Today was my first day back since the lockdown last winter, and only about the fourth since the start of the pandemic. Swimming is a time of contemplation for me, so here is the list of things I was thinking about today.
It’s great to see everyone! I have missed my pool buddies, and I really enjoyed catching up on work and life news as we changed after practice.
I have forgotten how to do this. The flippers, pull buoy and flutter board are all in the cupboard at home. I nearly went into the water wearing my glasses. When do I take off my mask? I completely missed the rest after that set. Again. Oops.
There are so many people! I don’t know them all. Ack! also, I am really bad at introducing myself to new people, and it’s nice to know that the club is at maximum membership. It will help our little non-profit stay afloat financially. Plus it is a welcome option for people who were struggling to find suitable lane swim times at the city pools.
Swimming with four people in a lane is hard. We aren’t all the same speed and I need to figure out how to work with that again. On the plus side, it is way easier to track my distance, even without a swim watch.
My arm hurts. I really should have mentioned that to the coach before starting. On the other hand, taking it easy in the pool means I can swim five strokes or more without breathing – yay!. But I am a worse kicker than ever because I barely use my legs in open water – boo!
It’s really noisy in here. Enclosed space, 20 swimmers, music on the speaker system… I miss the pond or the river, where I rarely hear anything except the wind and in the waves while swimming.
Pachelbel’s Canon is perfect for swimming, at least at my pace today. Air on a G String works pretty well too. I haven’t felt like singing songs in my head in ages. It was pretty sweet.
I forgot to ask E about how the arm she broke last winter has healed. Obviously it’s better since she doesn’t have the cast, but is she back to all the running and so on? Thank goodness there is another practice next week!
Image: an almost empty indoor swimming pool.
Diane Harper lives and swims with the Ottawa Centre Masters in Ottawa.
The truth is, my high-flying fitness plans aren’t going all that well. I’m swamped at work and life is… well, being life. I miss moving, but I just don’t have time to do more than swimming once a week and maaaaybe a run, if I’m lucky. I look at my count in the 221 in 2021 challenge and it’s just laughable at this point. There’s no way in hell I’m going to make it, and as a completionist this bugs me more than I’d like to admit.
A person on a teal-coloured e-bike. Photo by Gotrax on Unsplash
So I’ve been thinking about how I could get more movement in. I used to get a lot of my exercise through my commute, either biking or running. But now that the tiny human goes to nursery at the staff kindergarten where I work, I’ve been going by car every day and I’ve completely lost those workouts. If you look at the old post about my run commute I’ve linked above, you’ll see that I work up a very steep hill from where I live. Biking up with a normal bike and a kid’s trailer is just not feasible.
That’s why I’m very seriously contemplating an e-bike. I see other parents with kids in the same daycare do it and I get an itch. It would be perfect. I’m going to do it, I just need to find the right bike and make friends with the idea of parting with a whole bunch of my hard-earned euros (wow, these things are expensive!). Wish me luck on my search!
Sam recently shared an article on the links between too much time and mental health, with the comment that this was not her problem. My immediate thought was “Ha! I’m willing to test this hypothesis!” The study looked at perceptions of well-being and how that rose or fell depending on the amount of free time, controlling for scenarios such as depression, which might leave a person with too much free time.
The basic result was that the sense of well-being rose with about 2 hours of free time, but dropped if the person had more than about 5 hours of free time. But, what counts as free time matters. The sense of well-being came primarily with productive free time, for meaningful activities such as hobbies, social activities, etc. “Wasted” time (undefined in the article, but for me it means things like doomscrolling, social media, and playing computer games) does not have the same effect.
So what is my takeaway on this? I’m mostly doing okay with making time for things I enjoy. I get enough fitness activities to be healthy. If anything, I need to start paying more attention to possible overuse injuries. Right now, I am dealing with what appears to be swimmers elbow. This may be a perfect time to rebalance my activities a bit, especially since the weather is cooling so I will be swimming outdoors less over the next few months.
My rebalance will probably involve more horse time. My daughter is looking seriously at a younger horse for her own riding, since she likes to jump and Fancy, though still healthy and eager, is 19. Like me, she is getting to an age where we need to pay more attention to the risk of injury.
