Yesterday, I was at the supermarket when my friend sent me a text and asked me to pick up an onion and bring it with me.

I circled around for a bit going all through the products looking for the individual onions, but I couldn’t seem to find any.

Then, when I realized that the empty spaces in this section were all for onions.

What kind of bizarre onion quest was somebody on?

Why on earth with no loose onions?

I just bought a bag of onions instead but I still find it weird that I couldn’t buy just one, that this whole section was empty.

It’s good to be away from everything and to retreat from the world for a little while, to focus on a specific piece of work or specific set of ideas, but I find the framing of being ‘on retreat’ really strange

I know it means stepping back from things, and that’s an appropriate use of the word when you’re stepping back from things to focus. But it has that connotation of backing away from a fight, that you’re retreating rather than them facing something.

And then I wonder if that’s why people have trouble stopping. Why they might have difficulty turning their attention to one particular thing, even for a short period of time. Perhaps they are thinking of that as turning away from the other things they ‘should’ be facing.

Or, and this is entirely possible, I may be overthinking this because I’m tired.

No, not midnight tea but tea in the middle of the night.

I woke up at about 3:30am and couldn’t get back to sleep.

I wasn’t worried or distressed, just awake.

Eventually, I decided to make myself a cup of tea and read until I felt tired again.

Since I wasn’t sleeping, I might as well enjoy myself, right?

I was terribly sleepy this morning but at least I wasn’t tossing and turning all night.

I am heading off on a retreat with some friends this weekend.

Normally, when I go on these retreats, I plan too many things to do and then I have trouble getting any of them done.

I imagine myself spending the weekend drawing, spending the weekend writing, spending the weekend reading, and doing a ton of yoga.

This time, however, I have decided that my time would be best spent by making plans about my writing.

So I guess for me it isn’t a writing retreat. It’s a planning retreat.

Truthfully, that’s probably the best use of retreat time for me.

I need planning time.

I need thinking time.

I need to put the structures in place to help me make creative things happen.

My challenges don’t often lie in a lack of writing time, they lie in not knowing what to write when.

It’s more complicated than that, of course but that’s the neighbourhood that the problem lives in.

I had a great taekwondo class tonight.

Because my mood has been so low, because I’ve had so many migraines and minor injuries, and because the weather has been so weird, I have been struggling with TKD lately.

It’s hard to stay motivated when you don’t have the energy to feel connected to my practice and my goals.

I was still showing up as often as I could though because I do love it and I do know that the motivation and connection always returns.

Tonight, I felt that spark. The joy of learning. The desire to challenge myself a bit.

Well, I felt all of that right up until the last move of the class when I landed a little oddly and hurt my heel.

Sometimes all you can do is laugh, right?