yoga is the room. There are many ways into that room. Yoga is just one of them.

And here’s a final one to chew on. Yoga isn’t about being a winner. It is about being a good loser.

Intention – goals, Alice, and English roundabouts.

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At the beginning of some yoga classes the teacher will invite you to set an intention. This is a prayer, or a hope, or a goal. It is a focus point. It is a way of aiming yourself in the right direction.

I offer you this insight from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”

Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
The Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
Alice: I don’t much care where…
The Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go.
Alice: …so long as I get somewhere.
The Cheshire Cat: Oh, you’re sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.

So you need to set an intention, otherwise you’ll end up just anywhere. You’ll wander off aimlessly and end up years later wondering how you got there. You got there because you drifted along with the stream.

Sometimes it isn’t planning to fail, but failing to plan that is the problem.

This is true mentally and physically. Where do you want to go? Do you have a business plan? Do you have a career plan? Do you have a spiritual plan? This isn’t about the “name it and claim it” trend – it is about being awake and intentional about life. I don’t believe in “wish-craft”. I do believe that everything worth having in life is made up of little tiny steps. You have to have a plan, and you have to work towards that.

Neil Gaiman in his “Make Good Art” book said that when he first started out he envisioned where he wanted to be as a mountain. He’d look at whatever job was offered him and measure it up as to whether it moved him closer to the mountain or further away. This seems like a good idea. Does this little thing get me closer to where I want to be?

Life is cumulative. A college degree is made up of many classes and many tests. It didn’t happen overnight. It took a lot of little steps, going towards a goal. Everything built on top of everything. If you took a class and read a book and attended a lecture on your own with no goal in mind, you might learn something but it wouldn’t add up to anything specific. You will have frittered away your time, aimlessly wandering. You’d end up nowhere, lost.

This reminds me of when I was on a trip in England with my aunt. She was driving and I was navigating. I’d give directions as to what leg of the roundabout to take and she’d sometimes pay attention. She’d take the third leg instead of the fourth and we’d be hurtling down, getting further and further away from where we wanted to be. English roundabouts aren’t like American interstates. If you get off on the wrong one you can’t turn around and right yourself anytime soon. You’ll be at least thirty minutes away down the wrong road before you get to another roundabout where you can reorient yourself. She could have stayed in the roundabout, going around again to aim at the correct leg, but she didn’t. This happened a lot.

After several days of this I relinquished my role as navigatrix. Why bother telling her where to go when she was going to ignore me anyway?

So, my point is to aim. Plan ahead. Have some idea of where you want to go, because either you’ll stay stuck where you are, or you’ll end up really far away from your goal. What do you want to be doing ten years from now? How are you going to get there? Sometimes it takes baby steps in that direction. Just keep aiming that way, keep walking.

And don’t get in a car with my aunt.

Yoga for beginners.

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Sometimes my yoga class really bores me. The teacher does the same moves over and over. She uses the same words over and over. I feel that I’m not improving, not getting stronger, not stretching my boundaries. I feel stifled.

This is supposed to be a vinyasa class. I’m given to think that this is more advanced than the basic classes that are normally offered at the Y. I’ve taken the basic classes, and they are pretty basic. Sometimes they are so basic that we never even stand up. This is for 75 minutes. They certainly never do a downward facing dog. Planks are right out. Old women with oxygen tanks take this class. This class I go to is certainly more advanced than that, but it is still pretty easy.

Sometimes I think it has to be hard to teach a yoga class at the Y. You constantly have people who are at different fitness and experience levels showing up. You can’t start with beginners and train them and then do expert moves, because this week half your class has never stepped foot on a yoga mat.

You can’t expect them to do handstands or mermaid pose. They will never come back. But conversely, if your signature move is forward fold, your experienced students will get bored. There are a lot of forward folds in this class with this teacher.

Recently the teacher for the class I go to was out for several months on maternity leave. Her first substitute was hard core. Plank was her favorite move, with a lot of upward facing dogs. I’ve done yoga for a year and that tore me up. I was unable to get out of bed normally for three days. I had to roll over on my side and push myself up with my arms.

I kept going back. I was grateful there was a week between classes. I needed it to recover. I got stronger. I started to see a line in my abdomen that I’d never seen before, and it was going vertically. It looked awesome. I’m in my mid 40s and I’m developing a pretty amazing core. I didn’t think this was possible. I thought only rock stars with personal trainers had nice looking abdomens.

