Red Shoe Day

Dorothy by ellemoss on etsy.com

One year later already.

It's crazy to think that so many lives were turned upside down one year ago today (not to forget those whose lives changed just as drastically in May or those who were left behind) and yet, so many of us are still there.

Maybe I'm fooling myself, but I like to think that for most part it ended up being a positive change for most of us. I know personally, I find myself in a better place now. But still it was a hard and trying day.

I'll never forget how beautiful the weather was. It was very warm and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It ended up being the most beautiful day of the summer up to that point. I ended up with the first real sunburn I've had since I was 18. The long lunch on the Jack Astor's patio will never be forgotten.

Where will be be one year from now?

Caution ... fat girl doing yoga.

Downward facing dog.

It's one of those terms that tends to make its way into our collective subconscious. A threesome of words whose combined meaning you seem to know even without any actual knowledge of the discipline they are such an interacle part of. As innocent and maybe even as silly as this unassuming combination of letters may sound, it is in my opinion quite a difficult posture. Well, at least for this somewhat wide and not so bendy woman.

I've always wanted to try yoga, going back as far as I can remember really. It was one of those odd hippy things that I was always drawn to. But, just like almost everything else I've been interested in, I was always too afraid to try. Until now anyway.

Just over six weeks ago I attended my very first yoga class.

Back in late May/early June I by chance learned that a former co-worker owned a yoga studio and was the instructor for the intro to yoga course. That little piece of information tempered one of the fears I have about trying anything different. I knew the instructor. I knew the person in charge. It made me feel less vulnerable about being in a new situation. It was an opportunity for me to step outside of my self imposed box safely. Within the week I had registered myself and a coworker for the class and then stared the four or five week waiting game until the classes began.

At first I thought it was going to take an eternity for the start date of the course to arrive. I was anxious to start the classes, to start moving forward with something new. Of course I was aware that it was only one class, one day a week for six weeks. Nothing to expect miracles from. I just felt that this small step forward would help move me in the direction of making my life more like the life I wanted. So, I waited.

Finally the night of the first class arrived. I was both nervous and excited. We arrived at the studio early in hopes of finding ourselves a spot in the back. No luck. So, upfront we went. We were a bit weary of being in the front row of the class. After all, who isn't somewhat paralysed but the prospect of inadvertently drawing everyone's attention by doing something silly/stupid/humiliating. Being in the front increases those odds. As it turned out we actually enjoyed being in the front and made it our permanent spot for the following 5 weeks.

During those six classes I definitely learned a lot. I learned I was significantly bendier ten years ago. I learned that my balance needs a lot of work. I learned that the dread I feel leading up to doing something new is a lot worse than the actual process of doing something new.

I have found the classes to be quite challenging. Something I think I needed at this point in my life. I feel as though I have started to accomplish something. I'm learning something new, something I've wanted to learn for a very long time. Something I hope to continue for a long time to come. After all, my downward facing dog still needs some work.

Everything old is new again.

When I was thirteen mom and I went on a little shopping excursion to a local discount department store. Really it was an uneventful trip spent browsing the cluttered aisles of long out of date fashions, soaps that smelled like gas station washrooms and unstable looking press board future ready to be carted off to a waiting Halifax dorm by some over excited high school grad. It is however one day spent shopping that I remember, even now almost 25 years later.

It was the day I received my first hard cover notebook for journaling. Nothing special really. A little book, roughly 5x7 in size with a black and a red cover. Probably only 100 lined pages inside to capture whatever my thirteen year old heart could think to write. At the time it was actually quite a ubiquitous little book. These were the days long before retailers catered to the ever changing whimsy of tween and teen girls. Thus choices were very limited. Limited as in that was the only choice. Even though it was not the prettiest of items, it was special to me all the same.

That night I started the process of recording my mundane life. A process that I kept with on and off for roughly 20 years. Then for no particular reason I stopped. I'm not sure exactly why, or even exactly when, but I stopped.

There was something about recording the events of my small world that seemed to give me a tiny feeling of purpose. It made me feel I was doing something that had a bit of substance, unlike the rest of the activities in my day to day life. Although I didn't realize it at the time, I know now that I lost that feeling when I stopped.

Recently I've been struggling with a feeling of ... well, I'm not really sure. Emptiness, incompleteness, loneliness, dullness ... So, as a result I'm trying to go outside my comfort zone. I'm trying to discover me; what I like; what makes me happy; what can make me feel like I have purpose. One of the things I do know is for a long time recording the events of my life, no matter how dull, how minor, how mundane, did bring me some happiness. It's time for me to try and restart that process and hopefully regain that feeling.

So, here's ponytails and capris. While it won't be as detailed as a personal journal, I hope to record my hopeful journey of changing my life a bit. We'll see.