Going Through the Motions

Quote of the day: "Fatigue is the best pillow." – Benjamin Franklin

I’ve been stewing over what to write about today in my blog entry. Normally I am able to tap into my voice in the late morning, before I head out on lunch. On this particular morning, the juices were not flowing. Actually, I don’t think I was even breathing until after noon.

Yesterday, I came into work well before my normal arrival time in order to leave early for a dance and drum performance at a college. The show went great, though we didn’t pull into our driveway until almost 10 p.m. It all made for a very long day.

This morning, I woke up completely and utterly fatigued. I commented to my husband, who was as chipper as always in the early morning hours, that I really wasn’t awake–to not be fooled by my showered, vertical appearance because I was actually sleepwalking.

I’ve already commented some about living on auto-pilot, but man-o-man, it’s amazing how the body can survive on its own, going through the motions it knows it needs to do, without the spirit being awake.

The fatigue I feel today isn’t physical. It rarely is. In fact, the only remedy I could find to my waking daze, besides taking the afternoon off and sitting in my writing room to reconnect (which wasn’t an option), was to jog for a few minutes, then do repeated sequences of downward dog into a push-up position, then some core/ab work, and then lay flat on my back in corpse position in the women’s locker room in meditation.

The active breathing and engagement with my physical self helped to sweat off the haze I found myself in and now I am able to put together a sentence, slightly. I “feel” more of my Self now, but I’m not fully present. Definitely not.

Being on this journey requires me to share all of the experience; not just the inspired, feel-good moments. In commitment to faith, it is precisely in these moments of fatigue that we must hold onto those of exuberance.

My spirit gets tired when I don’t give it time to rest. The running from one thing to the next, to the next, to the next, may be fine for some people, but not this chica. If there is one thing that I’ve become absolutely certain about myself over the past few months is that I absolutely, positively, need downtime…the type of downtime that is quiet, soft, still and in spirit.

I don’t have the slightest clue on how to get the downtime I need, though I know “I” need it like my body needs water. I trust that this knowing will help me to create the breathing space I desire.