25 Thoughts Today

Because a list is all I can manage.

1. I was complaining to my husband tonight that with all my years of yoga, I still somehow ended up with bum knees, a jacked-up shoulder, and -most recently- a bad lower back! WTF?
2. I picked up my 3 year old 2 days after turning 36 and threw my back out. Niiiiiiiice. That will have been 3 weeks ago this Friday. Mother Effer!
3. It's actually almost better, I think, though. Which I owe mostly to yoga. But I still wish it had prevented the injury rather than help heal it!
4. Spring Break: my husband was off a week. I had kids all 5 days. I had a week off; he was back at work. Blah! I like our vacations to align, please, universe! For the next time, then.
5. Today was the first day all 4 kids were back together after the week off.
6. It. Was Seriously. Adorable.
7. It was in the high 70s and we spent all day outside together.
8. I feel as if I'm finally finding the spot where I'm figuring out exactly how to DO this job REALLY well with the kids. And that makes me love it more and more.
9. Maria Montessori: how do I know so little about her when I've been studying early childhood ed for so long? I don't know, but a wonderful old friend of mine has been sending me info, and I love it! I want to know more, more, more!!!
10. That same dear friend might be moving to Austin, TX. My father-in-law lives in San Antonio. I so want to sit with her and talk about Montessori for hours!!!
11. When I first started thinking about homeschooling, I felt it was really what I had to do for my kids. I hated all the other options, more than I loved homeschooling.
12. But I seem to have turned a corner, where now I'm really looking forward to it for myself!
13. I have a goal, for my professional self.
14. I want to master teaching.
15. By teaching, I mean that I want to master the art of facilitating people to be in flow.
16. I haven't figured out yet how to get anyone to pay me for this pursuit, but that will come in time, I guess!
17. Actually, speaking of flow and money, I think I have a blockage somewhere.
18. It's in my mind, and here's what it says: how much is the minimum I need to make to survive and do what I want to do?
19. And so I only ever make the minimum I need to survive and do what I want to do. Because that's the question I ask.
20. I think somewhere inside me, I believe that I am buying my freedom.
21. With all the money I'm not earning, I am buying those hours back to do what I wish with them. The freedom to exist without the structures, demands, the shape of lucrative employment.
22. Do I believe there can be both money and freedom?
23. That's a good question. 
24. I'd like to say yes. To embrace abundance of money the way I embrace abundance of choices, of ideas, of possibilities, of ways to be right, and ways to be beautiful.
25. But I don't know if I'm there yet.

Schedules Unfolding

The children are all here today. Three are asleep while my oldest plays with wooden trains in the living room. I mopped the dining room and kitchen floors as fast as I could once the kids went down, hoping to find some time to sit here and write, although now that I'm here, a folded towel under my feet that I used to shuffle-slide across the still-wet floor to get to the computer, I can't remember quite what it was I was so anxious to say. I was thinking while I rocked one of the boys to sleep, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star playing quietly in the background, my mind wandering from the room where I sat. I was comparing my house to the classrooms where I've taught in the past, and...

...Oh yes, the unfolding. More about the unfolding. So here goes:

The first thing I would do as a teacher is make a schedule for the day. When I taught preschool, it looked a little something like this:

9-9:30: Arrival; Free breakfast for those who qualify; Free play for others in limited areas of the classroom
9:30-10: Circle Time; Make a plan for free play
10-11: Free Play
11-11:20: Kids meet with teachers in small groups and debrief: talk about how the play plan went (this, incidentally, -the making of, sticking to, and discussing play plans- has been shown to do more for a certain type of early brain development than any other single thing you could do in a classroom. I loved it.)
11:20-12: Outdoor/Gross Motor play and Small Group Activities
12-1: Lunch, followed by Storytime
1-3: Nap/Quiet play/Books for those who wake up

When I taught family literacy, with infants, toddlers and parents, it looked a little something like this:

9-9:10: Arrival
9:10-10:05: GED class 1/Parent and Child Interactive class 1 (half the parents went to GED while the other half stayed with their babies in the classroom)
10:05-11: GED class 2/Parent and Child Interactive class 2 (the groups of parents switched)
11-11:45: Parenting class; Kids with staff
11:45-12: Circle Time; Dismissal

You'll notice the second schedule was more for the parents than the kids. That's because while infants and toddlers need routines, each child will need a slightly different routine. If you have a group of them, a new routine will evolve. Their needs will change as they interact with the others. So I have four children to care for, and it's been six weeks, and we don't have a schedule that fits on paper perfectly yet.

Who do you imagine is the only person in the group who has a problem with that?

If you guessed me, you win the prize! It's a handful of goldfish crackers and a Thomas the Tank Engine sticker. Also, you'll have to swing by and pick it up. I drive a Hyundai Accent and there's no way four carseats are fitting in that sucker.

I like things written out on paper: schedules, to-do lists, projects I'd like to complete around the house, shopping lists, meals planned for the month, developmental checklists with little boxes where the abstract beauty of a child's first word or step can be reassuringly checked off, made concrete, filed in a drawer somewhere, perhaps never to be seen again. Doesn't matter. I just like the making of the lists.

But instead, I keep choosing things like caring for babies and yoga. Things that don't lend themselves to list-making, things that laugh in the face of the best laid plans. Things that unfold. That emerge, half formed, from an interminable period of time where one sits. Sits with discomfort, and simply observes it. Sits with sometimes a rising panic, a screeching JesusFuckingChristJesusFuckingChristJesusFuckingChrist inside one's mind. And why? Because the noodles aren't heating fast enough. Observes the screeching mind and says: it's only noodles, heating in a microwave, and the children are only mildly hungry. it isn't the end of the world. I keep choosing things that demand that I separate my better self from the screeching voice and say aloud, in a calm voice: the noodles are almost ready, my little pumpkins! patience, babies, patience! your food will be here in a moment.

