a little slack

Cookie tally for breakfast = 3.2
Awesome.
Not exactly the Moab diet I was going for.
Bikini time in 3 weeks.
This morning I am not at all skinny.
My hips and belly swell and scream, "Cookie!"
My nursing breasts sway under my sweatshirt like an African woman who has never worn a bra.
When I wake up choosing not to eat, it is not so much to loose weight.
It is because I fear the battle between zero food and ALL the food.
I want to forfeit the fight.
I still do not know how to find balance.
Silly - that I expect balance to be a constant.
Balance is the trickiest state to maintain. By nature, it requires a constant adjustment of weight and a letting go.

When I lived in Big Cottonwood Canyon, we had a slack line stretched between 2 pine trees.
Slack-lining is essentially tight-rope walking on a dynamic length of 1" webbing.
The first time I put my foot on the line, the whole thing vibrated with my anxiety.
I was taught to let the line's tension be absorbed into my leg, and to step up in one fluid motion.
I chose a spot on the pine tree for staring into.  The longer I stared at it, I saw a mermaid.
I spent many canyon evenings walking, balancing, easing into the sunset with each deep breath.
It makes me want to cry to remember this feeling.
Because I struggle so often, still.  And I think I need to try harder.
But this is not true.  The truth is, I have all I need, if I can just breath and look around.

I became adept at simply stepping up onto that rope, as if it were a sidewalk.
I miss that luxury.  The luxury of a quiet life.
I tell myself perhaps my life will slow down someday...and it won't.
My only chance is to slow down inside.  To let it all be absorbed into my leg and stand up.
I lived in the canyon for about 6 months.  The times which stand out are the delicate ones.
The shoveling of snow into quiet mounds all around me.  The twilight walks when I couldn't hear a man-made sound if I tried, and it was only air.

 But I got scared then too, and the noise screamed just as loud.  I was pregnant with my first child. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night, stand naked in front of the bathroom mirror, and cry.  I was afraid of my belly, of what it meant.  I'd cry until all the fear was out and I was tired again.  Then I'd put on my thick, red, towel robe and sneak back to bed.

My recovery asks me to absorb the 3.2 cookies and keep walking.  To breath in the fear of bikinis and stretch out my arms for the next step.  I will not condemn myself or rage at my body.  I will just breath and look up.

Not going to be me any time soon...enlightenment is far away.