She is still great for flat work though, which suits me fine. Until now, I have been riding about once a week so that my daughter could get as much time in as possible. However, I will likely increase that to two or even three times a week over the next little while. Will I ever reach the 5-6 rides a week that would be optimal for her? Probably not. That is a big time commitment, and would move this leisure activity into the category of becoming a real chore. Besides, as we continue to age, we are both going to need more recovery time between outings.
Fancy, a dark brown thoroughbred mare. The first picture is of her walking away, showing off her shiny coat. The second shows her relaxing after a ride by rolling in the dirt. The is a picture taken while I was riding. It shows her head and a long shadow of both of us in the sand of the arena.
And I’ll need that recovery time to do all the other things that are meaningful to me – gardening, elder care, cooking, sewing, spending time at my cottage property, possibly even some home renovations. More and more lately, I have been thinking about retirement. Unlike Sam, I don’t find my job as fulfilling as I once did, and I am definitely not as busy. Time spent on work increasingly feels like something that is crowding out the things I enjoy, and I work hard to cram them all in before or after work. Maybe my sense well-being will will improve if I make more free time.
Hmm… this post has taken a strange turn. How about you readers? Are getting enough free time to make you happy? If not, what might you do to adjust?
Diane Harper lives and swims in Ottawa (among many other activities).
The most disturbing thing about accidentally walking up at 4 am is realizing some people do that so they can exercise.
And lately friends, I’ve been thinking about it.
Why?
Reason 1: My new tacx neo 2 smart trainer is so quiet I can actually get up and ride without waking anyone up.
Reason 2: I can race with the Australians on Zwift. Friends from my former cycling club are racing in this series. It’s 6:30 pm EADT which is 4:30 am my time. I could even shower after and have breakfast and still make an 8:30 am meeting on campus.
Reason 3: I don’t usually have difficulty getting to sleep but when I am worried I sometimes wake up too early. Racing would help with stress and stop me sitting around in bed early morning scrolling.
Reason 4. I used to do it. And I liked it. (Though I think what I liked best was breakfast after and then going to work.) See here and here and here and here for my changing thoughts through the years about early morning workouts.
Reason 5. I hopped up the other day and did Zwift Academy workout #3 at 6 am and it was weirdly more tolerable half awake. But 6 am isn’t 5 am….
White mug on a wooden table. The word on the mug, in black all caps, is BEGIN. Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash
How about you? What’s early for you if you’re an early morning exerciser?
Meditation has been good for whatever’s ailed me during the pandemic, and it continues to be so. About 14 months ago, I restarted my off-and-on meditation practice, doing a four-day zoom meditation workshop at my local yoga studio. I wrote about it here and here.
For the general public, meditation has a significant PR problem. But even for those of us who have tried it, meditation can seem serious and heavy– another burden to carry rather than a way to make our lives lighter. Witness this email I got recently:
Recent newsletter from Tricycle: the Buddhist Review. This week’s topic: Contemplating your own death. Party on!
To be fair, the Tricycle folks cover the waterfront of human experience in their teachings, and other newsletter topics include laughing at our own minds, living the creative life, and cultivating intention, concentration, focus, compassion, etc.
But, staring into the abyss of the truth of existence is a thing that meditation promotes. There’s no way to get around that.
Or is there?
Well, yes and no. Meditation teacher, author and (in his words) meditation-making machine Jeff Warren led a weekend-long meditation workshop called “Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics” (also the title of his co-authored book with Dan Harris) at the Omega Institute near Rhinebeck, NY. I went with my friend Kathy.
It was, well, uh, transforming. Yeah, that.
At this point you may be thinking, uh, what does Catherine mean by “transforming”? Is her life different now? Is she a different person? Did she make contact with the sublime? Is she now dedicating her life to silent contemplation?
Short answers: Yes, yes, yes, and most definitely not.
The oh-so-quotable Inigo Montoya, saying “let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.”
This retreat, which was Friday night through Sunday noon, was a mixture of listening to Jeff, sitting with Jeff as he led us through various meditations, and a combo of Q&A and sharing our experiences and struggles with meditation.
Here’s an earlier version of Jeff’s 4-part approach to meditation practice, which he says (and I can attest) translates into life.
Hand-drawn illustration of Jeff Warren’s meditation basics, emphasizing concentration, equanimity (acceptance of what is), clarity, and friendliness (now updated to be caring). From his instagram page.
