Tag: self-expression

Dress-up

We went to a theatre show that took place in Japan in the 1950s or so. Naturally, my mom and I wore kimono and looked awesome. When we first entered the theatre, the director lit up, he was so excited to see us dressed up as we were. One thing led to another, and I was entering into my schedule that I would show up the next evening for closing night to dress the director before the show, in kimono, of course.

My mom decided that she wanted to join me in dressing him, because how could she not? It’s quite fun to provide such an opportunity for someone, especially for someone who has never worn kimono before and has a desire and a reason to do so.

So, I packed up my men’s kimono – most of them, but not all of them, because some belong to my man and to my man alone – and headed back to the theatre this evening. We had a blast dressing him and picking which belt went best with the kimono he selected, and getting it all to sit appropriately on his non-Japanese body. Once he was dressed, not only was his delight visible, he went and showed all the actors and workers his outfit, and they all were really excited about his outfit. (Of course, they remembered us from the night before, because, well, kimono aren’t easy to miss or forget when they’re sitting in the front row for the entire show.)

As people began to arrive, the director was speaking with various attendees, and it was clear they all appreciated his attire. Plus, he just looked really cool. It was definitely the right color and all. I even had had him go take a photo on the actual stage, with its Japanese style walls and all, it just looked so complete a picture. It was just a really great way to complete the show’s run, and I’m very grateful I not only got to be a part of it but the source of it.

Thank you, God, for this blessing. Thank you for this life. Help us all to experience your love and to spread gratitude. In your name, I pray. Amen.

My mom in kimono
Here I am in kimono, looking wonderfully and ironically awkward
The director all dressed up and on stage
Kimono really are awesome

P.S. Always remember to play in life. Tonight’s playing dress-up was such fun, and I look forward to more play and fun to be had tomorrow in some way!

Post-a-day 2023

Breathing room

My man got real with me today about my current stress levels. I have been making an effort to see my grandma, who recently moved to town and is struggling with her physical body a lot at present, most days since she moved to town. He pointed out that I have been living as though my grandma were going to die within the next month… and that it is incapacitating me.

You see, I haven’t been able to get almost anything done at home. There is loads of tidying that I actually want to do, but I haven’t been able to do any of it. And I haven’t even been getting enough sleep at night as it is. I have so much work to do right now, that that, combined with visiting my grandma so often, has left me with no available time and still getting to bed later than I need to be getting to bed each night. What’s more, living on a lack of sleep means that everything with work takes longer and is a lot harder for me. So, basically, I’ve felt like I’ve been drowning for a few weeks now, and it really sucks. I normally get loads done at home whenever he’s out of town, and it currently feels worse than ever at home, though he’s been out of town for two weeks.

And I think he’s right. I can still love my grandma and not drain myself entirely. Even going every other day would be better for me and my physical body, as well as my mental state.

Plus, I need to honor not only my bedtime but my ‘be-home’ time, the time each day I need to be home in order to settle down and get ready for bed on time. I learned years ago that I cannot just slide into bed as soon as I get home. On a super fast night, it still takes me half an hour, which is usually rather stressful having to hurry everything along. A typical night makes my bedtime routine an hour to an hour and a half. If I’ve had a tough day, add an extra half hour of wind-down time. So, when my family thinks it’s no big deal for me to be hanging out for dinner at a quarter to seven, I need to speak up and leave, so I can actually be home by seven. Otherwise, I’m already getting to bed late. Just like tonight. I was just stopping by for 15 minutes. Over an hour later, after having been roped into helping with something, I was finally leaving, stressed and knowing I’d be starting the week off lacking sleep.

However, I did tell my grandma that I wouldn’t be back until Tuesday, the day after tomorrow, which was good for me. And she also seemed totally okay with it. I hope she is. As my mom mentioned today, my grandma hasn’t had so much company and so much visit time in who knows how long. She hasn’t had anything like it the past year and a half. And, even when she and my Opa still lived in their house the past decade or so, they didn’t typically have visits more than once a week from family or friends.

