December 11, 2013
I handed Honey a heart-shaped Newman’s Own Organic Peanut Butter Premium Dog Treat. I’ve never seen such a lack of enthusiasm in my life! Whereas Chico leaped up and swiped his out of my hand with all the Chihuahua gratitude his spirit could muster. So then, of course, Honey reluctantly nibbled her rejected biscuit, rather than let Chico nab it . . . — in Ojai, CA.
Honey
You’d think, with all that warming up, that when I went to lie down on the floor, pushing up into Upside Down Bow Pose would be a piece of cake. But no, even with my wrists elevated on blocks against the wall (a yoga trick that worked for decades), my body still didn’t lift itself. I could have forced my way up, but at this stage of life I can’t risk injury.
If only I’d had a teacher standing behind my head who would let me put my hands on her feet or hold her sturdy ankles (which is what I do for my students to elevate their wrists and hands, which helps to open their shoulders).
My motivation to once again enjoy Urdhva Dhanurasana without injury is at an all-time high. So I began experimenting with not only lying back over a chair (with a firmly rolled yoga blanket at various spots in my back to further remove stiffness in spine and ribs) but with a chair facing me so I could grasp its front legs.
My first attempt was a failure, as the second chair was wobbly. So I braced the second chair against the wall and weighed it down with four ten-pound sandbags.
Then, by golly, I sat backwards on the seat of the first chair, went back slowly, first holding the back of the chair, opening my chest and anchoring my feet as I slowly bent backward, then I reached back with my arms, firmly held the front rungs of the second chair, and EASILY lifted my back high off the chair seat into the most victorious, confident, heart-opening, exhilarating backbend I’ve done in a long, long time.
I know that if I keep practicing patiently with strategically arranged bolsters, wall ropes, chairs, and keep lying back over various back benders, that the day will come when I can once more press up from the floor without help as I did in my younger years. And, in the meantime, I’m enjoying all the benefits!
I promise to get a modern phone and take pictures of my prop set ups. To learn more, besides my own books for people at midlife and older, I highly recommend THE WOMAN’S YOGA BOOK, by Bobby Clennell (which shows many of the prop set ups I use in my practice). And Google, “yoga with wall ropes.”
Namaste!
Photo Credit: Cathy Snyder — in Ojai, CA.
Chico sits shivering at my feet, wearing a warm yellow turtle neck sweater. Honey, as usual, is frolicking in total bliss. She drank some rainwater from the first hopeful puddles . . . if it rains more, we’ll be sloshing through running water and hopping from rock to rock.
The wind is kicking up; now it’s making a sound I haven’t heard for ages, a low hum like a wind instrument. It’s blowing harder and harder, and feels so good on my face. All the leaves are shimmering in the late afternoon light. The dry brush all over the river bottom landscape looks like it’s leaning forward, barely hanging on by it’s roots . . . Every plant is moving, except the cactus. No matter how hard the wind blows, the prickly cactus stands still . . .
My dad still tells stories about how we walked and rode our bikes everywhere in Holland, through rain, sleet, and snow. When he rode several miles to his office, he lined his pants and jacket with newspapers to keep out the chill. “You people are so soft, Suzanne,” he scoffs if I mention the cold weather. “You don’t know what cold is!”
(Photo of my mother riding her bicycle)
— in The Hague, Netherlands.
December 7, 2013
I just took a shower–and a good naked look in the mirror. And I’m thinking, “Should I sue Farmer and the Cook for the weight I’ve gained back after that three-week juice fast two years ago?”
When I’m standing in line at Vons, I’m never tempted to buy KitKat bars or Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. But, for some reason, when I’m waiting around at the Farmer, with my basket filled with cucumbers, carrots, oranges, fresh hummus, containers of fresh vegan corn, tomato, or squash soup, Mary’s Gone Crackers, and other good intentions, by the time it’s my turn at the register I’ve weakened and I hear myself telling the incredibly young, slim, vital-looking checker to please get me an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, a banana walnut muffin, a couple of birdseed cookies, and a raw mango pastry out of the glass bakery case so strategically placed within arm’s reach of the register.
I tell myself I’ll nibble these treats as a reward while I’m writing, but when I woke up this morning, the cookies and muffins I bought at 6:00 p.m. last night were nowhere to be found. Except around my waist.
