sparkignitefire

It’s happening. Six down….86 to go.

This is not radical, nor a new idea or something that millions of people have not tried. For me, in my opening cocoon, it is exciting. The excitement is that I can see results. Be it 6 results……they are mine. The scale has never been a constant in my life. There has not been one in a house that I have lived in for…say….20+ years. The idea of jumping on one everyday and monitoring the 2-4 lb fluctuations seems like driving an ice-pick into my eye over and over. For me it is the clothes. Whatever set I’m in, if they are tight, do not fit, if I am able…operative word….am able to get on the bike to have them fit again, it works for me. (for the record I use the Dr’s scale at the gym-which I’m sure has been calibrated in the last five years….so highly accurate)

I loved being pregnant. For both, I was a General Contractor and Interior Designer, so being on job-sites in various stages of torn-out and redo was totally normal. My guys would suck their breath in when I would show up in the stages of not being able to see my feet and shimmy up ladders….lay down under a sink (mind you they laughed even harder when they had to hoist me off the floor or one time we all-electrician/plumber and myself had to get under the stairs to sort something out and we didn’t fit because of you know who). I felt great, so none of this altered my feelings of beauty. Today, my weight is exactly the same as the day I delivered Gladys. I feel completely different about my body today. Same weight……different feeling.

As a kid, I played soccer. You can tell the kids that start playing sports at a single digit age, they develop a muscle memory for later. That memory has, for my sake, served me. The giant thigh muscles are rebounding, the arms…while still rubbery are finding shape again. I’ll never be Madonna (praise be) with those guns. I will be strong again. Agile and the double chin will disappear.

A few things come to mind today (besides my lowering of poundage). A Reader and dear friend sent me a piece today by Merton. A reflective…in the moment piece on service. After David’s death, the split second before the gun went off-for him and my dad-there is the point of decision. I have been thinking a lot about this ‘moment’. Merton says that if we are living a life of service to others we do not get to that point…or if we do, the magnitude of the service snaps us back. I agree with Merton’s assessment, regardless if we are there all the time…Mother Teresa was not there all the time and she is the Gold Standard. One of my favourite questions….always…..hands down is ‘What can I do for you?’ I love to hear it and more than that I love to say it. Whether or not you take this question as-will it be scattered/smothered or covered OR you are loved and I want to know what you need today…right now. It is a powerful and life altering question. So why did these two intelligent, full of life people get to the end of that moment and not remember they are in service of others?

Question for you, dear reader…..have you found your minyan, your cut-men, your peeps that are there when you are doing some heavy-lifting? It takes a while, especially if all you have surrounded yourself with are the ones in the mud. Get the hose and rinse off, it’s time.

Navigate your way. The light is there.

Love you