Potpourri post

Drippy scenery

I took this picture from the summit of our hike last Thursday. We were out in the elements, with almost a full inch of rain falling that day. We spent our lunchtime indoors at the Senior Center, because nobody wanted to stop and try to find a place to huddle out of the rain. There wasn't one. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the day because of my companions; you know that old saying about how misery loves company.

Last night I couldn't seem to find anything rolling around in my head that wanted to come forth this morning, so this is one of those days when I'm sitting at my laptop without any idea of the topic that might emerge. So this will be a grab bag of thoughts, or more elegantly, a potpourri, a mixture of things.

Yesterday that rain continued. I think even the most hardy of Pacific Northwesterners are more than ready for a change in the weather. This latest round of precipitation is hitting California even harder than us, with flooding and washouts of areas that were burned last year that lost all natural groundcover. I found an interesting blog that tells the tale:

This rainfall was so intense that it led to very significant flash flooding near Mariposa and Groveland near Yosemite National Park and nearly caused the failure of a small dam in the area. Had this rainfall ended up 100-200 miles farther south, as initially anticipated, it could have led to catastrophic flash flooding in the SoCal burn areas. Fortunately, it instead fell in an area that had much greater capacity to absorb the sudden deluge.

I am a weather junkie, you might have noticed. It all started when I was skydiving every weekend, and I wanted to know whether it would be possible or not, so every day, year round, I'd check the weather to see what was coming, and how windy or cold it might be. If there was the slightest chance that I might be able to get my "knees in the breeze," I'd drive the fifty miles to the Drop Zone and hope to be one of the first people to get on a load. Those first few years of my skydiving career, I just couldn't get enough. If I made one jump, it was worth it, but there were days when I'd make five or six in one long summer's day. That meant going up in the airplane, jumping out, playing in freefall for about a minute, then flying my canopy to the ground, go indoors and find a place to spread out my gear and pack it up for another skydive.

Although those days are long gone, my interest in the weather has not waned. I still watch the Weather Channel or the local news to see what's coming. I am not sure whether I would have had such regard for the weather otherwise. I remember when I learned how to tell the strength and direction of the wind by watching flags moving, the clouds of dust in fields being plowed, or smoke from brush fires. When you are under a canopy and want to land safely, you need to find an open field and land into the wind to slow down your forward speed.

I have made the mistake of misreading the wind when setting up for a landing and finding myself moving across the ground too fast, realizing that it was too late to turn around (since you lose altitude as you turn, and a 180-degree turn isn't possible when you are close to the ground) and knowing that I'd better get ready for an ignominious and possibly dangerous landing. Usually the worst that happened to me was a serious tumble and getting tangled up in my parachute's lines. But it made me look even more carefully afterwards to gauge the wind.

Once I became a skydiving instructor, it was important to teach my students what they needed to know to be safe, and emphasize the most important things so that they wouldn't be confused when having to make a quick decision. When I look back on those days, I realize that as much as I enjoyed the experience of teaching, it was a tremendous responsibility. Fortunately nobody in my classes ever got seriously hurt making their initial skydives, but I agonized over every single sprained ankle. I did once have a student misread the wind direction and land downwind in a fairly strong wind, and he ended up breaking his wrist. But he recognized what he had done wrong and wouldn't make that mistake again.

Instructing anybody in any activity is a responsibility. Yesterday I took a free seminar at my yoga studio about how to maintain stability in standing twists. I was way beyond my comfort level and felt that I would never learn how to keep from falling over while doing these poses. The instructor suggested going right to the level of discomfort and not continuing to push on to the full pose. I only fell over twice, but I did learn how to practice the pose at home. Why would anybody want to do these standing twists, you ask? Here's a link to a young lady's blog who explains how to do the pose we practiced yesterday. She calls twisting poses "spring cleaning your body."

Twists are like wringing out a dirty dish rag. When we twist deeply we stimulate our internal organs and give them a nice massage. After a twisting practice, you’ll feel lighter, more energized and cleaned out!

We spent the entire class learning how to do that first posture, and I do have to say that it's true that I could feel the benefits of twisting that deeply. When we would release it, I felt lightheaded and definitely like I'd done something beneficial. But getting into the posture without falling is a challenge. I'll keep trying. I trust my instructor to help me learn without hurting myself.

Well, that's it, what came out of my fingers this morning. I am ready to begin the rest of my day, which will include going to the movies with my friend Judy and, of course, my stop at the coffee shop to visit with my friends there. Partner is fast asleep at the moment, and I'm beginning to feel the pull of the day, time to get out of bed and get moving. I do hope that whatever the week brings you, it will be beneficial and that you will remember to smile and bring a little laughter into your days. It helps as much as any twist. I wish you all good things until we meet again next week.

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward. ---Kurt Vonnegut