They eat at regular intervals, and their naps are synced up, but the rest of the day -the learning- just won't adapt. Babies demand that the universe adapt to them, which is one reason why I like them so much, if you want to know the truth.

My son just interrupted me. He told me: Mommy, I want my engines to drive on the back of the brown couch! Not on their rails, just on the couch! I could tell he found this most amusing, although I wasn't exactly sure why. Do you want to come and see them? he asked me.

I asked: Can I come and see when I'm finished writing? and I saw his face fall, just a fraction of a millimeter, it's true, but I spotted it. Or can I come and see it real quick right now, and then finish my writing?

Yes! he replied with a giant grin, and he raced into the living room and leapt onto the couch. His engines were lined up and squished between the back of the couch and the seat cushion, and while I'm still not entirely sure why this is even funny, he burst into giggles every time he looked at them. So I did too.

It only took a moment, and that moment meant more to him than another half hour uninterrupted at the keyboard would have meant to me. And yet I yearn for a piece of paper that says: 1:30-2: Writing.

It's the silliest thing, when I can escape the screeching brain and just look at it slantways, out of the corner of my mind's eye, and see it for what it is. It's a way to feel some semblance of control. I keep walking off the edge of whatever cliff I've arranged my life upon, and then lamenting the lack of control in the free fall. It's the silliest thing.

So I'll sit with it, and see what happens. Something always does, eventually.

From My Brain to Your Screen

So I'm a listmaker, and my brain has been brimming with a million ideas for posts that I never quite find the time to make sense of. So I'm just going to spit it all out, bullet-point style (I love bullet points) (yes, I'm totally serious) (bullet points are awesome!), and we'll see what ends up rising from the muddy swamps of my mind.

• I love, love, love being home with my babies. Less than 3 weeks left of maternity leave. I'm not ready to go back to work. At all. But I'm going to, for a couple different reasons: financial/practical (I've wanted to talk for a while about Linda Hirshman and the so-called opt-out revolution; it's playing an ironic role in my own choices right now), the feeling that I'm doing good in the world through my work (is this a spiritual impulse? maybe.), and an overall desire to integrate my family and work life, which I think will mean a lot of hard work for me, but will be so worth it in the end (this is a spiritual impulse).

• And speaking of spiritual impulses, remember when I said I would pray about how to practice spirituality since I'm not particularly religious? Well, I did, and I got an immediate and very clear response. The answer was not particularly surprising; it's something I've thought about for years. And yet, months later, I'm still not doing it. I might need to create some Internet accountability by writing about it here!

• Blogging about blogging: I'm recognizing a certain tendency in my writing to describe things in a vague, stylized manner. It's all well and good, for what it is, but I don't think I know how to write plainly about everyday life, and I want to be better at that. I don't know exactly how, but I'd like to work on it.

• And one reason I want to be better at it is because I want to capture the everyday details of this time with my babies. It's magic; it really is. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever done, and I want to remember every crazy minute of it. So I have to capture some of the stories that describe how we spend our days. This could easily be a series of posts, rather than just one.

• Finally, I might need to mourn the end of my maternity leave, in words. And I might need to give myself a pep talk about returning to work, because I do know it's the decision I'm going to make (I can't say the right decision because there are so many decisions that could be right. This is the best one for where I am right now.). And I do love my job. I could just use a reminder to psyche me up, after I'm done saying goodbye to my (too) short stint as a SAHM.

• And oh yeah, exercise again. I finally made the decision and resigned from my yoga jobby. I'm really committed to figuring out how to give my body what it needs without counting on "going to work" to provide it. It will be a huge challenge for me, but I want to try. I think it would be the very best gift I could give myself.

So these are some of the ideas I've had swimming around in my head. Whaddaya want to hear about? Any requests? Maybe if I know somebody is waiting for a story it will inspire me to sit my sleepy butt down at the keyboard instead of on the couch one of these nights and start writing, sooner rather than later! Any of the above, or something brand new? I'm open to inspiration, universe! Sock it to me!

This is a Boring Post

I hate fitness blogs. Not because I have anything against fitness, obviously, after all, it's my jobby (job/hobby) (more hobby than job these days). But because other people's workouts are boring. Who gives a crap about your workout! I can barely be bothered to keep up with my own!

So consider this fair warning: the title of this post ain't no lie. I'm 'bout to talk about my workout.

Here's the deal:

I read about the 30 Day Shred online, and it seemed to be the general consensus that it was one of the more intense, short, and effective workouts available via DVD. I bought it, and that much was true, but so was this: it wasn't enjoyable at all. At least to me. I'm more of a yoga/pilates girl; jumping jacks just don't motivate me to come back to the workout again and again.

So I stole the format: 2 minute warmup, 3 minutes of strength, 2 minutes of cardio, 1 minute of abs, repeat sequence twice, cooldown. And I replaced her moves with yoga, pilates and dance. I've written about this before, called it the ultimate workout. It's a great workout but it's only been done a handful of times, and mostly exists as a lesson plan on a piece of paper.

Since sometime in early January I've been doing it a few times a week after the kids go to bed, albiet a very gentle version--I do all the moves for the length of time the workout specifies, but I let myself do as much stretching, resting, nursing and other necessary interrupting as I need to throughout the workout. I just try to come back to it until I finish.

