one thing I learned at the therapeutic boarding school I worked at 7 years ago

 This school was the first time I heard the phrase "cannot distinguish other people's emotions from their own."

There were some boys there who were working on differentiating their own feelings from the feelings of people around them. So like if they saw another boy who was sad or angry or frustrated then they would assume they also felt that way.

When I first heard about it I thought it was the wildest thing. How could you possibly mistake someone else's feelings for your own? That's like thinking something someone else said was something that you said. 

Now I don't think it's such an out-there concept. Today I was thinking about not letting other people's stress become my stress. And, in turn, not stressing other people out with the stress I got from someone else. 

I AM A RIVER! I AM A FRESH SUMMER BREEZE!

 Sometimes when you're 33 and you start practicing to get better at jumping you learn things that you feel like you're too old to have learned. I've been doing these things called 'pogos' a lot which is where you jump with your legs pretty straight and you try to bounce basically instead of bending your knees every time. Anyway I was really bad at them at first and recently I've started to realize that if you sort of anticipate the landing with your feet and ankles you can get an extra little push into the ground. It's hard to put into words but it's been one of many discoveries. 

I'm gonna go watch Bob Beamon's Olympic long jump

be present. be your best self

 camp is fast approaching and I'm starting to think about all the things I could be planning and preparing and that can feel overwhelming but then I remember that most of the best things I've ever done were not planned out well in advance but came out of a spontaneous moment where I was really paying attention to what was going on and open to the spark of the moment.

my big goals for the summer are

1) be present as much as possible. specifically, recognizing when I can do the most good at any given moment.

2) react calmly when stressful and unexpected things happen

3) build a culture of attentiveness and chaotic goodness

my door swells shut

 my door has started to do this thing where something about the heat and humidity causes the door to swell or the frame to shrink or something but basically I can't get out of my apartment with just one hand. I pull and pull and then I use both hands and I still can't get out. And then I have to throw my whole body into the door to try to break the seal and then it opens very easily.

AND THEN there was this time I found an earwig on my kitchen countertop so I put it in a plastic bowl and was going to take it outside but my door was sealed shut so I was furiously trying to open the door with one hand as it was sealed shut and with the other hand I was holding the bowl with the earwig in it and the earwig kept trying to crawl up the sides of the bowl and get to my hand so I had to keep readjusting it so it wouldn't get me and it almost broke me.

the scorpions were on the radio

And the Scorpions make me think of my dad because he likes the Scorpions and then after that the George Thorogood version of "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" came on which also makes me think of my dad because we quote lines from it nearly every time we see each other and we have since I was in like middle school or something. Which is pretty funny that we've joked about this song where this guy is a deadbeat and has no place to live and goes to a bar and gets blasted out of his mind.

I said I know.

Everybody funny.

Now you funny, too.  

may

 the way I remember May is that it's the month that's asking the question

"may you go on to summer?" And the answer is yes, you may. When? June!

getting better at jumping

 when I was in 3rd grade they had us fill out this survey about ourselves and then they told us they were going to give it back to us at the end of 5th grade and we'd be surprised by how much we'd changed.

And I remember thinking in third grade, 'ha! nice try. you won't get me! I'm gonna remember this stuff.'

And then I got it back at the end of the 5th grade and had zero memory of writing down that my favorite activity was JUMPING. 5th grade me even thought that was kind of a lame answer.

Well 33 year old me thinks it's an awesome answer and it's time that 5th grade me takes a backseat because GUESS WHAT? We're working on jumping again.