Balance; Validation from the Shadow Side

We have snow again.

I'm used to shoveling steps, porches, walkways--driveways, even. On Saturday, though, I took it to a new level--spent an hour digging out the road! I'd been having some difficulty driving in and out, and it was still snowing, and I wanted to be able to drive out Sunday. As it turned out, on Sunday I got as far up the road as I'd shoveled, but shortly after that my car was swimming in snow. Sinking in snow. Immobilized. I opened the door, and the snow was more than a foot deep. So I got to shovel some more and--best of all--the plow guy finally showed up just as I, aided by my neighbor, had shoveled my car out enough that I could back all the way down the twisty, snowy, fluffy road to let him open it up.

My arms are pretty sore today, but hey, if I can shovel a road and dig my car out, I can't be doing that bad, can I? Although I don't intend to fast three days out of this week as I did last week; the idea was to work back down to one day and then none...

I may seem weak, but really I'm strong. Yes, physically too. And I'm finding that to be so with the different parts that make up my self too--in the vernacular: things I think I suck at, I might turn out to be good at in some respects.

I'm very strongly left-side dominant. And whereas some people divide the labor so that their dominant hand is better at fine motor control and their other is the "strong and stupid" blunt instrument, my left hand is both stronger and more dexterous (and yes, dexter means "right hand"--my left hand is like a right hand, how sinister...). So I tend not to respect my right hand much.

Credit: drmahendrapratap.blogspot.com

This afternoon, though, I was using the external keyboard and mouse, and I switched the mouse over to my left hand because my right shoulder/arm is super sore (a combination of the shoveling, lots of mousing, and sleeping on it awkwardly). And my left hand was an absolute klutz! The cursor was wobbling around all over the place making the annoying Windows 8 charms and dingdongs appear randomly, the mouse itself, ridden by my hand, practically falling off the edge of the table.

I would never have guessed that my right hand could outperform my left at anything save maybe holding the phone receiver to my right ear.

Sometimes the shadow side carries strength. It pleased me that my reaction was to admire my right hand's skill rather than deplore my left's klutziness. My right hand has about fifteen years' worth of practice with a mouse and my left hand maybe barely a few hours over that entire period. 

So there, demonstrated in my own body, the "10,000 hours of practice" adage: talent alone isn't sufficient; practice is essential; with enough practice a person can achieve a high degree of mastery even with mediocre talent. 

When I was eleven or twelve, a classmate taunted me: "You are as useless as your right hand." And that was about what I believed, about my hand and about myself. So, guess what? Even the weak, even the useless...practice, and manifest strength.

I'm grateful to have had my attention drawn to this, to get to share it with you, too. It's also a good reminder about balancing left and right. Humans recognize symmetry as beauty, and there are studies showing that harmonizing the brain's hemispheres is good for mental/emotional health as well as intelligence... and I for one am asymmetrical (cattywampus? skewiff?) all the way from my face to my feet. So, off I go to practice writing with my right hand--my left hand has hundreds of thousands of hours' headstart writing. Who knows what might get channeled? 

What do you do to stay in balance?

Taking a Deep Breath...and Some Recent Good Things

Starting tomorrow, we're going to have company through the end of July. Phil's daughter's wedding is also happening in that time period. It's major all-systems-go season for all kinds of gardening/gathering/fishing/hunting. I have lots of preparation to do for my MFA Residency, coming up at the beginning of August. I still have editing and translating aplenty to do, some of it on deadline. Take a deep breath...

...Lots of very good things are happening. Even the weather has been quite gorgeous the past few days. And yet, I confess that I'm clouded by a sense of apprehension. It's not that I'm refusing the hurdle, but I am feeling some stage fright. At a Writers Group in town today, I volunteered not to read my work because there was a big turnout, and then realized that I actually didn't want to read my work (which ordinarily, I'm quite happy to do every time).

Seeing my workshop submissions amidst the workshop materials for the upcoming MFA Residency, I feel hopelessly outclassed. I have a similar feeling toward a poetry group that a few of us here in Homer are starting up. At the same time, I'm jumping-for-joy-excited about both the MFA and the local poetry group. The truth of the matter is that I'm tremendously stoked to be facing these magnificent learning opportunities. They merit all the hyperbole I'm giving them: dream come true.

Stage fright and nerves are just tribute to what a big deal these opportunities are. And to the confuzzlement of all the other stuff that's happening at the same time!

I'm also not feeling so well, and am frustrated by it. I'd been feeling fantastic for a while, working out loads, getting in shape, feeling like I'd left chronic fatigue behind. These last few days, it's caught up with me. And my skin is worse than when I was a teen--I feel unsightly. I'm also taking one last round of medication for the yeast/gut balance issues; the same medication that made me feel like hell back in March, so that may be a part of it. Worst is that I don't like myself very much right now, and I'm not even sure why, except that stress is high.

Here are some more of the good things that have been happening recently:

 I just harvested a first round of spinach. There's some more getting ready to go in the ground. Yummy, and so glad that they've been unmolested.

Our Fourth of July festivities were dwarfed by our friend David's 65th birthday on the 3rd. Olga had gotten him a boat as a special gift, and we were complicit in keeping this as a surprise. It was driven up outside their house while David was distracted...

 ...And the look on his face when he first saw it was beyond words. Major success.

 Several days later, he's still having to check outside regularly, make sure it wasn't a dream.

As for Phil of the bad back: he's pretty much back up to full speed, although he's talking about making the significant lifestyle modifications that his back condition supposedly requires. I called the Insurance on Tuesday, we got him in for an MRI on Wednesday, and today, Thursday, we saw the doctor about the MRI findings. Even though it wasn't good news, it couldn't have been good news: we were trying to find out what was wrong. Sometimes, it just feels good to get stuff done. MRI stuff can take months. The procedure itself merits a story all of its own--I got to watch! I may tell it sometime.

As suspected, there are some degenerated discs and damaged vertebrae. "Degenerated" and "damaged" have very irreversible, permanent rings to them, designedly so. He is open to the 'lifestyle modifications' urged on him (i.e. less log-lifting and bear-schlepping), or at least, he says he is. I am cautiously optimistic: I know few people on earth who are better than Phil at finding a nugget of beauty in dung, or finding a positive facet to an unfortunate situation. A book from which I ought to take a leaf, in my current melancholy.

Given this crazy-busy, I've no idea what my blogging schedule will be able to be for the next few weeks. I'll look in as I'm able and share as much as I can.

Do you enjoy witnessing medical procedures like MRI's? (Phil got to watch my LASIK surgery!)
How do you cope with overloaded schedules?