Tomato Worms and Warm-ups

A warm-up can have so many different meanings.

Thanks to CIMPLE – A Curious Introvert’s Musings & Photos about Life and Enjoyment for the inspiration this morning.

I thought of warm-up last night as I watched the fog start to build on my way home from my meditation class.

The weather is forecasted to warm up and could be in the 50s later this week.

At my meditation last night, we started in a restorative pose, to help clear our mind and warm-up our bodies for meditation.

I turned the heat way down in the middle of the night. The warm up outside made the house, too warm. This morning, Bridget nudged me over to the cold side of the bed so she could take over the warm side. “I just need to warm-up,” she said and she proceeded to tell me how our sweet, but overweight golden retriever Cocoa, doesn’t help keep her warm at night and her attempts to throw another comforter on the bed were futile.

My typical morning physical warm-up includes letting the dogs out, making the coffee, making Bridget’s lunch, feeding the dogs, making my bed, making Bridget’s breakfast, running up and down stairs a dozen or more times before landing in front of my computer.

My mental warm-up includes reading the daily passage from Courage to Change, a Comfort Prayers, my horoscope, and an inspirational quote from Momentum Dash.

Between the two warm-ups, I usually have something to write about.

A recent warm-up for which I am most grateful occurred Saturday prior to Improv graduation show. I was incredibly anxious about one player, who consistently threw me. I felt like a lead balloon was placed in my lap every time I took the stage with this person, until our warm-up Saturday. Our teacher, Jeff, reminded us, it’s about the relationship, and with that, what I thought the scene would be, and what it became were two different things. The warm-up readied my mind and body for the show, where the player and I took the stage again. I paused, I said yes, and I rolled with it.

Tomato Worms

There are the joys of tomatoes,

luscious, red and bursting,

warm from the garden,

sensuous like late summer.

And then there is the matter

of tomato worms and crop dust,

the sweaty details

of planting and pruning,

weeding and watering.

Days are like that:

some ripe and luscious,

basking in the heat of harvest;

others are lean and silent,

filled with the stirrings

of strange new feelings.

Susan Landon

Tomato Worms is the poem I read from Comfort Prayers this morning during my mental warm-up. It is fitting on this foggy day. Yes, I love few things more than slicing a bright red tomato still warm from the sun, sprinkling salt on it, savoring its acidity, and sweet and salty tastes. And, I detest few things more than an unripened slice of a tomato, in a shade of pink most commonly found in a morgue or mortuary, its flaccid appearance and texture make me question its existence and the intellect of the person who dared to share such misery with another.

And yet, our days yield both versions of the fruit.

A warm-up in whatever its iteration provides me a pregnant pause, helping me to look inward and remind myself that today is another day, another gift worms and all, which I can savor or spoil.