Insomnia is one of those things that happen to everyone, but that when it happens to you it makes you feel so very alone– is it the ultimate FOMO? That we’re all supposed to be sleeping but your brains or your nervous temperament won’t let you, you stupid cow.

I usually try to go to sleep, using a combination of my own meditation techniques (“Don’t call yourself a stupid cow, you stupid cow”) and the soothing tones of Jennifer Piercy’s Yoga Nidra meditation on Insight Timer. I’m very quick to declare that everything I like is magic, but Jennifer’s Yoga Nidra meditations are, indeed, magical. Her voice is compassionate and soothing and the guided meditation is very pleasant. It just works.

Yesterday, due to a combination of waiting too long to listen to the meditation (daylight is the enemy of sleep) and the fact that I couldn’t quite listen to her narration over the choking sobs getting caught in my throat, it was impossible for me to do Yoga Nidra. So I pulled on some jeans and a hoodie and went for a walk. I’m trying out something new, where I intersperse the photos I took during the walk with the blog post. That way, if you don’t want to read, you can always look at pictures. Enjoy!

I don’t know what was going on with me yesterday. I mean, I do, but I don’t want to acknowledge it for now. So let’s not acknowledge it… together.

Since I was a weepy mess (and we are NOT delving into why, because that’s not really the point), I made a list of the things that made me cry on my walk. (Loyal readers may remember that I have weird crying triggers.) Maybe I should have taken photos of the things that made me cry, but the point of the walk was to stop crying, so a list it is.

I cried over,

• The magnolia tree outside the Hart Senate Building. It really is a magnificent tree, and I deeply envy its ability not to give a fuck
• The phrase, “Honor the dead by helping the living,” which is inscribed in the lobby of the Veterans of Foreign Wars building and is not a weird crying trigger. Do we really ever truly honor the dead by helping the living?
• An abandoned cup of coffee, framed by its own spillage, abandoned close to the Supreme Court building.
• The moment during my walk when I realized that Natural History is my favorite Smithsonian museum. Not sure if I was crying because I realized I’m super basic, or because my brain was capable of coming to a decision on its own. #HopeDiamond4Eva
• Finally, David’s Tent got to me. If you’re not familiar with David’s Tent, it’s a worship tent that’s been around the Mall since 2015. While I don’t really have a worshipful nature and I am not really a believer in anything (I go to church to support my mother, which is a post for another day), the little tent with snacks and earplugs and instruments made me tear up. Really, it was the earplugs that did it most. I’m thinking of bright orange and blinking back tears.

But the longer I walked, the better I felt. It also helped to focus on the zaniness of 6 a.m. Washington. So many early risers! Is it because it’s the end of May, or does this also happen in winter? Now I want to know what kind of mall would greet me if I were to do the same thing in February or November. Either way, I’m sure it would be a much darker, dicier–– ICIER–– experience.

Moral of the story: When you’re feeling stuck, get out of yourself, and if you can, create something.

24 May This entry was published on May 24, 2019 at 9:19 am and is filed under Photoblogging, Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.