I was glancing over previous entries, so I thought I should give a couple updates:
First of all, they dedicated our concerts to Bob Danziger. It was lovely, though it made it a little hard to sing the first movement of the Gloria. Still, it was very nice.
My mood has been strange and fussy, for reasons I can't accurately identify. Might be the concert post-partem stress, or the billow of anxiety whiplash after being crammed in so tight with so many people, and trying to socialize afterwards. Or the stress of the shake-up of healthier habits when the crunch came.
Healthier habits I've been building up, like eating better, drinking water, getting enough exercise, getting sun. (SUN I LOVE YOU WARM SUN BRIGHT LOVE--)
...Do you ever forget to drink any water for too long, and you don't really realize you're thirsty, but as soon as you happen to take a sip of water, you can't stop? Because your body has realized its desperation and makes you guzzle, even if that doesn't work as well a taking it a sip at a time?
That's me with the Sun. (With water, too, incidentally, but that's a different problem.) I've got at least some degree of Vitamin D deficiency, and sunshine is the best way to fix that (because we're plants, apparently), and it's good for the serotonin levels, the keratosis pilaris, etc, so I've been trying to get more, recently, but I'd slipped more often, lately, and it's been too hot or too cold or not enough time or whathaveyou. But today it was so nice, and Chris reminded me at just the right time, so rather than trying to shove my clothing away from the sunless bits, I found an old sparse hand-me-down bikini that I managed to fit into again (well, "fit" is probably a strong word), and laid out in the sun, on a towel and turning at regular intervals and everything. (Redheads don't tan. Redheads don't sunbathe. So this is very unusual behavior.)
And I don't think I'd realized quite what a sun worshipper I am.
I stayed out there until I thought I'd gotten a safe and easy twenty minutes or so. (I've always been pale and burned like a leaf, but it's been getting better as I've allowed a little more and little more sun. Toughening up just bit by bit!) But then when I came back inside, I couldn't settle down. I got antsy. I kept looking out the backdoor at the sun, kept looking at my bikini'd body and my towel, the book I was reading... I put on a little sunscreen on places I thought were pinker than others, got my laptop and some water, and went back out, though I stayed in the shade. I just wanted to be out there. ...But then I crept back into the sun, just bits of me.
And when I thought my laptop would get too hot, I went back inside.
...And put down my laptop, put on some more sunscreen and went back out, again.
This happened twice more, late into the afternoon. When we had to close the sliding door and blinds to keep the heat out of the kitchen, I got between them and leaned into the hot glass. I couldn't make myself get dressed until the last minute, until I had to get it together and go to my knitting group.
I've paid for it, a little. It never seems to occur to me that color shows after more time than I realize, and though I may look fine, or even still dead pale, a while after I've sunned, I may show up burnt, later. Places that were blinding white, that I made sure didn't get screened, that I made sure got sunshine, *because* they were so pale, are now a little angry at this sudden change, especially around the edges. I have odd, awkward patches of bright red, luckily ones which will normally be covered by clothes. But I finally evened out the more visible parts of me, a bit. I've got color beyond my usual pointilism tan (where the freckles crowd together and make you look browner, if you squint from a long way away?), so we'll see if a redhead can't get a little bit of a tan, after all. And I'm taking care of the redder bits, and I've definitely gotten my D for the day. The annoying but harmless little bumps I've had on my arms since I was 12 and on my legs for several years are virtually gone, even if they're just on vacation. My skin feels good, my head feels better, my body feels vital and alive.
...But I can't stop thinking about going out and doing it again tomorrow. Oh, I'll cover up the burns, and I'll sunscreen the pink areas, I may even tell myself to be good, but I know me. It'll start as "Oh, I should water those," and turn into a as-close-as-I-can-get-to-naked sunbath. The craving's on me, and I'm nothing against a craving. And I'll take a Sun craving over a junk foody craving, anyday.
I feel desperate for it, right now, in the dark.
Sunlight, I promise I'll meet you in the morning, and we'll roll around in the grass, some more. I don't even care if anyone catches us!
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