This week’s featured yoga pose has been Downward Spiral. I should know better than watching the news before I go to bed. Honestly, I always think it’s fine; that it won’t send my anxiety level through the roof; that I’ll be able to sleep and function without a hitch; and then and then …
I can’t turn it off and I fall asleep on the sofa, taking a little nappetizer only to wake to the images and sounds of the horrific violence and human tragedy in Israel and Gaza. Finally turning off the television I crawl, exhausted, to bed where I spend the next four hours sleepless in Oroville. When I do drift off into cataclysmic dreams of sirens, bright-light explosions, angry men, wailing women, terrified children, bullet blistered homes and blood drenched streets it’s about an hour before the alarm blares catapulting me into an upright position yelling, “Help! I woke up!” It’s both a blessing and a curse.
On one of those mornings this week, I threw myself into the shower and shaved — just one leg. Ooops. I didn’t even realize it until that night when I took another shower.
I worked during the day but knocked off about an hour early to take some “me time.” I took a 60-minute walk, drank a quart of water, ate an entire bag of potato chips chased down with a Coke Zero, deep conditioned my hair, did a facemask, turned on the news and ate a bag of Dove dark chocolate chased with a Las Vegas-size shot of Maker’s Mark. The line between self-care and self-destruction is a very thin one and, I do walk it hard. Welcome to my world.
I decided I needed a break so I packed an overnight bag and boot-scoot boogied to my daughter’s home in Sacramento where, if the television is on, it’s tuned to sports.
I went to watch her dance at the studio where she teaches for fun. Afterwards we ate a late dinner, talked, laughed and crawled into our respective beds around 11 o’clock. It was comfy, peaceful and quiet except for the snoring of her delightful French bulldog, Stitch, who chose to camp out with me, his head on the pillow next to mine. With well-shaved legs and no knots in my neck, I immediately fell into a deep, blissfully dreamless sleep.
It was hours later, somewhere around 3:30 a.m., when all hell broke loose. The room was filled with brilliant light and the thwak-thwak-thwak of helicopter blades shook the window and drowned out the dog’s snuffling.
Blinded by the light I jumped from bed, slammed my shoulder into the door frame and screamed my daughter’s name. Now it’s not like I’m not all too familiar with the sound of low-flying helicopters living, as I do, in the flight path frequently used by Cal Fire when deploying air support to wildland fires but that’s always during daylight hours, never in the dead of night.
So out into the hall I went screaming her name as she rushed from her bedroom screaming “Mom! Mom!! Mom!!!” And the dog howled.
Grabbing me by the shoulders she yelled above the chaos, “It’s OK, mom.”
I wasn’t buying it, “There’s a helicopter landing on our heads.”
“Mom, it’s OK. It’s …”
“Not OK. Not OK. We’re under attack!”
“MOM! It’s OK. It’s the police. They’re …”
“What? We’re being swatted?”
“No! Mom, this happens. They’re …”
“This happens!?! This happens!?!” I was incredulous but no longer yelling as the thwacking receded, the light vanished and we were plunged into darkness.
“It’s OK. Yes, this happens sometimes when the police are searching for someone. They fly low over the neighborhoods with the search light on looking.”
“So not under attack?”
“No. Just city life.”
“Well, allllrighty then. Do you have any chocolate?”
“Yeah, mom and there’s bourbon in the bar. And, let’s do your nails.”
And, suddenly all was right in my world as I, once again, tight-roped walked that fine line between self-destruction and self-care.
