A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song. ~Maya Angelou

So, I scurry home to finish what I started last night. I hadn't finished the cleaning. I was all gung-ho and didn't finish it. I had intended to be done with it the night before, but around 11:00PM I said, "Fuck it! I need to take a bath."

I rationalized that:
*it has been months since I took an honest-to-goodness bath.
*I've been on burn-out mode for far too many weeks. And (fill in the blank talk-show-host or self-help-guru) said I need to take a time out.
*I need to do something for me, and me alone. I'm burnt out.

I ran the hottest water I could and poured the cucumber bubble bath gel in and I found something productive to read. (Type A personality: I must have a back-up plan to a back-up plan. And no moment must be wasted. Yeah, this *is* relaxing for me.)

When I climbed in the soup of scents, I thought, "Can't be idle for too long." The damn ingrained guilt started acting up.

As I eased back, arching away from the painfully hot water, I felt it. The semi-floating. The feeling of my skin peeling itself away from bone and muscles beginning to spread out like pancakes on a hot griddle. The soft ticklish popping of the scented bubbles hitting my cheeks, then splashing me ever-so-slightly in the eye.

The guilt left me as I had a moment of truth. Idleness isn't just holding still and doing nothing. Idleness is being unproductive. It's doing *nothing*. I was rebuilding my soul. I was reasserting my self into my life. I was reinserting myslef back into my body.

In a true state of peace someone can be sitting still and be so dynamic in their observation of the world. One of the happiest people I've ever seen was a child listening to their heartbeat. Reveling in their living. In that thump-thump that was inside them.

I got up, got out, and went to bed, and had the best sleep I've had in weeks. I would've liked to have slept longer, but I can't stop the world. I can only change how I react to it.

Before: Shot #1


After: Shot #1


Before: Shot #2


After: Shot #2



BAN was good. It being so close to Valentine's Day, we all seemed to be working on Valentines' cards. I was coloring in my cards from Natalie Dee. She is so funny.

After rushing about cleaning, coming to realizations that I remember knowing at one-time-or-another, and everything in between. I am back where I started, having to clean the house.

After: After Shot #1