April 14, 2016

I had my massage yesterday, once every two weeks, and was stiff as could be. I related my dream. My massage person suggested that it could be the armour suit falling off. In the dream I rescue my sister from the water. But she was not swimming and then she went back in, while I was trying to rescue the cat. She was trying to go....

....but the people you see in dreams are supposedly parts of yourself. So what do I need to let go? Not the cat. Our cat cries when I am gone and only my daughter is here, because my daughter is a bit allergic and won't let the cat snuggle much. And the cat is a one person cat, really. She likes my son but she is quite aware that he is visiting and she doesn't like it when he leaves.

I like the idea of the armour suit being the thing that I need to let go. Though I think there are some family things too, gone with my mother, father and sister, that I am letting go. I was not in danger of drowning in the dream. The water was warm and it was swirling but I could swim in it easily. The danger was that my sister was refusing to swim and the cat was not coping well either. And water in dreams is supposed to represent the unconscious.

I fell into that other universe twice during yesterday's massage. Once I saw hundreds of hanging glass objects, with a colored bulb on the end. They looked like hummingbird feeders, but had no feeder part. And I knew they were musical, that they would ring against each other with any breath of air. They were beautiful.

At the end, I dropped onto a beach. I was in shallow water, sunny beach, clear water this time and warm and tropical. There were people laughing and playing in the water. This was after I thought about letting go of the armour.

I still end up with some of the armour suit back on, but as I get better at leaving pieces off, it feels pretty weird. I managed to keep my feet unlocked for this two weeks but my hips and neck were locked and it all feels so strange. What are the foot parts of armour? Greaves? My muscles feel confused: wait, you've been telling us to lock for years and now we aren't supposed to? And then if I get stressed some of them automatically go back to the old pattern: panicked muscles....

Woke up at 4:00, but laid in bed until around 5:30. Drank some water, I put carrot peels in it and found that refreshing. Went downstairs to survey the laundry situation. Threw in a load of clothes and arranged the things I pulled out of the dryer. We still have too many clothes lying around in the basement and part of that is my fault since I bought a couple new things. My youngest says you can't call it "seeing someone' else when you haven't met in person, I've tried the phrase exclusive romantic interest, but that doesn't seem to fit either. The other night I was reading my book When Feelings Don't Come Easy which is a fabulous book that's difficult for me to keep reading despite its gripping nature. I highly recommend it.

Yesterday was my third day of yoga in a row. Typically the 9:00 class is easier than classes offered before or after it so I was surprised to see the owner of the studio behind the counter. She's beautiful to me, complicated green eyes, olive tan skin, and a body that I envy. I talked to her for a moment about the difficulty of her class. It was way beyond where I'm at, but it showed me that I could do more than I thought which was cool. I hurt my right elbow although I didn't feel that until after class. Yesterday's class is my favorite. I'm stronger than I am flexible, the instructor offers a more athletic form of yoga where we do a lot of planks and more upper body work. The first time I went I was very overwhelmed, but my confidence and skill set gets better every time I attend which leads me to my next point.

I want to be able to convey how I feel about walking into that big empty room when it's time for class. There isn't any furniture aside from a small table in the front corner of the room that's hidden by the wall. There are a few tissue paper type lamps for dull days, but the majority of the room is worn honey colored flooring, cream colored walls, expansive windows, and a really cool old ceiling that has a neat design in it. There's a rolling rack in back with bolsters on it. It's what I want my house to feel like when people come into it, the space, the warmth, the expansiveness, the realization that work is hard, but we're up to facing our challenges instead of running away from them. It smells like cypress and cedar, smell is important to me, I just love going there, I wish I could live there, but I can't, so I'm doing the next best thing.

My back room is going to get a makeover. I started painting the hideous brown paneling. The jungle green probably won't last, there's white primer in the basement. I want to coat the walls white, pull up the carpeting my kids spit up on and turn that unused space into a sanctuary for myself and others. I'm listening to Celine Dion and thinking about the men in my life, the ones I've left behind and the one I'm excited to meet. I sent him a message before I went to bed last night, he sent me a reply before he went to bed, I love having that level of emotional support. It's been lacking in my life to the degree that I needed it, having a sexual attraction to another person is fun, but this is the stuff real relationships are built upon which makes me very happy.

I still need a job, now that I'm seeing the benefits of yoga I'm wondering if I should become an instructor. The minimalism appeals to me, the idea of coaching others the way I've been coached is alluring, the clothes is easy for me, it would take a while, but I think it's the kind of thing I can do while I have another job. I'm going to go through my house room by room, my neighbors and family will help me, I am going to redo what I can and make this house mine for as long as I am here. I'm getting rid of the red loveseat Jill and Jane's dad bought me for my birthday. I kind of want to hold onto it, but that's the safe route, and I'm tired of holding onto the past. God is with me, he's guiding me, yoga is helping, I'm doing things I didn't think I could and learning more about myself. It's been really cool, and today I'm grateful for that...

Had a dream I was being chased by cops last night. Amusingly, I got away. These sorts of dreams are always a mash of geography from my past mixed together in weird ways. In this dream I put houses right along Sunset Memorial Park, but also as the dream progressed Sunset mixed more and more with the older Fairview Cemetary.

There was a house there of somebody I knew who at one point in time lived in a crappy duplex. In the dream the duplex was tiny and ugly on the outside, but once inside it was a sprawling manor with large magisterial windows and cabinets prominently displaying crystal drinkware. The dream became oddly focused on these.

I can't remember why the police were chasing me. Maybe a bank robbery gone bad. But I do know they'd already captured my confederates. I swapped out my Honda to throw them off the scent (in the waking world, I sold the Honda to a junkyard after a teenager ran a stop sign and smashed the entire front end to bits). I switched clothes. I had my friend cut my hair.

The dream has no ending because I woke up. Today is my birthday. Tomorrow I go to collect another beehive for my dad. The day after is work. This life keeps moving, I wonder where it'll end up.

birthday past/birthday future