Super Philosophy

For Sunday's Snippet, I'll be posting a small portion of a short story every week for the month of July.

Part 1/4

Super Philosophy

           “I have to tell you something.” She sits up, halfway moving her body against the cool wall in her bedroom. Even though the humidity has long worn off, she’s still sweating. Lying next to her, Dima’s muscular legs are crossed, one elbow propping his head against her pillow. Moving lazily in the in-between time of night and morning, the pink paisley sheet hanging in Maggie’s window sways with the summer breeze.

            “Zdjat, wait. Tell me after tea.” Dima’s voice starts low in his belly. A singer’s voice, it drew her to him months ago.

            “You know where the kitchen is.” Her curt voice hides layers of confusion she’s been wrestling. Weeks ago, she would have offered to make the tea. But that façade, that attentiveness, has worn off.         “Do you want tea,” Dima asks, rolling over and landing on top of her. Lips the color of an impatient in spring kiss her nose four times. Ever cautious, Dima clings to peasant superstitions.  Maggie turns her head from him, hoping he gets the hint that she’s upset. The wall is bowed in places from a perpetual leak in the roof.

            “Koneshno. And with sugar.”

            “Horosho.” Dima claps his hands, thick from years of manual labor, and smiles with his eyes. Naked, he walks to the kitchen and starts to sing the same song he’s been singing since January when the pair first met.

 “Perestanesh pyet!” Stop singing. “You can’t wake my brother.” From her bed, Maggie watches Dima move through the kitchen, opening cupboards, filling the kettle. He leans into the fridge and pulls cheese and berries.

“I know you get hungry after sex,” he says, pale ass contrasting starkly from the tan he’s earned working shirtless all summer on the roofs of opulent houses.

“No seeir from Marina’s,” Dima asks.

Maggie rolls her eyes. “Marina’s isn’t the only store in town,” she replies, walking into the kitchen. The Russian market was a great place to pick up cultural specific foods, but cheese is cheese.

Metcon Love

Saturday Summary

It’s a holiday! Woo! It’s also Saturday. Double woo. In light of my #crunchylesson earlier this week, my holiday plans changed a bit. No matter, I’m a firm believer that things happen as they should, so there’s probably a very real and important reason that my ass will be spending this holiday in my lab tapping and at the gym lifting.

What a week. Monday’s Rest Day was fruitful – I picked up almost twenty books from the biblioteka and came home to a super awesome postcard from Premo. Gorging on novels is totally part of the writing process, right? Of course it is! So far this week, I’ve read two – What Alice Forgot and Room. Both were interesting, engaging, and offered me insight into my own work. Tuesday’s return to the gym always feels a bit like that cat meme from yesterday. Except there were no open mills, so I ended up climbing stairs for what felt like a lifetime to get my cardio in #liftinggirlproblems With the start of July and the beginning of this new fitness/mental phase on Wednesday, I really attacked my lifts mid-week. And they sucked. Like the whole session was tougher than it’s been in a while. I’m not sure why, but every day can’t be a rock-star day. On Thursday, I woke to my hand holding a pen – yes, I sleep with a pen, a notebook and a novel in my bed – writing invisible words in the air. I have the plot lines for the next two manuscripts! So that’s super boss. It’s a pretty safe bet to assume my mind is either on my writing or my lifting pretty much ALL of the time. Ha! I made up for the lackluster lifting session yesterday with some great progress on my deads and my front bar squats, and managed to spill chalk all over everywhere. Ooops. Today is metcon day … ropes and box jumps and sprints and all things conditioning. #plyolove I anticipate making excellent progress on round 2 of complete revisions and attacking my new work with zeal. It’s not every day I get to indulge myself in a day of writing and metcon work. I’m planning to savor each moment, and enjoy it every step (jump, tap, lunge) of the way. 

Rerack. Reset. Repeat

Fitness Friday

So this cat unicorn meme is pretty fucking boss, right? I've been staring at it all week long. Every time I do, I see something else that makes me chuckle. 

Already we're in the third quarter of the year and with that, I’m finding myself returning to a reset sort of mind. The first quarter – January through March – was inadvertently dedicated to me getting my bearings on the New Year. My attention was on setting routines, establishing hard limits for myself and generally beginning to understand what it means to truly navigate waters alone. The second quarter allowed me the opportunity to reexamine my intent with my writing and my fitness. Now that I have both of those realms under wraps, it seems only logical that I begin again at the beginning.

