Trial And Error

 If you've been reading my blog from the beginning or at least over the past few months, you would be familiar with my morning struggles. To summarize, I'd like to be a morning person. They seem more productive and happy or something. But I'm not.

So over the past year I've been attempting to either try to become one or at least get up a little earlier in order to give myself some extra time to do the things I like to do, or at least not arrive at the office late and in shambles and feeling guilty (which happens a lot).

Growth and change are never linear. When I set out to 'fix' my posture/RSI problems, things would improve, and then they wouldn't for a long time. Sometimes I would feel like I was moving backwards.

Changing anything usually involves a lot of mistakes. And so has been my challenge with mornings. I've tried to bribe myself to get up earlier (pizza for breakfast anyone?), commit publicly to getting up earlier, spend the early mornings at home hanging out doing stuff, spend the early mornings at work doing stuff. I've made lovely breakfasts, bribed myself with cream cheese, eggs, bacon, etc. (the food list goes on and on), tried meditating early in the morning, writing in the morning, doing absolutely nothing in the morning except giving myself more time to get ready and last but not least, putting my blackberry in the living room in the hope that I would at least get out of bed to check my email.

Well, I've learned a few things.

First, I'm not sure if this is ever going to change, but the absolute earliest I can get up, without thoughts of ending my life (I'm only partly joking) is 6.30 a.m. For some reason, that half hour between 6 and 6.30 is a real necessity for me. And don't give me the whole have-you-tried-going-to-bed-earlier? speech. I've tried for a year. A year. I give up on 6 a.m. Also, even if I can get up at 6.30 a.m. most days of the week, there's always going to be one or two where I need to sleep until 7 a.m. I haven't been able to prevent this.

Second, my body is not ready for breakfast right away. It takes me at least until 8 a.m. if not 9 a.m. to be ready to eat. It's just the way my body is and I'm going to accept it.

And third, being creative isn't happening in the morning. I can get up successfully at 6.30 a.m., get into work a little early and answer emails or do admin, but I'm not ready for writing or anything of the sort.

But there's also some good news: I've realized that the morning walk I started doing a year ago in the summer when we moved into our new flat was really the happiest morning activity I've ever engaged in. So I've re-instituted it. I don't know what it is, maybe it wakes me up, or cheers me up. But whatever the reason, it works. I just go to the train station that is a 25-minute walk from our house (instead of the one 10 minutes away). I sometimes even do it on the way home as well. Hey, when you sit at a desk all day, some light walking isn't going to hurt. It also gives me time to think and be alone, which I love. We'll see if I'm so enthusiastic in the winter months.

I don't know if this is the end of the morning story, but I think I've settled on a happy medium. Maybe I'm not a morning person, or will never be one, but through trial and error I've at least discovered a few things about myself that help me to navigate the mornings OK and at the very least I'm late for work less often.

P.S. The most ironic thing about this is that if you read my first post on this subject, The Magical Life Of The Morning Person, I already knew a lot of what I discovered this past year, which means maybe I need to trust myself more. Although I seem to have at least programmed myself to get up some days half an hour earlier than before, so that's some progress!

Related Posts:

• I'll Never Be A Morning Person, But...
• Jekyll And Hyde
• Making Morning Space

2

Guilt And The Cleaner

Lately I've been feeling really guilty about having a house cleaner. No matter what I'm doing on a Thursday morning I am filled with shame and remorse at how messy the flat is as I put the dough out for our cleaner extraordinaire (let's call her CE). One morning I got really mad at myself – I was actually running around trying to look good for a conference I was speaking at (read: an actual full face of makeup) – and yet still I felt bad about the state of our living quarters. Why do I need to able to do everything perfectly? Isn't speaking at a conference enough accomplishment in one day for me? Just because what was a tidy flat on Sunday night comes apart at the seams by Thursday morning, doesn't make me a bad person. (Right?)

I made the decision to hire a cleaner a few years ago before Future Hub moved in with me for two reasons. First, my aunt, who was a very wise woman, once told me that a woman should choose between cleaning and cooking, but never do both. As I love to control the kitchen, that one was a no brainer. And it made sense to me, this rule. My parents have never employed a cleaner, but my Dad does all the cooking and grocery shopping as well as fix things around the house. My Mom gets rid of the dirt.

Second, at some point Future Hub was over at my place and I was cleaning (this sounds weird to begin with). Anyway, he saw me dust the TV and exclaimed, "Why are you doing that? That's the kind of thing you only have to do once a year!"

