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There is something truly glorious about sitting down, freshly showered, to sip a hot chai and do some reading and writing. It feels indulgent but also so inherently perfect. The weather today is pretty gorgeous – mid-50s and sunny. Lucy could have spent all day sniffing tufts of grass on our walk.
Chai is one of my favorite parts of any day. It is happiness in a cup. I savor it, feel the tension relax in my shoulders and allow my taste buds to relish the glory that is a soy chai latte from Starbucks. Whether it’s a good day (like today) or a not-so-good day (like the past few) chai always makes it just a smidge better.
I’m finding that my weeks are usually a roller coaster of good and bad days … and I’m not sure what I’m going to get every morning when I wake up. I hope I’ll feel good, but it’s not guaranteed. Having little moments to look forward to – chai tea lattes being at the top of the list – helps me get through the really tough days.
Two days ago I went to urgent care because the skin on my forehead just wasn’t … normal. It wasn’t a break out and I couldn’t crack it. Having something on your face is disorienting because even though it might not seem like much to other people, it’s huge to you and it just crumbled my self confidence. I could feel the downward spiral, the lack of motivation, the deep dark frustration and powerlessness. And even after the doctor and medicine and calamine lotion it still didn’t’ seem to be diminishing and that further sent me into a tailspin.
Anyway, I went to yoga this morning with a forehead bathed in calamine lotion (poison ivy being the prime suspect for my rash) and I felt a million times better for it. Now I can settle into my teacher training, more calamine lotion drying quietly as I sip tea, do some French lessons and finally focus in on the history of yoga. Husby says despite my paranoia, the rash is looking much better. So, that’s a good thing.
Xox, g
13jan22
I went back and read some of my blog posts from January 2021. I was definitely taking blogging more seriously and I had some pretty interesting things to say (to me, at least!). After last night’s blogging fiasco (well, to be honest, before then but the incident amplified it) I have made a conscious effort to write today before the end of the day and not about blogging or my day or anything painfully mundane.
As I drove to Barnes & Noble this morning my mind was filled with ideas and thoughts. I thought – I can write about anything I want to write about. It’s my blog, it earns no money and has no readers. The post is my oyster. If that makes sense to you. It makes sense to me ….
I could write about how being in State College is haunted for me – haunted by memories and people and choices I made a long, long time ago. I both love and dread being here, love and dread remembering that me. I walk down memory lane over and over again; affectionate towards those old memories but also cringing, knowing what’s coming, knowing how it all turns out.
I could blog about how strange it is to transition from writing on my iPad to writing on my computer. I keep reaching for the screen as though it’s touch screen … it’s not. But the keys are definitely easier and I find that comforting.
I could write about perspective – how driving along Benner Pike, skies blue, air cold and crisp, snow iced across green fields makes me feel, and how that feeling is both the same and vastly different from how the same moment affects my husband. How he looks at fields and thinks about working them in his youth and hunting similar landscapes throughout his life and I look at the these fields and think of paintings and long walks and horses. Both realities a reflection of our lives, our experiences. Both true to us, but simultaneously not true for the other.
I could write about how this Barnes & Noble is my ultimate favorite Barnes & Noble. How I used to come here when Seattle’s Best Coffee was the cafe. How I’d find a big chair and curl up, reading text books and history books and books for pleasure. How I can still remember specific days, watching people walk by, browsing and purchasing books, as I read Pliny and Agatha Christie.
I could write about Starbucks. Oh how I could write about Starbucks! Have I ever done that? I can’t remember. I would assume I have. I have loved Starbucks for as long as I’ve known what Starbucks is. And I have drunk the same drink since my college friend came back to school after summer break and introduced me to the soy chai. He’d worked at the Starbucks in Chestnut Hill (a store I am familiar with … now, but not then) and with his return came a wealth of Starbucks knowledge. I can fall down the slippery slope of all my Starbucks memories throughout my adult life because it has been a constant, a place I’ve always found comfort and respite from the thrashings of the outside world. Happiness in a Cup. That is what my Starbucks Soy Chai is, has always been and will always be.
Mostly what I wanted to do was write. Because tapping out a few paltry (and frankly pathetic) lines after eleven at night isn’t a testament to what this exercise is all about. This exercise is an attempt to teach myself the discipline of writing – the ritual, yes, but also the slogging, when it isn’t easy, when I have nothing to say. When I am not ‘inspired’ to write but do it anyway.
Husband found headphones for me (I forgot my ear pods at home) and I have a song on repeat — something that works for me when I’m writing because it sets a mood, a tempo, a feeling. It helps me keep track of me, and that’s a Herculean task. I have a chai and I have a table. The rest is up to me.
As I sit here, in a Barnes & Noble that was my past and is now my present, as I prepare to head home earlier than anticipated, I marvel at where my life is now. How did that twenty-something girl from her first tour of State College become the woman I am today? How did I connect the dots to become me, to get here?
It’s what’s on my mind. It’s why I’m writing.
xox, g
D5 Creation