I just hope she will heal and will get to enjoy living here.

God, help us all to pursue and to fulfill your will. Heal my grandma, please. Heal, also, my brothers’ dad, please. Lots of healing and love over here would be awesome, of course. Help us all to be filled with your love and your grace. Thank you for this life. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Ballet

I went to a ballet class this morning. My friend has signed up her daughter, who recently turned three, for ballet classes at a studio in a nearby neighborhood. I had joined them to watch that class this week after school one day. While it was absolutely adorable and a total morale boost, it also made me want to do ballet classes myself.

I had only officially done a beginner series of six classes eight years ago, plus a private lesson and a single drop-in in an intermediate class after the series. I also had had a few beginner drop-in classes here and there years before that. Very little had stuck from those, though.

So, eight years after the beginner series, here I am, stepping into a class that is for middle- and high-school-students, but that is technically an open drop-in class for adults, too.

I was terrified, and I showed up anyway. This morning was certainly a morning filled with courage. I didn’t do amazingly – not at all. But I did do most of the stuff in the class. By the end of the floor work, we were doing some things I had not ever learned to do, so I was guessing and making it up as I went, and also stepping back to observe more before trying it out again. All in all, it was a good time had by me. I imagine the kids in the class were thrown by my presence, but I rolled with it happily. And the teacher made it clear that I was, in fact, invited back both for that class and for certain other ones, too. (I even asked if I could take the lower level classes, and she told me that I didn’t need to take them. So, though I was happy yet serious with my inquiry, she was, too. I apparently am functioning enough to stay in the class.) So, that was cool. Woohoo!

I look forward to improving and to doing better each class.

I certainly have things to work on before I go back, and I hope I can make that happen consistently, starting this week. Because I really want to go back and to do better by a lot each time. I truly enjoy the feeling of doing ballet right. It is such a good feeling. Not because it’s right, but because ballet itself truly just feels amazing to do.

God, thank you for this blessing and opportunity of today. Thank you for the dancing. Thank you for my own sense of humour and easy acceptance of my current levels with everything. Help me to honor you through practice and dancing. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

P.S. God, would you heal my grandma and my brothers’ dad, please? In your name, I pray. Amen.

Learning SOMEthing

Context: As a way to help them behave, we did a bad word/phrase of the day two years ago in one class. The words and phrases weren’t actually very bad, but most of them were quite useful for the kids – they were things that they said to each other all the time in English, anyway. Now they could use them in French.
…..

In class this week, a student asked, after finishing the test, if he and another kid could go study in the hall. I told him to ask in French. He said, “N—— et moi pouvons… casse-toi?”

The first part was right… “Can N—— and I…”

The second part means either the command, “Get out of here!” or, even, “GTF out!”

Most of the class, after a momentary pause for all to process and draw breath, burst out laughing as his well-intended effort of unintentionally forcefully telling the teacher to leave class immediately.

At least he remembered something from sophomore year! 😛

Post-a-day 2023

Love from afar

My man is in Mexico. I miss him. I wish he were here. Or that I were there. But that I still could be doing my job… which is here. So, yeah…

I miss him.

God, please, keep him and the dog safe. Help to heal us all, that we may be close to you always and in all ways, and that we may pursue and want and fulfill your will. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

“Give us a brake”

In eighth grade, I submitted a partnered science project about soap and how it interacts with water, in which I had typed all about how the soap “brakes” up the surface of the water, etc., etc. Our teacher had us come look at the display and read through it. It took me a long time to understand what the issue was, though I understood immediately that something was wrong with the typed pages on the display. It took some obvious hinting and and bit of clarifying from the teacher before I truly got it that I was supposed to have used the word “break” instead of “brake”. Every single one was written as “brake”. At least I was consistent.