It was that point that I knew we would never see eye to eye on cleanliness standards and there had to be a third party involved to settle this kind of dispute. We often joke that the pounds we spend each week on CE is really money spent to keep us from arguing – hush money, if you will.

If there ever comes a time when we can't afford it, I will gladly clean the flat. I also won't be able to afford my weekly Bikram yoga fix either in that case, so I would actually need the over four hours it would take me to do all the housework as my weekend exercise (CE does it in three and a half, but she's a professional).

This week I got a bit closer to getting over the guilt. As you may know from an earlier post this week, I've not been well. On Thursday I went into work but really couldn't hack it. My even-tempered colleague who sits next to me told me to go home after I sneezed about five times in a row. There was sputtering and coughing and just general lurgy-ness* seeping out from around my desk. So I scampered home, only to find that CE had not arrived yet… she was running late and so came in around the same time as me.

Can you imagine the guilt? I actually had to be there when she first encountered the mess and so immediately started tidying things up even though I was feeling like death warmed up. After a few minutes I decided enough was enough. If I wasn't well enough to do the job I actually get paid for, what kind of nut was I to start cleaning up when I was supposed to be resting? Sometimes I just reach a point of such ridiculousness that I have to follow my friend's sage words from our crazy days living in New York City (usually used in reference to some guy situation):

You better check yourself before you wreck yourself.

I clambered up to the loft and curled up on the sofa to watch some old taped episodes of MasterChef, eventually dosing into some sort of Sudafed-induced dreamlike state, with the comforting sounds of CE vacuuming** downstairs. It was really nice to have someone else taking care of things for a while. Almost like having a mom around. Almost.

*Lurgy is the generic English word for being ill. Noun. Typically used to mean some sort of icky cold with sneezing, coughing and the like. Also, it might be interesting for those American readers to note that in the UK 'sick' means to puke, as in, 'I was sick' to mean 'I threw up'. When you have a cold or flu or something you say you are ill, not sick. 'Sick' can also be used as a noun, as in 'I cleaned up my sick'. Ew.

**Sometimes I'm not sure if I should use American or English English words in this blog. I keep going back and forth. Vacuuming is very American, whereas here they would say 'hoovering' – the Brits call vacuums 'Hoovers', after the brand. And we all thought Americans were the big consumers!

Related Posts:

• Silly Stress
• Life Lessons
• When Is A Crisis Not A Crisis? 

0

Guilt And Marshmallows

I have a new found respect for the French since last week. Their radio stations may be crap, but when it comes to a healthy respect for food and pleasure, they seem to have all the answers.

On our first night in France (before we arrived at the farmhouse) we stayed in a hotel that was quite plush. There was a bar area on which two very colorful jars of candy were situated – one with pastel green, pink and white marshmallows and the other with jelly bean-type sweets.

Here are the lovely fluffy marshmallows:

Not so strange. But, notice how next to the jar there was a little sign. This explained how marshmallows are actually good for digestion and can help to prevent inflammation of the mouth and throat. I kid you not. I felt another photo snap might be necessary as evidence.

I think this sheds some light on why the French seems to have fewer food issues than people living in Anglo-Saxon countries. Essentially, from what I can tell, the French don't really do guilt. And the marshmallow sign was a clear manifestation of this. They know that everyone feels like having something sweet every once in a while (even a marshmallow!), but they don't gnash their teeth over how 'bad' they've been and feel guilty. No, instead they justify it by creating some pseudo-scientific reason why it was actually good for them. Brilliant. (Not that I generally agree with pseudo science, but I'll make an exception here.)

Everywhere we went in France people were sitting around together eating and drinking. Although food is clearly very important and treasured it seemed secondary to whatever else they were talking about. They weren't sitting there mulling over what they should eat, should they be 'good' or 'bad' (this kind of food moralizing drives me nuts, click here to read my posting about food being the new religion). They just seemed to eat really naturally and moderately, without shying away from very high-fat food (just the opposite in fact).

It's not like they are all stick insects. They looked pretty normal – a variety of different body types – and more importantly, in my opinion, they seemed comfortable in their own skin. They were also very well-groomed no matter their size or shape, clearly taking much pride in their appearance.

As Lucy Wadham in her memoir The Secret Life of France writes, "Because there is no sin attached either to the pleasure of sex or the pleasure of food, overeating tends not to be a manifestation of self-loathing. Put simply, if your body is a temple for the pursuit of guilt-free sexual pleasures, you're less likely to want to trash it."

I couldn't have said it better myself. We Anglo-Saxons could learn something from the French. Marshmallow anyone?

0