It's also this

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.

The little things are the big things

This one made all the difference for me in heavy pandemic times, when lockdown and COVID first hit NYC and I was living in a SoHo apartment that had brought me so much joy in rolling, raucous, rollicking pre-pandemic times, and from which I now realized I couldn’t see the sun. A friend said it on one of those FaceTime calls that were the only conversational connection so many of us had for too long.

When I realized, a month in, that I could access the roof, the world opened. I spent all my time up there, and I eventually moved to an apartment in Williamsburg with a terrace. More sunlight, seeing open sky, being outside. Really big things.

I said it again today to a woman who complimented my pink (“blush”) beach cruiser with beige tires outside a Peet’s Coffee in Marina del Rey. Here on the other side of the country, in my new home of the LA Westside. She was sitting having a coffee, her German Shepherd asleep at her feet. I smiled and said thank you, that the colors sparked joy and then, “The little things are big things,” without thinking, something I used to say when slowly sipping a morning coffee, when making moments mine, when slowing to do little things that seemed inane in my pre-pandemic life of rush, but became everything when everything felt huge and scary and beyond our control.

She said, '“They really are,” and then she paused, and we both kind of took in the moment together. “The little things really are the big things,” she repeated.