sinking into love

maybe i love winter running for the way it makes me sink into the NOW.

today, i had such a pleasant run home. started with a friendly goodbye from my coworkers, the first steps with an amazing song on my headphones...and continued to bring me smiles all the way home. the streetwise guy sang me a "you got it" song, the nonprofit fund raiser gave me a high five, and the only other runner i came across gave me the cordial head nod...i smiled the whole way home...sunk into a warm shower, pj's and leg warmers, and a hot tea... :-) what a wonderful evening...

i am crazy

yesterday, my friendly door man, Don, almost followed me up to my apartment...trailing behind me, he seemingly could not stop exclaiming how crazy i was. why you might ask? because yesterday it was a whopping 6 degrees Fahrenheit outside, and I walked in with my bike (per the usual) after a chilled ride home. mind you, my door man is somewhat of a "special" man- can't do more than one thing at a time, prone to stuttering, maybe a bit socially awkward...? but he's not the only one i've received these crazy comments from. he IS the only one who has followed me, but...it seems everywhere i go lately, people look at me with wide eyes, jaws dropped as they stare at me in amazement as I put on my helmet (over a really attractive hat, mind you), pack up my awesome basket, and take to the cold chicago streets on my masi (oh how i love you bicycle!).

so, it got me to thinking. WHY is this seen as such a crazy thing to do? i mean, come on Chicago, we might hibernate a bit more in the winter, but it's not like the cold is, say, a toxic cloud making all movement in Chicago impossible (oh no! oh my!). is the cold going to kill me?! not so much...the temperature drops, and, suddenly, something I do daily has become the object of so much interest and exclamation, that I honestly am not quite sure how to respond to it anymore. my latest thought has actually been, "you should try it".

and in life...think of those things that people give you crazy looks about. the entrepreneur who had a "crazy" idea and then hit it big...was he crazy? the girlfriend who moved to NYC to date a man she barely knew and fell madly in love with him, got married, and moved to australia...was she crazy?

maybe the crazy looks are really just a mirror of the doers own excitement. and a realization by the observer that those "out of the ordinary" things can and ARE done by people just like them. life IS interesting, and passion filled, and always changing :-) i know i love biking, and feel amazing every time i get off my bike- even if i can't feel my fingers. Don saw that...and trailed me!

this past two years has been an amazing time of growth for me. and when i look back on it, i realize i've gotten a lot of crazy looks. if it began with biking year round, that was just the start! i'm crazy for reading a book and driving to toronto to see the author speak, i'm crazy for teaching more and more yoga, i'm crazy for running a marathon, i'm crazy for going to norway for a cute norwegian love, i'm crazy for starting a passion filled tshirt company...i'm crazy for jumping the night away on a trampoline at a holiday party...

...and i'm crazy happy :-D

let's get crazy!