Lately, I've been having a hard time motivating myself to do the workout, even though I know it's a guarantee that I will feel great afterwards! What is up with that? I did it tonight for the first time on a few days and --as usual-- feel great. Both physically and it's a better mood lifter than anything else I've ever tried!

So at the end of this boring post, is a boring message to myself: If you're sitting there not doing your workout, for God's sake, get up and do it! You know you're going to feel great! What the heck's the matter with you?

To the rest of you: We will now return to our regularly scheduled mommyblog. Sorry for the interruption of what was, essentially, a PSA to myself. And in case you don't hate fitness blogs, here's my ultimate workout:

Warmup:
2 min: Sun Salutation

Circuit 1:
3 min Strength: Alternate Plank Pose & Warrior I
2 min Cardio: Alternate toe touches/sky reaches & standing Cat/Cow
1 minute Abs: Pilates Hundred

Circuit 2:
3 min Strength: Alternate Revolved Triangle & Warrior II
2 min Cardio: Alternate squat/twist/reach & plie w/side stretches
1 min Abs: varies, today was Pilates Rolling Like A Ball

Circuit 3:
3 min Strength: Alternate Bow Pose and Bridge Pose
2 min Cardio: Repeat each from Circuit 1 & 2
1 min Abs: varies, today was Pilates Single Leg Stretch

Cooldown:
Supposed to be head to toe stretches, but I just do whatever I want here. Usually hanging out in Standing Forward Bend.

Adds up to 20 minutes plus whatever you spend cooling down. I usually do it in more like 30 minutes if I don't stop for the baby (just extra stretching and taking my time getting through it) or 45 minutes if I stop to nurse.

Slowly Scrambling for Balance

I feel as if I have stories to tell, or something to talk about buried somewhere in my brain, but I haven't left the house in days now, and yesterday I held my daughter for six hours straight and my shoulders are sore, and the couch and rocking chair are likely both molded to the shape of my spine.  I breathed her in (the smell of a baby's head is divine) while my son slept in the late afternoon for the first time in what felt like forever, but was probably only weeks.

It's different with this baby. I give her what she needs, but I'm racing between the two of them, and if he's awake all day he seems to need me all day.  Part of that is change, the arrival of his sister and departure of his daily routine, part of it is being stuck indoors so much, and part if it is that since he's not napping, he's getting overtired in the evenings, and therefore more demanding.

I feel as if I get so little of the time I got with my firstborn with this baby: sitting, rocking, nursing, in no hurry at all.  He napped for hours yesterday and I just held her while she ate and slept her day away, and even though my arms and shoulders were all cramped up by the end of the evening, it was nice.  Breathing in the scent of a baby's head is calming, meditative.

And my son was so easygoing after his nap, a pleasant reminder of how he used to act every night when he napped religiously!  I'm going to try and return naptime to the schedule, but I think I have to think of it as quiet time and be willing to end it after an hour if he doesn't fall asleep.  He seems somewhere in the middle of needing and outgrowing it, and I think I'll need to be flexible.

Tomorrow my husband goes back to work; paternity leave is over.  One of my sisters is coming for a few days, so I will still have some help for a few days, and then I'll be on my own.  I'll be honest:  I'm a little terrified. When I only had one and I heard things like: Motherhood is the hardest job in the world, I always thought: Really?  It doesn't seem that bad!

I felt easy, breezy, confident, at least, much of the time.  With two to manage, I get glimpses of how this job might knock you to your knees, or break your heart in half.  But I've been practicing my breathing, doing a little bit of yoga with my boy, having an afternoon cup of tea, breathing in the scent of my girl's scalp, and keeping the clutter up off of the floor.  Amidst these little things, I attempt to find my footing.

Fighting Fire With Prayer and Poetry

Today, before my husband woke up, breakfast was made.  The boy was fed and read to.  The house was cleaned and tidied.  The weekly menu was planned and written on the chalkboard.  The bills were paid and the budgeting was done.  Hot coffee was waiting in the pot.

Shortly after my husband woke up, my body began to whisper, urgently: slow down, slow down.  I heard it.  I acknowledged that it had spoken.  Then I ignored it.  We went to the Farmer's Market, like we do every Saturday, and I asked my son: stroller or walk?  He chose walk, which meant run, and so while my husband poked and prodded the produce and purchased our weekly supply of staples, I morphed from mother to coach (which is especially amusing considering if sports in their entirety disappeared from the face of the earth overnight, it might well be years before I noticed).   

Eyes ahead!  Watch for people!  Follow the white lines!  Okay, slow it down!  No crashing the people!  NO CRASHING THE PEOPLE!!!  We're working on this incredibly specialized sport-specific skill called watching where you're going.  It's handy when sprinting.  He's not quite there yet.  The Saturday Farmer's Market is like a grueling battle against a particularly tough team of rivals.  Multiple times, in order to avoid certain collision, I was required to intervene by tossing my little speed racer up onto my shoulders and containing him there until we passed through a danger zone.

We got in the car to come home, and my body was no longer whispering.  It fairly shrieked:  STOP already!  I listened, mostly.  There was lunchtime to get through, and naptime for the boy, and then I napped.  And woke up with a soreness more suited to a player the day after a bruising game of tackle football than the fat bellied coach I'd spent the morning impersonating.  I tried to relax in the evening, I really did, but after sitting with the television on for two hours and another hour to go until the little one's bedtime I could stand it no longer.  We went out for a walk in the dark.  Up the hill, and down the hill, and up the hill and down the hill, and this is the only way to walk in my neighborhood because we live on a hill.  And have I mentioned how steep that bad boy is?

