Rah-rah-rah's

I  was watching an episode of Dear White People in which the black dean was telling a black student how he coped with being one of the few black faces on an ivy league campus in his time. His coping mechanism--rah-rah-rah's, as he called it--was hanging out a lot at a nearby restaurant run by Cape Verdeans. That got me thinking about my own rah-rah-rah's (I wish I got the reference). Mine are definitely yoga and blogging, and talking to a friend I met just last year but who I feel I have known for ages. But mostly, yoga and blogging. Yoga helps me relax and "come back into my body" as I spend most of the day in my head. I have a home yoga routine as well as a weekly class. The people in the weekly class are not very friendly and I don't even know anyone else's name, even though I have been going for almost three months. But the class is so good that it is worth feeling like a fish out of water before and after. And, blogging, of course, is the close friend I don't have in Bristol. Every evening after dinner, I blather on my blog. If I may so, I am doing a pretty good job of keeping it reflective but not explicitly therapeutic. And blogging has become as habitual as brushing my teeth.  As the great philosopher Simmel said, writing/vocalizing your feelings takes the edge off them. And, this may sound pretentious but I feel like I have a lot to offer to the world and that my blog is a vehicle for my offerings. Even if the world doesn't give two hoots about my offerings. Even if there is not conversation, there is the potential for a conversation. I am speaking to someone when I blog, although I don't know who that is.
A friend of mine is struggling at the moment. I hope she finds her rah-rah-rah's. Our rah-rah-rah's make us feel whole again after the world has taken chips out of us. You can do all you can to get out of your hole and you may succeed, but staying out of  the whole is difficult without rah-rah-rah's. Most of us have them (some without realizing), and we all need them. But, they are more than a coping mechanism, they are also an expression of what is best and brightest in us. I blog and do yoga when I am happy,  when I am sad, when I am anxious, when I am excited.