I got up in time to get a short walk in before driveway yoga. I got some great pictures of Elsa today with Yvette. That dog does love her morning yoga. I meditated when I came in.
The other day, I reread an update from last year and came across a postural change reference recommended by Heather, a Bikram yoga teacher. She paid particular attention to the tilt of my head. I tend to thrust my chin to the right. The correction is to push my chin to the left, which has the effect of straightening my head. When I applied this change now, the result is different than it was a year ago. I can feel the impact right down to the bottom of my spine. I have been applying it when I walk and when I sit. The change in my walk is causing my right leg's inner thigh muscles to activate in a new way. When I sit and meditate, thrusting my chin to the left makes all the muscles in my left leg and buttocks relax.
Before I meditated, I did some work on the updates, the article, and my advertisement for online tutoring. I am working on expressing myself in more favorable terms. I headed out to shop. My first stop was Long's Drugs. I wanted to check on the price of Neutrogena buffing pads for the Microabrasion device. As I walked in, a clerk reminded me to get my mask. I wondered if that was a common problem. They didn't carry either the device or the replacement pads. Thank God I found them online and with Prime to boot. Yay!
Next, I headed to Island Naturals to buy golden flax. They were out, but I picked up some dark brown flax seeds to tide me over until the next delivery comes in. But I did see a great eggplant. Hmm! Pan-fried eggplant dipped in breadcrumbs over spaghetti with butter.
I ran into Mrs. Buffington, one of the third-grade teachers I worked with for the past couple of years. She said they were getting set up to open their classes. No one else would be allowed on campus, no visitors. Any thought I had that I would be able to go back to tutoring there is out.
Target was next. I had a nice list. As I approached Target, I noticed Long's sign. I never registered that Long's has a branch in Target. I checked for the microabrasion pads. This Long's didn't have any of the Neutrogena Microabrasion products either. I bought some apples, rice puddings, Amy's frozen meals, Mrs. Meyer's cleanser, and two bars of Hersey's Milk chocolate with almonds. Then home to unpack, put my purchases away, plug the car in to be charged, and nap.
I had defrosted some chicken yesterday. I still had some packages of chicken that Mike had bought. I had broken them up into separate plastic bags to defrost a sensible amount for a single person instead of having to cook enough so I would be eating chicken for two weeks straight.
I broiled a wing and a leg during the day, well before the dinner hour. I try to run anything electric when the sun is high, so I use solar energy. They looked so good when they were done; I ate one right away before putting the other in the refrigerator.
For dinner, I had some General Tao's chicken, which I bought frozen at Safeway. I did a much better job preparing this time than the first time I cooked it. The first time, I cooked it in a wok. It was too large and made the pan too hot for this purpose. This time I cooked it in the smallest frying pan I had, followed the directions carefully, and put in some of the rice I had prepared the other day in the end and stirred. Perfect. I had a salad too.
When I bend over, I focus on my hip flexion instead of my backstretch. Today, I did something slightly different. Every time I bent over with my legs separated, I had the feeling that I was leaning more to the left, but I wasn't sure. Today, I discovered a way to measure it. My bathroom floor has square tiles. I set my feet in parallel at an equal distance from a central tile. When I bent over from my waist, I could see from the lines behind me if I was symmetrical. What did I have to do to get there? I had to increase the inward rotation of my right leg. The diagnosed problem is with my left hip, but I keep discovering and rediscovering how much of the problem is caused by my right hip. When I stretch out symmetrically, I don't feel any stress on my left hip. Instead, I feel it most in my left mid-back region. More surprises. Not really; by this point, I keep rediscovering the same thing over and over.
It has been very humid today. I turned on the fans in the living room for the first time this year.
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Musings:
Yesterday, I found words to tell Dorothy how I was being impacted by the book White Fragility. I have been surprised. Dorothy and I attended an interracial camp when we were kids run by the Ethical Cultural Society. This was not a camp for underprivileged children. No, No. Most of the children were middle class to upper-middle class, including children of color.
As I mentioned in a previous update, I have been familiar with hidden biases since my middle twenties. I'm not learning anything new about how people of color are treated, especially Afro-Americans. However, as I read this book, I am experiencing a conceptual shift.
I tried to explain the shift to Dorothy. It was hard to explain. The best I could do was an image. I feel like I had been looking at the dome's outer surface, brightly lit by the sun. I can see details on the surface. It looked a little bit like a geodesic dome, points connected by lines. Now, I am looking at the same structure from the inside. It is dense. The ceiling of the building is thick and dark, and looming.
I am more aware of how the role of whites in the suppression of Afro-Americans is part of our history. We're finally acknowledging what we did to native Americans. It's time we fully recognized what we've done to Afro-Americans. The story of suppression is not just a part of Black History; it is part of white history. Again, there is nothing I haven't known or thought of before, but somehow my understanding has been changed.
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