Jetlag

I have experienced jetlag in the past, but never has it hit me so hard as it has this week, coming home from Japan. My husband is experiencing the same phenomenon. I spent most of the day Friday, thinking it was Saturday. We both wake up like clockwork around 2 a.m. every night, and we can’t fall back to sleep until 5 a.m. or so. Yesterday when we fell back to sleep, we slept to after 11 a.m. Today I forced the both of us to get up and out of bed at 8:30 a.m., and despite two cups of coffee, I am still in a zoned-out fog.

We experienced the same jetlag when we arrived in Japan, but the excitement and the adrenaline of seeing and experiencing new things kicked in, and waking up early had the added benefit of being the first ones in-line for breakfast. And after walking 22,000 steps a day, sleep was easier to come by (and to stay with) each night.

It doesn’t help that we both caught colds towards the end of our trip (packed cities of people and tourists made this almost inevitable). Colds are the perfect ingredient for making you feel out-of-sorts, cranky and sleepy. I haven’t felt this desirous to just be “back to normal” in a long, long time.

I always say that one of my favorite parts of travel is the appreciation that it gives to you for your own home, and for your own everyday life. I am also feeling an appreciation for my everyday lifestyle/sleep cycle, and I am panging for it to return.

“And if tonight my soul may find her peace in sleep, and sink in good oblivion, and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.” – D.H. Lawrence

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Your Perfect World

Fortune for the day – “The human soul needs actual beauty more than bread.” – D.H. Lawrence

I am one of those people who is pretty open and approachable. This has been a blessing and a curse in my life. I’ve had to do a lot of studying about boundaries. Yet, at the same time, I have met the most fascinating people, with the most engrossing stories because I honestly find most people, from every walk of life, absolutely enchanting and I think that they figure that out pretty quickly. This morning my friendliness was a beautiful blessing. I met a fellow writer in the least likely of places. We are having the popcorn ceiling removed in our garage. The project supervisor is a lovely man named Walberto Campos. I mentioned that I would be inside writing if he needed me to answer any questions. He mentioned that he, too, was a writer. He writes poetry, political satires about what is going on in his country of El Salvador, and he is currently working on a novel. We completely bonded in the matter of a few minutes over our love for the written word. He showed me a couple of his poems. He had written a passionate, beautiful poem for his wife, as a Valentines gift. I asked him if I could publish it on my blog and he generously offered it up. I was going to wait to publish it on Soul Sunday, but instead, I will offer it up as a gift to all of us today. On a funny aside, with all of this popcorn ceiling business (which is 100 percent my husband’s detail oriented side coming out), I insisted that my husband handle this enterprise completely, from getting estimates, to setting up the project and then arranging to pay for it. I get burned out of babysitting house projects very quickly, and then, the not-so-approachable, not so very friendly side of me, rears her ugly head of snakes. So, this morning, I told Walberto to just text my husband the poem (the love poem) because that would be easiest since he and my husband have been making all of the project arrangements through text. He looked at me like, “Okay, really?!?” I said, “Don’t worry, Walberto. I’ll text him that it is coming, but we’ve been married for over 25 years. He’s used to these things, with me, and the new friends whom I meet all of the time. It would be weirder if he didn’t get a love poem from a contractor on a Monday morning.” Here’s the poem. Start Monday off right: