Nathan Williams

Not to put too fine a point on it but uh... I'm really happy right now. There's burnout in some places within me, but lots of little tendrils growing, and lots of satisfying progress being made in the intermediate zones that aren't new and also aren't overtaxed.

I didn't really tell you about trying to hollow out a tree stump to make a planter; that's been a slow process but I've learned that I really enjoy chiseling. (The rubber mallet is easy on my joints, I have a lovely long bath of a slow-burn horror book that's strangely cozy to listen to, and it hits that sweet spot of "moderately active outdoor time in the shade"). Anyway, I finished a layer of chiseling yesterday, and there was a little spider on a little spiderweb in there. I think that a few years ago I would have grabbed a broom. "Idiot" I said to it yesterday, and started chiseling as far away from it as I could. It crawled around, hid for a while and finally came to its tiny little senses and left the stump! Then I swept its remaining web away with the chisel and finished up, and was happy with all that. Very strange.

Handstand lessons are a whole new experience with a) better focus and b) Tiny Coach. I tend to come back from her lessons a little starry-eyed and saying things like "omg, I felt something in my chest that I've never felt before", leading the bug to wonder whether I've been on a date or at a lesson (snerk). But really though. I really did feel something like a rubber band across my sternum, and I felt a part of my right hamstring relax and lengthen in a way that was really startling. I just let her mess with me, the way a vet does things to a cat, and then later I take notes. Amusingly, and related to the above, we did have a moment where she suggested I visualize a spiderweb wrapping around my ribcage and I was like "this is a great moment to tell you about my phobia, let's do something different." LOL. So all of this is good and it's carrying over into my Spring lessons too. I hope it carries into my hand-to-hands where I'm still working through some mental block, but time will probably help there too.

(Speaking of Spring, he's going to have surgery in a couple of weeks and be out for a while, plus Tiny Coach won't be teaching contortion handstands again next session, so my LCS schedule should ease up soon; maybe just in time for my self-discipline to pick up a little and me to train on my own more?)

Disconnected nice things -- social time out on Tuesday that ended abruptly and left me wandering, alone and buzzed, in Boston in the warm late evening. More drawing exercises, mostly done during video calls with two different friends. And several things went well for the squirrel family this week, big things that advance the plot. And the bug and I made reservations to go ride roller coasters at Cedar Point for two days later in the summer! On Thursday night I was jazzed enough about all these things to have trouble sleeping, which I found pretty funny even while it was happening and I wanted to be asleep.

I fumbled my way toward town/community involvement a bit more, attending a neighborhood council meeting and having lunch with a guy who's very connected to the various do-good movements around town. It sounds like my organizational / group leadership skills are very much in need for pretty much everything I might want to be involved in, but... that's where the burnout still lives, so maybe do-gooding can wait. I still have enough of my own stuff to do.

One final amusement: I had my first garden-related anxiety dream last night. All my plants were dying! In real life, the ginger did have a leaf or two go dry from this week's heat wave. It's funny how any pursuit or any level of caretaking creates a whole new genre of "X going wrong" dreams.

I'll be posting separately about the weekend, but in the meantime here we are.