Trying To Solve Things With Other Things

I washed the cord on the Kitchen-Aid mixer. 

I seriously went there.  I used a little knife to clean around the handles on the fridge and the stove.  I got on the floor and pried the gunk out around the baseboards in the kitchen. I did all the laundry.  I hyper-focused on cleaning for one whole day, and it was surprisingly satisfying.

I also have been contemplating yet another career.  

(Did anybody else notice that every sentence thus far has started with "I"? I'm annoying myself.  DAMN! I did it again! Ack!)

This has been a challenging several months, because I'm (apparently) trying to work through some (apparently) deeply-hidden opinions of myself by changing myself/what I do and seeing how I felt at each step.  The time I felt like I prioritized myself most (and valued myself) was when I was a student.  I always had a good reason to stop everything and focus on my own self and my education and development. It was glorious and satisfying. The feeling of deep, sustained focus was one that I value above many, many others. 

Perhaps that is what I need. A place and time to need to focus.

Teaching no longer requires that of me most of the time.  It's gotten too easy, too repetitive, too "Drop your jaw. Deep air. It's a C#!" I can't sink into that blissful space in my head where I find my center and I am poised there, weightless. Playing hasn't done that lately, because I have been distracted by the terrible condition of my flute (which, fabulously, is being taken care of at FluteWorld as I type this). When I am distracted, I have to think. Like, with the words part of my brain.  I think too much with that part already.

Who knew that FOCUS was (probably) what I have been looking for?

I Judge People

Yesterday, my little family and I went to an amusement park/water park.  As I stood there, waiting for the kids to get off of a (shudder) spinning ride, I observed a woman and her husband/boyfriend/whatever who were cooling off in the shade near me. 

  She was extremely obese, and he had a tail.  You know -- where the hair is short all over, except that spot at the back?  And he was being affectionate to her, and she was laughing.  My horrid, horrid thoughts included such doozies as: "Ew. a TAIL.  What a redneck," and "Wow.  Wonder how she got that fat!"  I was appalled at my own brain.

SMACK.  I have NO RIGHT to judge.  No right whatsoever.  And yet, judge I did.  I made assumptions, and not nice ones.  So I challenged myself.

Every time I noticed myself getting preconceived notions about someone, I would force myself to try to assume the exact opposite.

Many, many men that day were (according to me) poets, ballet dancers, historians, scholars, yoga aficionados, authors, dressmakers, and etiquette specialists.  Many women were nuns, physics majors, athletes, fitness trainers, seamstresses, diction coaches, and holistic farmers.

This was one of the most enlightening days I have spent in recent memory.  It forced me to see how unjust my thoughts can be.  And it taught me that people are rarely what they first appear to be.

Including me.