11 things (beats staring at the blinking cursor)

1. I opened a new window to do some writing about two hours ago.

2. I've spent most of that two hours looking at Airbnbs on the Oregon coast, dreaming and scheming about the first-ever Unfurl West in 2020. And eating. All the eating.

3. On my left, my trusty sidekick. Chalupa gazes up at me with her big brown eyes and impossibly cute incisors jutting out from her underbite, with six or eight tiny baby teeth all helter skelter between. She's watching Mani, who's cooking. Wait, I take it back. Now she is snoring, as if she has given up on life. After all, she hasn't eaten in approximately 40 minutes and is clearly starving. So sad.

4. This will be the first time in 45 years that I'll not be joining my extended family on Thanksgiving. As I told Pearl, he and Aviva will be my representatives. When I said that, he joked in a haughty accent, "Hello, I am here on be-hoff of Jena..." It will just be me and Mani. We are planning to cook a nice meal together, a rarity since we generally eat separately, and we may go see a movie.

5. Grateful for amicable co-parenting that centers the kids' wellbeing.

6. I have that itch of wanting to write something longer (see #1), or at least begin. And it's just not quite surfacing yet. So here I am, writing something, anything, giving myself permission for it not to be "the thing" that might be knocking softly.

7. That is easier said than done. We want the words to spring like Athena from her father's head, completely formed. It can be frustrating to sit and start at a blinking cursor.

8. In fact, staring at a blinking cursor is one of the most torturous things you can do when you want to write. Seriously, right now I feel like I have no ideas, no clear thread to follow or theme to explore. And it can be fine to step away, to wait, to give it a breather. But it's the either/or I'm thinking about here, the EITHER I must have a passionate, urgent idea OR I will sit here wanting to scream, at a loss for where to begin. The either/or is a trap! Don't fall in!

9. I completed a free 30 days of yoga series. Each video was 15-25 minutes. I think the whole thing took me 32 or 33 days to complete. Not surprisingly, I noticed such a difference -- in my energy, my muscle tone, my mood. Then, predictably, I stopped altogether. But I've started a new 30 day series -- today was day three -- and I am taking a similar approach to this practice as I do to the practice of writing.

10. Not making it precious is a big part of that. What this looks like in real life is scooting one of the pink chairs out of the way, propping my phone on its side, taking off my socks, and doing my practice at my office, even though I don't have a mat or the "right" clothes with me. Jeans or not, it's still practice. I'm still tending to my breath, paying attention to my alignment, the places that tell me to go easy, the poses that bring release. Without fail, I feel better after. Writing 11s is the creative equivalent, i.e. not waiting till the conditions are perfectly conducive to showing up. They rarely are.

11. Speaking of which, the kitchen floor is in desperate need of mopping. Evidence that we do, in fact, live here.