“Tómate tu tiempo,” translated from Spanish to English, means “take your time.” “Tomate” (no accent) is Spanish for “tomato.”
Sometimes, like today on this Sunday, I say “tomato your time” to myself as a reminder of, like, time is always mine, that it’s not that serious, that it’s all fun. That time is mine to do what I want with, to make of what I wish. Time is always ours, and it is here in abundance.
Take your time. Tomato your time. :)
I love stretching. Love, love stretching. When I do it, I can feel myself getting taller, stronger, longer; the yin of recovery to the yang of lifting, or running hard. I feel everything connecting, the loop closing, and my body and self becoming more open.
I remember learning something in gym class at some point when I was younger about the different types of physical fitness, about the picture of composite strength, and learning that conditioning aspects like balance and flexibility are, also, strength. Not just displays of brute force. Huh, I thought. I liked that. I thought about it, and I internalized it in a great way. In stretching, I feel myself getting stronger.
I remember being younger and seeing a bridge sway, or some tall pole, maybe both, whatever it was, and my engineer father explaining that this had to happen, from a physics standpoint, for the structure to remain—not just strong, but remain there at all. How unexpected. It was the opposite of what I felt like should be happening, and it was what needed to be happening.
Flexibility in flow, flexibility in surrender, flexibility in bending to see a new perspective, in stretching out of a comfort zone, in reaching for change.
Flexibility is strength. I’m more flexible than I’ve ever been, in a lot of ways, and I’m proud of that. Because I stretch every day, in some way, and I’ve felt the change. I feel stronger than I’ve ever been.
This last trip (Barcelona, Ibiza, Malta, Munich for Oktoberfest, a dream!) reminded me of how putting ourselves into new contexts, places and spaces is really sooo beneficial to developing ourselves more, and solidifying one’s sense of self—especially when it’s some new aspect of ourselves and identity. We get to put more into practice and play, whether by invitation, like when introducing ourselves to strangers (who do we want to be? How do we want to be?), or, perhaps, by a little bit of force, like when sprinting through an airport to make a connection. (Just because I’m moving quickly doesn’t mean I have to become stressed about it, and that realization was new and nice! Also, we made it.)
One thing that I was interested to be with on this trip was my personal shift to no longer drinking alcohol, really; like more than a drink here or there. I was going to a bachelorette party in Ibiza and Munich for Oktoberfest, after all, and I was curious to see how I would feel. It’s a change I felt called to make a little over a year ago when I moved from NYC to LA, and realized that I just didn’t really like how I felt physically or mentally because of it. I wanted to feel good, and I wanted to be as present as possible to my life.
Over the past year I’ve gotten more comfortable not drinking in certain contexts, and I’ve realized no one really cares. (Or even knows, especially when you’re holding a sparkling water with lime.) Rather, people are often very supportive and even curious. My close friends in LA don’t drink much, and even on the bachelorette trip, 1/4 of the people there weren’t drinking and it was totally cool, fun and easy.
Throughout the trip there were a few moments where I felt a little odd about it, though I know full well those were my own slight feelings of judgment and questioning, and no one else’s. Like when everyone was toasting and I’m just, like, smiling, and wondering. should be toasting? Would that be more participatory? (We’re over “should’s,” or more over them than ever before, but sometimes they happen!) At this point, though I know well enough that those little feelings are fleeting, not worth paying much attention to, and that almost certainly no one else is even having that thought.
What was fun, though, is that I found I developed a little trick, or tool, for those moments of slight discomfort. I found myself taking a moment to look around, breathe deep and ask myself, “How can I sink even more into this moment?" As a result of thinking that simple question, I shifted more into presence, and into the present. I dropped more into my body and that place and time, exactly as they were, and could be with it all with a newfound appreciation. I saw my friends singing, laughing, sitting together in this place and in celebration, at everyone gathered there altogether, sharing this one moment, and my heart would become so full. I was so happy. And, I was out of my head.
I’ve tried it out in different contexts, too, and it always feels good, always makes things better. Like, when trying to fall asleep on the plane, when navigating a crowd in the rain, when feeling into a connection to someone new. As Caroline Myss writes about, “this day will never come again.” We’ll never be in this moment, in this way, again, so how can we be here, even more?
How can I sink even more into this moment? How can I be in this moment, even more? (Also, Oktoberfest is still super fun, still super joyous, still the best time, even without the beer. Ibiza, of course, too.)
I drafted this post in my head, and a little bit on here, before leaving for a ~2.5-week trip that I returned from on Sunday night. (But, instead, I left myself some room, and more time for sleep, that last night.)
I prefer to carry on when I travel and usually end up packing my bag to the max. It makes repacking during the trip a challenge, because I’m never repacking with as much time or care as that first time—I’d rather be spending my vacation time doing anything else, everything else. It also means I have no space, really, to pick up anything along the way. This time, as I was finishing packing, I made a conscious choice to leave some room.
