I am humbled. Tai Chi is hard! I learned the first three moves, sort of, and then zoned out on the subsequent moves. Two challenges, overcoming my self-consciousness about my arm, which was the object of some curiosity by the instructors, which was not verbalized, and some curiosity by other participants, again not verbalized. This is my issue, this self-consciousness about a visible difference, there is no intolerance at the class. The other challenge is my knee, one of the moves hurts, at least the way I was doing it hurt. The lesson moved too fast for me to concentrate on how to perform the move without hurting my knee, so that was when I lost concentration on learning. I will have to go slowly, and focus on protecting my knee, above following the moves. I am determined to attend regularly, and to focus on doing my pain free best. I feel that eventually I will become comfortable with exposing the way my arm functions, in a group, no one really cares about it but me, and comfortable with slowing myself down to do only what I can do comfortably, without risking injury to my bad knee.
I think Tai Chi is a go for me. The group is pleasant, friendly, and large enough that the small cliques of familiars do not dominate the context. Most people seem to be there as individuals.
Luckily the skies were clear, and the roads bare, for my journey. It is quite an evening out, one hour to drive there, two hours at the class, then one hour to drive home, a four hour adventure. It was getting dark when I started out, it was pitch black as I returned home. It will be interesting to see how the light changes during my travels back and forth to the class.
For now, I think, my activity schedule is full enough. I need some time for the people, times, and places of these activities to become familiar. Although I will push myself to enter into new and unfamiliar social settings, it isn’t something I enjoy. I will let the dust settle on these all-new activities before considering extending my reach. I have meditation and Tai Chi, and the women’s group… and once I am more emotionally balanced I will return to the group where I cried, and see how I feel about it. All of these activities are an hour’s journey by highway, one way. At this point in my life, this is a viable situation, at least when the weather is reasonable and the roads are clear, which is much of the time.
It is becoming obvious to me that the extreme isolation, that I experienced while living at the country house, has had a quite an effect on how I feel about social situations, and not in a good way. I have work to do here!
After I arrived home last night, sitting in my easy chair relaxing, I detected a burning smell. Attila smelled it too. We went through the house, looking at everything that was plugged into an electrical outlet, investigated the refrigerator, the range, everything we could think of that involved electricity. I felt the smell was coming from the heating duct work, so Attila checked the furnace, and sure enough, something was awry with the furnace.
Attila turned off the heat. I made a telephone call to Lares, who is an HVAC person, and he talked Attila through a quick fix. That was at 11:00 p.m. last night. At 3:30 a.m. there was a definite problem with the furnace, the sound it was making was worrying. Attila got up and turned off the heat, then went back to bed. Thinking he had taken care of the issue, I went back to sleep. When I awoke at 4:30 the house had chilled to 16C and falling. When Attila arose he headed to the basement to try again, no joy. I sent a message to Lares, unwilling to telephone him at such an early hour, to let him know we were without heat. About fifteen minutes before he had to leave for work, Attila got the furnace running again. He found our two small electric heaters, and showed me how to shut down the furnace in case it malfunctioned again.
AT 7:00 a.m. the furnace was still functioning, but by 7:05 a.m. it was malfunctioning again, so I had to shut it down. Lares wrote a message to say he would drop in here on his way to work, which he did, and in about 30 minutes he had the furnace up and running! What a relief!
The plow went by and dumped a huge load of snow at the end of the driveway, about 20 minutes before Lares arrived. I was out there with my shovel, and I got it cleaned up so that Lares could park comfortably. I am a little sore now! Time for a little rest and an anti-inflammatory.
I wonder what else this day will bring!
Worldly Distractions
Weather
-10°C
Date: 5:00 AM EST Tuesday 30 January 2018
Condition: Not observed
Pressure: 101.9 kPa
Tendency: Falling
Temperature: -9.6°C
Dew point: -11.8°C
Humidity: 84%
Wind: N 20 gust 30 km/h
Wind Chill: -17
Quote
Watch your thoughts, they become words.
Watch your words, they become actions.
Watch your actions, they become habits.
Watch your habits, they become your character.
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.
Unknown
Wow. Furnace problems are one of my biggest worries after ours caught on fire a few years back and I was alone here with the dogs. It was quite a panicked feeling, getting them out safely, and calling the FD and getting me out and waiting whilst the fire trucks, sirens screaming, came down the main street only to go on by us and go to the wrong street/neighborhood! Waiting extra long for them to show up etc. It was a day I never want to relive. I hope and pray your furnace is not kaput and that Lares has done a fix.
Bex, Lares has fixed it. He will come back when his schedule slows down and do a complete servicing, but he feels it will work fine until he can fit that in. It was the capacitor, burned up, he replaced it, and it is now working just fine. Your furnace fiasco sounds like an awful experience! So glad Crow Cottage survived the incident!
Rage … I feel so much of it that I’ve begun to worry about my health.
What’s up with your arm? This is the first I recall it being an issue. Clearly I’m not a close reader! or am a forgetful one.
Kate
Kate, I am sorry to hear you have to deal with rage too! Rage is something I don’t want to get stuck in, but I have to spend time with it, that is appropriate. I am lucky, I know exactly what (who) my rage is connected to, and am slowly figuring out what I can, and cannot, do about it. My options are very limited, there are no stellar choices, no magic bullets, but there are some options, and I intend on making the very most of them.
My arm was injured at birth, and then a few more times when I was a wee one, it looks normal if one doesn’t look to closely, but it has limited motion, and very little fine motor control. It stands out because I cannot emulate the arm movements called for in things like yoga or tai chi. I’ve lived with this all of my life, and it surprises me that I am still finding myself self-conscious about it! Most people don’t notice it, most of the time, so when I am doing something like a Tai Chi group, I am thrust into a position where it is suddenly very visible. I have alluded to it on my posts occassionally, but since I don’t usually seek out circumstances that emphasize the difference, I haven’t really thought about it in a long while. I am thinking about it now though, 🙂
Well done Maggie! It takes courage to venture forth into new realms, especially when you are in such a vulnerable state. It’s not surprising you are very angry. You are trying to live your daily life in close contact with the person who has hurt you so badly. I honestly don’t know how you do it.
Just a tip about the tail chi moves. Do all foot angle turns using your whole leg from the hip down.Your knee joint should not turn at all.
Thanks Sandra! It isn’t easy here at Mist Cottage, but it helps that Attila is not a bad person. Working through the end of our former relationship is important for my own sake, knowing what happened, and why, knowledge is power, and this cohabitation after the fact is giving me the information I need to carry forward in my new life. I won’t be spending much, if any, time wondering, and there are no “what ifs”. I did my best with what I had to go on.
Thanks for the tips about the Tai Chi move! I found a youtube video that outlines some of the moves used, so I can practise at home with the foot and leg work, to protect my knee.
Wow, I hope your furnace stays fixed! And I hope you continue to like those three groups and their activities.
Joan, so far so good with the furnace, it seems to be ticking along just fine now, and it went down to -24C last night, fixed just in time! I will keep at the groups for the duration of the sessions, and then reassess what brings me joy then. Right now everything is new and in flux, so nothing is bringing me joy at the moment, but that is temporary.