status report: april 1st, no fools
i woke up today to a fundamental shift in myself. full moon, endless on a loop, laundry day--a proper way to start a new month. full moons are a reflective time, sort of this check in of, "what have i done since the last one?" for certain, it's being flexible to change, diving headfirst into it. big changes, small changes, you name it.
for one, i'm trying out font-secondary: sans-serif while keeping font-main: serif. this follows some constructive criticism and dialogue with friends and strangers over digital readability. being open to criticism is huge for someone (read: me) with biblically dogmatic stubbornness at times. the switch-up affirms my early HTML sensibilities (shoutout to angelfire and geocities) while honoring my tumblr university alumni status (lowercase to set the vibe). serif header/sans-serif body scratches the information design fundamentals itch for me, too. i can always change it up again if i don't like it.
and yet, i caught myself in the middle of scrambling over the aesthetics of padding and font-style and so on and so forth, inciting an urgency that didn't need to be there, only to pause and tell myself, "yeah, i gotta chill." yeah, i do. in the bustle and hustle of the spring equinox, it was "go go go!"--restructuring at work, gym progress, planting seeds for the rest of the year; thinking of what to start, create, change, adjust; forward and onward only, no stops. there was a huge sense of, "i have to keep going."
i thought faster than i could write. i've rewritten this draft more than i can count on two hands. i kept the working title, even though this post is going in a different direction than when i started. it felt like i was saying a whole lot of nothing. in reality, i was doing a whole lot of not resting. i don't have an excuse for that. i was lost in the sauce of spring's momentum. funnily enough, today, i got this notification from the moon phase app i use:
if you lived this way you would be constantly exhausted
all work and no rest makes burnout a frequent visitor. and so, another (less than obvious) change is leaning into rest more. taurus season is around the corner, come the 20th in a few weeks. i don't dabble in astrology much these days, but each season marks a theme in the general sense. april reminds me it's time to hush up and rest. rest, rest, rest. say it three times in front of a mirror, then your jaw will unclench and your shoulders will loosen up. heeding fatigue is a virtue.
i recalled this mary oliver poem, titled "april," after an intense (and humbling) leg day set at the gym--you know, the kind of set that forces you to plop down and steady your breathing, much to your chagrin:
I wanted to speak at length about
The happiness of my body and the
Delight of my mind for it was
April, a night, a full moon and--But something in myself for maybe
From somewhere other said: not too
Many words, please, in the muddy shallows theFrogs are singing.
sometimes you gotta chill and be quiet, no joke.