Mirror Talk Answers - for today* --- Day 4/131

Walk: Sundance Kabuki (Spy)
Distance: 2 miles, small home yoga



*See Day 4/129

Stages --- Day 4/130

Walk: Laurel/T. Joe's Loop (x2)
Distance: 6 miles and home yoga



Healthy lilies are back and all staged for Ciwt's next attempt at matching flowers with new vases. Tomorrow.  Maybe at the hour when she would have been teaching her yoga class.  New stage officially beginning.

Mirror Talk --- Day 4/129

Walk:  No, Day of Rest

  Sometimes when putting herself together in front of the mirror Ciwt hears a quiet voice asking "What if you just gave up?" And she is closer to understanding people she sees around who appear to have done just that - no more clothes that flatter or even fit, no primping, posturing, dieting, exercising, trying to look good at all .

But even Phyllis Diller didn't do that.  To the contrary.  Much of her successful shtick as a comedienne revolved around mocking her wild hair and not particularly attractive looks. Self-deprecating to a fault, a typical Diller joke had her running after a garbage truck pulling away from the curb.  "Am I too late for the trash?" she'd yell.  The driver's reply: "No, jump right in." Then, lo and behold, at age 55 she had a facelift thus beginning a series of fifteen plastic surgeries. Guess she 'gave up' in another way.  She gave up pretending that her never-very-good and diminishing-with-age looks didn't bother her.

Two different answers to the 'mirror question."  So far, Ciwt continues to engage daily with her personal response. Part of her thinks, wouldn't it be nice to just live in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere where looks wouldn't matter at all  ?  But then she might look terrible to her mirror but really, really fetching to a bear, rattlesnake or psychopath, not to mention her total lack of basic survival skills.  So it's back to the reflecting glass for the daily challenge and trying to keep in mind .

...Jiggety Jig --- Day 4/128

Walk: Mindful Body, Trader Joe's
Distance: 2 miles and take yoga class

A few items winked at Ciwt on her way through a Japanese antique store.  When she got home, she saw they were right to do so.....

So Many Choices... Day 4/127

Walk: No, Stayed out of the WIND
Distance: 0, home yoga

Ciwt thoroughly enjoyed her first day of retirement. So many choices, so much time....



Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.    
                                             Joseph Addison*
*  Joseph Addison (1672-1719) was an English essayist, poet, playwright, and politician.  His name is usually thought of alongside his long-standing friend, Richard Steele, with whom he founded The Spectator magazine.                           

Dinosaurs, Yes --- Day 4/126

Walk: Van Ness, Trader Joe's
Distance: 4.5 miles



The next yoga teacher for Ciwt's former class has been found.  So now she feels truly free to explore.  As Sophia Loren says, After all these years, I am still involved in the process of self-discovery. It's better to explore life and make mistakes than to play it safe. Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.

On the matter of exploring, Ciwt also finds this statement by Brian Blessed charming and touching:
When I was a child, I wanted to... go into space! To go to Mars. I wanted to explore and explore and explore. I wanted to go to the Lost World in South America - I was heartbroken to discover there were no dinosaurs; I still don't accept it.

C is for Change --- Day 4/125

Walk: Fillmore, Laurel
Distance: 4.5 miles and small home yoga



Ciwt is not trying to capitalize, but she's surprisingly in the know about the situation of the new Ms. C___.  One of her acquaintance/friend's has honored her by openly (for the first time) sharing her transgender status and experience as well as her thoughts about Ms. C.  Turns out Ciwt's a/f's change was in the mid-1960's so she's done and seen it all and is well worth learning from.

One of her main points - besides that not all transgender stories are sad/tragic; hers wasn't even for a minute - is that the physiological changes that transitioning involves are intense, complex, confusing, physically painful and emotional among other things.  Basically people like Ms. C have an entirely new body they know nothing about, and it takes years for that body to develop fully and for the 'owner' to understand it - on all different levels.  Eventually, slowly they can position themselves comfortably in a world that suits them.  Like, you know, what we all did from the identity crisis of adolescence until 'maturity' (ie, about yesterday).  Long process, many twists and turns until we start to get it right.

My friend - and most people who make the change properly/safely - was on hormones for many years before and after her legal change/coming out.  As just one example of what this entails, the pelvic bones soften, widen and become more feminine causing the whole body to ache continually. (Ciwt imagines like a constant, dull toothache).  Then there's the actual legal transition and the long, labored process of learning a new gender - while often unemployed because no history means no resume or a resume that often no longer applies.  It's complex to say the least.

The point here being that Ms. C has not been on hormones for nearly long enough, and she seems - with the media's gleeful assistance - to be denying/ignoring the profoundly demanding personal/private/physical challenges ahead in favor of the understandably (for a new girl) titillating glamour of finally being able to dress up.  Meanwhile apparently a lot of real people in the transgender community have a lot of compassion and concern for what may lie ahead for Ms. C. - even though her life will likely always be sheltered by fame, money and entourage.

All Hands on Deck! --- Day 4/124

Walk: Mindful Body
Distance: 10 blocks and teach yoga class

Errrr, what deck?




And when the whole place is full of dry rot and ghosts and old bones and the shelves are breaking down with old wormy books that no one could read if they tried, and the attic floors are bulging through the servants' ceilings with old trunks and top-boots and gasoliers and dressmaker's dummies and ball frocks and dolls-houses and pony saddles and blunderbusses and parrot cages and uniforms and love letters and jugs without handles and bridal pots decorated with forget-me-nots and a piece out at the bottom, that it grows into a real old faith, a masterpiece which people can really get something out of, each for himself. And then, of course, everybody keeps on saying that it ought to be pulled down at once, because it's an insanitary nuisance.” 
― Joyce Cary, The Horse's Mouth