LAZY BRAIN

I don't know....I don't even want to write this post.  I don't want to do anything. 

I feel worn out.  Exhausted.  Lethargic.  Not physically exactly, but mentally.

I'm surprised by this.  Six days ago I came home from a nearly 3 week Hawaiian vacation -- perhaps my best trip there ever, which is saying a lot since we've gone annually for over 20 years.  And it was totally chill and relaxing.

The day after we got home I tackled a long to-do list in preparation for a big family gathering the next day for Father's Day, a DIL birthday, and a little thing we decided to surprise the fam with -- Christmas in June, since Covid stole our family Christmas gathering.  We put up a small tree and I spent a couple hours getting all the cute and kitschy Hawaii souvenir gifts Christmas-wrapped and under the tree for the family members.  They seemed to be delighted by the surprise and we all had a great time together with a picnic dinner on the deck (the year's first cedar plank grilled Sockeye salmon! Yum!) and celebration of special days.

The very next day, our granddaughters and their year old pup arrived for a 4 day stay.  So this week has been a whirlwind of high energy, non-stop activities, and puppy chaos.   Our 11 y/o asked to have a friend here for a sleepover and I said yes since I know this girl and she is sweet and polite.  So we went shopping for junk food, picked her up, and came back to all girls, all the time giggling and eating and singing and dancing and playing darts and pool and painting pictures, playing games, watching some noisy something or other on Netflix...on and on.  Our 6 y/o was not left out; there were remarkably few arguments as the big girls welcomed her into their orbit.  But we discovered that our Kid Friendly supper of pizza didn't work for our sleepover guest who has a allergy to something in pizza (not the cheese, she says), so I prepared something else for her at the last minute.  They were all asleep by 11:00 which I considered a victory.

Next day Hub made everybody pancakes (he's our breakfast and dinner cook for the week) and we set up a homemade "slip and slide" in the yard and turned on the sprinklers.  The puppy chased the sliders across the visqueen slippery surface, tearing it with his toenails, and barking incessantly, so he had to be leashed and quieted but it ended up being fun for all. Even Hub took a few turns and the girls thought it was pretty cool that their grandpa could show them a few moves -- he got out the Boogie Board and showed them how to run and lay on that for extra slippery sliding.  When the friend went home, we started making paper mache volcanoes, ate supper, went for a neighborhood walk, watched a movie.

Yesterday I drove 11 y/o to her friend's house 15 miles south for a day with her family to celebrate the friend's last day of school with a swim party.  So the 6 y/o had us to herself.   Hub made her some breakfast and played a game of darts. She and I shopped for paint to paint the volcanoes, painted that and other things, made felted animals from a kit, read a book, took some quiet time with her favorite kid YouTube videos while I scrolled FB,  picked a first early bowl of raspberries from the garden, had a "spa day" whirlpool bath with bath bomb and fancy shampoo, ate supper on the deck and then watched a movie, during which her sister came home.  Interspersed were lots of get this get that, eat this eat that, clean up this clean up that...take the pup out, mop up spilled paint, sweep crumbs, find lost thises and thats...sigh.  

Today...11 y/o will paint her volcano.  We hope to blast them today!  I don't know what else we will do. I do know we all love each other beyond measure and we've had a great time.  AND we will all be waiting to get the ETA text from Mom and Dad.  LOL  

So, I guess my low energy is really internal, since externally I've been really putting it out there non-stop since we got home.  

But I still worry a bit that I don't seem to be able to concentrate on much, even before this week, even while on vacation -- so many good intentions for reading my many half-read books, doing some voter suppression activism calls, taking all the classes and webinars I've registered for about yoga and brain neuro-plasticity info that I'm passionate about, listening to podcasts from which I've fallen behind. I worry that I have very little interest in seeing people, and even some resentment that everyone wants to forget the pandemic even happened and now we should just all resume regular programming.  No!  

This sounds like depression, but it is NOT.  I know depression as an old, familiar, and sometimes intimate companion and this is not it.  But what is it?

I just want to sit and stare.  Breathe.  Practice some yoga.  Watch stuff on TV.  (I have a list.) I don't want to think about my ignored gardening chores, or all the summer house projects we intend, or plan or do anything much at all.  My brain seems to be barely online.  My body just wants to walk, stretch, maybe float in a kayak, and sip a cool drink.

We will have outrageously hot temps this weekend and into next week for our part of the country -- mid-upper 90s.  It's rare to have home A/C here so it will be very uncomfortable.  I plan to do as little as possible.  This might be my chance to just "veg" and figure out why I'm so uninterested in "doing" and for a few days just be content to "be".

At least, that's the view from here...©

ALOHA 2021

 

Aloha Greetings from Kauai!

Here we are into nearly our second full week on the island, with another week to go, and I'm still not totally acclimated to the "new normal".  

