Nature Was My Co-Pilot

I’m glad I finally mastered tuning into my crappiness-mood meter and became aware of when everyday madness escalates to the point where I need to extract myself from the universe in an epic-booster-ejector-seat fashion.

When that bad mood strikes, I usually need to act fast otherwise it can just suck up my entire day and snowball into a disaster. It ends up just ugly and feeling like a Gremlin who got fed after midnight. Then I’m just upset that I’m upset, and that it sucked up my time. The cycle sucks. So when it happened this week … I was on a mission to stop it.

Nature was my co-pilot.

I usually turn to the beach as it is my staycation destination every weekend during the summer. However, with the gloominess that’s taken over I made other plans and the sun managed to join me. I hadn’t been to this place before, so I was pleasantly surprised by the huge expanse. I love it when you can find a mini forest in the middle of a big city. And I loved it even more that this trip to the gardens was free.

You see the fact that I found my escape for free was bonus! There are not a lot of freebies that are really “free”. There’s this thing called restrictions apply, limited access, between the hours of 1-2 only, buy one to get one free, or free to enter but pay for parking.

This was absolutely free … free and beautiful.

Even though every house plant given to me dies, and I can’t keep basil alive, I truly appreciate the beauty of the gardens and flowers that others grow. This garden in particular provided a multitude quiet-thinking spots in kaleidoscope surroundings that plenty of people enjoyed. It provided me with a sense of mindfulness and time slowing down. As I sat on the beach chairs overlooking the pond, I enjoyed checking out the scene, overhearing conversations, and listening to the birds.

I usually take to the water, the track, or the punching bag, and that helps release the frustration that comes with bad mood syndrome. The garden was a less-active and slower approach, but it still managed to help turn things around. By the time I got home there were no traces of foul moods and the peacefulness of the garden came home with me.

Buen Camino, my friends.

 

Simple Moments and Evacuating The Premises … Immediately

Feeling miserable isn’t one of the things I enjoy talking about, you just wake up and that ugh feeling is staring at you. You try to get your inner Wonder Woman vibe on and you feel it somewhere, you know you’ve got it, it’s just hitting the snooze button I guess.

I mean I was feeling good with that 4th of July fireworks extravaganza and ball game, where my favorite pitcher on Earth rocked it and the fireworks just wowed the kids and myself.  You were toe-tapping to R-O-C-K in the USA by Cougar-Mellencamp and just feeling the vibe with Ray Charles singing that America the Beautiful.

That whole experience made for an awesome holiday, so I couldn’t understand why I woke up flat and just feeling the blah … of the day. That bad mood voodoo took over and funkified my whole outlook. And you know it’s you, when nobody does anything and everything seems to irritate you, like the kind of irritated you get when you’re hangry. 

I had to check myself.

I needed to evacuate the premises immediately.

So I grabbed the Coppertone 1005 SPF and the swimsuits and headed for the pool. The beach was too far and the freeway would have made the irritability worse, so I needed a fast fix and the pool seemed to work it’s magic. Nothing like racing your kids on the blue and red water slides to help bring your inner Wonder Woman mojo out.

The fact that we were not sweating out the 104-degree heat at home brought a smile to my face. I sat on the edge of the pool with my legs feeling the light resistance of the cool water and I looked up. I felt the warmth of smile as I watched my kids enjoy the Willly Wonka-like splish-splash structure. And it was good. A calm feel-good vibe sat with me, and I enjoyed the simplicity of the moment. I forgot about the morning moodiness and that’s always a good thing to put in your rear view mirror. If I had that gratitude journal right there, I’d mark that moment as the highlight of the day, bottle it up for the next time.

It wasn’t anything fancy, rich, or epic. It was just old-school and simple, like the times in the old neighborhood when we’d splash around Marisolita’s giant plastic pool from K-mart. Everyone from Apartment 2 all the way to Apartment 9 would be out there swimming around for hours. And when it was time to go because our fingers and toes pruned up, we’d ask for five more minutes. Just five more. Then we’d empty out all the water on the stairs to create our own make-shift Raging Waters slide adventures.

Simple stuff, but pretty awesome when you’re in the moment. So I’m glad I caught it.

Evacuating the premises appeared to be good idea … that and cannonballs.

Buen Camino my friends.