I am sore, and hurting, and still smarting at the truth of the lecture my husband gave me when I got back inside and collapsed on the couch, about how I have to slow it down, and how I shouldn't be lifting my boy so much.  He's not the first person to tell me this and  I. do. not. want. to. hear. it.  Yes, my shoulders are burning, and my back is throbbing, and I am busy being a stubborn, bitter bitch about it.  You can see how well my yoga instructor skills are serving me now.  Breathe in, breathe out.  Consider being slightly less of a stubborn, bitter bitch, why don't you?  Good, good.  That's the direction in which we need to move, dear.

Below is a poem.  I didn't write it today.  Oh, most certainly not.  I wrote it a number of years ago.  But I probably need to read it today.  Perhaps I need to read it a few times over, repeating lines like an incantation, reminding myself that life is long, and my body is a gift, like my children, including the child my body is so kindly carrying.  And like children who whisper, and are ignored, it will eventually shriek to get my attention.  I would not ignore my children until they were forced to shriek.  I should offer the same courtesy to myself.  And so I will fight the fire in my shoulders and spine, not with harsh words and recrimination, but with prayer and poetry.  Oh, and biofreeze and an ice pack.  Even prayer and poetry appreciate a little practical assistance every once in a while.

WOMAN PRAYER

My body is

this whole world

is my body.

Limbs stretch out like rivers;

fingers, tributaries;

toe-ponds resting at the bottom of

my sand colored skin.

Breasts like mountains,

pink snow capping

nipple buttes.

An explorer looking down could see

a vast prairie of belly,

navel looping down like

a river whirlpool.

My callused heels

are old volcanoes

crusted over with lava,

now layers of igneous rock,

and my back is testy territory,

that fault line spine

running up it.

My thighs are tree trunks

in some ancient forest,

where the sun of love peeks through

to unfold a blossoming flower.

Waking is the shift of the earth’s plates

deep beneath the surface.

Sleeping is the ocean

on a windless night.

Orgasm an earthquake,

Death a gradual erosion of my soil.

Thank-you Lord for giving me this body.

Thank-you Lord for giving me this woman

that is me. 

Second Thoughts

So just hours after I post about how now is not the time for my yoga practice, I go teach my first class in over a month.  And suddenly I remember why I've been fighting for this ever since my son was born, why I hold on so tight.  Something magical happens when I teach a yoga class, and while these next few years may not be the time to focus all my energy on that magic, to help it blossom into whatever it might become given proper time and attention, neither am I really ready to let it go.

I felt ready to let it go, for a combination of reasons.  One of my classes got canceled for the summer, so I was down to just once a week.  Because of our week down South, our beach trip, and my sister's wedding last weekend (which I haven't written about, but really should, because it was beautiful), I had to find subs for nearly half of those weekly classes.  Then, when I returned after missing a few weeks, I found out that one of my subs had never shown, so my class members were upset, and I had another week where no one showed up in protest (not sure if I was back on the schedule and not wanting to take any chances with another potential no-show sub) and I went home without teaching anything.

So I've been out of touch.  Literally.  Out of the touch of my hands and knees to the floor in cat and cow, and out of touch with my breath expanding into my back ribcage in forward bends, and out of touch with where my breath goes easily and where it seems to struggle, and how it feels to stretch my spine in six different directions (forward, back, side, side, twist right, twist left, in case you were wondering).

And out of touch with the dim light of a studio in the evening, the day's last rays of sun slipping in between tall brick columns to filter through old windows in an old brick building in the heart of downtown where I walk past unwashed men digging bottles and cans out of city garbage pails to redeem nickels for the booze they hope will redeem them.  Where I wave to the Pakistani parking garage toll booth operator, and sometimes stop to talk with him, though I know not his name, nor he mine.  Where I pass the bar best known for beer and beef on wick, the first bar I ever visited in this city, years before it was my own, visiting a friend who attended graduate school here, and that never fails to alight a quick thought about the pleasures of beer and beef on wick before I quickly remember that I have both a baby in my belly and a toddler at home, neither of whom are particularly on board with Mama and Daddy doing nothing but drinking beer and eating beef sandwiches for the next hour or so.  Where the old man who's been attending my yoga classes for years now always waits outside the studio door and greets me with a smile and a story of his new granddaughter, born premature, but doing better each time I see him.  Out of touch with all these things that I have made my own over the past six years, and which I'm not quite ready to walk away from entirely.

So yoga and I, we'll be those friends who can't find the time to catch up as often as we'd like, but stay in touch just enough to keep the friendship alive during long patches of busy, bustling lives full of other obligations.  We'll be a marriage where we slip past one another as we hurry-scurry about, not quite able to remember what we used to talk about for hours, but once a week we'll reach for one another under the sheets, and for the time being, that will have to be enough.  It will be tiny corner that I keep swept up, even while the rest of my life is a messy blur of chaos, one little place for myself that perhaps has no space to expand, but that I don't fully abandon either.  It will be a room of my own.  Even if I very rarely visit.

The Ultimate Workout Goes Frankenstein on My Sore Ass

So I suckered one of my yoga classes into being guinea pigs for my ultimate workout.  They're a group of  middle aged women, and we've been working out together for over five years.  I talked it up, emphasizing the yoga-pilates connection, and de-emphasizing the ultimate ass-kicking part of things, and then let them vote on whether or not we would try it.  It was a unanimous yes.  Bwa ha ha!  I laughed to myself  My evil plot will prevail!  I will get paid to bust my ass into shape!  These women don't know what they're in for!

I came home and typed up a lesson plan, compared muscle groups used in strength training versus yoga moves to ensure a full-body workout, found a suitable musical selection.  Pretty much everything short of actually doing the workout myself.

