Dickens the cat darts after the arc of the airborne mouse toy, a kitten habit I thought he’d forsaken in his emerging neutered dudehood. He skids on the painted wood floor like a Risky Business Tom Cruise in orange fluffy pants and white toesocks.
Today I ran along a bit of the Bloomsday course and then hooked into the Centennial Trail. My carne & carb loading this weekend hasn’t translated into speed or strength, just an intense desire to curl up like Dickens or a crescent roll in a big square of sunshine. If only I could photosynthesize in my spare time, how efficient I would be!
But I'm tossing the ratty yellow mouse toy across the room and thinking about my mood.
I like that yoga teachers get to say things like “observe the texture of your mood” (smooth? grainy? knotted? silky? Yes, I’m in a silky mood. Remember back in the days of myspace when you didn’t update your status, really, but you could indicate your mood?)
In yoga, we’re instructed to watch our thoughts and feelings as though they’re images on a TV screen. We don’t have to respond to the thoughts but just watch the parade.
In a couple of classes, I’ve pictured my thoughts as fireflies condensed like dew on grass. The lightning bugs shine like jewels, and they are my thoughts. Well, there they are: this is what my mind offers up by way of a mantra. Yes, thoughts about pizza and homesickness and the lint on my yoga pants are blinking, but I don’t have to listen right now, or ever.
In the class last week, I imagined my thoughts were feathers, royal blue and berry pink. Some dream bird must have shed them ("Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience," wrote Walter Benjamin, though I feel unafflicted by boredom here except when driving).
The feathers were my thoughts, falling in a gentle see-saw slow-mo onto the floor of my mind. Probably they were collecting in a soft duffy pile, and someone was going to have to sweep that big colorful nest off the floor, weren't they! But I didn’t see the floor, just the feathers falling.
Fireflies and glam plumage--the pictures of my thoughts were beautiful. Not dust bunnies, eye crusties, dirty socks, moldy lunch, gum on a sandal, the drips from the hole in the trash bag.
I don't always think kind thoughts about my thoughts. But maybe my mind has a mind of its own, and my mind wants me to know my thoughts, dang it, can be silent, delicate things.
I like where this is going.
Last night I found out that my new teakettle’s built-in whistle produces two tones. It’s a pleasing interval, and sounds like a harmonica, and sings along sweetly with the flutters of my hobo soul and the wails of nearby trains.
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