Wednesday, September 30, 2009

local eating links

http://100milediet.org/
http://localnourishment.com/2009/06/30/eating-locally/
http://www.foodandsocietyfellows.org/publications.cfm?refID=103650

http://www.mnn.com/food/farms-gardens/stories/an-experiment-in-local-eating

http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/blogs/100-mile-diet/100-mile-diet-local-seafood-44081808

Mountain Yoga






Sometimes I read too much

Ladies
More from the Eternal Source of Conversation Prolongers (aka, the interwubs),. Comes this article : http://www.salon.com/mwt/col/tenn/2009/09/25/time_for_marriage/index.html, from salon.com. It is from an advice column where a self-proclaimed “fun” lady of 32 whines about how she cannot be a “fun and liberated” while searching for “the one” to marry, which is supposedly what she wants to do. She wonders whether she is a slut, and why she has to change her behavior, i.e. withhold sex, in order to find a guy to pay attention to her beyond date number one. Our brave and intrepid advice-columnist answer dude responds pretty well, saying that she has no exact need to change her behavior, unless, of course, she wants different results.

This is an interesting piece because it is so evident. The woman berates herself for consistently falling in to the same trap of hit-and-runs that is her love life, flirting, sexing up, and being left by, men with clearly little interest in her beyond her “funness”. Yet she complains that she wants to get married because she is so old, that it is now time for her to settle down. I have problems with this situation – she clearly cannot find someone more interested in her because, well, she is not that interested in her. What, may I ask, is so fun about someone who is pretty much bound to do just what you are looking for temporarily, with no intrigue, with no confusion? That, to me, is boring. Also, does she not understand the nature of settling down? If you want someone to marry you, lady, you need to show that you can be trusted to hold out a little bit, so that, you know, you don’t sleep with the next dude who crosses your path (that probably won’t be your husband). Marriage does not have to be boring, or closed-minded, but it does entail self-respect, honesty, and trustworthiness to work.

Which is exactly the same thing our valiant responder said. I applaud his answer - calm down, respect yourself, honestly look at yourself and why you want to get married before you accept the next ring to cross your path. There is no endless pondering of why women cannot be “liberated” and value relationships at the same time, because it is clear. This is not to say that you cannot open up your own view of marriage and relationships to include sexual liberalness, it is just that you seriously must take in to consideration the concept that a “traditional” view of marriage is traditional because it is common held, and that means you are more likely to find dudes who find marriage to be monogamous and long-term (at least theoretically) than not. And you are not showing them you believe the same. This article seems to be an example of a woman misunderstanding her own viewpoint of feminism, and the male response that is more appropriate. Intriguing. Am I wrong in this interpretation? What backhandedness have I missed (I am sure there is some)?

Second, This article, also from salon.com, on facebook and divorces: http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/09/29/facebook_divorce/index.html
. I thought it was pertinent for oh so many reasons. Number one, because of the recent need to thoroughly examine the topic, number two because it is fascinating, and number three because I can use this fully as evidence to enrage the facebook-fight joke between the boy and I. Hellz no I don’t want no ex-boyfriend on the book knowing I broke up with my current one, fo’sho! And the thorough legal examination of all things one does, including all things one does online, is interesting. Of course due diligence involves the internet! When we can incarcerate for internet porn and divorce for internet affairs, our digital actions are clearly quite legally applicable. In my life I have become more and more paranoid about certain things – privacy, health, passion – and the knowledge of just how far reaching anything I put on facebook becomes is just one more very large weight on the side leaning me towards more careful action (care in speech is yet a practice I have developed). Do I want my friends to see my pictures? Do I adore sifting through facebook updates and photos of beautiful and interesting acquaintances? Of course! Do I want people I do not particularly like looking at pictures of my boyfriend’s family vacation, just because I feel obliged to be their friend on facebook because we had a class together once? Not so much.

And a third article, from scientific American, because I find the science of love (read: oxytocin) fascinating: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=does-falling-in-love-make. The first point of interest is the global vs. local thinking, which I have read about in previous scientific American articles. The idea that thinking further ahead gives us a sort of permission to think of more creative solutions than thinking immediately is pretty awesome. Somehow the risk of new ideas is averted when pressure is taken out of the equation, and that somehow we believe creativity to be somewhat dangerous (of course, it’s a Darwin thing). This explains my birthday present to the boy (a series of envelopes he opened as his birthday got closer, with narratives retelling pieces of a story about Russian hikers lost in the Himalayas and supposedly eaten by a yeti) as well as our fabulous second date (glow-sticks taped to a kite, flown in a storm, at 11 pm. With beer. Nothing yet has rivaled it). Perhaps this phenomenon can explain why activists are sometimes the most creative (read: weird) people. Yes, there are exceptions (yes, that means you) but it is worth thinking about.