The following week we did the workout.  They loved it!

I was sore for three days and wanted to die.

The middle aged women reported no soreness, and unanimously voted to continue doing the ultimate workout at every class from now on.  Oh, in the name of God! I have created a monster and it will destroy me!

Listening To My Body: Update

So, remember when I decided I'd choose listening to my body for my New Year's Intention?

What I failed to account for is that my body is generally a whiny bitch, and really, who wants to listen to that all the time?  She's all:

My shoooouuuulder hurts!  I'm tiiiiired!  I don't feeeeeeel like it!  But goldfish crackers taste yuuuuummmmmmyyyyy!  I want mooooorrrre!  I need a naaaap!

And then I finally take her out on a good, long workout, and she turns all militant on my ass:

You know you need to work out every day!  This is what you NEED, girl.  Now figure out a way to get out here EVERY DAY!  No excuses!  Make it happen!  Do I need to set the alarm for some ungodly hour, or are you gonna do this thing?  You'd better get with the program!

And next thing you know I'm e-mailing my boss offering to teach my very own, self-created, yoga-pilates, boot-camp, 30 Day Shred knock-off, hybrid workout at 5:45am. (I told you I would plan the ultimate workout someday!  And I did!  But actually doing it on the regular is a whole 'nother thang.  And, sadly, it don't seem to be my thang!)

Fortunately (for my sanity at 5am, not for my second chin), the boss turned me down, since no one else in their right mind wants to work out before 6:30am, which is therefore the earliest class she offers, but that's too late for me since the hubby leaves for work at 6:45am (I know!  Early morning bus duty.) and I don't have child care until I go into my teaching job at 8.  So, alas, no getting both paid and forced to complete the ultimate workout.

I think the problem here is that I only really enjoy two forms of working out: 1) taking super long walks or hikes, and 2) teaching exercise classes.  This would be fine if I had the time to do either of the above every day.  But I dropped my daily fitness class down to twice a week because it cut into our family time to the point where it felt like we had none at all.  And ditto for long walks because: a) my husband is not really into super long walks or hikes, especially daily, and b) my son is not really into sitting in a stroller or a backpack for super long periods of time; he wants to get out and play while you meander around him at a much-lower-than-prime-fat-burning-target-heart-rate speed.  Or, in my case, chill on the nearest bench.

And I have come to accept that I am never going to consistently do things I don't enjoy (like doing my very own ultimate workout all by my lonesome each day in my living room, rather than reading my library book all curled up on the couch) just because I ought to do them.  Life's too short; I'm too lazy; call it what you will.  It ain't gonna change, so I'm gonna to have to work around it.

My new plan:  I'm going to try taking the jogging stroller to a long, flat trail along the Erie Canal, right at naptime, and see if the toddler will sleep while I push him and walk for two hours.  Obviously, I won't do this every day, but if I do it once a week, and then leave my husband at home with the babe once a week while I do a quickie 45 minute hill-walking session in the 'hood, and then maybe once a week we all go hiking together and I wear the kid, that plus my yoga classes would be a good workout week.

Seriously, I am super lazy, and will therefore only ever do workouts I really enjoy or am being paid to do, but at the same time I've been spoiled by years of being paid to work out ten to twenty hours a week, and now I realize I am addicted to working out regularly and need it to be happy and feel balanced in my life.

And it has been a struggle since my son was born to make it happen.  Except for my maternity leave, which was July through October, and the only thing I planned to do each day was hang with the baby and take a super long walk.  Ahhh, I remember it so fondly!  I even jogged!  And liked it!  Clearly, the post-partum hormones were making me crazy.  But what a nice crazy it was!  I could use some of that crazy 'round these parts, on a more lasting basis.  But I think I need to have to have hours upon hours of unoccupied time before I get crazy enough to try jogging, and I kinda need the paycheck my job only seems to want to provide when I show up there each day and, y'know, work.  Selfish, greedy job.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go NOT eat some delicious goldfish crackers that my body, that same devious bitch I resolved to listen to, is telling me she reeeeaaaallllyyyy wants.  I might need to smack my own hand on it's way to the box to get the message through, but if I have to listen to my body all year long, then dammit, shouldn't she have to listen to me too?  Pssst.....Just because it says whole grain on the box does not mean those things are healthy, body!  This is one of those times you need to get with the brain, hon!

Pondering Yoga and God

In yoga, as in life, the breath is fundamental.

Always the breath, and always stretching in two opposing directions at the same time: up through the crown of the head, and down through the base of the spine, and the soles of the feet.

I'm drawn to the idea that truth is simple. I'm drawn to it, but I'm not entirely sure I buy it. Truth can, in fact, be incredibly complex.

I've long held a theory that if I had the time, inclination and ability to study all the world's religions and spiritual practices, I would discover common elements, and of these commonalities, create my own sacred narrative.

In fact, I'm far too ordinary to undertake such a task. It would be the work of a lifetime, and will likely not be the work of mine. The best I can do is that truth is both simple and complex at the same time. That either/or is never as rich as both/and.

In the meantime, the simple things (for me): breathe, walk, detach, and love the ones I have before me to love. And the complex things (for me): be present, attentive to my senses, and discern with whatever semblance of wisdom I can muster what detachment means in the patterns of the evenings and the shadows of each morning sun.

I can be grateful for what comes easy, and I can try, again and again, to do better where I struggle. See? Simple. And at the same time, so complex. Always stretching in two opposing directions at the same time.

But if all of that becomes too much to remember, just remember to breathe. That's the most important thing.