Among the many fatal errors I made this year was not having a full-length mirror in the bathroom. I do get an occasional glimpse of myself in the mirrored wall at Sacred Space Studio when I teach–and for a split second I wonder who is that chunky old woman–but then my eyes focus back on my students who mercifully (for the most part) love me just as I am.
But, I kid you not: there is a tactless woman in a class immediately after one of mine who, week after week, flat-out tells me, “Why’d you let yourself get so fat again? You were looking so good after that juice fast!” She repeats this every time we cross paths, like a broken record, and makes me want to tell her, “I’d rather be fat than a skinny bitch like you!”
I just smile enigmatically and say nothing. It would take too long to explain the complexities of my psyche and life situation.
Last week, when she asked me for the umpteenth time why I’ve gained so much weight, I laughingly replied, “I knew you were going to say that!” Then she gave me the nicest smile and said, “I don’t know why I give you such a hard time!”
I blame it all on moving back to the river bottom in Meiners Oaks, with the Farmer and the Cook conveniently located on my route home. The magnetic pull of their sesame seed birdfeeder cookies with that generous dollop of strawberry jam in the center is stronger than my desire to be slim.
At least for now. Things can change on a dime.
I turn around and lean back over a boulder whose shape is perfect for looking up at the sky. At first the barely light sky looks empty, but then I notice the black shapes of formations of birds speeding overhead–perfectly aligned groups of five or more, sometimes a row of three . . . and a few lone birds aiming to catch up. I can see the white flecks on their wings, and they keep coming and coming . . . I sit up and try to see if they land nearby, but they vanish in the air.
For a moment the evening silence is broken by an airplane, buzzing like a foreign monster overhead. This triggers a deep-time memory . . . my ancient, primitive brain remembers the past–the long-ago past beyond this brief flicker of a lifetime . . . and something in me also has an imaginary inkling of the future.
Saturday night, November 23, 2013
I was in my nice warm bed, burrowing deep under the covers, my weary head sinking into the pillow, cats sacked out on top of the comforter, dogs crashed out on the floor–every body settled in for the night and accounted for. Just as I was fading away, in the stillness of the house, I distinctly heard running water, like a faucet trickling, followed by the sound of water splashing. It lasted only a few seconds, but long enough that I wondered, “What could that be?”
I couldn’t fall asleep, and, since I knew I’d have to fly out of the house at dawn, I thought I’d get up and do my ablutions early. As I was about to step into the shower, I noticed that the cat’s water bowl that sits near the shower was all yellow and filled to the brim. And then I remembered that odd running water sound I’d heard. Chico, out of consideration for his mistress, had thoughtfully peed into the water bowl instead of on the floor, where I might have stepped in it. I had to hand it to him–his aim was perfect!
My big treat two or three times a week is slinking into Farmer and the Cook and filling my African grass basket with avocados, oranges, bananas, soy creamer, cucumbers, hummus, soup (if it’s ready), chocolate chip muffins (I’m eating one right now), and whatever other goodies from their bakery case that I have cash for.
As I stood filling up a cup of coffee, I noticed an exceptionally slim, beautiful young woman talking to an older woman friend. The writer in me caught parts of their conversation: “Be sure to smudge the house with sage . . .” I had the impression the older woman was advising and consoling the younger one on matters of the heart, and I was close enough so that when I reached for the soy creamer and looked up I saw tears flowing down the younger woman’s flawless face.
I wish it were as easy as lighting candles and smudging the house with sage. Seeing the two of them talking and then hugging, I remembered how, for years and years, back when I was young and skinny, I’d pour my heart out to my older women friends. They were so patient with me, even as they rolled their eyes and tried to talk sense into me. But I had to learn the hard way–through experience.
Seeing this woman’s tears reminded me of the worst-ever breakup, with a sweet man I was hopelessly addicted to. I should have figured it out on our first date when he snorted “nose candy,” and those times when he snuck Ecstasy (still legal back then) into my orange juice, but it took a good long decade before I emerged from that river of denial. When he finally left, I didn’t think to smudge our house with sage. But, after sobbing for three days, comforted by my black potbellied pig, Rosie (who slept beside me on a blanket), and my dear white miniature poodle, Muffy, I had the sense to open all the doors and windows and let the fresh air and sunlight in.
