the present/ is a feather/ on loan from the wings of time/ that only attention/ makes beautiful/ and only kindness/ valuable.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my relationship to time (and work and rest), so when I read those lines from Maria Popova’s bird divination cards a few days ago, they felt like they were meant for me. I’ve been getting her newsletter for years and only rarely open it anymore. That I even clicked through to see the words had that divine timing feel (speaking of time again).
With sports, I’m diligent about taking one day of complete rest per week and balancing my workouts within the week. Where I’m not so attentive is when it comes to my work-rest balance. I am about to go away for five weeks. To spend time with family and friends. And alone. Usually work comes with me, anywhere I go. This time it is not. This will be downtime. I’ll be doing things I love, which fill my cup. Reading novels. Writing. Running. Hiking. Cycling. A meditation retreat. I can’t remember when I last took this kind of work-free time for myself. Part of me thinks, I’m not successful enough to take this kind of time.
My trip, as it turns out, is coming at either the perfect time, or exactly the wrong time. The planning happened months ago, before I knew that my work would be in quite the state of transition it is (good and much needed changes, yet …). My plate is not as full as I’d like. I’m not a person with a full-time job and salary. I don’t have a long waiting list of potential clients. That’s good, in terms of making it easier to get away. And not good, in terms of I don’t know what September will look like workwise when I get back. What if none of the seeds I’ve planted take root and I come home to nothing?
This choice feels reckless and scary. I am going anyway, stepping back from the hustle. Not getting paid. Fear will board the plane alongside me.
And what a waste it will be if Fear rides along the whole time, leaching the joy out of my days and agitating my rest. Can I allow myself this period of resourcing and renewal, without getting sucked into a vortex of self-doubt? Or worse, the spiraling worry of how I will be judged? I can’t bring myself to write out the verdicts I imagine.
Still, I’m going. How will Fear and I spend this feather of time?
Fragment of Maria Popova Bird Divination card
I’m counseling myself to be in the moment. In practice I find the present moment extremely hard to be fully inside of. Encumbered as it is by my past baggage and future plans.
This is my gentle challenge to myself: Can I quiet Fear and heighten my attention to the feather? Make each present moment while I’m away more beautiful. A respite from pushing and chasing. Should-free.
Can I find that kindness the poem mentions and offer it to myself?
I found the practice quite useful at the time. Having a list of small movement prompts that felt useful, that kept me from stiffening up too much, and that could be done quickly made a huge difference for my mental health at a difficult time.
I know that I kept it up for a while but I don’t remember noticing when I fell out of the habit of doing them*
In fact, I had essentially forgotten all about them until I came across the book again this weekend and actually said, “Oh! Movement snacks! I love them.”
I flipped through the book right away and picked a movement to do (I put my arms overhead and wiggled my fingers and the like) and as I did that, I had an idea…
“Do you know what would be better than having these listed in a book? If they were on separate cards or something so I could just pick one out at a time without having to flip through them.”
And that, my friends, is how I spent a chunk of my Saturday cutting up a photocopy of the listed movements and separating them into two types.
The first group was ‘overall practices’ – like taking the stairs, parking further away, etc., and the second group was ‘quick things’ – like using a ribbon to practice balancing skills or standing on one foot to brush my teeth or stir a pot.
Now I am trying to decide the best container to hold all the movement ideas (and I strongly suspect that I will be decorating the container AND the slips of paper but I will leave that as a fun treat for Future Christine) so I can just pick one when I am so inclined.
This is from before I rediscovered the book but before I took this I was practicing getting up off the floor without using my hands for support so that’s totally a movement snack! I look a bit cranky because I wanted to be better at that project than I was. Image description: A head-and-shoulders selfie of me – a middle aged woman with a round face and shoulder length light brown hair that is kind of wavy/curly here – sitting on the floor. I am wearing a black shirt and a slightly disgruntled smirk. Behind me you can see the light green wall of my bedroom with a bunch of photos and decorations on it – including a string of star-outline lights hanging up behind me.Also, I can never seem to remember to look at the camera instead of the screen so I am looking downward a bit instead of straight ahead.
