Scenes from the past week

I’m taking an online writing course through Coursera and the assignments the last two weeks have been to describe scenes. We had to specifically use a certain number of sentences and parts of speech and such, but I thought “hey, since that’s the way I am thinking right now, why not share scenes?”

Seriously, just like when I first started on twitter and I found myself constantly thinking in 140 character bursts, this class has me thinking in “scenes”.


Scene 1:

Thursday night, I came into the house after a day at work when I was thankful I did not take the head off of the temp employee working with me. Thankfully, I vented to the August moms group instead, took a deep breath and tried to come up with a more mature strategy for dealing with her than simply yelling “Shut the hell UP already!!” You see, she talks to herself. And not under her breath. For some reason that day she was super duper loud and all day long. I gave her a new lease to add to the database, and I swear to all that is holy, this woman read it OUT LOUD. Then she talked her way through highlighting the critical parts. I had my head phones on and was listening to music, and I STILL heard her. Anyway…the point is, I came into the house wanting CALM and QUIET.

Begin laughing now.

27 was in the throes of a cold bad enough that he was running a fever so I told him to get in his room, keep his germs out of my kitchen and just text me when he needed anything. 16 came home on day two of a slight shoulder strain from spring flag football practice and needed to hop back on the ice machine after a shower. I made dinner, fed the cats, and was just settling down on the sofa to watch TV with the ice bound teen when my phone rang. It was my friend who is acting as the main liaison for the football team. We had some forms we needed to finalize to present to the high school foundation board on Friday. She was updating them on her computer while we talked through the necessary edits.

At some point I was sitting on the foot of my staircase so that my talking didn’t disturb 16, when 27 texted that he needed ice water and then 16 stated he was done with the ice machine time. One on my left, one on my right and another in my ear, all needing something from me at once.

I couldn’t help but laugh.

Scene 2:

Tonight – oh, I had been looking forward to tonight for two weeks! At the pizza party a couple of weekends ago, I found out that the same guy who hosted the party conducts yoga classes for the neighbors on Tuesday nights. His garage is converted into a yoga studio, and it is a little slice of heaven. For 75 minutes I was stretching every tense muscle and breathing deeply and listening to calming music and, yeah, focusing kind of hard on learning how to do the poses properly, but at the end it was magical.

He turned the lights down, and there were these beautiful blue and green pinpoint lights floating against the dark ceiling like stars drifting across the sky. The music was even more mystical and calming than it had been during the class. He told us to focus on the parts of our bodies that had been stretched and opened up and…all I could do was lose myself in those twinkling lights. My breathing slowed as he instructed us to try and do, but it was just so wonderful to let my brain GO. I wasn’t sleepy – I’m still not – it was invigorating!  I was completely mindful of my breathing and focusing on the green dots. Who knows why staring at a colorful, starry, sky is so perfect for my brain to get it to slow down. It was the same sense of calm I get when I am on a ship, leaning over the back railing losing myself in the churning water as the boat moves through the open ocean. The brain stops firing in a gajillion directions and slowly brings it’s own waves down to the rythym of the water, or the moving lights.

Tuesdays are my new favorite days of the week.

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