Peace Interrupted

We all have our morning routines.  Buff Honey opens his eyes, stretches in bed, washes up and is out the door for his morning run or bike ride.  Not me. I lazily stroll to the coffee pot and nurse my cup, while reading the local paper cover to cover, ending with the daily sudoku.  Then and only then, do I start moving to my 30 minute exercise routine.

Basically, I hate exercising but I took a vow when I retired.  The only way I can get through it is to tune in to HGTV or MSNBC.  Thirty minutes later, I’m eating my hearty breakfast of Chopani coconut or coffee yogurt.  Yum….then I’m so riled up by the latest Trump Nazi simulation that I have to peace out.

A couple of months ago, I started reading, Wherever You Go There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn.  It’s all about mindfulness meditation.  I’ve never been a daily meditator but when I have done it, I’ve wondered when the inner voices are going to go away or give me some profound insight into living.  But, this book recognizes all that and helps you move into deeper meditative states.

I downloaded this app, Headspace, to start my morning with a daily 10 minute meditation.  Got up early, 7ish, pre-coffee, sat on the lanai listening to the newly awakening bird sounds which were beautiful but I couldn’t get past the guy’s annoying British accent and the constant hums of air conditioning units.

I don’t give up, though.  I improvise.  His tips help me to get into a meditation on my own so I  decide to get into my pool lounge after breakfast and float around the pool in deep relaxation.  It actually helped me to de-Trump.

Until one morning as I was floating around with my eyes closed, blissfully loving life, I felt something crawling over my belly.  I pulled myself out of my deep state and looked down to see a SNAKE CRAWLING OVER ME!!!!  Of course, I screamed my head off beseeching BH to come out to get this thing.

I jumped out of the float and flew out of the water.  Bear in mind, I’m still screaming my head off.  Not a whisper of Buff Honey.  I run into the house as he’s calmly dressing after his shower.

“Didn’t you hear me?!” I ask not so calmly.
“Yeah, I thought I heard something.  Was that you?”
“A snake just crawled over me in the pool!!!”

Being well aware of my aversion to snakes, he grabs the pool net and attempts to nab the cause of my rising blood pressure.  It’s a wriggly thing but he eventually rescues it and throws it outside.  I’m loathe to admit the thing was barely a foot long and skinnier that a pencil with a yellow ring around it neck.  Now, I know it was a ringneck snake that is no threat to anybody.

Snakes are a very common topic on our local version of Nextdoor, the app that allows neighbors to  discuss all kinds of issues.  One of my neighbors wrote that two snakes were found in her garage.  You wouldn’t believe the responses to that.  Here’s my favorite:  “I do not kill any snakes, even poisonous, they all have a purpose.”  OMG!!  Intellectually, I may get that but tell that to my gut.

I’m a Florida native.  One of my earliest memories was sitting in shallow water with my mother and little sister.  I was about 5 and, suddenly, my mother shouts, “FREEZE!”  Thank God, I had the sense to listen…my rebel stage hadn’t kicked in yet.  Four cottonmouth moccasins swam right between us.  Terrifying.

A few years later, I have this enduring image of my mother hacking a coral snake to death with a garden hoe in our back yard.

My uncles loved to catch snakes and hang them from a tree at my grandmother’s house.  I think the longest one they ever caught was about six feet.  Now, we’ve got pythons roaming the Everglades and they can grow up to 30 feet long!!!

It took awhile, but I’m back to meditating in my pool float for about 30 minutes every morning, deep breathing into some serious relaxing.  Of course, now I check for snakes first.