Lazy Morning, Lovely Afternoon

Friends, I have confession to share with you.  There’s something in my life – an aspect of my personality – I’ve been resisting for quite a long time.  Something I haven’t fully accepted the “is-ness” of, something I continue to fight against and judge myself for.  Today, though, reality finally seeped in through the cracks in my defenses and I just couldn’t deny it any longer.  I finally accepted that…

I am not a morning person.  I’m not!  I’m just not.  I want to be, or at least I say I want to be, and I berate myself for not having more get-up-and-go when I wake up, like I’m wasting my life or something.  I love those days when I wake up and hop out of bed like a 5-year old on Christmas morning, but those days are rare indeed.  As I lay in bed until the late hours of the morning this morning, I was finally moved to accept that I am not a morning person.  Maybe one day I will be, and  I’ll greet every morning with a whistle on my lips and a song in my heart…

But I wouldn’t put money on it.

Once I finally got moving today, I hopped a bus to Ipanema (Brazillians pronounce it more like “ee-PAH-neh-muh” than the Americanized “ee-puh-NEE-muh”).  I was going to take the metro, but I came across a bus heading that direction just a few steps outside my building and decided to take that instead.  Taking the bus is such a great way to see the city, and really fun.  The buses here are safe, and no one pays you any mind.  You couldn’t pay me to take public transit in LA by myself, but here – it’s fantastic.  The only potential problem with the buses is not knowing the route they follow or how long it’s going to take.  I guess you figure that out with time.  I was trying to go to Copacabana, and the bus I hopped on went there, but not directly – it went west out to the Botanical Garden and slightly west of Leblon before coming back east toward Copacabana, and the traffic was a nightmare.  I ended up getting off in Ipanema instead of going all the way to Copacabana, and I was on that bus for at least an hour, probably 3 times as long as the metro would have taken.

I was headed to Copacabana for two reasons, the first being to find a chiropractor.  I started having a lot of back pain yesterday and I wanted to nip it in the bud, so I went looking for a chiropractor and an acupuncturist.  The closest chiros or acupuncturists I could find via Google were in Copacabana, but since the bus I was on went though Ipanema first, where there was also a chiropractor, I decided to just get off there.  The chiropractor was a lovely woman who, fortunately for me, spoke English.  She and the acupuncturist fixed me up pretty good, but I’m still taking meds when the pain flairs up.  I’m going to lay off the working out for a bit until it’s back to normal.

The other reason I was headed to the area was to enroll in Portuguese lessons.  And I did!  I found one school online that particularly appealed to me, so I went there and signed up.  Would that I had thought of this sooner, but that’s kind of how it goes when you take life by the seat of your pants.  Group classes start every Monday, so I missed today, and I’ve arranged a private dance lesson tomorrow morning, so I’ll miss tomorrow, too, but I scheduled a private lesson tomorrow afternoon to catch myself up.  I’ll start group lessons on Wednesday – 3 hours each weekday morning this week and next.  I have to be at the school in Ipanema in time for 9am class, so I guess I’m going to become a morning person whether I want to or not!

On another serendipitous note, I just found out there’s Lindy Hop in Rio.  And the weekly dance is held at a club literally around the corner from where I’m staying.  I am loving this trip.

TL;DR:  Minor epiphany followed by glorious day of new adventures.