Meg - 1,813 miles, 54 hours

Dear Meg,

After spending a few weeks in the Rocky Mountains I'm not surprised you and the fam were thinking of heading out this way. Colorado has so much to offer and while I know you're not the biggest fan of the front range, just being near them has me feeling more and more alive each day. 

Out here in Denver I am now helping in the kitchen at the food bank. The kitchen helps prepare meals for some of the food bank's programs that help feed the most at risk hunger populations, namely children and the elderly. Right now we spend most of our time preparing meals for kids to have on a daily basis now that school is out, and the meals we prepare total up to feeding over 3,000 kids in a single week! 

While the warehouse was fun and is more aligned with the majority of the work the food bank does, I really do love helping out in the kitchen a bit more. I help mostly with food prep, and given we are feeding so many people all the time, each prep job is usually a big time lesson in patience and perseverance. The other day, I had to bread over 400 chiles rellenos, and it took me over four hours to get it all done. Flour, egg, breading, flour, egg, breading, flour, egg, breading... times 400. It was quite the practice for the day. 

Outside of all the cooking and prep that we do, I have oddly come to find that my favorite part of the day is when we go to mop the floors. At that point it's usually just me in the kitchen, and I find myself put in a scene that you may be familiar with if you watch any movie or TV show where they film the janitor mopping the hallways at day's end. The image I can't seem to get out of my head is usually of an older janitor, casually moving from one end of the hallway to the other. Slow but steady in their pace, they usually have a sort of meditative aspect to the way the floor gets clean, and I find myself in the same state of mind at the end of each day. It's been a great way to reflect on the work I've done while here in Denver at the food bank, and it allows me to remember what an impact the work we're doing has for a large number of children in the surrounding area.

I had many new practices I wanted to implement as a part of this trip and I've had intermittent success with them across the board. Pranayama and physical therapy in the morning I can't quite seem to catch on to (still a night owl), but I've been really happy to keep up with my writing most days and yoga every day. I keep believing in the yoga and it keeps me steady, and I have you to thank big time for that. I'm going to a couple public classes a week but for the most part I'm really honing in on my home practice, and it's feeling more vibrant than ever. I'm listening more to my body and really trying to focus more on alignment in each pose, and with your voice right there as my inner monologue, it's going pretty well. The other day I finally found proper alignment in my urdhva d with zero pain entering or exiting! I smiled and gave you an air five in the middle of the classroom. 

I've been following along with the fam's Madison area summer adventures and it looks like everyone is doing so well and having an absolute blast! Give my love to the kiddos and Chris, and enjoy your time out east! Can't wait for Tucson. 

Love,

Jonathan