Bracing for the New Year
I have friends who are good for me and those who are bad. Tuesday, I couldn’t decide which category to put Michelle Mills in. We met for a workout at the new popular BLAST900 fitness studio in Mt. Pleasant. At the time it seemed as if it were a good idea. I had the day off, it would only be an hour and it would be a chance to work off some of the three holiday desserts I had felt compelled to try.
Hopping on the treadmill, I enjoyed a warm, fuzzy moment thinking how good it is to have friends who encourage you along life’s way. If it weren’t for her, I probably would be in bed, reading and listening to the rain. Instead I’m reading such affirmations on the wall as: Your mind is the athlete.
Bring it on, I think.
This studio does intense, interval sessions. After several sprints on the treadmill and doing walking lunges up a 27-percent incline, I looked over at her, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes. Definitely, bad for me. Warm, fuzzy feeling is gone. I sneer at the positive affirmations on the wall. My mind obviously is no athlete.
I think of getting pizza with my kids, my reward for surviving, as we walk to get our bags and mop off our sweat.
“You want to go to Trader Joe’s and get some thinkThin bars? she asks.
Sure, why not.
What are friends for?
DB
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Hurley's First Snow
This is all new.
Something cold, white, crunchy under your paws.
Not sure what to do.
Each step must feel strange.
You pause and look to me.
I do my best to guide you, mother you,
Reassure you from the other end of the leash.
"It's okay.
Just take another step.
I won't be far."
Each time I stand on the brink of the unknown,
I need the same from God.
Guide me, mother me, reassure me.
But there is no leash connecting us.
It's not so easy to know where to look.
Still, when I take that first step,
Sometimes I think I hear a familiar whisper.
"It's okay.
Just take another step.
I won't be far."
SS
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In these in-between days, between the first holy days of Christmas and the revelry of the New Year, I find myself reaching for grace. So, the quilts didn’t get finished this year, the book is still in process, the house has yet to be de-cluttered, my blog post is late. My never ending list of projects will simply have to go on the to-do list for 2012. In the meantime, this in-between time, we will have visits from family, dinners with friends, a daughter still home from college, and life to enjoy. And so for these last few minutes of 2011, I’ll put away the to-do lists, sit on the back porch and put up my feet, and simply be.
AF
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