July marks a return for me to a modality that started with Voyin in the spring of ’14. I’m finding myself stepping right back into HIIT training, (weighted box jumps anyone?) unassisted hand stands, all things kettlebells and of course, all things heavy. When Voyin and I trained together, there was always the unspoken challenge to see who could do more, with better form, for longer. Of course, he largely won those contests – there’s a reason his name means Warrior, duh. The silent and good natured, well-meaning competition was always enough to keep pushing me further, to test my own limits. Even though we’re not training together any longer, I’m finding myself tapping right back into that mindset. I’ve even started to hear him encouraging me; that particular way he used to say Jessay is imprinted in my mind and I hear it just about every time I pick up a kettlebell.

My love for deadlifts and squats are no secret, to be sure … and with that love comes a particular mindset. Voyin taught me to approach training the same way I approach writing – break it down into small, manageable chunks and then attack each chunk with zeal and frenzy. So that’s exactly what I’m doing.

With that in mind, I’ve set some pretty lofty lifting goals for this month. 275 on my deads is probably insane, and I might not make it, but there’s no harm in trying if I train right, eat well, recover as I should. Bench sucks because well, fuck bench, but I set a good triple digit number goal for that too. It’s only the third day, but my mind is on #rerack #reset #repeat.

Crunchy Lessons

Thoughtful Thursday

In my driving career, I’ve rolled plenty of beaters. There was that Pathfinder that was three different colors; the extended ’79 green Suburban. That Neon that was beat to hell and back. The Camry that almost exploded and leaked oil all the damn time. (No, seriously. I had to put a quart in it every single day.) So, as a grown folk, when I found myself in the position to drive something nice, that’s exactly what I did. The Camry was my final beater. It was replaced by a Civic, and then an Accord, and now, Loretta. After having driven a beater for so many years, having a nice ride is important to me. I take pride in keeping my car crispy, and few things please me as much as getting Loretta back from a fresh detail.

So.

Look what the fuck happened today.

I know, right? Driving on the highway, pre-holiday traffic, some kid behind me who wasn’t paying attention … smashed right into Loretta’s bumper. I saw his Honda approaching and thought for sure he’d stop in time. Nope.

Le sigh.

After we’d exchanged information and I drove off to complete the second half of my day, I found a rage bubbling so deeply inside of me that I started to not recognize my own thoughts. I’m generally a pretty easy going kind of chick. I mean, don’t fuck with my protein or my coffee and we’re good … so it takes a significant event to get me to the point where I want to seriously shank someone. Shanking was certainly on my mind all afternoon as I reviewed the accident over and over. At first, I was super pissed at the kid for not paying attention. And then at myself for not finding a way to move. And then, I realized being pissed at myself or the kid wasn’t going to do me a lick of good. So I started to examine exactly why I was so salty.

It all goes back to the beater.

I am a firm believer that driving a beater builds character … the more cringe-worthy the ride, the most backbone a broad has to develop to enter and exit it with grace and poise. I’ve been dipping in and out of a nice ride for so many years now that I’d forgotten that lesson. The repair shop can’t get Loretta in to be assessed until Monday, so that means until then, I’m rolling a busted ride. Know what? It’s probably good for me. #stayhumble #hustlehard 

#whatupspiritanimal

awakening – the act or moment of being aware of something; coming into existence

July is here! Where is this year going, and how can I make it slow down?

It’s amazing that we’re in the seventh month of 2015, but it’s crazy to think that there are only five months left. June’s blog posts were a great exercise in creativity, but not super well planned out – trying to write shorts and flash pieces while editing my newest novel was a challenge, but with the exception of one day, I made it! (That brings, for anyone counting, a total of four missed posts for the entire year … not too bad of a ratio.) For the next few months, I’m going to be writing with a bit more measure. This will help me stay on track with revisions and new work, and also give some structure to these wanderings and musings.

So, today’s word … came to me while I was washing up dishes this morning. #mealprep yo. Becoming aware of something, or coming into existence is a process that many folks probably take for granted. I try to live presently, and by that I mean in the moment, every single day. Awakening to the truth that worth is defined by what one is willing to accept, I realized this morning that much like Kakfa discussed in his famous work, I am emerging. Not just from a cocoon of writing, but as a human. I’ve been caged and withdrawn, held captive by immobility because I’ve been worried about making a wrong step. Turns out that shit is whack, and doesn’t get me anywhere. These are the sorts of thoughts I’ve been rolling around in my head over the last few weeks.

Last night, I returned home late – it was almost eleven, and after my day, I was spent and tired. Pulling into the driveway, I was surprised/not surprised to see a RABBIT waiting for me. I turned down the Vaughn track I was listening to and just sat in Loretta, watching the grace and beauty of the rabbit. She sat on her hind legs, enjoying the moment, sensing her surroundings, being aware. I smiled, thanked the Universe, and made my way inside. Want to know the most awesome part? The rabbit didn’t move at the sound of my car door closing; instead, she turned to look at me, awakening to the fact that she wasn’t alone. Now, I’m not sure if she really did that, but I’m pretty sure she gave me the nod. 