PS – Sam wrote about exercise snacks in May of this year and Catherine wrote about them in September 2024 but the ‘snacks’ they describe seem to be slightly different than the ones in Durham’s book. While she has some suggestions – taking the stairs, parking further away, etc., that are more exercise-y Durham has much more of a focus on mobility/movement rather than on getting a few minutes of cardio in. I guess that’s why the book is ‘movement snacks’ rather than ‘exercise snacks!’ Also, I agree with Catherine that using the word ‘snacks’ is much more likely to make me think of food than exercise. Don’t worry though, I make sure to have plenty of both kinds of snacks. 🙂
*My Dad actually passed away in May of 2023, just a few months after my initial post, so my timeline for those few months is blurry, to say the least.
This month’s Action for Happiness theme is ‘Jump Back Up July’ and their calendar is full of small steps to help you build your resilience, to increase your ability to face challenges, to notice your strengths, and to be kinder to yourself.
Now, as I am sure you can guess, I don’t really think that we have to *jump* back up every single time but even staggering back up gets us back up and trying again.
Cultivating the inner fortitude to try again when things go awry, to be compassionate when we make mistakes, to ask for help when need it, to reframe challenges, and to nurture hope throughout the process can serve us well in so many areas of our lives (including fitness!) that the effort to build our resilience skills is worth the effort.
Even though many of these practices are already in my regular repertoire, I’m going to make a point of practicing them during Jump Back Up July (or Get Back Up At Your Own Pace Using Your Choice of Movements July which is more accurate for me but far less catchy. 😉 )
The ‘Jump Back Up July’ calendar from Action for Happiness. I will, of course, be using this for ‘Get Back Up At Your Own Pace Using Your Own Choice Of Movements July’ too. Image description: A calendar for July 2026 with each block coloured in a repeating pattern of dark green, light green, orange, and yellow. The text in each block is a daily tip for building the skills to ‘Jump Back Up’ and the edges of the calendar are decorated with black and white cartoon images of people doing resilience activities such as hugging someone or carefully repairing a loved object.
And here’s a tip video from Action for Happiness featuring Vanessa King:
A video from the Action for Happiness YouTube channel called ‘Coping with challenging times. Jump Back Up July with Vanessa King’ on the left side is a still image of Vanessa King, a middle-aged white-presenting woman with reddish blonde hair that is pulled back from her face on the sides and top but with her bangs curling down towards her eyebrows. She is wearing brown-framed glasses, a black shirt, and a green scarf decorated with white flowers and gold-coloured leaves. She is looking towards the camera and smiling and there are two books and a vase of flowers behind her. On the right side of the image is a light blue rectangle with text that reads ‘Resilience. Bouncing Back’ in red and ‘3 top tips with Vanessa King’ in yellow.
Here are a few links about resilience that you may want to check out:
Last summer I spent a lot of time dealing with sciatica, which had me limping and having trouble with climbing stairs. Thanks to many months of physical therapy, I got better. My gait became steady and strong, and I could climb stairs without pain or favoring one side. Yay!
A lamb leaping for joy– my inner lamb is doing the same. By Jonathan Mabey for Unsplash.
Maintaining my hard-won stability and strength takes effort, and I’ve done my hip exercises regularly. But I noticed that if I read in bed before sleeping, I would be creaky or have some hip pain– not enough to wake me up, but noticeable.
Reenter yoga before bed. I used to do some rotation of gentle yoga exercises before bed most nights, but for no particular reason stopped.In the past few weeks, I restarted, and noticed happy changes:
no joint pain in bed during the night or in the morning
easier walking around in the morning
a little more stability and flexibility in general
What I do varies– sometimes it’s mini sun salutations with warrior poses and twists and forward folds, other times I’m on my mat in the living room doing twists and hamstring stretches with my yoga strap. I sometimes do tree pose as well, although I’m less balanced in the evening. So far I haven’t fallen over, which I’m taking as a win.
I’m not sure it matters exactly what yoga poses I do. But I’m thinking it does matter that I do it. So I’m doing it. Having restarted my posts for the 226 workouts in 2026 is helping motivate me to do it (almost) every night. Yay again!
Yeah, yay to that. By Fausto Garcia for Unsplash.
Readers, are you doing or re-doing something that’s making you feel good or better? I’d love to hear from you.