Last year, during the Covid Times, we didn't come of course.  We cancelled our trip and stayed locked in our house all spring, not having any idea that a whole year would pass before things started to feel even a little bit normal again.  Actually I'm convinced more and more that "normal" will be redefined for some time to come.  At any rate, Hawaii started letting visitors come back to the state but when we booked our stay in January it was with a wish rather than a guarantee.  We expected to have to cancel again.  Then came the vaccines (Hallelujia!) and Hawaii put a program in place to begin to welcome visitors if they passed a battery of physical and cognitive tests of will and patience to get the Golden Ticket in.

We had to register with Safe Hawaii online.  Then we had to schedule a particular type of Covid test (even if vaccinated) from a Hawaii-approved partner laboratory to ensure we got the results within 72 hours of flying.  (We passed dozens of not approved test sites before we got to an approved one 20 miles from our home). We had to register with the lab, then await them posting our test result (negative).  We had to pay them $175 per test, so before we got the test, we called our insurance to ensure we'd be reimbursed.  They said yes.  Then we had to fill out insurance forms and submit our request with a copy of the receipt.  We had to upload the negative result of the test to Safe Hawaii before leaving the ground in Seattle.  If the upload didn't work (ours didn't for some unknown reason; I followed the instructions to the letter!) we had to have a PDF print out of the result in hand to show at the airport.  Once we passed that hurdle we had to download a QR code on our phones at the Safe Hawaii website proving our negative Covid test status to show once we landed in Kauai and also at the car rental place, the resort, and any other place that might require seeing our test result to let us in.  Then we went to the beach. LOL

Speaking of car rentals...we had ours reserved since January and a good thing.  We have heard there are zero cars available to rent!  Last year, rental companies purged their inventory all across the US and people have taken to renting U-Hauls in some places to have something to drive! See?  Not normal.

Once here masks are required throughout Hawaii when indoors.  So we still mask up inside public spaces.  Once outside we take them off.  On, off, on, off.  Part of this, our home-away-from-home resort for 20+ years, has been sold to another company (no longer Marriott, now Royal Sonesta) but we still are Marriott time share owners, so our accommodations have not changed, but the "vibe" is different and I feel we've been shunted off to the side, but maybe that's just me resenting that we are no longer the valued guests we once were.  Hello, Ego. LOL

Also, the retail shops on the lower levels along the gardens are all gone.  My fave dress shop, Tropical Tantrum, is now the new Welcome Desk office for timeshare guests (having been evicted from the beautiful lobby now occupied by Royal Sonesta).  The jewelry store I never went in is an empty room behind dirty windows; the art gallery, car rental office, photography gallery -- all closed and empty.  There are no local craftspeople set up on the Terrace each morning.  No breakfast buffet on the Terrace either.  The two (over-priced) on-site restaurants are open only limited hours.   We don't mind so much because we grill every night but now there are only two grills for the entire resort (the third closed for social distancing) so the wait can be long.  We've learned to grill our fresh fish at 5:00 (a bit early for us) or 7:30 (in the dark), avoiding the prime dinner hour rush of long lines and people cooking huge hunks of red meat.  Ugh!

On the plus side -- no cruise ships are docking so our beach is not inundated with "boat people" or rowdy crew members several days a week.  It's a bit quieter -- no late night music from the bar down the beach or after-dark beach revelers.  The sun shines, the breezes blow, the waves crash, the night sky is awash with stars, the ocean water is warm, the pool is beautiful, our "spot" on the beach has been waiting for us every day. Hub has gotten better at riding the waves on his stand-up paddle board; I've read 4 books; hiking trails are not too crowded; our morning 4-5 mile walks are lovely and I've lost a bit more weight -- now at my lowest in decades.  (I'll write about this weight loss journey another time).   We are relaxed and content...it's truly a time of respite from responsibilities and obligations that come with the territory at home.  And a welcome celebration of traveling to another of our special places post-vaccine.

I notice that my gratitude for my life has grown deeper and more poignant since the Covid Times.  I am getting amazing clarity on what is truly important to me and my mindfulness of present moment is sharpened.  I have changed in some profound ways over the past couple of years of personal and societal challenge.  There is no room for taking anything for granted.  It's all a gift and appreciating every moment for the lessons we can learn, for the joy we can feel, for the love we can give and receive, for the effort we can make to create and preserve what is important to us is really all there is.  

I know, I know.  Easy for me to say from my perch on the lanai looking out at the beach and bay that is my view for three weeks.  Yet, we all have a view of some kind, something or someone we love, something we long for, something of beauty we appreciate now, something that provides meaning to our lives.

May we all find a "new normal" that sharpens the senses, deepens gratitude, and helps us grow in equanimity and peace.  

At least, that's the view from here...©