Porch Yoga

 

I think we can all agree at this point that 2020 has been a weird one.  It's been sorrowful in many ways with a lot of loss woven into its days.  For a while, it felt like I was kicking and screaming over the losses. I wanted life to go back to normal, in any way that it could.  As the days and months have continued on, though, I'm learning to fall into new rhythms in these days and to take these as opportunities for a different sort of way through.  

One of the things that I've recently adopted in the past couple of weeks is porch yoga.  One thing I loved about our house from the moment we moved in was our backyard.  It's big and oddly shaped, filled with trees overhanging from the wooded ravine behind our house.  It's perfect for our adventure-loving dog who we strap a GPS collar onto so that he can roam around chasing rabbits and exploring the woods.  It's been really great for us, too.  We used to have rocking chairs on our back porch, but we've found that there is a lot of moisture in our backyard that makes it tricky to keep nice porch furniture out.  Our rocking chairs rotted quickly and are now no longer functional.  Instead of buying outdoor furniture, we pull our living room furniture out onto the porch when we want to eat outside or have friends over in the times of social distancing. 

The other night, I was tired from staring at a computer and my back was aching from being bent over charting for too many hours.  I hadn't been keeping up with my yoga practice but suddenly felt the need to be outdoors on my mat.  I collected my mat, changed into yoga pants, and headed outside with my computer. Yoga with Adriene is my go to for at home yoga, and she has so many great options.  I did her Yoga for Change & Drain, intended for periods of your life when you are going through a lot of change.  I found it challenging since I had been away from mat for so long, but it was so wonderful to breathe in the fresh air outside while doing something that felt good for my brain and my body.

Since then, I've kept my mat near the back door and head outside when I need to move my body a little and to breathe in some fresh air, and it's been one of the strangest gifts of this season.  Life is so much quieter these days; while my work life is busier than it has ever been, my home life feels slow and quiet.  I am trying to read more, to make our space more of what we want it to be, and to start the processing of living things away and curating what we really want for our move to NC sometime in the next few months. 

I'm grateful for weird little pieces of delight in the midst of a super strange season. I'm looking forward to celebrating my last fall in the Midwest and my last holiday season here.  Fall in the midwest is SO beautiful and I will enjoy and savor every piece of it that I can. For the holidays, I'll put up more twinkly lights than ever before and live in the spirit of Kathleen Kelly. "It will all shake out. Meanwhile, I'm putting up more twinkle lights." -Kathleen Kelly 

What weird but delightful things are you finding that you enjoy in this season? 

xo,

C