To help me recover from the shock and disappointment of the breakup, my pre-teen daughter surprised me with a gift of two tame rabbits. They made me laugh through my tears. After playing with them outside on the grass, and not wanting to confine them to a cage, I had the brilliant idea to convert my bedroom into a rabbit room. This was something I could probably never have done if I still had a husband!
So I got rid of his dresser, our giant marital bed, the romantic lights, the decorations from India–all the stuff we had bought together through the years–and schlepped a bale of sweet smelling alfalfa hay into the house, a few sections at a time, until the entire hardwood floor looked like barn flooring, covered in hay. The energy of maleness, sex, and painful breakups flew out the window, and was replaced by two same-sex rabbits cavorting innocently about.
My daughter, her friends, and the kids next door quickly discovered that rabbits, like kittens, love to run through tunnels, play hide-and-seek, and hop over boxes and other obstacles. Soon the bedroom became a bona fide rabbit playground. With no man in the house to manage me, I embraced my inner Pippy Longstocking–my favorite childhood heroine who lived carefree, independent with no parents and kept her horse, monkey, and other animals in the house. In the weeks after that painful breakup, I no longer cared what the house looked like. Hay spilled from the bedroom into the hallway, and the rabbits nibbled at my toes . . .
The wild wind sweeps through the river bottom . . . Honey is crazy with joy, and her canine exuberance is contagious! She runs with the wind like a whirling dog-dervish. She dances and prances and follows a thousand invisible scents. Little Chico scrambles to keep up. His whole Chihuahua being trembles with excitement! For a moment the wind is so intense that it kicks up the dry dirt and we pass through a cloud of dust. I’m aware that wind can blind us, can destroy all in its path. But here, so far, it’s a joyous, cleansing, healing wind that just blows the past right out of you and lifts you into the present . . .
What advice would you give to an aspiring author?
Read. Read everything you can get your hands on. Read it intelligently. Break it down. Try to figure out how the writer has made you feel the way you feel. Anyone who doesn’t read doesn’t have any business writing. –Ann Patchett
I’m so relieved to hear Ann Patchett say this, even though I’ve heard it many times before, because I’ve probably read more than a hundred memoirs in the years since I’ve started scheming my own. And lately I’m reading books pilfered from my son-in-law’s bookshelf, books I would normally snub my nose at, because all this reading of books I gravitate toward has only brought home how much I need to expand my horizons.
I know it’s popular to say “No regrets,” but I do regret not going to college and majoring in English or journalism. I’m a self-taught writer with hundreds of published newspaper columns and magazine articles, most of which were badly in need of another round of editing, and five published books (with more waiting in the wings, of course) that were saved by a team of patient editors who put up with my ignorance as to how badly I needed an editor. And that’s no lie!
October 21, 2013
I keep seeing all these posts about random acts of kindness and paying it forward. Well, I have a little story of my own. Today was my first day back teaching since the wind was taken out of my sails sixteen days ago. I still had a lingering cough, but my energy felt normal, and I had a strong feeling when I woke up that it would do me a world of good to get out of my sick cocoon and back into the stream of life.
It felt intensely healing to be back at the beautiful Sacred Space Studio with my students. I felt their love and appreciation–the class flowed like a wonderful dream. The interesting thing was that, the whole time I was teaching, even when I was laughing, I never coughed. My energy picked up as the class moved along–totally the opposite of that last class, when it felt like someone had pulled the plug and I barely made the short walk back to my car. Today I felt that my patience to wait for the right moment–when I felt really well again–had paid off.
After not working for so long, I had one dollar left in my wallet. Two students paid for another series of classes. Their payment went toward the studio rent. There was one drop-in student; I used his $20 bill to buy gas. Since I had canceled so many classes, the rest of the students aren’t due for another week or so. So I went home with the same dollar bill.
A little later, while rummaging in my purse for my cell phone, I noticed a small envelope that somehow I’d missed seeing earlier. I often have old envelopes, scrap paper, and odd notes in my purse, but I noticed that this envelope had a message scribbled on the front:
Sick Pay!
Feel Better
The envelope was semi-sealed with a heart sticker. So I opened it, thinking maybe it was a get-well card. Instead, and much to my delight, I discovered five crisp twenty-dollar bills.
When you’re down to one dollar, that’s quite a windfall!
No card. It was just an anonymous act of kindness.
Thank you, dear student. I have a hunch that I know who you are, but I’m not sure!
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