Thursday, January 5, 2012

to smooth the stone


The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.
Henry David Thoreau


Today is day four of drinking more water for me. I half expected to feel better immediately, but I've actually been feeling kind of ill since I started. I suspect I'm flushing out some nasty toxins, and those things never leave without some kicking and screaming. Plus, I'm spending an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom. All of this is fine with me. I know my body needs this badly and I'm in it for the long haul.

There's something about drinking a lot of water that forces you to face up to the reality of having a body. Every time I take a sip of it and every time I visit the bathroom (way more often than is convenient for me) I'm reminded of my physicality. Especially when I drink cold water, I can feel it's coolness traveling all the way to my stomach. When I forget to drink for a while, I can feel the dryness shriveling me up ever so slightly, leaving a desert-like landscape in my throat. Yep, I have a body and it responds to what I do and don't do to care for it.

I'm confident that if I continue walking in this direction, nothing but good can come of it. I just have to be patient and allow the water to do what water does. I trust that "the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time" will smooth the stone of my health and my heart.

10 comments:

  1. well said. keep up the good work baby!

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  2. love this. so true that you can notice the difference between the moments when you've been drinking, and the ones where you haven't. (Thanks to some food sensitivities, water has been my beverage of choice for years, and I absolutely notice a difference when I have a day where I don't manage to drink as much as normal.)

    Your Thoreau quote also reminded me of one of my favorite quotes, which also mentions water:

    "Like water, be gentle and strong. Be gentle enough to follow the natural paths of the earth, and strong enough to rise up and reshape the world." (Brenda Peterson)

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  3. i love that quote lisa! and it's good to hear a little about your water journey. i'm totally convinced that this was the right place to start. peace girl. hope you have a good weekend getting ready for school to start!

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  4. Hey Terri.
    Yippe Terri. You go with your disciplined self. I have made a decision to cut sugar WAY DOWN. God keeps on aggravating me about it. So far I have cut it out. Man, it's hard. It's real hard. I am so addicted to sweets, it is like a drug. I may as well say that I have decided to lay off the needle- it is really that bad.

    Oh, I must of necessity mention that I have lovingly decided to restrain myself from purchasing a ball bat and smashing my neighbor's stereo boosted x-box into tiny particles! It is taking massive self control. All I hear when he is home is a stereo enhanced shooting.

    BTW I have to pop over here ever now and then just to see cowboy. :) The doggies are so cute.

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  5. What a gentle but GREAT place to begin the new year! Go you! My water journey began when I didn't want to pay $3+ for a soda in a restaurant. Water with a twist of lemon is now THE beverage of choice.

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  6. tammy: how cool that you're tackling sugar! that's going to be something i'm focusing on at some point soon. (oh, and you can pray for cowboy. the poor little guy has been having seizures and may have cancer. very sad and scary. we love that little dude.)

    cheryl: it was the perfect place to start. i've always had a hard time remembering to drink enough and i think it affects me more than i could possibly imagine.

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  7. Oh no Terri. Cowboy is sick. That makes me so sad. I cried. :( That sounds silly I guess because I don't know him. But, I pull up his photo on my computer a lot because he makes me smile. I am so sorry Terri that he is sick.

    My parents had a mini schnauzer and they had him for years. He was not my dog but I got attached to him.

    Were gonna pray that Cowboy pulls out of this and gets healed up by Dr. Jesus.

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  8. thanks tammy. dave is gonna have a full-on break-down when either of these dogs die. i'm not gonna do very well either. we really appreciate the prayers. they're kind of like our kids in a weird way.

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  9. Hey Terri
    I really feel bad for Dave. I did not want to mention anything about dogs dying. But, when Coco died I worried that my mom would crack up, but my dad took it really hard. I felt so bad for him. He would cry when anybody mentioned the dog. It was hard seeing my dad like that. It broke my heart. My dad is a softy and Dave probably is too.

    I used to tease my mom and say that she loved Coco more than me (I am pretty sure she did) and he was going to get my inheritance. I told her I would be living in a shack and coco would be cruising in a limo, wearing a velvet smoking jacket, smoking a Cuban cigar....a canine Hugh Hefner surrounded by a bunch of high-dollar, blonde-haired groupie dogs that love to spend all my inheritance money. :) I wanted to lighten the mood a little.

    I will be praying with you guys for little Cowboy.

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