Recharging

This morning I started the day off with a massage with Kate, who lives just down the road. She and her husband are building a bakery, and her strong hands are good at kneading people and dough. I told her that my neck and shoulders felt tight and that I'd been getting a headachy feeling lately, which is unusual for me. She laughed when she started running her hands over my back. "Your shoulders are up around your ears!" she said. "Let's see if I can give you a longer neck by the time we're done." 

Weeks of playing the accordion (a heavy, unbalanced instrument), of manhandling the double bass and of huge, full-body singing (in a tight corset, no less), not to mention hours of rehearsals on top of performances, are taking their toll. Surrounded by intensity at work I try to be the one who plays it cool, so I store up tension in my neck and shoulders until my head aches. I run, I bike, I walk, but I don't stretch enough. My body is an elastic band, pulled taut. 

Last night I went to the pub with T, our stage manager. Both of us fighting the urge to simply stay in, to lie like puppies on the couch until we stumbled off to bed. It was worth going- a folk club from Prince George was in town for their annual gathering, and we laughed and sang and danced with locals and folkies alike and then felt we'd earned the right to flop on the couch and watch American Horror Story (a house addiction) until after midnight. 

Today I feel burnt out and weak. I am lying on the couch with a warm Magic Bag around my neck while G plays a video game, building empires, fighting wars. T is doing some lighting work at the theatre and W is home in Cottonwood with her husband for the day off. In a way I feel like a wimp for being so drained. I don't have kids, my work is fun, if intense, I am earning enough money and I love the people I'm with. But my body needs some time off. It's days like this, with the rain pounding down, that I wish I could curl up in bed with someone and… well. Instead the best I can do is keep myself away from the sugary snacks in the house, renew my acquaintance with the couch, outlast this nagging headache and maybe brave the rain for a quick walk.