I woke this morning with little legs intertwined with mine and wispy fine hair tickling my nose. I don't remember what time she came over, but L snuck into our bed once again last night. Not that I really mind though. After all these years of some form of bed-sharing, it has somehow become the norm for us to all figure out how we fit together and sleep.

We are like a little four person jigsaw puzzle and somehow we manage to fit all the pieces together on our queen-sized bed. No small feat, let me tell you! L’s internal alarm clock woke us all up at 6:44 AM as she slid out of the bed and declared to everyone her need to pee.

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I joined a yoga class last week. My friend Mandy has a beautiful little studio in her equally beautiful house and has been teaching yoga and meditation for over 15 years. She is the kind of person in whose company you can't help but feel a sense of calm and serenity.

All of this week, amongst the preparation and angst of me going away for four days to MOM 2.0 Summit, all I could think about was going to yoga with Mandy again. Class was this morning and it was a glorious and much needed hour of practice! And I am not just saying that because she gives all of us a neck massage as we lay in our final savasana. I had rushed into the studio after dropping of the kids at school with a raging storm of pre-travel and pre-conference anxiety nestled in my solar plexus and what I can only describe as angry moths (as opposed to butterflies) in my tummy. I set my intention for my practice of 'calming the storm within' and for the next hour I breathed and moved my way to a place of calm waters, glorious sunshine and openness of mind, body and spirit.

Mandy spoke of the Hindu Goddess Shiva, who is known as the destroyer. How destruction is not always a negative thing and that it is often necessary in life in order to clear away the old and make room for new things to flourish. It reminded me of the forest fire video that the kids and I watch at the museum that shows the time-lapsed regrowth of the forest after the devastation and destruction of the fire. There is beauty in this process and it takes looking at it from a little bit of a different angle to see this and to know that the fire had to happen for the life of the forest to be sustained. I started thinking about all of the things/feelings/ways of thinking that we hold on to in our own lives, for whatever reason (safety, habit, tradition), that no longer serve us. Perhaps it is time to let Shiva in to do her thing, so that we can make room for and create the right nurturing environment for new things to take root.

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Airports make me nervous. Granted more often than not it is more of an excited nervous, but still it is there. I get anxious about getting there on time, I am worried that I forgot to pack something, I worry about losing my boarding pass and saying goodbye and "please dear God be on the other end" to my checked luggage. I remind myself about a dozen times to go to the bathroom before getting on the plane - because, hello - men and airplane bathrooms - Duh! I start to relax a bit after I've passed through security, which, by the way, is always a special full body pat-down treat when one had metal implants.

The first leg of my trip this weekend is to the Twin Citiies. One of the things I also do when flying is play the "I wonder where they are going" game about all of the other travellers on my flight. I am on a small plane, an E170-CP, that is full to capacity and if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say 75% of the passengers are men who look like they are travelling for work - briefcases, laptops and androids abound. I mention this because I am sitting in the window seat surrounded on all three sides by said business men. Once we were up in the air, I tried to recline my seat and the man behind me got a bit agnry about it and gave me a big, "JESUS, lady"! It seems my comfort was infringing upon his very important newspaper reading. I apologized and brought my seat back upright and then noticed two things that I was doing. One, I was physically making myself smaller, trying not to take up to much space from the 'important' people around me, and two, I had to consciously STOP the self-talk that started in my head about me being "just" the silly little housewife going away to her silly little blogging conference.

That was the moment I pulled out my laptop and started writing. All of the men and women on this plane are doing important things in their lives, of this I have no doubt. And not one of them is without his or her own fears or worries or insecurities (even though some may not be as kind as others).

All of these thoughts have led me to want to set an intention for my time at the Mom 2.014 Summit this weekend and this is it:

I intend to see beyond myself and to recognize the connections we all have to each other. The needs we all have to be seen, to be valued and to know that whatever we choose to "do" for a living, or for a life, is important, is worthwhile and is done as uniquely as we all are ourselves. 

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Let the conferencing, connecting and celebrating begin!

natasha~