There are days/weeks when it just all begins to feel like you’re trudging uphill through mud to get to your destination. It’s hard to sort out the immediate from the long-term. What has to happen now? What should I be doing? Why am I baking another loaf of bread?

Sleep patterns get disrupted. A couple late nights means mid-day naps, which means tossing and turning the next night. It’s almost midnight, and I have finally finished the project I was working on. Why am I still awake at 1?

They say this is a good time to establish wellness routines. I walk. I do yoga. I breathe. How many days has it been so cold How many days of walking have I missed? One? Two? Five?

I know this is temporary, that it’s usually only a couple days of fog until the crisper air begins clearing my brain again. Meanwhile, I need to do little things that help me to cope. Set timers to work for an hour at a time and then take a break. Make sure I get the walk and the stretching in every day. And recognize that there are other things happening in my brain, even if the productivity piece is a challenge. I have been doing lots of thinking and meditating, building something inside rather than outside myself.

And you? How are you faring? What one thing will you do to give today a boost of energy?

---

“My hair is being pulled by the stars again.” —Anais Nin

---

“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power.

“Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget… another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” —Arundhati Roy

---

“In the very end, civilizations perish because they listen to their politicians and not to their poets.” —Jonas Mekas

---

Rob Brezsny:
Think about your relationship to human beings who haven’t been born yet. What might you create for them to use? How can you make your life a gift to the future? Can you not only help preserve the wonders we live amidst, but actually enhance them? Keep in mind this thought from Lewis Carroll: “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backward.”