Coming to (the mainland of) America

I'm never going to put "attention to detail" on my resume. Or "self-starter." These adjectives do not usually apply to the anxious ADHDers. Thus, at this date, seven and a half months after arriving in Michigan, I still have Hawaii license plates on my van. I did get my Michigan driver's license though!! It came in the mail Saturday, so there!

Not to say I haven't tried. Today, for instance, I am 75 miles at from home,  sitting at the Fort Gratiot light house, listening to the waves of Lake Huron and watching traffic cross the Blue Water Bridge in and out of Canada. What does that have to do with license plates?  Well, duh, I drove out here to get out of dodge and go to a Secretary of State (Michigan's DMV) which serves a smaller population and, therefore, has shorter wait times. Spend your time driving and listening to music instead of sitting and waiting, right?  Exactly.

Oh, but I didn't have a copy of my husband's license. I have a pic on my phone! But I wrote our Michigan address on the form he had to sign since both of our names are on the title. And he has his Hawaii license still. With our first Hawaii address. Which doesn't match the title address, anyway.

"Honey! Do you have 10 minutes to see if you can fill out this form online and sign it and email it to the manager of this SOS branch?" He can't figure out how to edit it online or sign it.

Maybe I can go to a library and fill it out, figure out how to take a pic of his signature on the printed form, cut it and copy it onto the online form, then send it to him so he can email it, etc. etc.

Never mind. Girly and I will go to the beach. (She's homeschooled again.) She can see her first Great Lake and glimpse another country. We'll throw rocks into the water and freeze our feet when we take off our shoes and socks to feel the water.

I'll breathe it all into my soul: the big body of water with the wind blowing, fishing boats floating, sand beneath my feet, and waves gently rolling in.  I'll cry because it's not Hawaii; it's not my home, but it'll carry my spirit for a while.

Behold the power of Yoga

This looks like it says "mamaste". And I'd love to be doing yoga in this beautiful location.

A number of things have contributed to the changes in me over the past 7 months, and one of the things which makes me happiest is the fact that I am  *finally* doing yoga (semi) regularly. I've always dabbled here and there, even randomly thinking that I'd be a yoga instructor someday. That was about 14 years ago, and if I had, oh, kept with it, I'd be speaking to you as a yoga instructor today. Context clues can tell you that I am not, in fact, a yoga instructor. But I actually think I might have that as a 5 (or fewer) year goal.

Once we moved back to Michigan, I knew that I needed to do something to get out of the house and do something for myself. I've been getting more in touch with my body for the past year, and this seemed like a natural extension of that. Part of that getting in touch with my body has been learning to be kind to it and love it for the first time in many, many years. That kindness led me to decide that I wasn't going to run or push myself to go to the gym anymore. At least not for a while.

I decided to focus on healing my body and being nice to it, doing movement that I enjoyed and that didn't cause me pain. I love running, but it consistently hurt me. I didn't want my workouts to be about self-punishment anymore. I didn't want to force myself to go to the gym out of self-hatred and needing to lose weight to prove my worth.

Unlike the workouts I used to do, yoga inherently heals me. My muscles have been tight and twisted and knotty since...well, some since I was born. (I was born with jacked up legs. Club foot! They handed me to my mom for the first time with casts on both feet. I had braces like Forrest Gump!) Most of the other damage came starting in college. Twisting a knee, then favoring the other too much, supinating my feet when I walked, lower back getting messed up as a result of all that, rolling ankles, swollen, painful knees, etc etc. And through just half a year of focusing on yoga, I see changes in my body. I've seen my hips and IT bands loosen up, my knees hardly hurt anymore, and my arms and shoulders are noticeably stronger. The diaphragmatic breathing we do in yoga has also improved my breathing, though my puny lungs still stop their inhale long before the teacher says that it's time to exhale and move onto the next move.

The other wonderful thing about yoga is that it is meditation in motion. In the beginning, I often cried during practice because you're supposed to be in the moment. Some say that the breath is the entire point: observing your breath and clearing your mind. So while I'm stretching and moving through the poses (asanas), I'm trying to clear my thoughts and simply be. I'm still working on that, but what this meant in the beginning was lots of thinking and facing my feelings. Hence, the crying. At the same time, it brought me so much peace. And continues to do so.