So, after all of this reading, I am bound to come up with my own answer to our aging husbandless-worrier from earlier: Clearly, she should think about love, and she will become more creative in her endeavors to find it. Which may or may not involve posting a rant to facebook. QED.

30 Day Yoga Challenge Days 24-30

BLOGGER FAIL!!!
Okay, so I went to class last week, and that’s it. My excuses are lame, my time has completely allowed it, and honestly I think I’ve spent more time drinking wine in the past week than doing anything beneficial. While I am sorry about this, sometimes it needs to happen. I am not worried about my yoga practice, as I have in the past completed a 40 day challenge, and if anything this challenge has served to show just how ridiculously important yoga is to my life. I plan on making a personal commitment to my practice beginning today. Which is not a challenge, so I cannot fail at it, but it is a promise to myself. Which is what I need more than anything else.

Sometimes there are experiences that prove to re-emphasize the importance of something in your life, and these are precious. Two examples from yesterday: I spent a lot of time looking at the blog “sartorialist”, which is a design and fashion photo blog, because it is a beautiful site. The blogger takes photos of people and things he sees around his life that can serve as inspiration for the fashion world – it is basically a beautifully constructed catalogue without the unfortunate side effect of trying to sell clothes. My view of the world literally changed for a significant amount of time afterwards – on my way home, every detail was emphasized, every color more piquant, every shape original. This serves to prove how important beauty is, and the recognition of such, in my life. Secondly, I had a drink with a few friends after a grueling two hour drive through traffic, during which I had to hang up the phone with another friend because I was too grumpy from said traffic, and call and ask my boyfriend’s mother for directions, pretty much in tears. When I arrived I immediately felt how important these friends were, and left what felt like ten minutes later and which in fact was an hour and a half. Friends are important. They keep me up, they make me who I am, and I berate myself for any thought of a lack of faith in them and in their love for me. So – thanks guys. I heart you. Mucho.

I have projects to tell you about.
And lots of deep deep thoughts about love and the future – to continue this long interwub seminar about the unknown.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Women's Movement has nothing to do with pie, or my particularly ill-constructed response to Fullmetal Beatnik

Everything is a woman’s issue, as we are women. I do believe that the issues we are facing now are no less dangerous than in previous generations, in fact I think it can be reasonably argued that they are more dangerous, as our difficulties are much more ingrained into all societies. We may feel like we have broken the glass ceiling, but that is a false security blanket we carry around to justify why we work so hard. We still do not make the same annually; we are still questioned over the possibility of children and our management in the workplace. And this will never go away, and perhaps we will never have a moment we take a breath and say “yes, we are thought of as completely equal now”. Don’t we need the possibility of a family as an aspect of femininity? Do we really honestly desire that it is not thought of at all? It is only complicated even more when we take into consideration that if we are judged as a person, by our work and by our personality, than we choose what we find important. And if a coworker happens to value motherhood over her career, then we will know that, and she will be judged for it. But a man who values fatherhood over his career is lauded, and probably given a few wider opportunities so he can continue to participate in the workplace as much.

This is clearly not the only woman’s issue we face; it is just the one that has perhaps most visibly made progress. We are used to knowing that men understand us different because of the bias of St. John’s and conversation and Madonna-whore members of the polity that we represent. Not that this post is supposed to be about the fact that we still are truthfully fighting the women’s revolution.

Actually, how will we ever really know if we have a campaign, a war we are fighting, one particular crusade to drive us on and make us feel successful? I fully expect to never be satisfied, to never feel like we accomplished all we could. If I did feel this way, I would most likely stop doing whatever it was because it was over, and that is useless. We have goals as benchmarks towards a larger, more inaccessible place we are headed, and as a tool to motivate us further. They can by no means be designed to be actually accomplished.

