Southern Girls Living Fearlessly - Balance

How do YOU define balance?

That's the question the Inspirista wanted me to answer if I had any chance of being a guest on her Blog Talk Radio show. Specifically, her media inquiry read: Looking to interview fun, energetic females who have a message to share with a female audience. In your response, answer this question, How do YOU define balance? Put your name in the subject line.

Ughh, I thought, she'll never have me on her Girls Night Out radio show. I mean, for sure, I'm mostly, usually fun and I think other people would describe me as energetic, although I try not to strain my delicate self. But I doubt very seriously that MY definition of balance will pass muster:

Balance in life occurs at that moment when I suck in hard as the teeter-totter teeters back in the other direction and for that split second before pounding the ground of the other extreme is exactly, perfectly level; also defined as the ahhh moment before chaos is released like a pack of snarling foxhounds after a coyote, determined to rip it to shreds in a frenzy of barking and mayhem.

To me, the question is not how to define balance - we all know it when we see it - the question is how to achieve it on a more regular basis. How do we get our body to sit just right so that the teeter of the teeter-totter is delayed for more than a second? How do we keep the foxhounds penned and give the coyote more time to meander through fields of daisies.

Okay, coyotes in fields of daisies is a bit melodramatic, but you southern girls get my meaning.

Today's Assignment: 1) In your Book of Lists, define balance, using as many metaphors and similes for it as you can think up. 2) List your personal strategies for achieving it more often.

Simile of the Day

So, my husband and I are sitting out on the deck of one of those cheap little Mexican restaurants, sharing a pitcher, bowls of bean dip and guac, and some some much needed uninterrupted conversation. Yet, even though it was much needed and, most importantly, uninterrupted, my ears started doing that thing they do when I'm out in public places: listening in on the conversations at other people's tables.

I can't help it. It's a genetic abnormality I inherited from my daddy, who finds himself leaned so far into other people's private dialogues in public places that he's practically sitting in their laps before their meal is over. While I like to think I'm more discreet than him, I do recognize that I have a problem.

As my husband's voice faded into the background noise of silverware clinking against plates and ice shifting in glasses and waiters and waitresses coming and going, my ears started to pick up the hum of couples and families and friends jabbering on about the normalcies of life and the drag of the daily grind. Eventually my ears, like satellite dishes, focused on two college age girls at a corner table discussing gastrointestinal reactions to various foods and beverages.

Naturally, over bean dip and green guacamole, this type of talk caught my attention. And then I heard the gem that keeps me tuning in while I'm dining out; the pay off simile, the simile of the day. The heavier girl of the pair shook her head back and forth and confided in the slimmer female, "I tell you what. I was so sick, I was pooping like a cow."

There is absolutely nothing that that simile leaves to the imagination, at least not for anyone who as ever seen cow poop or, for that matter, bean dip and guac.