It feels holy being in the darkened yoga studio with a group of people all seeking a quiet, peaceful space in our busy days. It has been healing for me in ways physical, emotional, and spiritual. I am so grateful

First Winter Back

Uncool, but warm

I do not like the cold. You might say I hate it. And yet, I am here to extol the greatness of shoveling snow and ice. Rest assured, I have been evaluated by mental health professionals and confirmed as neurologically atypical, so you may take anything said here with a grain of salt. (SALT! Get it?! We have to SALT the driveway. {I'll show myself out.})

I grew up in Michigan, but started trying to leave about 22 years ago. There were a couple short-lived attempts at living in Texas for Seth's sake, but my family and friends in Michigan lured me back both times. In 2005, though, I thought I had escaped for good. Seth and I moved to Northern California, where we felt like we belonged.

For 10 years, we enjoyed a busy life full of friends where, most importantly, we only saw snow if we wanted to. We would dig out our coats, buy some stretchy gloves from the dollar store, and drive to Tahoe for a weekend of sitting by a fire with occasional outings for sledding or a brief snowball fight. Then we would go back home to put on, at most, sweats. But even NorCal (I apologize, but it's an authentic abbreviation) had a bit more cold than I wanted, so we packed up and followed my dream of living in Hawai'i.

As you may have inferred from the into paragraph and title of this fair post, I am no longer in Hawai'i, but in Michigan again. Fear not, I'm medicated, in therapy, seeing a psychiatrist, etc. These issues shall not go unaddressed in my life. BUT MY POINT-


Thirteen years away saw my transformation from someone who didn't like reading outside because of all that pesky wind into an Outdoor Girl. Our two homes in Hawai'i  were so open to the elements that even being inside didn't really count as avoiding the weather or anything. When I visited Michigan from Hawai'i, I'd sit at my mom's table in the backyard most of my waking hours- I couldn't stand feeling trapped inside with the air conditioning and the house closed up.

Sun, water, and trees fill my soul. I've always called myself "solar powered", and it's true. Basking in the sun like a lizard can even help me feel better when I'm physically ill. Living on the ocean and being able to hear, smell, and see the water anytime chased away many negative moods. But not all of them. I realized after the fact that I was depressed the whole time we lived in Hawai'i. In California, my depression also got the better of me every once in a while, despite a fun, stellar life.

We left the islands and moved back to Michigan in July '18. You can see some of the reasons in my previous post, but suffice it to say that it was but one more layer of grief in the cartoonishly tall stress sandwich life was shoving down my throat. I arrived back in the midwest a broken shell of who I used to be, with exciting adventures in trauma still to come.

My wonderful husband snagged these for me. He gets me.

Now it is well below freezing. I have to wear both wool socks and fuzzy slippers in the house to keep feeling in my feet. I stay inside, bookmarking articles and opening tabs I'll never get to. My kids are generally useless with yard work without a lot of supervision, and Seth's Renaud syndrome means that he can't be outside for long in cold temperatures, so the shoveling is my duty.

When I first bundled up to go outside and get to work, I was proud of my being a responsible adult and all that, but I was also cranky and figured I would quickly be roping someone into switching with me. But I stayed outside. I put on the coat you see up above, "The Kindergarten Coat," which my mom left for me when she moved to Louisiana and I initially pooh-poohed as "too mom-ish". Now it is my bff.

After about 45 minutes outside, I did come in for a while, but then found that I wanted to go back out. There has been salting to do, slush and snow to clear off, and ice to chip away at- and I'm ::shudder:: enjoying it. Even on the 3rd or 4th day of having to do one chore or another. It has been sunny, which is a huge part of it, but I've also found myself writing in my head, or chatting out loud, and gazing at the beauty of my big, snowy, tree-filled yard.

Winter got me back outside. I'm adding it to the handful of things which have been making me feel "normal" again. I'm giving it the official stamp of #everydaygrateful. No one is more shocked than I am.