and your point is...?

Proficiency comes with practice. Nothing new there... except that I forget how easy it can be to add a small discipline to my daily routine that helps with whatever I'm doing (or want to be doing).

I am no longer naive enough to think I have any kind of will power to exercise on a regular basis, or go on a successful diet, or even stick to a decent meditation routine... but these things have a way of accessing my schedule, not by choice, and without my realizing it, until... oh, hello. Am I finally losing the weight I gained on vacation? Did I just sit quietly for a whole hour without thinking of anything? Did I walk the dog four blocks so he could do his morning business?

I love being outside early in the morning... but only when I have to be outside early in the morning. What's with that?

Our interim dog walker is visiting her family this weekend and I am the reluctant backup. Yet it was glorious outside in the park at six a.m... crows were squawking to each other from the trees, there was a fine mist on the river, the normal city sounds: sirens, delivery trucks, garbage trucks, taxis honking impatiently—were non-existent. Cool, quiet, pleasant.

The dog was ready to come home before I was.

I'm also figuring out how to write and draw at the same time. I thought it was impossible... too taxing creatively... something would suffer. And of course something did. But not forever. Maybe that's the point, or at least one of them.