Here’s a scientific term I wish I didn’t understand: heat dome. Europe has been suffering under one, bringing with it two record-breaking heat waves and more than 1300 excess deaths in the past month. And North America will be on the receiving end of one this week. Ontario and the US midwest and east coast are preparing for temperatures to top 100F/37C this weekend.
There’s a lot to say and feel about climate change. We here at Fit is a Feminist Issue worry and write about it a lot, including most recently Sam’s post here. It’s changed our daily lives in so many ways, including exercise and work and wake-up schedules, travel habits, buying plans– this is just the tip of the (melting) ice berg.
But we can’t and shouldn’t spend all waking moments confronting future and present fears and woes. In order to keep ourselves ready for the long-haul of adjustment and advocacy and innovation and conservation, we need occasional pauses. We need to be refreshed.
And, for my money, there’s no better and more refreshing pause than making and drinking a cold or icy fruity beverage. I’m serious. Who can be sad in the presence of fresh watermelon, a spritz of juicy lime, the cold rush from an ice-cold glass? Not me. And I bet not you. I mean, doesn’t this look like a (momentary) solution to all our problems?
watermelon agua fresca, with a sugared rim, spring of mint and lime squeeze at the ready. Go here for the easy-peasy recipe.
This drink is part of my regular summer drink rotation. Consider adding it to yours.
A new addition that I’m trying this weekend with friends is limonada, or Brazilian lemonade. It’s not really lemonade in a classic sense, as it contains sweetened condensed milk as an ingredient (WHAT?! don’t knock until tried). Also, you pulse (not pulverize) cut up limes in the blender, which adds to its limeyness. Here’s a recipe. I dare you to try it, and I double-dog-dare you to comment on the results. Are you reading, Sarah Pie?
The creamy simplicity of the Brazilian lemonade, or limonata.
I wrote in more detail last summer about fun summer cold beverages; check it out if you are looking for more ideas for cooling off in a hot summer.
If it has been a while, then please take this post as a sign to pat yourself on the back, congratulate yourself, and claim your gold star.
And if you congratulated yourself earlier today?
Well, pat yourself on the back, congratulate yourself again, and claim your gold star.
If you’re like me, there will be times when you are really challenging yourself and times when you are just kind of treading water.
Both are good.
In fact, the whole range of ways to show up are all good.
And I’d like you to celebrate every one of them.
I am proud of you for showing up when it’s fun and I’m proud of you for showing up when it’s annoying to be there.
And I hope that, overall, you get more fun than annoyance but here’s your gold star for your efforts either way.
Go Team Us!
I’ve been trying out gold star cards with encouraging text and I like how this one turned out. Image description: a black card with a small painting of a gold star on the left side. On the right side is a piece of white card with rounded corners that says, in black text, “ this gold star celebrates your hard work, the effort you put into showing up every time. Congratulations! I’m so proud of you.” The white card is framed in black with a gold frame outside of the black one. There is a thick gold line a little ways under the star that also extends downward underneath the white card.
I packed good snacks, I made sure to buy breakfast in the airport, I moved the things I planned to do on the plane to the top of my backpack, and I walked around a fair bit and did a little meditation in the airport to ensure that I was as unfrazzled as possible when I got on the plane.
Once I was in my seat, I put my papers, markers, and water bottle in the pouch on the seat ahead of me and made myself as comfortable as possible in the cramped space.
After take-off, I made a loose plan of how I wanted to spend my time and set my repeat timer so I didn’t feel like any task was going to go on forever.
The timer will let me choose a length of time to work and a length of time to rest and how many times to repeat the cycle. It’s really handy, especially since my ADHD brain will sometimes refuse to start something – even something fun – if it feels like it will take a lot of time. Setting a timer creates an escape hatch and makes it easier to start.
So I alternated between reading, drawing, writing, and taking notes on some YouTube videos I had downloaded and took breaks for snacks, for stretching, for napping, and for meditating.
Here’s one of my drawings from the plane. image description: a drawing of overlapping circles with about half of them filled in with patterns on an index card drawn in black ink. The card is resting on an airplane table and a marker and my grey pencilcase is nearby.
The flight to Calgary for my stopover felt pretty fast but I did have one recurring annoyance because of time math.
If I were to write it as a story problem, it would go like this.