#whatupspiritanimal #thanksforthemessage

Moving to Mangos

Moving to Mangos

Now Thursday, Audra stands again in the kitchen, taking the last green apple from the orange bowl David gifted her last year on their anniversary. Made of thin glass, the bowl takes on different hues of oranges and yellows, depending on the time of day.

They’d been sitting at their favorite table at Ambar, near the back, far from the kitchen but close enough to the street that they could watch passerby and make up stories about them. David, an artist, was forever searching for his next subject and Audra just liked to be in on his creative process. After their plates of curry and korma had been cleared away, David presented her with a black gift bag. Another nod to their shared history, the black bag served as a reminder to the first gift he’d ever offered her. Like then, this gift was a trio – three blue packages all nestled into one another, to be opened in order. That gift had been a candle, a bottle of perfume and a scarf, all items he selected for intrinsic value, but with practical application and meaning. At Ambar, Audra had grinned across the table at David, and began disassembling the gift, knowing that David’s thoughtfulness often far exceeded what she expected. He was good to her, and she knew it.

The first was a chef’s knife, steel blade sharp and glinting in the lowlight of the Indian restaurant; the second, a piece of teak wood, its color dark and rich. And when she unearthed the bowl from the bottom of the bag, the two gifts made sense. She’d leaned across the table and full on kissed him on the lips, her joy showing not just in her action, but in her eyes as well.

Without any apples, the bowl looks empty, forlorn and abandoned, much like how Audra feels. The October afternoon that will mark three years is fast approaching. Tired of eating apples, and tired of being tired, Audra pauses mid-stroke, her anniversary knife raised in the air. She doesn’t hear David rouse from bed and come into the kitchen. He’s standing in the doorway, watching her making a choice. Lately, that’s all they’ve been discussing – choices and options, which way is best and what makes sense. The resolve she had when she renewed her Officer commitment with the service has long left, and now Audra is faced with being in for another round of duty. It’s not that she minds the work, or misses civilian life, it’s that she’s always wondering what the next choice might need to be.

“Little One,” David says softly, “You know you can stop eating those apples. You’ve mourned long enough. Maybe you should switch to mangos. Bring a little sweet back into your life.”

Audra sets the knife on the teak board and turns to David. She smiles and nods. “I’ll go to the market tomorrow,” she says, leaning into him.  

Apple Pie Shine

Apple Pie Shine

It was Jimmy who was waiting for her at the bus stop outside of Berea. Jimmy who took her plastic travel bag and threw it in the trunk of his old Pontiac. Jimmy who offered her a nip from the shine flask he always carried. Jimmy who told her the way it felt to clean up warm intestines. She could have stopped him, asked him to quit talking about it until she got drunk. Raw from the bus ride and hoarse from the loss, she listened, consuming each bite like she’d been eating that apple.

The drive from the bus station took longer than she remembered. Winding hills, climbing deeper and deeper into the holler seemed small, more jagged, less beautiful. In her mind, the holler had always been a place of enchantment. Even though most folks had less than what she made in a week to live on for a month, somehow people managed to get by, learning to rely on one another, their kin, and the randomness of kindness.

“So we gonna have to pay for Mama’s plot,” Jimmy finally said after he’d explained in harrowed detail the clean-up process. His bloodshot eyes had cut across to Audra, sitting in the bench style front seat. He’d reached inside his jacket for the flask, forgetting that it was empty already.

“How much,” Audra asked.

“A lot.”

She’d anticipated this. Knew that Jimmy and Pete wouldn’t have a lick of money between the two of them, and that it would fall to her to pay for it.

At the funeral parlor, the undertaker mortician was a greasy, slick haired fat man with a charlatan voice and a bulbous nose. He’d pressed the siblings, trying to convince them that Ginny needed an expensive casket, something with lace and mother-of-pearl. If it’d been up to Pete, they would have buried Mama in a pine box and been done with it. After haggling over price and the style of casket for an hour, Audra was out all of her savings and hadn’t even been able to afford a headstone. She promised herself that she’d get one for Ginny, one day.

The funeral was sparsely attended. Everyone in town knew that Ginny was off a bit, and she’d stuck to herself for so long that anyone who used to be her friend had long since given up hope of ever getting back into her world. The last few years, Ginny would walk the woods, a collection of motley feral cats following behind her. Jimmy stayed drunk, Pete stayed silent, leaving Audra to greet the random cousins who wanted to come see what all the fuss was about. The casket remained closed, even though Ginny’s wound was in her stomach. It was easier that way; better to not see the woman’s face cold and dead.