There aren’t going to be too many more nice days when I can practice outside, but today is shaking up to be a nice day. Dawn with her rosy-red fingers was just coming up over the summit of mount Tom as I did tai chi in the yard to the west of the house, under the branches of a spreading sugar maple. The tree is wreathed in flame colored leaves, stretching across the color spectrum from green to yellow to gold to brown, and the leaves may last another week, or another month depending on the weather.
Someone who hasn’t seen me in a while said that I was looking good. Svelte, was the word she used. I haven’t dropped a whole lot of weight, only six or eight pounds, but I’m exercising daily and eating right. I think I’m not so much losing weight as changing what it’s made of. My pants are all looser.
As I did tai chi this morning, particularly the qi gong exercises that precede the main form, my feet are sinking into the grass and leaving deep white-gray footprints. I don’t think there was a frost last night. My bare toes would have been colder if that was the case. But the pressure of my feet is enough to bring the dead dry grass up to the surface, and to bend what remaining green grass blades still remain.
Unusually, I find it easy to perform spins on grass today. Normally it’s a bit of pain — more of a turning series of hops than a smooth turnaround. today it was a smooth turnaround.
