Bikes, Books, and Blogging

And bubble baths. I can’t help it, I love a good alliteration and it just so happens that I am taking a bubble bath as I write this blog on my notes app. 814 by Isla Vista Worship is playing on my carefully curated Christian Vibes playlist. Today I’ve done a lot of things that make me happy. I finally finished writing out my Ephesians bible study that took 3 days when it should have taken a couple of hours max. I perfected my peach cobbler recipe so it has a lot of crust but isn’t too dry. I haven’t tasted it yet but it looks and smells amazing. (The song is now My Portion by Isla Vista worship. Also a bop.) I thoroughly cleaned my room and bathroom before taking of on my bike at 8:05 to catch that sweet spot of daytime between dusk and nightfall when the sun is preparing itself to set and the sky is simply setting the stage in a vibrant burst of almost purple blue with too orange too be pink but too pink to be orange streaks. ( I just paused for my favorite part of the song at 4 minutes and 32 seconds) Today I road further into my neighborhood that I ever had before. I didn’t realize I was looking for a place to watch the sunset until I found myself panting up an unnecessarily steep hill to get a better view. Eugene by Antoine Bradford was playing.

I thought about curating a list of sunset songs and then I thought about how blessed I was to just watch the sunset and forget for a moment that the world is falling apart. The world is not falling apart “slowly but surely”. It is falling apart quickly and suddenly in a way that is so unnerving that it demands what feels like both disassociation and absolute attention all at once. As I rode back home, the sun in the sky became just a memory, but the sky was draped in nostalgia hues which insisted that although the sun was out of sight, it could not be out of mind. Coasting down that hill on the way home, I had one of those lovely moments when I think about my thoughts. If you don’t know what I mean, picture the times when you compose a tweet that you think is really clever. It’s that moment I gave myself the grace of not thinking about myself through the lens of how fake deep or strange others might think I was and just let my mind be my mind, blessed with the ability imagine ideas uninhibited. I thought about how in that moment, riding my bike home it the middle of quarantine, studying the beauty of the sky, I was currently in the middle of a memory that I would look back on and remember fondly when things were a lot more busy and a lot less clear than the sky. I thought about how rarely we get to think about the moments we’d like to remember vividly when we’re actually in them. I thought about the idea that I might be enjoying the moment less because instead of being in it, I was in my head...but I didn’t have anywhere else to go so I decided not to overthink the amount of joy I was experiencing.

I came back home, took a shower, and now I’m taking a bubble bath and writing to myself and whoever might read this. When I put my phone down, I’ll start reading “All About Love” by Bell Hooks which I’m sure will get me even more in my feelings. Today was filled with self care but I didn’t set out to have a self care day. In fact I went to bed at 7 am this morning and then watched about 3 more hours of RHOA when I woke up at noon. I was trying to make myself feel like I hadn’t waisted the day. So I guess I took care of myself accidentally. I am currently thinking about how God teaches us self care by looking after our mind body and souls so that we consider what will actually make us better instead of what will just make us feel better... in this way caring for ourself becomes a lifestyle, a response to life rather than an opportunity to retreat from it. Does that mean that self care has automatically become a lifestyle for me? Does my immediate response of bikes, books, and blogging mean that I have mastered the art of self care or does self care require more intentionality than that? Does too much planning and intentionality limit me to only the things that I think will tend to my emotions rather than focusing on the underlying behaviors and thoughts behind those emotions? Is there room for both? In a way, aren’t we divinely designed to take care of ourselves by paying attention to the way God cares for us. Deeply, mind body and soul. Isn’t that why God created self awareness in the first place? So perhaps God loves us so much that he is willing to use anything, even ourselves, to care for us in the way we deserve? Perhaps.