in small ways

Lately I've been rising early for two-hour sessions of the yoga intensive I signed up for, then heading straight to the shop to start an eight hour day of pedicabbing. Five days a week.

This is insane.

It puts a damper on the old social life. On a lot of things really. But it also forces me to take care of myself. I guess that's why I'm doing it.


In small ways I'm taking good care of myself. One of my favorite things lately has been filling a jar at nights with nut-and-dried-fruit trail mix, sliced strawberries and/or bananas, oats, and yogurt-plain, always plain, and shaking it up before storing in the fridge overnight. Every element of the concoction enhances the others- the liquid of the yogurt plumping the dried fruit, soaking the nuts, making them more digestible and softened, the sugars of the fresh fruit being tempered by the dairy and the probiotics in the yogurt, the oats made squishy, chewy, and ready to eat by their time in yogurt as well. In the mornings, after yoga, after going into the shop, setting up my bike, and getting out to the streets, I find a place to buy a hot cup of coffee, park the pedicab, and relax in the back for breakfast. Lately I've done this alone (as alone as I could be- but meaning not in little hubs where pedicabbers gravitate to socialize and compare notes: shifts, dollars, passengers, gear) and sometimes with a book or just sometimes with the people-watching.

It's a really really delightful breakfast. Glass jar, metal spoon. Sometimes under sun and straw hat, sometimes overcast and in warmer layers, always in sort-of anonymity and the kind of quiet that's just a lot of different sounds amassed. It's honestly nicer than what I'd eat at home in the morning. I'm enjoying the caloric demand that is the fruits of my labor. I'm taking impromptu days off (much-coveted weekend shift, because IDGAF) to swim and get sandy with lady friends, pluck and tincture and shrub elder flower, dance, eat crawfish, walk through marshy places, get ankle chigger bites, get daquiris, spend sweet time with the one I love.

Almost all of my other time is spent chatting with strangers, dreaming about growing edible flowers/building a cob oven/sleeping under stars in Virginia, coming home to a huge pot of red beans and rice, eating with smart and funny friends, eating leftover red beans and rice, and sleeping. Lots of sleeping.