Those Cleansing Things

I had a pretty classic "dramedy" moment earlier today.

It had been spottily raining off and on all day- nothing too heavy or extreme, and not lasting more than a few minutes, so I didn't think it'd be that big of a deal if I took River for our daily walk. After a few minutes, this song started up on my MP3 player:

(Sidenote: Florence + The Machine is ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY worth all of the hype.)

So I won't dwell too much on how applicable this song  is right  now. But it was a highly poignant song to come to my ears.

A few bars in, it started to rain again and got kind of dark; then the first time she sings, "It's always darkest before the dawn," a sunbeam shot out amidst the rain drops. I stopped walking and let River  stand next to me in some grass as I stood there with my eyes  closed for a few moments, sort of sucking in the moment. I opened my eyes and looked down at my little angel...

...and she was shitting on some flowers.

My life is pretty fucking awesome sometimes, amirite?

Anyhoo, so that got me thinking, I used to have this place I'd go in Walla Walla to sort of calm down and cleanse myself through nothingness. It was this stream with a small waterfall that was not too far from the road, but the bushes and stuff around the area made it easy to forget you're in a college town, not some enchanted grove or some kinda jazz. Seriously, there were rocks spattered about as if someone had put  them there, and the flowers around  the stream grew most of the year- pretty much the only time I didn't see blossoms was when there was snow. And yeah, since the stream was fast enough, it was flowing year-round. 

I'd go to this little spot and let the environment kind of sap all the negativity and crappy stuff out of me, and it was sort of like a cleansing ritual I'd do whenever I got too stressed or something.

I don't really have a spot like that here in Indiana. But I do find walking River is somewhat close to it, especially if I have the right music playing. Barring the fact that every now and then I feel sort of like I'm in a Schrodinger's Rapist situation because someone seems to be walking way too fast/has caught up to me fare sooner than I thought they would, I generally feel pretty relaxed after walking River.

But even so, I have a few cleansing things I do indoors, and I've used them more since moving here, as I don't have "a spot" any more.

• I like long, hot showers if it's during the day. I couldn't really take long showers at my old apartment because our water only stayed warm for a few minutes, let alone hot.
• If in the evening/night, long, hot baths with the lights off and some candles. Also some classical music, like Respighi or Satie, maybe some Brahms or Faure. I need either light and  airy or sort of... uh... triumphant, I guess. Although it can't really start out march-ee, like Ravel, despite how awesome "Bolero" is...  (Sorry, I seriously wasn't trying to show off my music, I'm just trying to word things and babbling a bit.) 
• Baking. I stress-baked probably the best fucking cookies I've ever baked last week. 
• Giving my face a serious scrub-down, first by cleaning out my pores by squeezing  the gunk out (I'll admit fully, that's fucking gross... but there's something satisfying about seeing the little  line of dirt and oil slip out of my face) (although I've had a recurring nightmare where one pore has a... whitehead, I guess... that just won't stop and piles up like one long spaghetti noodle at my feet...), then using more than one cleanser, then my electric facial scrubber brush thingydo, then another, creamier cleanser, then a ton of moisturizer.
• Painting my nails is kind  of relaxing, now that I'm not so terrible it ends up on the backs of my hands (seriously, this used to happen). 
• Doing dishes. 
• I've started playing video games again, now that I have a PS3, and yeah... it certainly feels good to hack and slash and strategize. Although the game for The  Walking  Dead had me in a sobbing mess on the couch when I finished it. I mean, holy poop, I just couldn't stop crying.

I'd like to take this time to say that while I do get stressed, I'm not falling apart. Summer sucks, but I'll be better when I'm teaching again and finishing my bureaucratic mumbo jumbo to GTFO.

But I think I'll have a bath tonight. Toodles.