The first part of Christine’s trip is a 6h 20min flight to Calgary where she will have a 1h 5min wait before her flight to Victoria. If her initial flight from St. John’s to Calgary leaves 1h late but the pilot says that the flight will only take 5h 30mins, will she make her connecting flight?
And yeah, the math works out but when you factor in me wondering if I had misheard the pilot, and my concern that I had miscalculated time difference (Is this a factor? no. Could I shake the concern loose? also no), I ended up with a low-key worry that I was going to miss my connecting flight and my arrangements to share a cab from the airport in Victoria were going to get jumbled.
I eventually realized I could ask the flight attendant and I felt better after that but the brainloop was irksome in the meantime.
I made the second flight, got to Victoria just a little late, had lunch with my storytelling friends (Hi to Cindy, Shelah, and Brigitte!) and got to campus feeling pretty damn good.
The conference was great – I heard some marvellous stories, took some terrific workshops, and I was thrilled with how my workshop and my story performance was received.*
On Sunday, I was heading back home via Ottawa. I was relaxed and looking forward to getting home and I got to chatting with different storytelling friends in the airport (Hi Colette and Gail!) and didn’t really give much thought to the practicalities of the trip.
Actually, I kind of forgot my ‘take good care of yourself’ strategy.
In fact, even the need for it slipped my mind.
So, when I started to feel a bit twitchy a little ways into the flight and then I realized that I wasn’t exactly sure how long we had been in the air, I realized that I needed a plan or I was going to drive myself and my seatmate bananas before we landed in Ottawa.
I did my best to calculate how long we had left in the flight and I set my repeat timer.
And, once again, I alternated between reading, listening to podcasts/videos, napping, writing, and meditating. I made sure to eat at regular intervals, to drink lots of water, and to do a bit of stretching.
This worked out pretty well, just not as well as it had on the way up and the flight felt loooooong.
Once I landed in Ottawa, I opted to walk around and stay standing for the hour or so wait so I could burn off some of the energy I built up sitting on the plane.
I did the same timer trick for the last part of my flight – with a few more nap/meditation times because it was late at night (my flight was supposed to arrive at 12:48am and actually got in at 1:30am) – and I made sure to have lots of water and a substantial snack so I could head right to bed when I got home instead of having to make time to eat.
Even though it was a relatively short flight, it did drag a bit because of the late hour and we got in at 1:30am it took forever to get off the plane and get my luggage so it was almost 2:30am before I got home.**
Why am I including those details?
Because the time of day makes it hard to tell how effective my strategy was on the way home.
I think, once you are up into the wee hours traveling, you kind of have to surrender to a certain amount of off-kilter feeling, no matter what you do.
But, I do think that I felt better than I would have if I had just tried to forge ahead through my travel without any distress-management plans.
However, I have to note that the disrupted sleep on Sunday night/Monday morning really left me feeling out of sorts for the rest of the week and I was decidedly out of sorts until the weekend.
That’s why I am writing and posting this a whole week later – I just couldn’t make my brain behave last week and I am grateful to @samanthabrennan for posting in my place on Tuesday past.
Overall, I think my lessons here are that making a plan and taking good care of myself really helps me travel with less fluster. AND that I should try to avoid flights that arrive in the very early hours of the morning.
I took this shortly after we left Ottawa. image description: A photo taken from a airplane window of the bright horizon at sunset. There is a dark area at the bottom, a stripe of red, then a stripe of orange, then lighter blue, then darker blue. In the foreground you can see the plane’s wing illuminated by one of the plane’s lights. It creates a great contrast to the dark in the middle of the image and the bright natural colours on the horizon.
*I taught an 1.5h workshop on how storytelling builds empathy and I performed a story about doing a tarot reading that asked, “What advice would my Dad give me?”
**Many thanks to the valiant Steve for picking me up at that late hour when he had to work in the morning!
By the time this post goes live, I’ll be on a plane on my way to BC for the Storytellers of Canada- Conteurs du Canada conference.
I’m looking forward to the conference and to seeing my friends and telling/talking about stories for DAYS but I always feel apprehensive before I travel.
I’m not afraid to fly or anything like that. It’s the disrupted schedule, the lack of control over my day, the eating at weird times, the crowds of people, the change in time zones…that’s what gets me.
And all of that is fairly unavoidable.
