52 days left in 2020. Still room to breathe and grow.
Good Things Today: a warm welcome to a new team member at Ompractice! We have *three* new wonderful humans starting in the next several weeks. My heart is full. A 30 minute cycling session, a quick run and walk around the neighborhood, and Yoga Therapy class. Movement! Salmon and roasted zucchini with the new green goddess dip from Trader Joes (great!) Two new episodes of the Mandalorian. I had forgotten the squee level of cuteness of the kid since the fall.
I was glancing through my 2019 year in review, wide-eyed at how different 2020 has been. While I’ve not been able to do some of the things that I love to do most: notably travel, watch movies in the theater, and eat great things out of the house, the venn diagram of things that make me happy and things that I can do at home has great overlap.
With some more space to think, I’m looking at making the most of my next 52 days: doing good meaningful work, moving my body, watching movies, reading, catching up on a little bit of television (my tv has been off most of the year), cooking, home projects, and trying some new things.
After three years of committed solo creative dates (my riff on Artist’s Dates) that were mostly out of the house (lots of museum visits! films! travel!), the first half of 2020 was an absolute fail. I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to buckle down and rethink prioritizing these things for myself instead of giving up on the practice because of the times.
There are a little more than 7 weeks left in the year, I’d like to use this time to re-think my creative inputs and set myself up for a good 2021. So far:
Week 1: While it’s still unseasonably warm, sit out on the porch with my coffee mug, my blanket, notebooks and a good pen, and refresh my lists, and write out my 52 list prompts for 2021. Bonus points for actually updating them on the blog.
Week 2: Update my “rolodex” a.k.a. it’s an Airtable with the current addresses of folks I’d like to send mail to. Get my holiday cards printed, and start sending them out! Take a walk across the street and acquire a new set of glorious stamps.
Week 3: re-charge my DSLR battery and take that sucker out for a long past due spin around the neighborhood. Aim for a “texture walk” since I’m assuming that by that point the flowers are going to be long gone and the leaves are probably going to be taking their… leave for the season.
Week 4: acquire an inappropriate number of new houseplants.
This week I wrote, daily. For me, writing is the single best activity that promotes creativity, productivity, and satisfaction. I intend to continue – it’s always cathartic. Where I sometimes stumble over spoken word, multiple channels in my brain on overdrive, when I sit down to write it’s usually clear. Organized. Systematic. I can see the structure of my thoughts clearly, fill out the details, pause on sections to think about them without getting lost in the every running chatter in my brain.
The weekends, lately, have been filled with pulling things together. One of my tasks this month is to re-consider how I spend my downtime, and how I can add back creative dates with myself while maintaining social distancing and safety. What used to be dedicated solo time in museums, movie theaters, and travel has dropped almost totally over the past year, and I’d like to consciously add back some replacements.
Today I teamed up with a friend to do a month long sprint planning process – focusing on both personal and professional – how we want to maximize self care, restoration, and creativity, while maintaining focus and boundaries. It’s always good to do this work with other people. Sometimes I find this work lonely – I know that when I do it I work as my best self, but it’s much more satisfying to share the practice.
I also took a two hour long restorative reset workshop with Dawn – focusing on long held poses – think 10 minutes at a time. This workshop was particularly challenging for me, and ever necessary – slowing down and focusing on presence in the body takes practice. I was grateful for this work today, and glad I showed up for myself.
I walked Bertram for 3.1 miles, and topped it off with a single mile run. This is his favorite season, as it’s cool enough now to go for longer walks without getting too hot, and plenty of opportunities to grass roll, and meet friends along the way. (Including TURKEYS today.) Fall is still taking a glorious bow.
I put together my meal plan for the week. I usually plan to stick about 60% to the plan, swap out as I see fit. The number one goal it to make sure that I’m never stuck without SOMETHING. I usually plan protein first, then flavor profile, then assorted sides, but to be honest, I’m not always particularly creative, and often end up swapping things out after first pass.
For those curious, taco pasta is basically home made hamburger helper. I season ground chicken or turkey with taco seasoning, add a jar of tomato-pepper pasta sauce, some water, and 1/2 a pound of radiatore pasta, and cook for about 20 minutes until the pasta is cooked. I stir in a spoonful or two of half and half at the end, and it’s always better the next day.