After 17 months of all-online-everything, being in the same (very large) room with 100 or so other people (all masked and vaccinated), all being still (or fidgety), all listening to sounds in the room, their own breath and Jeff’s voice– it was overwhelming. I thought I’d be too distracted by all this stimulation to get quiet. I was at first. The first meditation session was, for me, a whirring blender of thoughts and emotions.
But then came Saturday. We did a combo of sitting meditation, individual nature walking meditation, and then one of my favorite meditations that Jeff calls (can you tell I’m kind of fan-girling here?) “Welcome to the party”. It involves becoming aware of any annoying or sad or angry or other parts or thoughts or feelings, and inviting them into your consciousness. Hey there, social anxiety– welcome to the party! Sadness over recent family loss? Welcome to the party! Resentment over not getting promoted at work? Hey there, can I get you something to drink? Have a seat.
You get the idea.
I’ve done this meditation many times, and keep coming back to it. But this time, something different happened. Everything got quiet, even in my mind. Quiet. Stillness. I never ever experience this. I have a serious case of what the Buddhists call “monkey mind”. But not this time, in this room, during this sitting meditation.
I sat, noticing the quiet. I wondered about it, and kept breathing, trying not to attach to it too much (another meditation thing). I figured it would change, as things always do. And it did. Into the quiet space entered something that I can only ineffectively describe as like it was shining, like it was golden, like it was warm, like it was round, and it was like it was inside me.
It was like it was something sublime. And it was good. It was goodness. It was love. Big love.
I noticed this, too, and wondered about it. Then it just filled me– the love/goodness, and I was experiencing that. Okay– just keep breathing, just keep breathing…
To sum up, I had something that was like a transcendent experience. Quiet, energy, love. And when the meditation was over was added a feeling of hope.
Through the rest of the weekend, that experience stayed with me. Not to be repeated, but to be added to my sense of self and sense of the world.
I cannot imagine a better and more unexpected gift. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you Omega Institute. Thank you, Kathy, for sharing the weekend with me. Thank you, universe.
If you’re interested in more information (by this I mean links), here are a bunch of them:
My meditation aid of choice has been the Ten Percent Happier app. You can get 3 months of FREE access to it by clicking here on meditation teacher Jeff Warren’s linktree page, which is also below.
Readers, this was a much harder than my usual blog posts to write. It’s about stillness, not movement. It’s about changes to my inner self, not outer self. It’s personal in a way I’m not used to being personal. But I wanted to share this with you. Why? Because I want you to know that such things happen, and that they happen to people you know or know-in-a-way. And, if you’re thinking about bringing a little more intentional quiet into your life, maybe reading this will support you in moving in that direction.
If you’d like to share or ask questions or anything, I’m here and will listen and respond.
By the time I reached Whitefish Falls on September 7th, I was tired. More tired than I realized at the time.
An incredible view of the escarpment as I left Whitefish Falls en route to Espanola.
I called my cousins who recently moved to Iron Bridge to let them know that I was heading their way. They asked if it would be cheating for them to pick me up. I was *relieved* at the offer. My body needed a break. I told them I wanted to bike one direction, but didn’t need to bike both ways. Miles are fun to celebrate, but for me it’s about the adventure far more than kilometres ridden.
The next day I biked to Espanola, had a delightful visit with Ben & Hector (en route to Victoria), bought a few necessities for the cooler weather, and then loaded my bike into my cousin’s car. In the next couple days, I was surprised at how frequently I conked out on the couch in the middle of an admin task, too tired to even bother moving to my hammock.
Inside my cousin’s car trunk with my bike and bags loaded for a lift to their farm.
People who have chronic health conditions marked by fatigue often call ourselves “spoonies” or make comments like “I’m low on spoons today.” I’m a spoonie, so in contrast to the average person with a full set of spoons it’s easier to overdo it (even when I’m *not* on a bike tour!) and more challenging to return to my baseline after overdoing it. On the Patients Rising blog, Johnprovides a great overview of what Christine Miserandino‘s Spoon Theory means to so many of us with invisible chronic health conditions.
I’d always planned to prioritize pacing and sufficient rest, but this is easier said than done. Sometimes it feels like I’m playing tug of war with myself… trying to find the ever elusive line between challenging myself *just enough*, but not so much that I push into a crash.
