August Strong

Back in April, I started doing yoga for the first time ever, in hopes of strengthening my achy weak left shoulder and developing more flexibility. A friend recommended the YouTube channel Yoga With Adriene and I went for it, building strength slowly over weeks and weeks of downward dogged determination. Yoga is hard! After a few struggling sweating months, I started noticing that I was developing shoulder tone, wrist strength, posture awareness, and better balance. It felt amazing. I felt strong! That strong feeling kept growing. My left shoulder was (and is) still weaker than my right, but I could tell that overall it was much stronger than it was before I started yoga-ing.

This week I was feeling so buff that I started unconsciously expecting more from my [still below average] arms and shoulders. On Monday I went a little deeper with the yoga poses and did a little extra. Monday night and all day Tuesday, my shoulders were exceedingly sore and achy. I was so disgruntled and tired that I skipped yoga entirely for the day to give my soreness time to recover. 

I wondered: 

If I have gotten so strong, why was that 20 minute yoga video so hard?

When will I be STRONG?

When will this get easier?

At that point, I reluctantly realized that yoga had already gotten easier; I had simply grown accustomed to my new slightly raised baseline of strength. I also realized that yoga is just like running (and many other aspects of life): I can always do more and go deeper, which will make me sore and tired until I adapt and get stronger. Duh, Shaina. 

What really got me thinking, though, was that one adjective in particular: 

STRONG.

The complex variety of possibilities in the simple word had me waxing philosophical. 

Am I strong? How do I know if I am strong? What even counts as strong? 

Is strength only relative to previous weakness, or is there another way to measure it? 

I don't have all of the answers to these introspective questions. I don't even know if I can be officially labeled as "strong" in reference to any of my attributes. What I do know is that strength is not stagnant; it requires constant effort. I guess it's another journey over destination situation--strong is not a destination; building strength is a process.

I've never used so many semicolons in my life!

 Even more confusingly, strength can take on many forms. It can be loud, quiet, tall, small, emotional, dry-eyed, gentle, forceful, patient, fast, slow, etc. etc. etc.

The POINT is, if I keep doing the [physical, spiritual, mental, parental, etc.] work, I will continue to get stronger. And right now, I am stronger than I was. 

Philosophizing aside, that's enough to be getting on with.

Unrelated pictures from August:

Rose has become our resident cookie expert. She can whip up a batch of chocolate chip cookies all on her own without any help. That's more than I could do when I was nine years old!

Jay's latest door sign. Somehow this is the only Jay-ish picture I have from the past few weeks. We seem to have bedroom door decor fads in our house. A while ago the kids hung signs with lists of who was allowed in each bedroom. Then it was decorative name signs. Currently, each bedroom has a homemade DO NOT DISTURB sign on the doorknob. Jay never takes his sign down, somewhat neutralizing its efficacy, but still. 

In mid-August, I helped out with our first relief society activity in months. It was a swap, aka a free garage sale with kids clothes, books, and school supplies donated by ward members. The leftovers were donated to local foster care. We all wore masks and chatted in the shade for hours. It felt unfamiliar to hold an in-person conversation with a non-family member!

Mt. Adams behind mint on a rare cloudy August morning.

Our modest garden bounty is picking up steam. Time to start bringing a bucket out when I harvest.

The girls through the screen of my bedroom window, drawing with chalk on the driveway.

These sister BFFs seem to take a sister selfie almost every day.

Hummus, pita chips, and garden fresh tomato: power snack of champions.

The pumpkin octopus has overrun our garden, although the tomatoes are holding their own.

Hummus, almonds, spinach, and fresh tomato on a croissant. My latest tasty sandwich invention.

Running on my favorite nearby road: Cemetery Road. It's quiet, gravel, and grape-lined, with tied/fenced dogs only.

On Sunday, Jeff and I took an exceptionally sunny evening walk. Over the past few months, we have been taking walks together more regularly than we ever have before. I needed a picture of us the spicy fresh mowed mint.

"Arg, the sun is so bright!" 

"Block it with your phone!"

August end: the mint behind us was mowed this week and THE SMELL! Minty green and nostril-singeing.

The corn across the canal from us is lush and thick. This is such an abundant time of year! The fields and orchards around us are bursting on the cusp of ripeness.

My favorite sun-warmed grape scent started up this week.

Another evening vista of the mowed mint. They came and vacuumed it up on Tuesday. I need to learn the proper agricultural terms for these operations. I'm pretty sure it's not called vacuuming when they suck the mint up into a truck. But that's what it looks like!

Thick dusty powder in between fields: I had to walk with care, or my shoe could get filled with this sifting stuff.

One more mowed mint shot from that Sunday evening walk.

Running with grapes on one side, apples on the other.

They smell divine.