Two-Cookie-Kid

I’ve been inhabiting the studio again. Currently, it’s the enclosed porch off the back of our apartment, and has finally finished melting, literally. It has wall to wall windows and when I’m back here I feel like I’m living the dream. It also happens to be covered in icicles on the outside, and water is dripping down the insides of the windowpanes as they slowly morph into thousands of small streams running through cracks in the city sidewalk.



CHICAGO
Milo and I took a walk last week and bought some honey from a neighbor. She said he looked like a cold Russian. I looked down at my son from Barbara-Bee’s front stoop and saw that she was right. He was unsmiling, had a stone cold, semi-dazed look in his eyes and wore a fuzzy fleece hat, with bear ears, which cut close around his eyes giving him a sort of ‘serious-business’ look. He was so tired. I told Barb that my husband and I had been referring to her house as The Honey House, and she said, “Oh that’s nice. We used to be called The Jungle House.”

“They both sound absolutely fabulous.” I replied with a smile. I make yet another mental checkbox for the human I hope to be someday.

VODITSA
I used to love when we ran out of milk. It meant that Katya would make scones for breakfast and someone would have to go to the neighbors before we ate, because, even though we were living in a farmhouse built with mud, poop and straw, we would certainly never settle for English tea without  milk. This also meant that I might be chosen, to walk down the street, swinging our empty glass jug and jingling a few Lev in my pocket, for a refill from our very old and very happy neighbor. He had the cows in the town and unless you were paying for packaged milk, you were getting it from him. I can't remember his name.

Or, I might not be chosen, and get to sneak a yoga session in the three-walled barn, as breakfast would be held up by the errand. Yoga in the three walled barn was the best yoga I've ever yoga-d. We lived in Voditsa from September through mid-November. This extroadinary little town is at forty three degrees Latitude; a gentle two degrees north of my Chicago. In Voditsa, we worked outside all day everyday, and slept in the guest room with one hot water bottle between two best friends. Also, in Voditsa, the only space for yoga was the three walled barn. It would start in 2 pants, two three socks...I don't even know how many layers of shirts I was sleeping in at that point, but I would begin moving in my simple and repetitive practice, and slowly slowly, as my body warmed up, I would shed layer by layer, a fleece jacket, a Bulgarian thrifted sweater, a pair of sweatpants. I lost pieces of clothing one at a time until I'd be left in yoga pants and a tee shirt, just like in my studio in Chicago, only the furnace of my body made possible what I'm sure a decent sized heating bill did for Moksha Yoga. The last and best layer to go was always the last pair of socks, leaving me barefoot. Barefoot in the dirt of another land, in a half-meditation daze with billowing puffs of breath coming out of me.

It’s been a long winter this year. Most Chicago-ans would disagree with me, but in this apartment, in this brain, it has. I’ve been working out a massive overhaul on our family finances and my life’s purpose. I’ve also spent an insane amount of time watching my toddling son go up and down the stairs to our second story apartment, which has been absolute bliss.

I read on the Mr. Money Mustache blog, during some of my financial investigation, about a study done on instant gratification. They gave a certain amount of kids two cookies and told them that they can have one now, and one in five minutes. If they wait the five minutes without eating the second cookie, they will get a third cookie. In the study they followed these kids throughout their lives and into adulthood to see how this natural reaction played out for them long term. I am not surprised to learn that I am the eat-both-cookies-without-waiting kid. This has been incredibly eye opening for me, as I now have the ability to observe myself eat the second cookie, acknowledging that I am ‘that kind of kid”.