Snowclimbing: Proof I'm Not Always Lazy

We had our second snow day in a row, and I worked out yesterday, hard.  First thing in the morning, I created a snow hill in our backyard, out of heavy, wet snow, by stomping my feet a million tiny times in big, heavy boots to bat it down into submission, and then took my son sledding.  (Mommy, I want wheee!  I want wheee, Mommy!)

When he tired of this we made our way out to the front of the house and played in the empty street since the sidewalks weren't clear and no one was driving on our block anyway.  I chased him down the steep hill of our street and around the corner, then carried him back up, only to chase him back down the hill again as soon as his little feet touched the ground.  We repeated this a number of times.  (I want down, Mommy!  Down!  Hehehehe! ..... Uh-oh!  Up, Mommy, up!  I want up!  Whaaahhh!)

Then in the afternoon, while the boy was napping, I decided to take a walk.  My husband was home; the sun was shining and there was a mid-day break in the falling snow, so I went out for an hour walk, and climbed as many steep hills as I came across, which was quite a few; my neighborhood is very hilly.  I also called the hubs on my cell while walking to tell him I had invented a new winter sport: snowclimbing.  When you end up at a park you thought would be plowed, and it isn't plowed, and so you climb up the hill by clomping through knee-deep snow, trying to step into the existing pattern of footprints, and laughing at your own idiocy?  Snowclimbing!  Don't try to steal it.  My husband and sister both seemed unimpressed, but I'm pretty sure that's because they're secretly plotting to steal it.

It was such a relief to be in my body again; winter is hard on the spirit, but I think it's harder because I don't move as often, or as hard, as I need to, and in Central New York we sometimes go weeks without seeing the sun.  I simply can't force myself to do a Jillian Michaels workout regularly, no matter how effective, as a substitute for being outdoors: walking, hiking, or even just playing: moving the way my body was made to move.  The 30 Day Shred is an effective 25 minute fitness routine, but it's no substitute for joy.  Lunging up a hill in hiking boots, toward a panoramic view of the the downtown cityscape, or pulling my toddler in a red sleigh while the sun glints off the wet, white snow and his laughter competes with the cawing of crows: is joyful.  My muscles move, and my heart rate soars, but these aren't the point.  The point is joy.  Three minutes of strength, two minutes of cardio, one minute of abs, all in the middle of my messy living room?  Not what I'd call joy.  *Ahem*   More like the inner circle of hell.

Movement, though?  Fast enough to steal my breath, hard enough to make my muscles ache under the poetry of the clouds and the seldom seen sun reflecting off the thin layer of ice forming on the top of the pile of snow that gave me two days off in a row?  I need it.  Like air, like fucking water.  Spring, my dear, sweet friend?  How long until you grace us with your presence?  And how many years until my budget can accommodate skis or snowshoes for the whole family?  In the meantime, folks, keep your eyes peeled: snowclimbing!  Wander off in the winter like an uninformed fool; end up with a challenge worthy of the winter Olympics!*  It's the next big thing!* 

*Okay, maybe not.  On both counts.  Hey, man, it's winter!  We're broke!  I don't have a hell of a lot to offer, and you're damn lucky I came up with snowclimbing.  Count your blessings, and chill.  Or try snowclimbing!  What do you have to lose?  (Dignity not included.  Nor are any digits potentially lost to frostbite.  Invitation to snowclimb purely hypothetical; all liability risks assumed by snowclimbee.  Happy snowclimbing!)

Ooowww, You Guys, My Shooouuulllderrrsss!

I want to complain to you, my little bloglet readers.  In a very whiney voice.  The type of super annoying whiney voice no one in real life wants to hear, and so it can only be shared via the internet where people have the option of that little X at the top of the screen to tell me to shut it without hurting my poor little whiney feelings.  So here's what I'm sayin':  Ooowww, you guys, my shoulders hurt reeeaaalllyyy bad!  Ooowww!  I haaate it! 

Okay, so we've already established that I'm mad lazy, right?  I prefer to chill, sitting and reading, or staring out the window with a nice, steaming mug of caffeinated beverage before attempting arduous physical tasks such as light tidying or returning items to the library drop-box.  The only unpaid workouts I attempt are long neighborhood walks in nice weather, and my paid workouts have been cut down to twice a week yoga with the senior set.  My own mother laughs hysterically at the fact that I even became a fitness instructor.  It doesn't gibe at all with my childhood persona: cute lil' chubby ol' couch potato.

So, seriously, what are the chances that I, of all people, would injure myself while strength training?

And yet, I did.  I tried to copy some move I saw on a fitness video back in the spring of oh-seven, and then suddenly it hurt to lift my arm above my head to wash my hair in the shower.  And because I'm stubborn like that, I kept teaching fitness classes twenty hours a week at one job, and lifting babies twenty hours a week at the other job until I was in such terrible pain on a regular basis that I acquiesed to wearing the embarassing sling my husband brought home from the drugstore and insisted I should sport in public until my shoulder healed.

Only, it didn't heal, at least not on it's own.  Eventually I got health insurance and then physical therapy (conveniently sidestepping that whole "pre-existing condition" thing with deliberate vaguaries about when the injury occurred), and after six months of PT it still hurt sometimes and they told me there was nothing more I could do except live with it, unless I wanted to consult a specialist and consider surgery.  At that point I was in my third trimester of pregnancy and the pain wasn't terrible, and so I lived with it, and over time it mostly went away.  Mostly.