Ableism makes this more challenging as well. People who have never done bike camping generally think that 30-60km in a day (my original goal) is an astonishing amount to aim for, while many (most?) people who have done bike camping think it’s a really slow pace. These opposing perspectives on what constitutes a great accomplishment mean I must pay close attention to my own goals and not allow my sense of success to be swayed by how others view me or my abilities. As far as spoonie life goes, paying attention to my physical and mental health needs are key, which subsequently means that flexibility is key… so focusing on numeric based goals feels like asking for disappointment.
Freeze dried chicken stir-fry while watching a spectacular sunset from the dock at Roe Park.
After four days of rest, on Sunday evening I rolled onward with strategies for a slower pace including:scheduling rest days, scouring Google Maps in advance for mid-ride rest spots (which could double as an early overnight spot), and ordering freeze dried meals so that running out of food doesn’t force me to ride further than I have energy for. Sunday evening I employed many of these tactics after leaving later than I’d planned. I rode 10km before enjoying a freeze dried chicken stir-fry while watching a beautiful sunset at Roe Park (aka Sunset Beach). It was perfect.
For those of you who are wondering, I’m writing this from the cute city of Thessalon after a very eventful night… but that’s a story for another time!
I couldn’t resist adding one more photo from Sunset Beach (Roe Park)… this one looking out at the dock and lake was taken during sunrise.
Ok, full disclosure: *I* was doing a walking meditation.
Khalee was just walking and sniffing everything and deciding where to pee…which is being really in the moment, I guess so she’s got this mindfulness thing sorted already.
I usually set out for my walk with one earphone in, using my walking time to hear some cool podcast stories that I would forget to make time to listen to otherwise.
Today, though, my mind was busy and I didn’t think I could focus on a story. So, I decided to try a new walking meditation that I bought last week.
At this point, Khalee was doing a ‘waiting for Christine’ meditation practice. She has to do that one a lot. Image description: Khalee, a medium-sized, light-haired dog on a neon yellow leash is standing on an asphalt path and looking back toward the camera. Christine’s feet in black and white sneakers can be seen at the bottom of the photo.
I’ve tried to do walking meditation before, figuring that the movement would help me focus, but I found it was the opposite. Trying to make myself think about how my feet were landing, over and over, was enough to make my brain want to crawl out of my skull.
(Note: I have only tried two walking meditations before and they were both really foot-focused. Perhaps that was an unfortunate coincidence and most aren’t like that.)
Last week, thanks to a tweet from someone with ADHD requesting ideas for meditation, I came across a walking meditation from Anna Granta, an ADHD Coach from the UK.
I figured that a meditation from an ADHD coach would be a bit more tailored to someone with ADHD, and I was right!
For starters, she has a great voice. Lots of meditation leaders have voices that grate on my nerves but Granta’s is sensible, even, and friendly.
The meditation is short – less than 5 minutes from start to finish, including instructions.
And it’s very practical – leading the listener to tune into what they could see, hear, smell, and feel while they walked.
And once it was done, I kept my podcast off for the rest of my walk, noticing the sounds, smells, and the details of the sights around me.
It was a short practice but it was really refreshing. And it would be easy to do in the future.*
I returned from my walking feeling like I had untangled a knot in my brain.
Neurotypical people or those with an established meditation practice might find this practice too short or too quick but my ADHD brain loved it. It was short enough to feel doable, long enough to calm down a bit, and clear and inviting enough that I could keep practicing even after the audio finished.
I’ll definitely be using this meditation in the future. Not for every walk, because sometimes hearing a story is exactly what I need in a given moment, but I love having it close at hand for when my brain needs to smooth out a bit.
Khalee’s walking meditation was also successful. She left the house untroubled, returned the same way, and just walked when she was walking and sniffed while she was sniffing. She’s a mindfulness expert, really.
Here’s Khalee during the sniffing part of her meditation practice. Image description: Khalee, a medium-sized, light-haired dog on a neon yellow leash is walking away from the camera while she sniffs the ground. She is standing on some grass and there are large decorative rocks a bit further ahead. Part of an asphalt path can be seen on the right side of the photo.
*Her instructions are clear and now that I have followed it once, easily done on my own even without the recording. I will still go back to it, though, to help me ease into the process.
There are lots of things I could write about today. I’ve spent a fair bit of time pondering my choice of topics.
