Mood:
not sureTopic: Daily Eruptions
I was beginning to get into the stay-at-home meditation retreat state of mind, but then my life went absolutely haywire as I prepared for and attended the Surtex Show in New York. It didn't help that I had the hemorrhage in my left eye while I was trying to review hundreds of slides of art and get visual products prepared, but I survived.
I was amazed to realize that I hadn't been above the third floor of a building in the five years I've lived in North Carolina, so the scale of NYC was something of a shock! The Javits Center where the convention was held is huge and full of glass and I didn't feel like I was standing on solid ground for the first few hours I was in the city. Then, my hotel room was on the sixteenth floor. Luckily my cave of a room looked only into the windows of another building only a few feet away, so I wasn't visually aware of the height. The first night, though, every car horn that would honk (and they honked all night long!) woke me up and I would remember that I was alone in New York City on the 16th floor of a hotel with nine floors above me and I'd have to go through a whole routine of telling myself that all of those things were true but that I was still okay. And while I found all the people I personally came into contact with to be exceptionally friendly, I hated crossing streets. On the street, there is a completely different aura where it seems everyone is racing everyone else, cabs are just dying to hit you, and men can say whatever rude thing they want to you and walk on past without any fear of retribution. I loved the idea of being able to walk around a city--the hotel was only fifteen blocks from the Javits Center--but I didn't actually enjoy the walk most days.
Seattle spoiled me with its mix of small town feel and international appeal. And North Carolina, with its riot of green this spring, has really become home. So, yes, I am glad to be back. I learned a lot about licensing art and a lot about myself on the trip, but I'm glad to be home.
I haven't settled back into a routine yet, though. I'm trying to begin the Five Factor Fitness diet to reduce my sodium, sugar, and fat intake and thereby lower my triglycerides and blood pressure, hopefully, restoring the vision in my left eye or at least keeping it from getting worse or hemorrhaging somewhere else. It hasn't been easy. Even though Pasternak talks about how restrictive other diets are and how his isn't, six days out of the week he is asking me to give up chocolate, Mountain Dew, ice cream, and fast food all at once. I'm not getting hungry on his diet, but I am getting extremely fidgety!
This post is my note-to-self that it's time to get back to writing every day and to get serious about meditating, weeding out, and calming down. I can be successful and less stressed...I'm sure of it!