Until this past fall, when the pain came back with a vengeance.  So now I've been to a specialist who offered me a cortisone shot, which I am scheduled to recieve this Friday.  But in the meantime I've been lifting my son (who's most definitely in the running for cute lil' chubby ol' couch potato number two) with my good shoulder, until my good shoulder suddenly rebelled at all the attention my bad shoulder was receiving, jumped ship, and is now in the running for poor lil' owie, owie injured shoulder number two. 

And so:  Ooowww, you guys, my shoulders hurt reeeaaalllyyy bad! Ooowww! I haaate it!

I'll let you know if the cortisone shot does the trick.  I have a terrible feeling that I'm going to have to have to take responsibility for my own stupid body and learn all about the whole stupid shoulder joint and the whole stupid rotator cuff and then be all proactive in the future about preventing further injury and building strength around the joint and all that crap.  Ugh!  My seniors at yoga tell  me all the time:  Getting old sucks.  Don't do it.  I assured them I wouldn't, and now look at me: going back on my word!  So, see, I have to whine!  If my shoulders are acting 65, my attitude needs to be 1 in order to average out to 33, and keep me at my real age.  I'm going to be 34 next month, so expect me to grow out of whining like a 1 year old and into.....well, whining like a 3 year old.  Good times ahead!

I Intend to Wake Every Day, and Try

Over a month late, and I'm going with Intentions, rather than resolutions this year.  I like the idea of intending rather than resolving.  Resolving is rigid, and I need to work on real rather than rigid, right now.  Intending leaves room to wander and grow in directions unexpected.  If you resolve to go west, it sounds like you'd better jump on the interstate and drive directly to the coast of California, stat.  If you intend to go west, it's perfectly okay to stop in Kansas and spend a week sleeping in a field of wheat, before renegotiating, ducking down to Mexico for a long weekend of Corona, chips and salsa, then wandering westward via random rivers and valleys, images glimpsed in dreams and meandering paths where footsteps crunch echoes in fallen leaves, sounding patterns like the drumbeat of your own torn, healing, human heart.

I usually make plans like I'm outlining a thesis, a hierarchy of details like white lies on a resume or stitches in a little black dress designed to disguise that belly you earned when your abdomen was sliced open to bare both your organs and the baby that failed to fit through your pelvis for whatever reason on that long-awaited, exhausting day, but never, ever failed to bare, break, and then rebuild your heart into something more whole than it had ever been before.  This year I want to rip my thesis into pieces and declare I have nothing to prove; write a resume of the ugliest truths and then celebrate every sad soul who's been fired in this latest, Great Recession of the American soul, spirit, or fake-Prada pocketbook; bare my cesarean scar in the moonlight and howl like a wolf in heat.  This year I want to work harder than I ever have before, just to sit still.

I intend:

To Be Present

• in the moment; in the choices I've made in all the years leading to this moment; in the scent of my baby's head and the feel of my husband's scratchy, stubbly cheek in the shadows of early evening; in the chores I perform every day as a promise to our home that it can be beautiful as a catalog with thrift store furniture and wildflowers stolen from a stranger's yard; in the eyes of my students, studying the art of parenting in poverty, as they rip open their hearts, lay them bare on conference room tables, wipe away tears and promise to try to do better tomorrow; the promise to try is lived again and again in each moment; to breathe in and breathe out; to be here, wide eyed, marveling at the moment that is now, that is always; to live like a prayer with four words: please and thank you. 

To Listen to my Body

•  when it says sit; and when it says stretch; and when it says I Hate You and I smile, wry and knowing, like the mother of a Terrible Two or a Teen who needs firm limits and flexibility in equal, opposite measures; when it says sleep, and sleep, and sleep; and when it says get up, stand up, and dance like The Dead are still living and you're at the last live show; like Bob Marley has reincarnated in your limbs and you can dance your way out from under the endless white blanket of upstate snow and open your eyes in Jamaica if only you tune in to the drumbeat of your heart, of your feet tapping out the rhythm of ghetto break beats and the open arms of grandmothers raising babies of their babies who have gone missing into the bottom of a bottle, or slipped silently out into dark city streets and who may or may not ever return; when it says eat ice cream until the carton is empty and wear elastic waistbands; when it says take off all your clothes and stare in the mirror at the wrinkles in your skin, open both arms wide, embrace yourself, and smile.

To Consciously Seek to Cultivate Joy

•  in the morning when the clock beeps high and toneless in my tired ears, when my son chants: MommyMommyMommyMommy like a broken record skipping its way into my soul, like a scat sung by Ella Fitzgerald herself; in the dusky morning peanut butter sandwich making moments and the whistle of the tea kettle on the weekday dawn; in the Friday evening exhaustion of piecing together pizza pies, surrounded by dishes, piled high, too tired to wash and dry by the end of a long winter workweek, too easy to slip into the weekend like an old pair of sweats, fresh not from the laundry, but from the dirty pile on the floor; in the sunlight streaming through bay windows on weekends, sitting on couches, coffee mugs in hand, days dusty with possibilities unrealized, and waiting to open, like a flower bud finally blooming in the long awaited springtime of the universal soul.  I intend to wake every day, and try.  Like a poem that almost rhymes.  Like the perfect, elusive word to complete the piece, waiting to be spoken, right on the tip of my tongue.

Those Who Can Teach, Teach, Motherf*cker; It's a Skill!

So, like always, I totally didn't feel like going to teach my yoga class yesterday.  This is exactly why I keep that job:  I will never feel like going to a class on my own.  I will almost never feel like exercising, although I do enjoy going for a walk whenever the stars align in such a way that conditions are perfect, meaning I'll go for a dozen or so walks in a year, living in the tundra of upstate NY, which is really no kinda fitness plan for life, you see what I mean?  So my ass needs to get paid to work out.  And I do.  Hence, the yoga class I totally didn't feel like going to.  But went to, nonetheless, because paid employment is motivational.

