Sketchblog: DayBooks
Okay it’s time to pack. We’re getting ready for what has become our annual migration to Buenos Aires: trading summer misery for the mild winter of BsAs. I’m not a graceful traveler. Posture becomes a major challenge for me during trip prep, especially when it’s hot and humid (not Sharon-friendly weather). My studio is awash in the chaos of packing and decision (indecision would be the more precise term). I loathe every minute of this process and can easily lose track of where my spine is.
As I type, I have my shoulders harnessed with a yoga strap to keep myself aware of the always at-risk shoulders and I do a conscious spinal scan — fixing my sacrum in my mind and letting that image draw me up the spine and then back down. Staying even is the tricky part, that and unclenching the front body (all the way down along the psoas). I always come back to the skeleton. I work on muscle strength and suppleness, but with something reasonably coherent to hang them on, they can’t function all that well.
Ball massage helps in releasing tension, and constructive rest (and other psoas release and renewal) and I’ve been using a combination of both, taking advantage of the heat to make it more efficient (at least there’s one benefit to this weather). But even so, it’s easier to get the physical syntax in mind when you start with the skeleton. Or maybe that’s just my own peculiarity.
Changing continents is always a challenge for me. But I’ll be taking along the same old bones. And my yoga strap.
Last night we broke our preparations to go out for oysters — there is certainly transcendence in making your way through a dozen on the half shell. A good reason to stop whining.