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I woke this morning and found myself in the mirror -- slightly tired with a wave-like swoop of hair curling over my head. I've known teenagers who've achieved this look with pounds of gel and hours of personal attention in front of their own mirrors, but for me, the hair curls on its own and only a shower will wash it out.

That's how I slept -- curled with my face smooshed into my pillow and my hair, apparently, pressed into a wave. I slept hard last night and woke occasionally from dreams worthy of a surrealist prize -- quilted snippets of my life pasted together in unexplainable patterns. Ironically, I feel rested today. Yesterday was long -- 5 hours of walking dogs followed by 5 more hours in the pool swimming the sick, elderly, and injured. Surprisingly, the day (and evening) passed by quickly, but when I got home, I was wired and worried that sleep would give way to thoughts about scheduling and massage strokes, the tangled leashes and persnickety owners.

Instead, I crashed. I fell asleep and only occasionally heard myself snore or the dog in his bed whimper or the sound of airplanes making their way to the airport.

I work at the pool again today and then we're off to a basketball game tonight. Another long day.

I keep comparing my days now with my days as a teacher. Ann has one last week of vacation before she's called back to school for her own education -- classes offered by the district to prepare teachers for the upcoming year. I remember that feeling. All of the sudden you think about all the things you wanted to get done on your time off and you realize there isn't enough time to tackle them. You are both excited about the new school year and wary of how much energy it's going to take, especially the first two months, to meet the new students and their families, organize the lessons and field trips, and attend all of those meetings that the district somehow thinks is supportive.

While there are parts of that routine I miss (shopping for school supplies!) that feeling that someone is turning up the speed on the treadmill without your knowledge is something I don't miss at all. Yes, it's hard working without knowing when my next vacation will be. Yes, it's physically draining to walk dogs for 8 miles a day and then wrestle with 125-pound dogs in the pool. Yes, I don't earn the kind of money I used to, which allowed me a certain kind of freedom. Nor do I receive the healthcare benefits offered by a school district (thankfully I can be on Ann's).

But when I think about where I've landed -- dog walker and K9 massage/swim therapist -- I smile. No longer am I struggling with the "art" of teaching or the politics of education and I can feel my sanity return a little bit each day.

Why all the flower photos? Because I keep taking pictures of flowers I see and I realize how happy the photos make me. Kind of like a photographic take on "Just stop and smell the roses..."

The Next Move

I've finished my first round of small animal massage work and am on to the next and hopefully final level before I become licensed. The next round looks much more involved something for which I feel both apprehensive and excited. I want the challenge though I know I'll be stretching my 51-year-old brain in ways I'm not sure it can stretch anymore.

We'll see how it goes.

But after my dreams of the past few nights, I can tell I'm focused and nervous about this next move. First, I keep dreaming about people watching me as I massage a dog. This is a reliving of the "test" I was asked to take during my first round of massage education and in the dream, I feel the pressure (no pun intended) to do everything just right. This is not good pressure. Instead, it's the kind of pressure that didn't (and doesn't in the dream) allow me to really feel what I'm doing. Since I'm still new to this profession, the knack of "feeling" my work is new to me and with eyes watching every move I make (not only with the dog, but with my own body) put me more in my head than my hands. My boss always says her brain is in her hands and now, after a few months of this work, I'm starting to understand what she means.

The other dreams range from trying to escape from floods, helping friends with their grammar, and trying to manage large groups of dogs or children in huge, crowded cities. This is how I handle my doubts about this next move. In my dreams, I put myself in tough situations and work on trying to maneuver through them. Ironically, I'm sleeping better than ever before though not as long as I'd like.

Of course yesterday, after finishing my massage course, I sat on the couch relaxing by watching a movie when I saw the aura in the bottom part of my right eye. "Damn!" I thought. "A migraine." Despite the medication, it hit me full force. I knew it was a result of a week's worth of concentrating in a way I don't have to either as a dog walker or massage therapist, but nonetheless, it knocked me out and sent me to bed for a dark and fitful sleep.

I'm back to dog walking tomorrow and then an evening at the pool. Spike, my favorite old dog is on the schedule and so is Max, my second favorite. I'm looking forward to that work again -- both the walking and the massage -- moving from my head to my hands and my feet. I still marvel at how I got here and while there are times I panic about money, life is moving along quite nicely these days.

Quite nicely.