It took me years to understand and to accept how I had made such a big mistake. How had I, one who pays such close attention to details, messed up something so simple? Quite simply, because I had used the word I understood to be accurate, and I hadn’t really realized there were two different words. Why?

Because of the constant road signs around Houston throughout my childhood that read, “GIVE US A BRAKE” and had a character of a road worker on it. I knew the phrase well enough, and, because I didn’t know the spelling differences at play, I never understood the signs. I genuinely always thought they were some form of protest it workers union’s form of complaining about how people driving needed to chill out and not honk at and be mad at the road construction workers, because they were working hard. I always understood the sign to mean, “Give is a break.” I never knew – not for a while after that project – that the signs were just asking people to use their brakes to slow down as they pass through the construction areas… never knew.

And I got to feel like an idiot in eighth grade science class because of that simple little fact.

So, yeah… wasn’t a fan of signs using misspellings or fake words in the first place. Definitely wasn’t after I figured out that one.

😛

Post-a-day 2023

What to do

Sometimes, it feels like I must pick between several things that are all happening on the same day, overlapping just slightly, such that I technically could do them all, but for shorter amounts of time than I would want to spend at each event, and knowing that I would be absolutely wiped at the end of it all. So, I must pick. And I have nothing to do on any other days – only on these days where everything is happening on the same day.

But then, oftentimes, when I start to see how I could make it all work, things pop up and declare themselves incompatible with something else suddenly, and so the decision is made for me. The priority items win out in the incompatibility contest, and the less important events are set aside and dismissed. What’s funny about it, too, is that I often end up not doing the one thing I was kind of really excited to go do. But, hey, the important stuff is ranked so for a reason. And they usually end up being wonderful, anyway.

Such is the case with this weekend. I had to decline several exciting things in order to do work and to give love somewhere that it is very much needed.

On that note…

Dear God, please, keep me safe this weekend. Help me to share your love with B—, such that she truly experiences your love for her. Help her to feel and acknowledge your presence. Help her to be freed of that which she carries so heavily right now. Help her to let go of all that does not serve her in your will and your love. Help me to say and do just what she needs to hear and experience, in order to find your love newly. Thank you for this opportunity. Bless me with your perfect words and actions this weekend, please. Thank you for this life. Help me help B— be grateful for it all, too. And, if there be demons in and/or around her, help me to wash them away permanently. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Travel prayers

Dear God, please, keep my man safe throughout his travels, especially tonight and tomorrow, and on his return to the US at the end of his month-long stay. Help us always to pursue your will and to be the people you created us to be. Help us to choose you. Help us to love and to live fully the lives you have offered to us. Keep him safe, happy, healthy, holy, please. Thank you for him and for our relationship and for the wonderful, love-filled hopes for our future together, through you and with you. Help us to live it, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Nerd

So, my man has a sinus infection. Our family nurse told him to go ahead and go to an urgent care place, since he had a fever as of this afternoon, and he still was coughing up all the yellow stuff. (Fun fact: Just before he went, he finally gave in and used the saline rinse nasal pot. He did a very good job, and I am still proud of him for letting go of that fear enough to give it a go again. I hate using them, too, and only do it when I really need to use it.)

Anyway, the doctor said he was fine to be around people and all. Just don’t make out with people, share drinks and utensils, cough on people, etc. So, he stopped at the store on the way home.

While he was there, he was trying to get connected to the wifi at the store, while on the phone with me (because I’d told him that they actually have wifi and it works effectively, and you can actually send and receive photos easily when connected to it). He puts me on speakerphone while he tries to figure it out, and starts kind of cursing up a storm in his ‘I’m already sick and now I’m also stressed and annoyed’ frustration/exhaustion. I tell him, “Chill…” After a short beat, I realize and add, “Although, I guess you can’t, since you have a fever.”

We definitely shared a moment of enjoying that idiocy together. 😛 😀 And it was glorious.

Post-a-day 2023