It’s in keeping with a larger theme of wanting to of create and leave more room in my life these days. Like, leaving room in my days—giving myself more time, rushing less, and, ideally, not at all—and recently going through my whole apartment to consolidate and organize my belongings. (Outer organization equaled inner, mental organization, and was nice to return to@)
Someone I know used to say, “leave room for surprise,” often, and I like that. Leave room, and space, for the unexpected, because we never know what it’ll be. This time, this trip, it was a bunch of cute, functional and sentimental bachelorette gifts, like a monogrammed bucket hat, and some bigger things, like the dirndl I bought in Munich for Oktoberfest and thought would be a whatever purchase before finding a trendy one (it’s a thing) that was a point of pride, because it ended up eliciting compliments from Germans. I did have to sit on my suitcase to close it that last day, what with all those layers of Bavarian ruffle, but I did have the room!
I think there is often a sweet little duality in life where we’re meant to learn one side of a lesson in one moment, and in the next, the other side.
For example, my time has been more occupied than usual, than feels like equilibrium, lately. And that’s OK, because it’s temporary, and mostly because of a very fun trip, two-week trip with close friends I have at the end of this week. I find myself trending toward over-programming, to trying to do more, to pushing too much. So, instead, I keep saying to myself, and committing to myself: Do one less thing. Take off this layer, give some space, let that go.
In other moments, like times when I’ve felt stuck, or it’s felt hard to move, or do, and I know I want to, that it would be good for me, it’s a simple as: Do one more thing. Like, do this one thing.
Do one less thing (exhale).
Do one more thing (inhale).
I think of this Rumi quote often, this one line, the closing line, from one of his most known poems, A Community of the Spirit, as translated by Coleman Barks. I found this post, this quote, in my drafts, and in the spirit of surrender and ease, 10:10pm on a Thursday evening, felt it as resonant as ever, and the moment to share.
"Flow down and down in always widening rings of being.”
This line comes—flows—to me often, and continues to encourage me release to live life in a flow state, and to let live. To release, to become, bigger, wider, more open, freer. Let go, let flow.
The full poem:
There is a community of the spirit.
Join it, and feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street
and being the noise.
Drink all your passion,
and be a disgrace.
Close both eyes
to see with the other eye.
Open your hands,
if you want to be held.
Sit down in the circle.
Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shepherd’s love filling you.
At night, your beloved wanders.
Don’t accept consolations.
Close your mouth against food.
Taste the lover’s mouth in yours.
You moan, “She left me.” “He left me.”
Twenty more will come.
Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.
Today at 11:11am Los Angeles time, my friend texted me. It was 1:11pm Chicago time, where she now lives, and we’ve developed this habit of texting each other when we see the times align across our time zones, a little shared moment of numbers magic, even if contrived, which reminds us of our friendship, and our own magic.
Today, I told her that I’d had a harder morning, and took some time for a good cry (emotional sweat). She encouraged me to let it out (“No shame; it only makes us stronger.”) and shared that her current personal focus is getting comfortable with asking for help, and letting go of things. Only a few minutes later, she sent me a text with “Just saw this” and a photo of a calendar page and quote.
If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it. -Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon
I’m currently reading The Surrender Experiment: by Michael Singer, which is his autobiography. Surrender is something we talk about often in Vedic meditation (like “surrendering preferences”) and I’ve found it to be a freeing, and expansive concept. As Singer describes it:
What would happen if we respected the flow of life and used our free will to participate in what’s unfolding, instead of fighting it? What would be the quality of the life that unfolds? Would it just be random events with no order or meaning, or would the same perfection of order and meaning that manifests in the rest of the universe manifest in the everyday life around us?
In practice, Singer describes it as:
The practice of surrender was actually done in two, very distinct steps: First, you let go of the personal reactions of like and dislike that form inside your mind and heart; and second, with the resultant sense of clarity, you simply look to see what is being asked of you by the situation unfolding in front of you.
I think of it often as trying to swim upstream—a cling, reach, for what was, what we know—as opposed to flowing with the current, surrendering to be led downstream to a place that may be, probably is, so great, that we can’t even envision it because we’ve never even been to it! Also, it makes the process, the journey, the trip, so very much more easeful and enjoyable. And that part, I think, is just is important. Maybe most important. Life is a constant flow, constant change.
To surrender.
For AshRising, Ashley angel! To floating through, and surrendering to, life and all its magic together
I recently completed reiki level 1 training and have now added that to my morning routine, which is already lengthy (meditation, reiki, journal, light yoga flow/stretch session), and also which I love and feels supportive and fun. Yesterday after I finished, I noticed the thought pop up: “OK, now my day starts.”
And I was like, wait. My day has already started. That was part of my day, and this is all part of my day. My day is not just work, turning on a computer, plugging into the “productive” side of society. (Also, rest is “productive.”) It’s also this, and this is also mine.
That slight reframe, a soft zoom out, felt so nice as soon as I noticed it. Even in the past day, it’s already helped give me more perspective with myself (or, helped me give myself more perspective, you know!) in relation to work, and my job. It’s part of my day, and it’s part of my life, yes. And there’s so much more. The same could be, can be, said for any role and any identity we hold, too.
I remembered the thought again when I was biking home from Pilates later that day. I was waiting at a traffic light, eager to push out and pedal home, and looked around. I came to present on that corner, under the palm trees, in the summer nightfall. This moment was also my day—and my evening—my life. And it was a beautiful one, and I wanted to be with it.
It’s also this. It’s all of this.