And then I rocked that shit out like I'm Elvis and you're some white chick in the 50s with a secret thing for black dudes that you can never, ever mention to your parents, just waiting for a white dude who seems kinda black to rear his biracial soul, or I'm organic frozen meals and you're trying to hang with the suburban mom crowd, but you hate to cook and have nothing to serve the children at at a lunchtime playdate, or I'm patchouli and you're desperate to cover the pot smell, or you're a toddler and I'm the very essence of DOIN' IT MYSELF, or maybe I'm even God and you've been searching scripture and meditating with monks and giving all your worldly goods to the Salvation Army for so long without spiritual enlightenment that you're beginning to doubt the existence of your owndamnself, and then

BAM!

That's how my yoga class went.

And then for some reason, on the drive home, I started thinking about that saying:  Those Who Can't, Teach.

And suddenly it chapped my ass, something serious.  Now, I'm no yogi, and I won't claim to be.  (I mean, I guess I'm no Elvis, God, or patchouli incense stick either, but apparently, sometimes I will claim to be.  It goes to show you never can tell.)  But what's with the assumption that it's somehow superior to be a yogi than to be a yoga teacher?

Teaching is a skill, and a gift.  No greater, and no less than any other skill or gift.  Observing, assessing, strategizing, attempting, failing, reassessing, empathizing, imagining, reattempting, connecting, soaring, reflecting, comparing, contrasting, documenting, organizing, preparing, beginning again.  It's an art.

And so, to the notion that those who can't create on their own, choose instead to teach, I say:  Fuck you.  I am not an artist of my own soul;  I am an artist of the collective soul.  You tap into your shit;  I'll tap into mine.  I'm not sittin' here talkin' about how jacked up you tend to be (ahem, cutting off your own ear, Van Gogh!), so feel free to keep it to yourself how inferior you find teaching.

Or we could go ahead and acknowledge the inherent connections and contradictions between creating and maintaining, between self and others, between being, thinking and feeling, truth and narrative, thought and action, between who we are and who we think we are.  But, Jesus, then I can't just up and tell you that you're a fuckwad for failing to recognize that teaching is an art, in and of itself.  And I would so like to tell you that.

But then again, it's not the sort of art that typically inspires one to cut off one's own ear, and here I am with both my ears and my sanity mostly intact, so maybe I'm the one who should STFU, and leave it at: those who are thinking of cutting off their ears, should really seek mental health services.  And consider teaching: the summers off and health benefit packages are super helpful!  I bet you could get your ear sewn back on with almost no copay, and then have all of July and August to rest up.  Assuming you cut your ear off in late June.  Really, that's the only way it's going to work out for you, time-management-wise.  If you'd like to discuss it in more detail, let me know.  I'm an excellent planner.

And also:  I'm open to delving into the art inherent in connecting to the soul of another person, and the practice of seeing the world through one another's eyes.  Or teaching.  Whatever you want to call it.  I like to think of it this way: with teaching, art and health care come together like a juicy steak and a rich red wine.  Why have just one when you could have them both?  Teaching is not only a skill, a gift, an art.  It's a motherfucking full course meal.

Let Go and Let ?

A prenatal vitamin becomes a bitter pill to swallow on the morning your period arrives, unwanted.

Slightly less bitter is the knowledge that I am not, in fact, a psychic.  I suppose I can live with this, despite that it places my chances of lottery winnings and their accompanying life of leisure back at the end of the line of likelihood, somewhere behind that lightening bolt just waiting to strike.  Good thing I like my day job.

What I don't like is wondering why the hell my breasts have been so sore and achy that it's painful to hold my son, why I've been nauseous every time I go a few hours without eating, starving soon after finishing a meal, and so tired after a full night's sleep that my desk at work was beckoning like a pillow cased in 1500 thread count Egyptian cotton yesterday afternoon.  It is not at all typical for me to have any of these as premenstrual symptoms; I just get cramps.  Cramps I awoke with this morning, and knew before I even got out of bed and really knew, that my body was not in the state I was hoping it was.

I agreed to teach a Saturday morning restorative yoga class for National Yoga Day today.  I was not in the mood to do it once the day actually arrived, but I had committed, and so I followed through.  And as I lay on the mat, inhaling and exhaling deeply into my lower belly, into my empty womb, I tried to take my own instruction, tried to do what I was telling my students to do: inhale peace, energy, joy, relaxation; exhale stress, tension, worry, negativity.

Inhale hope; exhale despair.
Inhale the present; exhale the past and the future.
Inhale acceptance; exhale resistance.
Inhale what it is; exhale what I want it to be.
Inhale surrender; exhale control.
Inhale Que Sera Sera; exhale My Way or the Highway.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the phrase:  Let Go and Let God.  What does this phrase mean when God is unclear?  How do you Let Go and Let.....an amorphous blend of schoolgirl Catholicism; New Age nonsense that sometimes, somehow resonates; pieces of Pagan nature worship that hit me like falling leaves, or snowflakes; a deep faith in my own fully fallible Intuition; and the way Art reaches into my chest and clutches my heart with its sharp, ragged claws on random, unsought occasions?

Everything is sacred; everything is profane.

And somewhere: dancing in heaven or waiting for my intentions to align with the stars, or my deepest desires to be sung in the perfect pitch or painted on some clean canvas where egg and sperm explode into spirit: there: is my baby, waiting patiently, while I inhale and exhale, which is all there really is to do, right now, today, anyway.