The truth is that hindsight will always show a campaign, we will always be able to look back and say “oh, that’s what we were doing”. The big difference I see between my mother’s feminist fight and mine is perhaps the lack of a fundamental “go-get” that that particular generation held, the clear and pointed vision that they felt they were working towards, which they very much felt. But it was scattered, and it was their own choice to be crusaders, to say “I am passionate for this and I will fight for it”. Perhaps there were fewer things to fight for, and therefore it seems that more people were fighting together than they are now.

That is a wonderful thought of not needing to know where you are headed– if we did we would never do it and we would lose the lessons we are learning, i.e. if we knew you would end up where you are, would you hook up with shunji? Would I have taken the job at touchstones? Would I have gone to seattle? Would Hayley have taken her first trip to france? Yes, and no. because it is scary and unpleasant, but we would not be who we are. Foresight is a double edged sword.

I am reading this blog entry right now on “forgiving past selves”, and how perhaps our current annoyances at people are a self-indulgent flagellation at the person we chose to be previously, (http://www.insideowl.com/article/compassion-for-past-selves).

I admit, I use goals as many things – I have always been a goal setter, but I have not always been compassionate with myself for not achieving them. In most ways, I value that I have not yet reached many goals I expected to – I am grateful I have not gone through with yoga teacher training yet, because I am learning so much more about the type of teacher I want to be. It is a really good thing that I never met that “goal” of being married to a medical student and having children, right?

Children do not have goals. They have desires and long shot goals, but what’s so bad about wanting to be an astronaut when you are afraid of heights? Why can’t I hope to “Save the Bay” even though it is already pretty much lost?

And how does this tie in with marriage? Is it so bad to go in to a marriage with all possible hopes and wishes and lack of goals, believing that a forever-happy, or at least a most-of-the-time-supportive marriage is actually going to happen? No, because truthfully if we let anybody get married who understood that they would be beaten down and lose sight of themselves and lose their hopes and dreams and sexual interest in each other, we would not be the friends we are. Unless of course they were marrying Prince Harry. Or maybe Johnny Depp. Then it would okay. I guess.

In other words- no, I do not need to know where I am going (and don't even really want to) but I worry over right decisions, and I worry over sustainability of youthful passion. I worry over the variety of responsibility of our generation, and I worry I will miss red wine when I get too old to drink it, but that is life.

Here are two articles that refer to this subject:
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2008/05/12/080512ta_talk_surowiecki

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nina-burleigh/genius-and-young-flesh_b_302515.html

Thursday, September 24, 2009

30 Day Yoga Challenge Day 23

Yesterday was my Dad’s birthday. Just a note – I could write a whole post on the virtues of my father but I will save that for another time. It is not this father I am mourning, anyway.

I finally made it to a class last night. This in itself makes me laugh, as it had only been one week since my previous class and it was so necessary that when I got home the boy informed me that the reason he called earlier in the day was to make sure I was going (apparently I am a grumpy bitch if I don’t get my stretch on). It was a great class, because I went and most classes are great when I take them (not because of me being there, but because I am experiencing them and that is great for me). This one was full of twists and core moves – great because I need the inner strength and the flexibility in my life right now – and had a bunch of balancing poses which I found rather difficult. It makes sense that, not having done much balancing in my life lately, I would be pretty off-kilter. It is not a very focused month, neither it is a very stand-alone-with-strength-and-flying-energy kind of month. It is very much a simple-breakthroughs-as-I-lean-on-you kind of month.

I feel drastically different today than yesterday, my body so quickly and dramatically respond to an hour of stretch. It always alarms me how sore I am after a class, considering there are no weights or props or timers or systems, just the mat, and my body, and a guiding voice - proof that perhaps I am my most difficult coach. I was so thoroughly exhausted that I slept last night. I slept the kind of sleep that makes it so hard to wake up in the morning you have to force yourself awake to turn off your alarm, and you really should be setting for every five minutes because you are likely to fall asleep again and be late for work. It is the kind of sleep that leaves you swollen and puffy and dehydrated, and needing coffee through the early afternoon, but the kind of sleep that eventually catches you up and puts you back in to place. QED, no Taking Back the Morning today. This shall commence next week, I have decided, when yoga in the morning and writing will bring me to a smoothie and toast breakfast and a successful day (I am deciding to skip the $40 washington post subscription, as I prefer to spend that money on food, or against my credit card, and the amount of recycling alone that creates is hard to bear. I may change my mind. The crossword and editorials are really enticing anyhow.).

