Tag: #hopewriterlife

I Thought Slow Was Safe. Nope.

Shirleyjdietz1 Comment
Snow looks so… soft, doesn’t it?

For someone who loves being outside as much as I do, winter in the north is challenging. Snow, sleet, and ice can be cold and uninviting. The words slipping and sliding also are also prominent in my winter vocabulary. My somewhat advanced physical (not mental) age would suggest that I avoid all opportunities to slip, slide and fall. So, why on earth would I choose to take up cross country skiing, where slipping and sliding is actually the whole game? I don’t know. I guess I thought it wouldn’t matter if I went slow.

My first clue that slow was not the answer came as I plodded along, breaking my own trail in deep snow – a definite slow process. As I passed a line of spruce trees separating my path from a row of houses, a large Husky came silently bounding out to meet me. I stopped forward motion, startled, and promptly fell over. I hadn’t yet learned how to get up with skis on, hands trapped in pole straps. After trying for 5 minutes, I took the skis off and managed to get upright. Even the dog was surprised, and did we ever leave a huge hole in that smooth blanket of deep snow. That was last year.

More recently I went on an afternoon ski with some good friends who ski anything but slow. They think slow is okay, but fast is fun. They would pass me on the skate track, turn around and come back and pass me again just to keep moving. I felt a slight hit on one of my poles as I was being passed and made the mistake of turning to look.

I have heard even good skiers say that keeping balanced is tricky when they look around them at scenery or behind them to see who is following. This has always been the case for me too. When everything around me is white (snow) I have a hard time finding a point of reference, so I keep my eyes fixed on the track ahead of me and my skis. Like I said, turning around to look was a mistake.

I had a few seconds when I thought I might be able to recover my balance. They were very brief and then I felt my knees hitting the ground and my nose plowing into hard, crusty snow. “Face plant” is what it’s called, and I think it happens because hands, which normally would reach out to protect the face are, once again, strapped to ski poles and unavailable. My glasses came off, losing one of the lenses. My friends rushed to see how hurt I was, but I was already practicing my advanced skill of getting up without taking off skis. I have learned how to do that this year. Progress.

I was not skiing fast, and was very glad to have been going slow, for things could have been much worse. I have to say that in this season of my life, when slowing down can be very important, it is not the only friend that I should consider. Right alongside it is balance, not only in skiing, but also in life. Gives me something to think on… just sayin’.

This is as close to a “selfie” on skis that I will ever take. Even taking pictures can make me lose balance.

Rest

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This post is part of a week long Instagram writing challenge, with the prompt “rest”. But, (confession) I don’t really get Instagram yet so I’m putting it here too, where I can find it.

These peaceful scenes were photographed shortly before sundown very near where I live. Nothing speaks rest to me like nature when it slows down at the end of the day. The planet we live on is designed to have cycles, and so were we – cycles of work and rest.

Science bears this out. Circadian rhythms respond to times of light and dark, and there are even longer cycles like the weekly and seasonal cycles. When we tamper with these natural rhythms, we are walking away from our own health. If we fail to give ourselves the rest our bodies need, they will force us to rest by getting sick.

I’ve done my share of pressing the limit when it comes to lack of sleep and unrestful activity. Sometimes (when I was much younger…) I even felt cool, kind of grown-up, and invincible when staying up all night. I would laugh at the need for sleep. I’m over that. My body has lost the ability to adjust and it is telling me in many ways that it wants no more abuse.

Rest is more than sleep. It is stopping your work. It is doing something different, taking a sabbatical, clearing your mind, getting ready to work again. Those who write might even need to rest from that. New ideas come from a rested mind.

Take it from God, what better example. Even he rested from his work, not because he got tired, but because rest is good.

And if you’ve done nothing else during this pandemic, I hope you’ve rested, some.

Rewrite

Shirleyjdietz7 Comments

My blog has been my stress reliever, my “learning place”, my experiment for the last eight years. I have written a lot, and the strange thing is I don’t remember everything I’ve written. There are things in there that I don’t recognize as my own (but they have to be). Sometimes I read a post and think it was really interesting, or funny, or insightful. Other times I read and think “I’ve got to get this out of here quick, so no one else will stumble upon it”. Time for a rewrite.

What a project! But I’ve found that I like it. It’s an historical review of life “back then” for one thing. Many of the posts are timeless and can be re-purposed and put back on the blog with a new freshness. And, believe me, having something to start with makes it a lot easier to write. Rewriting is a skill of its own – a skill that I’ve improved in over the last eight years. It’s encouraging when I can easily see improvements and make them quickly.

Spring is all about fresh and new. Rewriting is too. Let me at it.