PEEL

 There is something strangely satisfying about removing a gelatin facial mask. Maybe it's the challenge of seeing if you can gently peel the entire crunchy-gooey mess off in one piece.

Maybe it's the anticipation of how incredible your skin will feel when you're done. 

I wonder if this is how a locust feels shedding its exoskeleton.

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One assignment from my therapy sessions is to ask myself two questions every day: How do I feel? What do I need?

I am not used to asking these questions, and I find them difficult to answer.

How do I feel? I feel tired. All the time. My back and my neck hurt, and my jaws are tense. I often do not sleep well at night, and I have digestive issues.

But the assignment specifies that I must answer "How do I feel?" with not only what I feel in my body, but with at least one emotion. That part is even more difficult because I have a really crappy emotional vocabulary. We're working on that.

I went for a walk at the park yesterday afternoon, and while I walked, I tried to answer my daily assigned questions. Q1. "How do I feel?" After a lap around the walking track, I had my answer: "I feel disquiet." There are way too many voices inside my head, all of the shoulds, oughts, and must-dos of my own and others' expectations.

Q2. "What do I need?" I. Need. Quiet. I need space and time to be still, to turn down all the voices inside my head and simply breathe.

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Mom, Steve and I watched another episode of Endeavor last night after dinner. The series is a British production about the life of young Endeavor Morse, before he became Detective Chief Inspector. Old-school British detective series is a genre the three of us can agree on - interesting enough for Mom and Steve, but not too violent or graphic for me.

On last night's episode, we learned that Morse used to attend a Quaker meeting house with his mother as a child. At the meeting house, they would sit in complete silence with other parishioners. Morse explained that the point was to "still your mind," to quiet all the voices inside one's head. Morse concluded his observations on Quakerism with a comment to the effect of, "It never worked for me. I never figured out how to quiet all the voices."

Endeavor Morse is not a real person. He is the fictional brainchild of author Colin Dexter. Morse is not real, but somehow, with that comment, he made me feel ever-so-slightly less out-of-place and alone in this world.

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I'm on-call this weekend. That means that I'm working, kinda. I have to keep my phone with me and turned on. I can't leave town or get involved in some big gnarly project. I have to be ready to pull on scrubs, grab my bag, hop in the car, and go at a moment's notice, day or night.

It's not a bad gig. Actually, it feels more like a gift. I am not at work - at least not until the phone rings - but I am also NOT doing the usual it's-the-weekend-&-how-many-things-can-I-knock-off-this-never-ending-to-do-list routine.

I stayed home from church this morning to sit by the phone. No push to get out the door. No hauling stuff into and out of the car. It's been wonderful to have the entire house to myself, so very quiet, no spoken or unspoken demands hanging heavy in the air.

I did a gelatin mask for the first time in years. My skin feels sooooo good.

I did yoga on the front porch for an hour, complete with blocks, bolsters, and bands, loosening the tight cables tensed in my neck and back. During savasana, cicadas, hummingbird wings, carpenter bee buzz, a flock of geese honking, the neighbor's beagle chasing rabbits, wind through the hayfield...all these things drowned out for a moment the standard cacophony of "do more" and "not enough." I haven't done yoga at home, by myself, in a quiet house in years. Why?

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Mr. Morse, I haven't figured out the trick, either...but I am working on it.

This morning was a gift.