I was going to write about my annual thyroid cancer check up. It’s today. And if all goes well it’s my last annual check up. (Fingers crossed.) After today they’re every five years. My birthday last week was also mammogram day. It’s as if September weren’t a busy enough month for an academic. It’s also cancer screening season for me.
I thought about writing whether Tracy and I want to write a turning 60 book, to follow up our turning 50 project, Fit at Midlife: A Feminist Fitness Journey. We’re having dinner together tonight and no doubt the subject will come up
Let’s see. It’s also blog birthday season. As Tracy posted, happy 9th birthday blog! We’re nearly at 5000 posts too. That’s hard to believe. This post is 4990!
And the blog’s birthday and my birthday, not surprisingly given how the blog got started, are pretty close together. Another possible topic, what does 57 mean anyway?
Here’s a photo from my birthday bike ride!
Jeff, Dhurin, me, Kim, Ellen and Sarah on the birthday bike ride
At this time of year I often write about back to school and trying to stay physically active as work gets busier and busier. This year, unlike last, I’m back in my office. I’m not yet back at the gym.
I’m having big busy days filled with work and people. So many people! I gave a lecture to O-Week students (photo on the right) and hung out with incoming College of Arts students at our Food Truck lunch meet and greet (photo on the left.)
I also biked around meeting parents and students on move-in day. (Round photo at the bottom.)
Sam’s pink Bromption outside Zavitz Hall at the University of Guelph
I’m back in the office now, wearing (mostly) real clothes. I looked at my clothes the other day and wondered why there were so many pairs of yoga pants. Who needs five pairs of yoga pants? Oh right, work from home and the pandemic. I could write about wearing clothes again. I’m working my way back to real shoes but I am not there yet.
In recent years I’ve been suffering a bit from seasonal sadness and trying to tell myself new stories about fall and winter, leaning into the time of cold and dark. I’ve been trying to extend outdoor activities into the fall. We’re going canoe camping again one more time this fall. And we are also looking at more fall gravel riding plans. So there’s that.
I’m a bit nervous that the no travel thing is continuing and it looks like this will be another year in which I don’t get to go somewhere warm with my bike for the winter. I miss the southern US! I miss Florida and Arizona for winter cycling.
In the end, I just want to let you know how much we’ve been enjoying our time in Prince Edward County and likely will continue that into the autumn too.
How’s your September starting out as we move into the fall?
This weekend in New England, fall is letting us know it’s here. But it’s doing so gently and nicely. We’re enjoying blue skies and autumn sun and delightful daytime temps (low-mid 70s/22–24C), with sweater and jacket temps at night.
Friday evening I went to a bookclub backyard birthday party for my friend Lisa. There was good food, fire pit conversation, rousing singing when the cake came out, and then…
Dancing!
It wasn’t planned. Someone said, “hey– let’s do some dancing!” So we did. Hostess Michele was our DJ, playing mostly hits from the 70s through 90s. Being socially bossy, I made everyone set up to do a Soul Train dance line. If you’re unfamiliar with this, here’s what it looks like:
Of course, these people are the acme of cool (in my view). We were not. But we did attract the attention of the neighbors, who were trying not to gawk at us (according to Michele).
It was the most fun I’ve had in a while. The joy of dancing combined with the joy of celebrating and moving and singing and shouting (sorry, Michele’s neighbors) in a group of people I care about– what’s not to love? I highly recommend this.
But wait, there’s more…
This weekend also marked the Porchfest festival in my town. Do a lot of towns do this? People sign up to play music on their front porches (or yards), and everyone walks or bikes or drives to different locations (there’s even a map) to listen, hang out with neighbors, dance and maybe sing along.
On Saturday, while doing dishes, I heard the sounds of a jazz standard, coming from my back porch. Investigating, it was neighbors from the next street, playing “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore”. Leaving my chores behind, I headed to my porch to listen. They were really good– swinging the tempo, playing great solos, and improvising lyrics in fun ways.
Before I knew it, I was dancing again. For the second day in a row! This time it was solo, on my back porch, mellower than the night before. But oh so satisfying.
I gotta pull out my tap shoes and take a class again soon. In the meantime, enjoy this dancing by Syncopated Ladies:
Hey readers– when was the last time you danced? Have you done any backyard dance partying this summer? Tell us about it.
