Life vs. polka dots
It wasn't that I was stressed. It wasn't that I was depressed (much). Life was pretty good. I was healthy, good at my job, surrounded by fabulous people.
It was that I was in a rut. My creativity was tossed by the side in favor of weekly menus, shopping lists, errands. My curiosity had been usurped by workout schedules, work deadlines, and then an exhausted evening on the couch. A non-returned phone call could send me into a spiral of frustration. A lot of days I seemed to run around like a frantic muppet just to get anything accomplished for not much satisfaction.
I put myself on a self-imposed shopping diet, which only enlightened me to how much I was using small purchases to cheer myself up, however breifly. Now I didn't even dare so much as walk into a Payless for fear of being tempted. I was dieting, sort of, but having limited success and not feeling in control of it. I couldn't keep up with my cycling group ever. Self-esteem was pretty low.
I spent my time looking at things I wasn't going to buy, reading about lives I couldn't lead, making more lists trying to force-efficiency my way into perking up again.
Rain darkened the next week's forecast. Let's get out of town, he said. I was suspicious, but intrigued. We looked from Napa to San Luis Obispo in search of bliss and indoor fun. We found a romantic room with a mineral hot spring tub on the patio and instantly booked it. Several errands and workouts in the morning and south we sped as the windshield wipers squeaked by on full-blast.
We met friends for dinner at an Italian restaurant with flavors that whisked me right back to the arched-ceiling dining room in Volterra for the first time. We opened a bottle of wine in our hotel room, sat in robes on the floor in front of the fireplace giggling to Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Lounged in the hot tub just under an awning as cold rain tapped our elbows.
In the morning, we lazily crawled out of bed to attend a yoga class, taught by a vibrant older woman who cheered and sang us on through the incense as we ground our IT bands over a foam roller. We drove up to Madonna Inn and brunched with our table filled with pink sprinkles, warm pots of honey with biscuits, and coffee in teacups on saucers. We ventured up to the boutique where I discovered a clothing designer who worked almost exclusively in a palette of crisp black white and hot pink but in hypnotic polka dots, damasks and leopard prints, trimmed in satin and jeweled pink buttons. Everything I tried on looked glamorous and tailored just for me. I left with my wallet intact but with a business card and a promise.*
Visited friends and their amazing (and still evolving) house, a work of art in itself. Wine tasting through the valley and telling stories. Another long drive back home, unable to pick up good radio stations, so we exchanged secrets and plans.
I simply cannot BELIEVE how much I apparently needed that. It's like halfway through the yoga class, my cynicism just switched off and pure adventurism replaced it. Something the chatty yoga teacher mentioned offhand, I think: Don't seek happiness. Happiness is having ice cream. Sadness is dropping your ice cream. Joy comes from the fact that there is ice cream at all. Seek joy in your life instead.
I am wildly inspired. I'm going to dig out my sewing machine in between my new regimen of workouts. Maybe I should get out of town more often. Hrm.
* Seriously: This one? Or this hunk of awesome? Or throwing on this one for spring-weather adventures? AAAGH cannot decide.
It was that I was in a rut. My creativity was tossed by the side in favor of weekly menus, shopping lists, errands. My curiosity had been usurped by workout schedules, work deadlines, and then an exhausted evening on the couch. A non-returned phone call could send me into a spiral of frustration. A lot of days I seemed to run around like a frantic muppet just to get anything accomplished for not much satisfaction.
I put myself on a self-imposed shopping diet, which only enlightened me to how much I was using small purchases to cheer myself up, however breifly. Now I didn't even dare so much as walk into a Payless for fear of being tempted. I was dieting, sort of, but having limited success and not feeling in control of it. I couldn't keep up with my cycling group ever. Self-esteem was pretty low.
I spent my time looking at things I wasn't going to buy, reading about lives I couldn't lead, making more lists trying to force-efficiency my way into perking up again.
Rain darkened the next week's forecast. Let's get out of town, he said. I was suspicious, but intrigued. We looked from Napa to San Luis Obispo in search of bliss and indoor fun. We found a romantic room with a mineral hot spring tub on the patio and instantly booked it. Several errands and workouts in the morning and south we sped as the windshield wipers squeaked by on full-blast.
We met friends for dinner at an Italian restaurant with flavors that whisked me right back to the arched-ceiling dining room in Volterra for the first time. We opened a bottle of wine in our hotel room, sat in robes on the floor in front of the fireplace giggling to Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Lounged in the hot tub just under an awning as cold rain tapped our elbows.
In the morning, we lazily crawled out of bed to attend a yoga class, taught by a vibrant older woman who cheered and sang us on through the incense as we ground our IT bands over a foam roller. We drove up to Madonna Inn and brunched with our table filled with pink sprinkles, warm pots of honey with biscuits, and coffee in teacups on saucers. We ventured up to the boutique where I discovered a clothing designer who worked almost exclusively in a palette of crisp black white and hot pink but in hypnotic polka dots, damasks and leopard prints, trimmed in satin and jeweled pink buttons. Everything I tried on looked glamorous and tailored just for me. I left with my wallet intact but with a business card and a promise.*
Visited friends and their amazing (and still evolving) house, a work of art in itself. Wine tasting through the valley and telling stories. Another long drive back home, unable to pick up good radio stations, so we exchanged secrets and plans.
I simply cannot BELIEVE how much I apparently needed that. It's like halfway through the yoga class, my cynicism just switched off and pure adventurism replaced it. Something the chatty yoga teacher mentioned offhand, I think: Don't seek happiness. Happiness is having ice cream. Sadness is dropping your ice cream. Joy comes from the fact that there is ice cream at all. Seek joy in your life instead.
I am wildly inspired. I'm going to dig out my sewing machine in between my new regimen of workouts. Maybe I should get out of town more often. Hrm.
* Seriously: This one? Or this hunk of awesome? Or throwing on this one for spring-weather adventures? AAAGH cannot decide.