BUT
Then I remembered that the last time the conference was in BC my travel schedule was waaaaaaaay worse and I was miserable on the way up but I actually did ok on the way home.
And, sure, part of it was the fact that I was on my way home but, after the frustrating trip on the way there, I had decided to take really good care of myself on the return trip and it made a huge difference.
So, what did ‘taking really good care of myself’ mean in that context?
I brought some really filling snacks so I had a bit more control over when I ate.
I made sure to keep my water bottle full.
I did stretches and yoga frequently and did some walking in each airport.*
I planned something to do for each hour of the trip (I didn’t have to do it but having a plan made me less fidgety and irritated.)
And that plan seems really appealing to me right now.
In fact, once I thought about it, I immediately started feeling better about the long trip and I could focus more on the fun that awaits me on the other end.
So, let’s see how my plan works out, hey?
I’ll update you later tomorrow.
*Yes, I always *could* stretch or walk at any point but this was me being proactively deliberate about it.
I am solidly in the messy, frustrating middle of so many projects right now – fitness and otherwise.
And it is taking a lot of effort to keep working away at stuff instead of ditching everything and starting over.
The middle of any project is rarely fun but it can be especially dreadful for those of us with ADHD. The novelty has worn off, there’s a lot of trial and error, and everything seems very, very dull.
My brain really wants me to
start some new stories instead of working on ones that need revising.
try some new exercises instead of sticking with my walking/yoga/mobility routine.
buy new containers to store stuff instead of decluttering (decluttering = so many choices to make -ugh!)
try some new drawing techniques instead of improving my current skills.
invent different workshops and projects instead of finishing and promoting the ones I am already working on.
(don’t even get me started on my volunteer projects!)
But despite the noise my brain is making about this, I know that starting something new – in any category- will only be temporarily fun.
Pretty soon that new, fun thing will be at the messy middle stage and I’ll be annoyed all over again.
And, even though my brain has doubts, I know that I will REALLY enjoy when I finally finish something, when I can feel a difference in my body or my mind, and when I can see some of the progress I have made.
The only way to get to that real enjoyment is to keep inching everything forward, to add fun and novelty where I can, and to keep reminding myself that it is extra fun to actually finish something – even if that time feels very far away at the moment.
So, Team, even allowing for ADHD-related intensity, I’m pretty sure that ‘Why is the middle so annoying?’ is a pretty common feeling.
In fact, being annoyed with any part of any process seems pretty common.
You might be annoyed with the details required to get started or the details required to finish up.
You might find the middle incredibly tedious.
The unknowns at the beginning might get on your nerves.
Figuring out the last few steps might be frustrating.
All of it makes sense and it is all perfectly ok.
Sure, your frustration might lead you to use a slightly different approach or it could mean you need a little break or need a little more support.
But none of those feelings of frustration automatically suggest that this project isn’t for you.*
And when they arise, you can remind yourself that they are part of your process and then find a way to forge ahead – perhaps slowly, perhaps after a break, perhaps with a little more fun added to the mix.
I’m not saying that it is easy to do that, just that it is possible.
And your effort will be worth it.
In fact, speaking of effort, here’s our gold star for our efforts today – no matter which part of the process we are in right now.
Go Team Us!
PS – Be kind to yourself out there, pretty please.
*Meanwhile, if every part of the project is frustrating every single time, then it may be time to consider whether the project is a good fit overall.
Today, as you may have guessed, is World Creativity & Innovation Day and I have a kind of thinky post underway for later today but for starters, I have a few questions for you.
My answers will be in my later post along with ideas and resources about the intersection between fitness and creativity.
1) What kind of creative practices do you use in your day to day life? (Creative problem solving counts!)
2) Have you used creative scheduling approaches to make it easier to fit fitness activities, movement, or wellness activities in your life?
3) Do you stick to the same fitness routine or do you get creative with your movements, exercises, and activities?
4) Have you ever used exercise to boost your creativity?
5) Have you ever found a creative solution to a fitness-related problem? (like figuring out a way to accomplish a difficult exercise or finding a way to a piece of equipment in a useful but unexpected way)
No pressure, of course, but it would be cool if you could put your answers to at least one of these questions in the comments.
I’ll see you later with my thinky post.
PS – Did you notice that I creatively repurposed one of my December number images for today’s image? 😉
