early February, now and then

yesterday, on a lark I looked at the date and trawled through my blogpost archive to find all the posts that just happened to be posted on February 7.

there are three:

an untitled Sunday scribbling from 2010.

reflections on who a person is or isn't after they run 5 whole kilometers for the first time (2012).

and these twice(now thrice?)-framed and re-framed ramblings about who a person is or isn't after dying their hair for the first time (2013/2004).

are there coincidences here? a theme of identity and the capacity for novel experience to encroach interestingly upon it. 

while I meandered through this blog archive timewarp (knowing I wouldn't write the rest of this until Monday) I also checked for old posts from today's date, February 8:

a meditation on parts of ourselves that are unknown, occasioned by a book and one verse of a hymn (2011).

and this "nostalgic little rant" about how we store old media and what to do with old dreams (2007). 

so?

present and past and future selves. all of them fluid, none of them ever fully left behind. 

and who am I this week? the sixth full week of this sixteenth year of blogging here? 

I am doing a little bit of yoga every day, pondering what it really means to have a good relationship with my own breath. the snow of late January is mostly melted. teaching and teaching prep are taking up the bulk of my days. our pugs still want to hibernate some mornings. we are soon to be buying a house, and the land under it, which seems both like a very weird, half-unthinkable but simultaneously perfectly logical, sensible life decision. 

what will owning this sliver of earth with a house on it mean for the selves we become over the rest of the year? 

I hope it means more time reading and writing outside on the back patio. I hope it means lovely neighbors and a quiet cul-de-sac. it will mean more responsibility and more space. more food storage, more crafts, more plants! more making. more stargazing. more driving for me but somewhat less for Jeremiah. 

and a lovely ancient volcanic hill down the road for both long and short hikes.