Focus on the Future

I got to work today and began to write an essay on the comparative benefits and costs of specialization and generalization in the future workforce. This evolved into a questioning of how our generation is supposed to decide what to do, faced with the current global crisis and our own bizarre upbringings in reference to the extreme pressure and scheduling, ADD fad’s, and divorce rates of our childhood. This all sprung out of a conversation I had with a friend about our plans for graduate school. This ended with an agreement of frustration that we are stuck between pursuing a life of simplicity and wholesomeness, full of gardens and family and writing and being good to our body and spirits, and a life we feel responsible to pursue, full of international service and application of our rigorous educations. True, they do not cancel each other out so to say, but we are in a time where we stuck trying to figure out what in truth is important to us.

I am entirely not alone, but it is not a particular generational crisis. Perhaps past twenty-somethings have not felt the enormity of the burden we do now, as their crisis were smaller, or just beginning. The baby boomers felt their international service was to bring awareness to the wholesomeness of life. Previous to that, there was perhaps no choice, as you were very much brought up in the life of the land or the life of the people. But now, we have seven million majors for undergraduates alone (number fictionalized), and so many possibilities that we can only conceive that the great pressure we were raised with to become the “ultimate generation” is only bottlenecking as we choose which school and for what we are destined.

These thoughts are so enormous that an essay surrounding it is a great project. So I began to think of yoga, which I do with anything enormous in my life. Last night I went to my first class in a week and it was hard. It centered on core strength and twisting, both of which are very necessary in my life right now. I am beginning to see how my strengths in yoga mimic my strengths in life, and how appropriate it is that there are things that are hard for me. I am twenty three, and backbends are particularly easy, which is only appropriate as I am in a place where not only is my spine flexible and still long by virtue of not being compressed over time, but I have the unique ability to not have any responsibilities that prevent me from bending over backwards for my goals. Balancing poses, however, are very hard. This is not because I do not have the strength in my legs, which perhaps may be true to an extent, but because I cannot find a suitable drishti, or a gaze that stabilized you. I have no patience to focus on one corner, and get distracted by another if I do. This unwavering focus at one point is what puts your mind in your body, rooting it to the ground, giving you the unremitting potency of stillness.

I think of this and realize, of course I cannot find a drishti! I sit here at my desk and torment myself over whether I should become an international environmental lawyer, or whether I would prefer moving to Vermont and teaching yoga while I write poetry and eat food from my garden. If I choose one then I must learn Spanish now, I must read all of Colman McCarthy’s reference books in his Peace Studies course, I must move to Chile and work with the Riverkeeper and before all of that, I must get the money to do so. If I choose the other, I must take deep breaths, scrutinize my internal life to a finely painful degree, get beaten by editors, go to teacher training, and relinquish the part of me that feels responsible to the world. How can I stand in half-lotus tree pose if I can’t even decide how to spend my money? How can I excel in dancer pose, with my leg flying over my head, if I cannot see what stratosphere I should be flying in?

The answer perhaps is simple, but to see that all of this needs so much more than just a steady gaze, but a rooted foot, and the contradictions of great strength and humble gentility. All balancing poses need a deep and stable ground to fly from, and a slightly bent knee when necessary. They take a spiraling inner thigh that is hugging your bones, and a scooped tailbone to protect your sacrum. They need a strong core to keep you steady. No asana is possible without the physical strength first (and this, of course, lends itself to another understanding of how strength develops from the relationship between pulling and pushing – opposites again). The drishti is what turns the potentiality of the strength in the muscles into the actuality of the pose, not the fairy godmother that makes a flexible person strong.

If I can pick a pose apart, I can pick my life apart too, and see that there are other things I need before I settle (and settling, even then, is not permanent. One often needs a different drishti for each pose, and a different one for every room). I can ease my worry by knowing that I may be wavering between goals, but if I have the strength first then once I find the common points between my passions I will find my true focus. I cannot be expected to know where I will be in ten years, and I cannot be expected to hold a pose when I am not ready for it.

So what are these common points? What could possible be shared between these two drastically different paths? Can I possibly trust the universe enough to know that if I focus on just these commonalities, that the rest will take care of itself, without me nitpicking at new courses in the community college, or networking? Perhaps I just need to understand that if I focus on my underlying passion, the courses and the networking will happen without me nitpicking. I will not have to think about the inward spiral of my thigh, or the strength of my abdominals, if I am focusing with stillness because they will happen through that focus.

