“Things are just as they are.”
Today is the first day of 2019 that I remembered to write the correct year when dating my journal. Shall we call that progress? I don’t mean to suggest that it has been a rough re-entry into normal life. It hasn’t.
I’ve been reading Zadie Smith’s Feel Free, a book whose name I get wrong every time I write it down or speak about it. It’s sometimes Find Free and most often Live Free but always not the correct title. I haven’t decided if there is symbolism in this. Am I seeking to live more free in some way or to find out what it means to find freedom?
I do find constraint in this body. These hips don’t move the way I would like. My blood pressure is elevated. My upper back likes to stiffen when I sleep. This belly should be smaller if only so I might not fear to suffocate in child’s pose. During the first day of Yoga with Adriene‘s 2019 30-day program—Dedicate—she asked us to discern what brought us to the mat. To my surprise, what came to mind:
“I want the best version of my body whatever form that takes.”
I’m as committed to the idea of improving my flesh as I am to not defining what “the best version” means for me. What it has been in practice is over thirty days straight of some form of exercise, eating more of the right things, and believing that doing that which nourishes me is better than doing what’s convenient.
The actions may be difficult but the choice to do them every day hasn’t.
It hasn’t only been the physical. I’ve found discipline in limiting my screen time. I’m scheduling daily practice for improving my Spanish and treating it like class. I’m idling less in front of the television.
I’m reading Zadie Smith and feeling free.
Jason Toney 
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