As I’ve written, I’m getting a lot out of my personal Practices. I’m regularly receiving life-altering information. I’ve even published a first-run online course (I never get tired of saying that!). All in all, I’m kind of quietly impressed with myself.

That was taken care of earlier today.

Let’s set the stage: I work in a “nest”. My body gets very out of sorts when I spend too much time at anything vaguely resembling a desk (that works out to about 30 minutes). It’s big pillows on the floor that I can arrange and re-arrange depending on the pleasure needs of my body, laptop, laptop tray, books for research, binders, mouse, cell phone, iPod and ear buds, water, hand lotion – you get the picture. The best thing about it is that it’s flexible so that I can change its shape when I notice my body’s request for a shift and it’s mobile.

Enter my son with a basket of clean clothes. He washed ’em, I’ll fold ’em. I reorganize what I’m working on, and I listen to my hip as I’m becoming vertical – I was sitting for a little while.

Then I promptly tripped over one of my binders! The sharp plastic spine edge caught the hem of my pajamas and gracelessly interrupted what had become my hapless forward motion.

My 22-year old son stood and observed, the very picture of potential sarcasm. “Way to work that awareness Mom,” he said softly with only a hint of smirk in his voice.

Tripping over binders, turning a kitchen corner too short and bruising a hip, whacking my shoulder on a door I only partially opened before attempting to walk through – it’s me, grace.

Licking my wounded pride (I like the ‘licking’ thing…), I folded clothes and went on to my movement practice.

Setting another stage: earlier I’d gone for a walk with a friend and I’d worn the wrong shoes. Not only do I have a host of little open blisters on top of both feet, but the soles of my feet feel like someone took a broom handle to them.

For my movement practice I thought it would be delicious to dance out on the deck. The weather was incredible; sunny and just warm enough to break a sweat without making the deck surface too hot to stand on. Beautiful! Trees beginning to fill out, tulips and daffodils everywhere.

My feet hurt.

Not enough to cry about but enough to look at today’s practice as a way to move in the way of my feet (little Nia joke). How can I move through this so that my feet heal?

The deck feels like it could give me splinters. And there are pine needles – operative word being “needles”.

You know where this is going, don’t you???

Yea, so I get everything set up – music, water, sunglasses and I start moving.

I was having a pretty good time, dancing in the sunshine, keeping my feet quiet as I placed them, step by step through the choreography. And, yes, the experience was as arduous as my attempt to describe it!

I caught sight of myself in the double glass doors and my first response was, “I look like I feel” – stiff and slightly disconnected. I was fully connected to my feet, but not the rest of me in between my brain and my feet. Now that I’ve had a chance to give the experience more room, I’m laughing.

The feet in my reflection must have been far, far larger than they appeared. Or the deck may have been covered in texture-less tree sap. Dance of the Tree Sap Fairies.  Yep, Dance of the Big Foot Tree Sap Fairies.

Just call me grace!