In working order

The place I am staying, Polestar Gardens, has a program that allows willing individuals housing and food for a really low price, in exchange for 25 hours worth of work each week. Today was my first official day of work:

3:23am I wake up with the urge to pee. No way I’m going outside, and no way I’m walking all the way to the main house. It's dark out there. Back to sleep…with a full bladder.

5:45am Alarm goes off, and I pull my ear plugs out, grab my water bottle and head for the main house to empty my bladder and brush my teeth.

6:00am Morning Yoga & Meditation.

7:15am Breakfast. Brown rice, egg and avocado. Yummy!

8:15am Morning circle, where we distribute jobs and plan the day. I’m assigned to the garden.

8:30-12:15pm I work in the greenhouse with Marianna, who is a true gardner. She says things like “Isn’t this horse manure beautiful?” and “Weeding isn’t our real job today, we are just doing this for fun." I have never done a day of gardening before today. I’m notorious for killing plants. I once had an ex boyfriend give me a cactus as a valentine’s day gift with a card that read “I hope we last longer than this plant” See, he thought that no one could kill a cactus, so his chances of us lasting longer than the plant were good. Wrong. Both the relationship and the plant died, though I can’t remember which went first.

12:15pm More meditation

12:30pm Lunch. Veggie wrap, chips & salsa and a brownie.

2:00-3:30pm I learned the proper way to pull weeds. Did you know there is a correct postural position that truly makes a world of a difference? My shoulders and back soaked up the sun, and should be nice and golden soon enough. And apparently, I’m already losing weight because my pants were too big today and wouldn’t stay up. I got a nice tomato red sunburn where my shirt failed to meet my pants when I was parallel to the sun pulling weeds.

3:45pm The most I’ve ever needed a shower! My skin was itchy from all of the dirt and leaves and plants and grass and bugs. I had red welts all over.

5:30pm Evening Yoga session. Super relaxing, I literally fell asleep during one of the poses. Granted it was Savasana, which is a pose where you lay on your back and try to become one with the earth or your mat.

7:00pm Dinner. Salad, brown rice, cucumber. Then Ice cream.

8:15pm Monthly check-in meeting. Once a month the whole house gets together to just talk, about anything and everything. One by one we went around and spoke whatever our heart desired. Blessings, struggles, pains, kudos, stories.

I expected the whole thing to be a giant bitch fest, but it never was. Everyone here is truly positive and has an optimistic outlook on everything regardless of how big or small their problems actually are. I sat there thinking how amazing it was that a 17 year old kid, who recently had his foot amputated due to cancer had nothing to complain about. How amazing that he could sit there and say “All things considered, I have a pretty good way of staying positive” He talked about his band, and his plans for the weekend, and starting college. Not the fact that he was robbed of an appendage by a disease that could have claimed his life. Nope. I’m 12 years older than him and I genuinely want to be like him when I grow up. I want to always look on the bright side, and not feel sorry for myself when something awful happens to me. I want to see the positive outcome and not the damning circumstance. I’ve heard the saying many times, that no matter how big you think your problems are there is always someone out there who is worse off than you are. Which I’m certain is true, but what does it say about that person, and about you, if they see their larger problem as a minor issue? We all have the ability to inflate circumstantial issues that temporarily cripple us emotionally. Yet people like this 17 year old kid have the ability to physically and emotionally overcome a permanent handicap.