How'd January feel to you?

A missive in which I am reminded the true practice is to keep listening to my body and watch time expand and shrink up again.

Copperbebe nestled in on a long January day.

Hello My Loves,

Did y’all feel it? Time stretch slow? December, so full of energy, gave way to the long drag of January even while the days became longer and the sun occasionally shone.

Though I’m feeling a bit off-track, lost, scattered today, this week, this last two weeks, the slowness is a reminder to root into myself. And remember that I was made to move slow.

Always the slow kid on the basketball team. Even those steady, long-distance runners moved faster than my body ever wanted to go.

My jog is more of a shuffle that’s slower than your walk.

I email friends a week, a month, a year after a conversation to share the thoughts my brain has finally processed.

I fall hard in love a year, five years, ten years after a first meeting. It’s only those back-to-back binges and deep net dives that find me fast-crushing on fictional characters.

I’ve tried to rush it with folks who wanted to rush in with me and it sometimes felt good at first then dumpster fires broke out and I learned to keep a smothering blanket in the closet.

And other times I set new friends and acquaintances in front of the bullet train that was my distress and desperation hoping they could catch me. They couldn’t.

I spent a long time pushing into the pace my culture practices, and at every turn, my body revolted until I was forced to stop and stop and stop and stop again.

I dreamt of moving through the world on foot, banishing cars with my mind. What if we had to bike to town? And there I sat holding the reigns of a horse leading a buggy.

Is it cheaper to keep a horse? Maybe a donkey’d do.

Now I practice moving at a tortoise pace, feeling the ground under each step of my foot. Observing the ins and outs of my breath. Listening to the yeses and nos of my body. Hiding under a duvet for as long as feels right.

At least, that’s the direction I point myself. Tuning in, without judgment, whenever I notice I’ve veered too far to the left or the right and, whether it’s been hours or weeks, I gently bring myself back to my body.

And I will do, over and over and over again, come back to myself.