How do you moor yourself? More-come-and-wise?

The gym was shut this morning and it left me feeling untethered, adrift.  When I’m feeling unsettled, out of sorts, out of touch, I throw myself into exercise.  Yes, I know I need only do a short sharp burst of HIIT or Tabata to keep fit but why do 20 minutes when you could lose yourself for an hour or more?  On the treadmill or the cross-trainer (as opposed to the happy trainer?) my body sinks into auto-pilot – it drops the need to stay tense – and my mind empties.  I float in a motion of sweat – and it’s sweet.

So, instead, I took the SP for a walk and, as I climbed the first sharp incline to the woods, I wondered…why do I make everything so damn hard?  I mean, everything.  Why, for instance, so I always assault the toughest path to the hill fort?  Nobody else goes that way (is that the appeal?) because it’s nigh-on vertical for mercy’s sake.  Anyhow, today I took the aptly named Middle Path and, every so often, as I slalomed through the trees, I walked into a wall of air – its texture palpable, thick.  It made me almost gasp and chew – the kind of air you eat rather than breathe.

And instead of route-marching round the entire circuit, I meandered to my tree, sat down and leaned against him, my head resting back against his bark and bite.  My woof/wulf-tree, lately left lorn. And spiders wobbled around me and a bee looped lazily and the grass was so grass green (like children’s crayons) and high, stalks leaning into one another as if exhausted already by this shot of summer. 

I sat and, well, just sat and became so very aware of my tension.  And I tried (ho ho) to loosen my jaw, to allow my shoulders (the should/ought/musters) to drop, to unclench my heart.  Just to be, just to breathe.  And it was good. 

The SP is always the best of companions.  He meandered around, doing what dogs do but kept coming back, checking in and, every so often, winding himself onto my lotus-lap and solemnly licking my wrist.  

Anyhow, that was it really.  No great revelations, no deep meanings, no nothing really.  

But I wonder...what do you do when you’re adrift? How do you moor (more?) yourself?  J