We are driven by such muscle memory of persistence and pressure, having been told our entire lives that we will be productive and we will be influential, because we will do the right things. Even then we realized it was not our choice. Except through this it was someone telling us to do it, and we did, and now it must be us listening to ourselves and the world, and not our parents (which is much, much harder). How do we find what we do in our future? We find what we want to do now. How do we decide to take risks in our lives? We have no choice if it is a risk to take, if we are meant to do it then it will not seem risky. Patience is not a virtue we cultivate at twelve through classes, but it may be the only one that gets us past twenty four.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

30 Day Yoga Challenge Day 22

I’ve been wondering what has been “off” about my life lately (I mean, apart from the obvious “Summer of Death” that has occurred, visitors in my house and boyfriend going missing across the continent for a month), or at least how I have been living it. By “off” I mean that there is some interruption that has interfered, causing me to approach my day different, dismiss exercise easily, ignore preparing food, erasing creativity. And, I know it is not uncommon for an answer to be “well, sometimes you get tired of things, or your day is off” etc. but I know that there is something different.

I realized all of this today when I walked into the office kitchen and smelled something wonderful. I stopped and realized it was eggs. And then I realized what was off – my mornings! I have been realizing that I have too much time in the morning now that I am not running in them and I wake up at six, because I like to, but then I have two hours of nothing, so I go back to sleep. And this screws up my whole day. I do so love breakfast, and reading in the morning -but not on my computer. Perhaps I will find some newspaper to subscribe (prescribe  ) to, and begin making breakfast at home again. I will find a coffee pot, or breakfast tea, and make eggs and spinach and fruit in the morning, or oatmeal. And then I will have the motivation to get up, and do yoga, and have a day full of inspiration and movement. This seems especially important now that the sun comes up so late. Thus begins “Operation Take Back My Morning!” Leading, hopefully, to “Mission: Take Back My Day”, where I will incorporate real-life running training, and goal setting, and actual productive work (sounds cool, right?!).

So, Step One: Buy breakfast groceries. Step Two: Sign up for Half Marathon. Step Three: Find Newspaper to subscribe to. Mix together, and enjoy!

Yesterday was a bad day – I was so, so tired. Grieving is exhausting. It began on the metro home, and by the time I was walking home I was a wreck, upset at every one, and on the phone with my mom complaining about things I should never complain about, like friends and selfish things. So, no yoga except for the practice of deep breathing and ice cream eating and wine drinking for me last night. Today, will be a class day, I promise to myself and to you. I was thinking about why it was so important to me to accomplish those advanced postures I told you about yesterday, realizing I sound like a “young yogi” who wants to do advanced asanas for the hell of it. And yes, its true that it feels cool to know I can do those things, but most importantly it speaks to growth. I have been practicing yoga for five years now, and sometimes it feels like a losing battle (like all of my efforts are going to keeping me in place instead of moving quickly backwards). But knowing that I have, in my life, the ability to invert myself and observe everything from the opposite perspective both physically and emotionally, and that I can bend over backwards to bring a fresh rush of energy to my life, is a testament to just how hard I have worked to get where I am. Etc. QED. And all that.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

30 Day Yoga Challenge – Days 18-21

Yoga
Friday, again, I eschewed any type of “practice” for fear of releasing so much anxiety, and, let’s be honest, I have been lazy and proud of it. Saturday, however, I spent the day babysitting and hit MILESTONES in my asanas. I have been dreaming of two asanas lately that I have not had the courage to try, or at least to fully try. One, has been handstand. It has been so difficult for me to do against the wall, and have only accomplished when I was in the OBX this past summer, and haven’t been able to do since then. I was never able to do handstands as a kid, but the freedom you feel in that strong upside down is so different than headstand, with its security, or arm balances, with its precariousness, that I have had a longing to try them truly. The other pose is less a pose and more of a difficult entry into one - dropping back into urdha dhanurasana (bending over backwards into wheel). I’ve known I have a decent stretch when I bend backwards, but of course the balls it takes to actually try to just fall back like that, was too much. Until this weekend though, when outside with Sam I was in such a great mood that I started to try handstands, as the grass was soo lush and I was not afraid to fall in to it. And Sam helped me, spotting me and telling me if I was straight or not. And I accomplished it! I held a handstand for about five seconds and am so proud of myself! Also, I kept telling Sam that I wanted to try dropping back and he encouraged me, so together we tried it, and again I did it in their living room (and again in my own showing my friends). So, with the help of a ten year old boy, I accomplished two very advanced asanas that I did not have the courage to try by myself. What does this say about me? I do not have the space to explore right now, but perhaps something very interesting. And the rest of the weekend was a bust, as Sunday another tragedy occurred and Monday House was on TV. But I have every intention of getting to class today, tomorrow, and Thurs. We will see.