Then the sub got a sub. She taught us crow, and dolphin, and wild thing, and half moon, and handstand and headstand. I was over the moon. I surprised myself. I grew even more. I’ve incorporated some of these moves into my daily home practice.

But now the original teacher is back. I feel bored again.

But there is something to yoga. Even if it is the same move, over and over, there are micro adjustments to learn. I’m probably standing with my back foot wrong. There might be something about my arm alignment that is off. Even if I’ve heard the same instructions for a year, I probably haven’t really listened to them, so I’ve always got something to learn.

And there is always a way to push yourself. This time I was strong enough to do upward facing dog instead of plopping to the ground from plank and then going to baby cobra, or if I’m brave, full cobra. I did this the whole class. My arms and core have gotten stronger. I didn’t need to take a break in child’s pose. Previously I could do bridge, but I couldn’t do wheel. Now I can do wheel. The first time I did wheel I surprised myself. I decided to try it. The next thing I knew I was looking upside down, and I was happy.

The funny part is I still won’t do camel. It is the same as wheel in the backbend, but because of the angle, I think I won’t be able to get out of it safely. To me it is like climbing up a tree – I may be able to get up there, but I also have to be able to get back down.

So yoga is about stretching your limits and surprising yourself, but it is also about knowing your limits and respecting them. Yet, it is also about sticking it out when it is so boring you want to quit.

Yoga is the same as life, but with a cool soundtrack.

Thoughts about yoga.

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Yoga is like learning how to drive your body. Yes, I stole this from Dharma from the show “Dharma and Greg”. It is still true. We take our bodies for granted, but they require skill to learn how to use. Consider that your body is a biosuit for your soul. Look at a professional dancer or martial artist. They can do things normal people can’t. It is because of training. Yoga is training for the average person to be able to do amazing things.

Yoga unkinks your body and your mind. Sure, you are stretching your muscles and tendons. But somehow your brain gets stretched too. Things seem to flow better. Stresses are easier to deal with.

Yoga is like acupuncture for your whole body. It makes the energy flow.

Yoga is like getting a full-body massage, but nobody has to touch you and you don’t have to get naked.

Doing yoga daily is like taking a multivitamin for your soul. I enjoy it when we set an intention at the beginning of practice. It is where you make a prayer, or a goal. What do you want to focus on, mentally, physically, or spiritually? What area in you or in the world needs love and light and growth? That is where you place your intention. That way, the entire practice is a prayer.

Yoga teaches you acceptance. This is acceptance not only of where you are, but who you are. It is about learning to work with what is, instead of what you’d like it to be. It is important not to compare how you are doing with other people in the room. The practice is your practice, not theirs. They are different, and that is OK. There will be things that they can do easily, and that are hard for you. There will be things that you can do easily, and is hard for them. There will be things that were easy for you last week, but are hard today. Every day is different, just like every person is different.

It is yoga practice, not yoga perfect.

Yoga teaches balance in body and mind. Sure, you may learn finally how to do Warrior three, or Eagle without having to stand next to something to grab onto for support. But there is something subtle about yoga that it teaches balance to your mind too. It realigns things. I don’t know how it works, but that is OK. I don’t know how electricity works, but I still take advantage of it.

The hardest thing about yoga is showing up. You say you want to, but you’ve just never made it to a class. Or you’ve gone for years and it has gotten boring and you think that you’ll take some time off. A week becomes a month becomes a year.

Yoga teaches discipline, but not a rigid sort. It isn’t “do this, this way”. There is a lot of flexibility. You certainly don’t make up all the poses – you are learning things that have been done this way for thousands of years. But, you are submitting to this practice, this path. Somehow you find yourself there, and you’ve learned a lot by aligning yourself with it.

Yoga strengthens and tones. There will be muscles you’ve never seen before. It is amazing and beautiful and inspiring to see these muscles develop. Forearms? Abs? Gotcha. They will look stunning. So will everything else.

It is weightlifting, but the only weight is you. No equipment to misplace, and completely portable.

The Black Hole of Crazy

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Sometimes I feel the best thing I can do is just to not get drawn into other people’s black holes of crazy. Crazy/angry/upset people have an energy about them that is like its own gravity. It is easy to get swept up and swept away. It is easy to get lost.

