Chill Morning

Property of Stormberry

The weekend is finally here, and this is one of those where I can find myself a little oasis of peace and rest. I'm done with a paper I had to write (only have to finish the slideshow to present it), the proposal for my thesis (and still have to do the slideshow), and have finished also the "assignment from hell", though I still have to do the final paper for the Innovation micro-evidence Seminar. But I still have the next week for that, so I can take today to rest a little and be happy and do as I please.

Last night I fed the cats out and left them out, so when I woke up in the morning, nobody was pushing and scratching the door of my bedroom. I woke up early, but still later than I usually do, and it felt good to stay longer in bed, and take my time for my morning rituals.I have a set way to do things, such as waking up, making my bed, going to the bathroom, take my weight, spash water on my face, water the bamboo if it's bamboo-watering-day (every other day), clean out the cats' litter, fill my bottle of water, drink a glass of orange juice and then I go over to my parents' house to use the elliptic machine. Then I go back home, feed the cats, sweep the floor of the groundfloor, and finish my morning exercises with whatever plan I have downloaded.

I had been walking in the morning with my sister-in-law, but last week I started feeling a sort of pain in my ankle, so I had to stop and go back to the elliptic machine. I suspect it might be because when I went to get my COVID-19 shot, I stood in line for six hours, and then I kept doing these walks, so probably I strained and splinted my ankle. The first week I was carefull, wrapped my ankle, but as soon as I felt the pain had diminished, I went again walking and I was back at hurting my ankle. So this week I've been really careful, working from the sofa, resting my ankle and all that.

Property of Sormberry

I guess this change is also what gave me pause and space to do the things I needed to do, and do them calmly. I paced myself, gave myself more space for thinking, reading, and doing chores, tasks and work more calmly. And I did well.

Now, here I am, my ankle still bothers me a little, so I don't strain myself, I rest. And this is how I woke up, thinking about taking it easy. I did my usual ritual, and as I was preparing for breakfast, I decided not to have the quick, store-bought orange+carrot juice, but rather make my own of pineapple, celery, cucumber and ginger. This is a recipe I've got from my nutritionist, a green blend, and it helps boost your metabolism. My breakfast was simple, as usual, but utterly delicious. Boy, I love breakfasts!

I took my time, and decided to snap some pictures to share, about how my breakfast preparing looks like. The line up of the coffee and tea brews (I have green tea and a mug of black coffee every morning, because gree tea is great after meals, and black coffee replenished my spirit with greatness). Without much of a plan, then and there I decided I would blog. Blog about giving yourself a day off, a lazy day, a soft day, a slow day. Blog about the right you have to arrange your time as you see fit, that it's not a matter of "giving yourself permission" or "obtaining permission" to let go, but to break the cycle of guilt and say to yourself: "I need no permission, I am the commander of my own life and I dictate my own rules".

If you feel like you need to give yourself permission, why is that? Have you imposed such straining rules on yourself that you need a break from them in order to breathe? Break those rules. Don't be your own tyrant. Listen to yourself, fix your rules as you bump into them. Make decisions. Hell! Have a fucking self-parliament and a self-congress! Even if it takes you longer to get a better grip on your life, takes you longer to make decisions, and it might end up with you taking stupid decisions, at least you are happy. At least you are not strangling yourself. And if the need arises, just make an executive decision, rule some things by decree. 

You can do it, and I am sure you can do it even better than many governments do.

Today I have a National-Self-Holiday. It's Do-Nothing-Day. And it's AWESOME!

Context

Property of Stormberry.

 LITTLE ANNOUNCEMENT: only after I posted I realized I had already written about this "making love" vs "fucking" exchange. I'm not rewriting the post, but consider this an extention on my thoughts on the matter. A little bit more... processed thanks to the weeks that have passed since. Clearly, it made an impression on me.

For a few weeks now my life has gone back to the usual - or sort of the usual - way, at least regarding my sexual life. My friend has gone now, and by being far away, the chance to exchage a few texts and reserve a room at our signature hotel spend the night together having sex is gone as well. Of course I'm going through those days where I miss our encounters, and my friend in general, and the bits and pieces of our interactions pop up in my head and linger for a while.

One of the thoughts that came to my head was about the words and expressions used to refer to sex.

The first time we had sex, my friend refered to the activity as "making love", which I found strange, since we had agreed that this was a no-strings-attached kind of liaison. From then on, my friend used a small sort of euphemisms, but the direct words they used was "fuck". I didn't make any mention on their new word selection, but it gave me food for thought.

When I reference having sex, I call it "having sex", which for me it's a rather neutral, unemotional expression for an activity that should be about pleasure, and which I have practiced for many years now for that exact reason. I seek pleasure in sex, both mine and that of my partner. However, I am aware of the fact that sex tends to be heavily tinted with all sorts of emotions and expectations that may not have anything to do with sex itself. In our society, sex is not "for pleasure" plainly, but it carries a whole bundle of heavy tags and expectations. Sex can soil you if it fails to tie you down. It can brand you if you exercise it with the wrong people and it may even taint you if you practice it in unapproved ways, if you make or demand certain concessions. Depending on your gender, it can cheapen you or increase your value.

As such, sex is heavy with context, and this is the context I discovered in the words chosen by my friend. If it wasn't a delicate, elevating, "respectful", romantic act - such as making love -, it had to be a dirty, degrading, basic act, such as fuck. Are those the only ways most people see sex as? And it's not like fucking is bad - well done is really pleasurable ;) - nor does it mean that my friend thinks this way - they may not feel like using the expression "have sex" or maybe are not even giving a negative subtext to "fuck". However, as you insert the words in the social context, neither "making love" nor "fucking" are free of subtext. Not yet, in anyway. And though we may not think of the words we are using, and we speak those we hear around us, without delving into the origins and the social connotation of them, they are there, and deep down they carry on a lot of weight.

We say more with our words than we imagine we do. Our words carry not only our message, but also the thoughts and the context printed on them by the culture we are immersed in.