Another 70+ degree day as a balm for the times. I’m still stuck in the in between, not able to ease my brain into relaxation after months of tension. Today was historic.
I woke up this morning and read my book for an hour, and then we went across the street to play in the backyard with Bertram’s best friend Sawyer the Corgi. It’s a wonderful thing watching the two of them play joyfully in the leaves without a care in the world. We marveled at the news over coffee in the fall warm air. Then for a walk through the neighborhood. A short run. A decompress and rest yoga class. I made home made hamburger helper taco pasta with chicken, and now, I sit, trying to process the news.
I suspect that things will not dawn on me truly, until some day in mid-April, or June, or August, when there is nothing dramatic on the news at all. When the moment comes where the absence of chaos is palpable, noticeable, where all of a sudden we notice a silence and can breathe deeply once again.
I do not think for a moment that all is solved by an election. Democracy is action. Democracy is communication, collaboration, and building the world we want to live in. It is observing injustice and responding swiftly. It is noticing opportunities to work together, identifying shared values, and building and innovating together. I look forward to moving past this “in between” and getting back to the good, hard work of progress. I have hope for a better future.
On processing. It often takes me a good long while to process things – both joy and grief, celebration and sadness. I no longer concern myself that I’m not “doing it right” or that my emotions look different than others.We feel things how we feel them.
I mention this because if you too are having trouble processing the magnitude of things going on in this world in this day and age – and nobody has told you yet, with meaning, that it’s alright to process on your own time and in your own way – you deserve to hear it.
A short list. Am I ready to tuck in early on a Friday night? Yes, yes I am.
:: Today’s meals were comfort and convenience – a Starbucks bacon, gouda, egg breakfast sandwich before a drive down to the Cape for the morning, a magical CAVA bowl on the way back, and then Hungarian mushroom soup with dill for dinner.
:: Today I watched a friend take a *major leap* towards the best version of herself. She had a plan, and she executed.
:: Sitting outdoors with two wonderful human beings a dozen feet apart from each other and dreaming and scheming! And then we got news that another stellar human being has accepted our offer to join our self-expressed-human pirate ship – helping bring good things to those who need it most.
:: My CRAW (circumpolar race around the world!) team has made it to Panama! Tomorrow I’m going to dive in on my weekly travel research and read all about Panama.
:: Yesterday I worked through some systems upgrades with a friend: we talked about scheduling time each week for nagging tasks – she’s holding me accountable on my excess cardboard situation, weekly and monthly planning processes, weekly retros, and more. I’ll be kicking off another end of the year retro and 2021 planning session in December for those who want to start off in January with intention.
:: I took Yin at 7am. With Alice. I don’t think I’ve willingly woken up that early to do something fitness-y in years. Also went for a quick run by myself, and then a nice walk with the puppo – really love this post-snow 70 degree weather.
Quick notes, tonight, as I head to bed early with the intent of trying a 7am Yin yoga class. Who have I become? Dinner tonight was incredibly simple: a thick piece of halibut, over rice seasoned with rice vinegar. I sprinkled on some furikake and some spicy mayo. I forgot a vegetable. Bertram was ready for any fish I was willing to relinquish.
The evening was spent with a respite from the news cycle and the waiting – my weekly Trivia with my best friend Lizzy and her family and the assorted collection of friends. Bertram and I relaxed on the couch – me under my new bright yellow 25 lb. weighted blanket, a great pandemic purchase.
While I’m at it, I sprayed a little olive oil spray in a bowl, cracked in an egg, and microwaved that for a little more than 30 seconds so the white was set, and ate it over some Maine Grains Heritage porridge I made this morning. Perfection.
The opportunity to write a dear friend a recommendation for a job that is made for her.
Meeting with a friend to go over her systems, lists, and productivity – made some suggestions of small tweaks (including scheduling a block of time in your week to tackle just the first action on nagging tasks!) We talked daily planning, weekly intentions, retros, and monthly intentions. I’m always looking for ways to help friends stay accountable to doing their good work in the world!
The Second Lunch is a (mostly) food blog by Sam Tackeff about recipes, food writing, ingredient hunting, travel, healthy living, fitness, and everything in between.
Please do not steal! Email me at sam [at] thesecondlunch.com – if you’d like to use one of my photos, and I’d be happy to share my terms. Thanks!
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