I remember a time when a manager was arguing with me over the best way to handle a bad situation. The program that we used at work had gone down and there was a way to check people out in the meantime. It was the way I’d been trained, and it worked, and I’d used it for over a decade. It turns out there was another way to do it that had been policy for years. She wanted me to learn it right then. Right in the middle of a bad situation is not the time to learn a new procedure. It is a great time to stick with a known good.

She got very upset with me that I refused to try the new procedure right then. Part of her anger came from the fact that my boss should have taught us this, and she can’t stand my boss. Part of her anger came from the fact that she is supposed to be in charge and she really isn’t. You can be a manager in name only.

I was getting drawn into her anger and her argument. I was feeling that anger, that tension. This used to be common for me. I’d get that deer in the headlights look when someone would argue or yell, and lose myself in the mix.

I hate feeling like that. I’ve prayed about it, I’ve read books on nonviolent conflict resolution, and I’ve studied yoga. But it is hard to be objective about what is going on when you are sucked into it.

Until I did.

Somehow at that moment I was able to step outside of my feelings and observe them. I didn’t like how I felt. I didn’t like having an argument about something that didn’t need to be argued about right then. Or ever, really. There is very little in life that needs to be yelled. Building on fire? Yell. Policy change? Don’t yell. Easy.

In the middle of that getting-worse situation, I looked at her and said “we aren’t arguing about this right now.”

And somehow, we weren’t. It stopped. The black hole of crazy lost all of its power. It stopped sucking, in more ways than one. The situation got handled and it was OK.

I was stunned. I was surprised that I was able to be objective in that crazy moment. I was surprised that simply saying that we weren’t going to argue meant that we didn’t.

And I’m thankful for this new learning, that it takes two to argue. By my intentional action, peace happened. By my presence and calm, the issue was fixed.

Peace can start within, with one person.

It took a long time for me to get to the space where I could be objective about my feelings and then act accordingly. It took a long time to get where my feelings weren’t driving the bus. It took a long time to get where my “monkey mind” wasn’t winning. I’m glad to know it is possible. It takes a lot of practice to keep this awareness going, but I see the results. Calm me means calm people around me. My awareness is healing.

I want more of this. I want more people to be aware of this. If we are all aware of the tricks our minds and bodies play on us, then we are all going to do a lot better. We don’t have to get drawn into the black hole of crazy that comes from other people, or from within.

By staying calm, we keep the peace.

Mantra – arrive on the mat

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My current yoga mantra is “Arrive on the mat.” It is the same as “be here now.” It isn’t an intention or prayer. It is a reminder.

It is like “return to the breath.” It is so easy to get off center, off focus, off kilter, just off. It is so easy to get distracted and discombobulated. In those times we need to remember to return to our breathing, because it will bring us back to ourselves.

We plan on one thing, and then another thing comes up. I hate it when I’m trying to do tree pose and the teacher keeps talking. I can have the most awesome “drishti” (focus point for my eyes) but the more she keeps chattering about how to keep my balance, the less balance I have.

So maybe “drishti” isn’t about an external thing to look at. Maybe it isn’t finding a spot on the floor or the wall to stare at. Maybe it is about finding that still, small, quiet place inside me that is calm and centered. Maybe it is about being at the eye of the storm, rather than in the storm.

The eye of the storm is right in the middle of everything, yet it is calm. That sounds good. Well, not being in the storm at all sounds better, but I’m not seeing a way to avoid that. Work, bills, family, chores, retirement plans, homework – there is a lot going on. We can’t just chuck it all and run away. Sometimes we do run away. We go on a vacation, but then we come back everything has piled up just a little more.

Some people leave everything and become monks or nuns or hermits or hippies. Some people leave literally, some just leave mentally. There are many ways of leaving. You can be there but just not care because you’ve chemically altered yourself.

I don’t want that. I did that for years. My problems didn’t go away, they just got fuzzier, and I just didn’t care about them as much.

That is why my mantra is “arrive on the mat”. The mat is like an altar. It is a sacred space where I prepare myself. I shape myself into a calm, centered person. I mold myself into a vessel for the Spirit. I remind myself that I must take care of this gift of my body, this house of my soul.

I want to be here, be present, be open to the opportunities that life offers. I don’t want to miss a thing. I want to observe but not obsess. I want to be there in the good and bad, in the rich and poor, in the better and worse, in living and in dying.

Because to arrive on the mat is to be there, as you are, right then. Shaggy hair, ragged toenail polish, unwashed face, or clean and scrubbed and fed. Either way. There. In the moment.

Let us begin.