naming it

It's ironic.  

A few weeks ago I received my first-ever business cards, cards I made for the business of me, not for me in my paid-job, but for the things that I do, that I wish to do more of, that  I wish were the only things I do all day.  I love these little cards.  The backs are images from my own photos.  Describing myself was easy: writer. beekeeper. yogini.

Making the cards was part of an overall push this year to make things real, to work toward developing my skills and passions into something sustainable.  I know how important it is to name what you want in order to move toward it.  So the cards were a way of sticking in a pin in the destination and deliberately putting one foot in front of the other to get there.  I'm on the path.  

OK, maybe I'm off a little to the side of the path right now, a bit in the weeds.

What's ironic is that in the period since receiving the cards, I feel like I am doing very little of the three things listed.  Handing them out feel like it requires a scribbled-on in-pencil caveat --  "most of the time," "i wish!" or "in my dreams."

Lately, ever since I made a commitment to write daily for a writing class, I am rarely doing so, where pre-promise I was.  Because of work and our schedules, we're over-due on our hive-checks at a pretty critical season, and so may be losing honey to robbing (hive 1).  We're getting on it this weekend, for reals, now that we'll both be around and caught up on everything else.  My job has been seriously sucking joy from the atmosphere lately, which is generally no good for anything in my life, much as I try to keep it in check.

And I haven't been practicing.  It's kind of the trifecta of woe. 

Don't get me wrong: there's been more than plenty of good stuff.  While Joe was gone last weekend, a long stretch of super-satisfying fall clean-up in the garden, walks with Mr Burns, reading, some yoga, friends.  Good stuff.  It's just that I feel a little off track.

As for the yoga, I'm examining that.  I've taken breaks from practicing in the past, a week here or there.  Generally it has something to do with my work-schedule and needing to reduce my overall stress level by eliminating zooming here and there by car.  But this time it has to do with feeling bored.  Bored!  I can't believe I'm saying that.  Lately, I'm just not all excited to go as I have been.  I feel terrible about feeling bored, but still, there it is -- I'm kind of bored.  So a break is in order.  I am thinking of this in the same terms as I think about quitting coffee.  I go without for a little bit, and then when I go back, bam, such a delicious reminder of how much I love it.  So me & yoga: we're on a little break.  Probably I'll go back on the weekend, but for right now am enjoying the coming-straight-home at 5 in the evenings, like "normal" people and not leaving my house at 8 on weekend mornings just when the light is most beautiful in the trees.

It's funny that last week I wrote about tapasya, about needing to stay fired up about intention.  I guess my personal burner's on Simmer right now, which is about all the flame I can muster, given all that's going on.  Since I tend to burn Hot or not at all, I'm getting used to this slow-burn, which maybe, just maybe, is actually more sustainable long-term.  I mean, really, who am I kidding: if I could cut the full-time joy- and energy-sucking job from my life, boy, would I ever have a lot more BTU's to devote to everything else.  I'm doing the very best that I can, appreciating every bit of creativity I can muster in the face of the pressure at work.

I'm really just remarking on the irony of the cards.  I still love them and still think it was the right move, but feeling a bit like a poseur right now.  Like buying a new pair of running shoes as a way to mark the intention to get in the habit, then only using them only to shuffle to the curb for the morning paper. Shhhhh, defeating voice of self-doubt.  Shut it!

Slow and steady wins the race, right?  Burning low and slow these days, but burning just the same.  And doing the work and handing out the cards whenever possible, knowing that I'm still heading in the right direction.

XX