How I Get Back to 'Normal' pt 1

because someone asked....

Cassie again!

Awhile back we asked paid subscribers if there were any questions in particular they wanted answered, and someone asked how we got back to normal after shifts, and I thought I’d use this slot here to talk about how I do that that with y’all.

(TL:DR, scroll down to see photos of my garden that I’m inordinately proud of)

First off, ‘normal’ is a very relative term, lol, so, uh yeah. I’ve been nursing too long, I’m not even sure what my baseline is anymore ;).

But, I do have a history of depression and anxiety, and whatever-the-fuck is happening to my brain due to covid isn’t doing me any favors.

Luckily (for some values thereof) I do know what to do when I get stressed — when I start feeling that gray and disconnected feeling, like the fog’s starting to roll in.

Basically:

1) Get Social — hanging out with people in real life (hard with covid, but oddly work helps for this, seeing my coworkers in real life 3+ shifts a week super helps, especially because they understand.)

2) Get Exercise — I have a rowing machine that I watch Netflix shows too, I just finished The Untamed, and now I’m halfway through Hannibal. I also do this class (online now, but it used to be in person) — Lagree fitness. (Here’s a youtube vid of a class on the machine back in pre-covid days.) If you ever want your ass kicked by an exercise class for an equivalent of crossfit but that really does not injure your joints, (and if you hate yourself very much, and want to torture yourself into the best shape of your life) lagree is the modality for you. It’s pricey as hell, but as someone who’s had a ton of back injuries in my life and who has to keep using my back all the time at my job, I view these classes as an investment in keeping myself gainfully employed.

(I take my old studio’s online classes at home now, using resistance bands and a pennyboard — a small skateboard — and sweet jesus it is still terrorizing.)

3) Get Outdoors — I garden.

A lot.

My frontyard/backyard gardening project began as my Trump Coping Memorial Garden back in 2016, for when I couldn’t handle how the world was going anymore. I started off with veggies, but found out that the way the sun goes over my house is too much for most of them….and then I discovered the joy of succulents, especially this past year.

Here’s one half of my backyard:

We did an earthquake retrofit awhile back and thought that we’d repanel the room they destroyed on our own, and didn’t — so I reclaimed all that old redwood and assorted tables and chairs I’ve since picked up from the road in Oakland, where I live, and freecycled all of the everything, basically — and have slowly bought, found, traded, and cultivated the plants.

What you are looking at is a…well, I wouldn’t say World Class echeveria and succulent collection, because I’m pretty active on instagram (I’m Cactinaut_Cassie_Alexander over there if you want to follow me — it’s Just Plants, and Plants Only) and I know there are people who’re more intense than me… but I’m definitely above a hobbyist now. Maybe I’m semi-pro? Or semi-pro-pro-pro? Ha.

Here’s part of the other half of my backyard — this is my larger echeveria variant collection — what’s so cool is that these are all just different variations off of the same species of plant. Like all the different breeds of dogs, if you will:

I’ve also got an euphorbia section, a bromeliad section (with a ton of dyckia), a cactus zone, and all of the hanging succulents you might think of. Here’s a fun project I did with a nightstand someone left on the side of the road, I filled it with a string of pearls:

Gardening has been an especially useful hobby in covid times. It’s relatively cheap because I find most of my structural elements roadside, dirt’s cheap, and once you’re tied into the succulent community it’s pretty easy to find people to trade with online, or sellers to buy from. I’m also not afraid to get damaged plants at a discount, etc.

I’d like to claim I’ve got an amazing green thumb, but probably closer to the truth is that I live in zone 9b, which is just incredibly accommodating to succulents. (Although I do place shade cloth over my entire backyard each summer to stop my babies from getting sunburned.)

I really like bigger echeveria, fuzzy echeveria, dark or red ones, and the more crinkly or weird the better — here’s a skew view of my gibbiflora hybrids:

I also have some random aloe and agave — here’s a particularly nice Queen Victoria Regina varigata:

And I have never met an aeonium I didn’t need to immediately buy ;) — here’s a sunburst and a fiesta (with the pink edges. These aren’t rare, but they are pretty.)

Because where I live does have cooler nights, too, I get some really striking variations in my plants — cooler weather stresses succulents, and the results are gorgeous — an echeveria sea dragon and lilac frost:

So, yeah. When I start to lose myself, basically, I go outside. It turns out taking meticulous care of living things that live is very spirit raising!

Y’all know I used to be a burn nurse, and a lot of being a burn nurse is enjoying picking at things — scabs, skin, taking out staples, that sort of ish — and I was telling another nurse at my new job here that one of my favorite things to do is to pick off all the old leaves on my succulents (which is important! It stops them from getting bugs and helps prevent rot!) and she said, “That is the most ex-burn nurse thing I have ever heard,” and laughed.

In closing, here’s the world’s most perfect echeveria orange sherbet (I’m pretty sure I’ve got that on lock):

Coming up on Friday — thoughts about what normal really means for HCW right now.

Until then!

— Cassie