The boy returned on Friday  I have not felt such a sense of relief in life since, well, anything at all and immediately when I saw him I felt I could breathe again, without knowing that I felt like I couldn’t breathe before. I decided he is as close to a soul mate as I can come to comprehend.

I went to mass on Monday with my mom, which was strange as I had not gone in over a year and the ritual was so striking, and the purple marble columns, and the frescoes and the gold leaf and the kneeling, as if I had not been in longer than I had. I have had so much beer lately I feel made of hops. I am sitting at work drinking Earl Grey tea and eating a chocolate covered butter cookie, like I have a tea time or something.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Somewhere Else

I shrug on my jacket as the first morning comes when I can feel the cold air left over on the woman sitting next to me on the metro. She wears boots and leggings and loses herself in a book, as I am doing, and we co-habit a bench for a few minutes, sharing the cold. The escalator moves me upward to what is usually the light of morning, but today is the gray of morning, and even the musicians place themselves in a new corner of the atrium. They are powerful artists, an electric base and a fiddle, playing melancholy and weepy covers of well known pop songs and bright jaunty versions of classical duets. The voice of the human violin attach themselves to the spaces between us as lawyers and assistants wait for the cars to slow so we may cross the street, the violin fading to make way for the deep metronome of the amplified bass, and as these sounds are lost the cohesion of the crossing professionals is as well. We part each to a different straight path on the sidewalk, into different offices with different door-men and different receptionists, all who have themselves lost the strings they crossed the street with.

The elevator carries me to the ninth floor, to a corner cubicle with a view of the offices. In my space I turn on mellow music of loveworn artists, drink coffee and then tea, eat a grapefruit and then a banana, make plans and copies and file folders and mail off envelopes and answer telephone calls with a “Let me check if he is available please hold” and a “can I take a message” and a “thank you goodbye”. The photocopier is warm today, the office mimicking the September air, and I laugh at how my sixteen-year-old self was utterly correct. My days are exactly what I thought they would be. Not so much working for a lawyer, but in my Mad Men-esque world there is the same elements of organizing and copying and detailed tasks, collared-shirt-and-heels uniform, simple and small but constant attentions to details that I believed I would be performing. I live where I expected, drive the car I saw in my mind, eat and move in the style I anticipated. This image will have faded to the seventeen year old me, when I saw myself a married mother to a young medical student as most likely, but here I am, proving my youth correct in its own presuppositions (Does this make my infancy wise? Am I old in my adolescence? I certainly was an old child, a serious one, but can hormonal self involvement really see clearly? Perhaps the point is moot).

I have dreams now of somewhere else, of being where the tree limbs are longer than the street light arms because there are no street light arms. I see deep turquoise ponds and alien birds and humble bowing people in impeccable robery, with dirty feet and simple food and beautiful buildings providing the background of beautiful thoughts. I am more and more hungry the more food I eat, relishing the application of texture and color to the taste and nutrition, all propitious, promising a better me, goading my urge for optimization. Such luxury in orange tea and flatbread with homemade baba ghanoush, such sheer joy in a carefully constructed salad and jasmine green tea. I am not here, but in Pakistan, or in India when I eat. I am not here, but at a wooden table in the muggy evening after a sweaty noon surrounded by oil lamps and tapestries. I am not here but somewhere else.

30 Day Yoga Challenge, Days 15-17

Ok I am a sot- no yoga. A few independent asanas, but in such a great lack of a continuous practice, does that count? No, not really. Tuesday I put class on hold in favor of waging the KOREAN WAR on the fruit flies living in our kitchen (I’m close to winning, I’ve even begun to farm then in a cellophane covered bowl on the table), and yesterday Lauren came so, really, am I going to go to yoga when I could eat really yummy ravioli and drink too much beer and talk for too many hours? That’s right, no I am not. Today, although Soph and Hayley both are coming as well, I must rush off to the Riverkeeper’s to maintain this precious relationship and schmooze and brown some noses so I have great references and contacts so I can eventually in the long long term save our friggen Bay. And then I will come home and sleep.

The boy comes home tomorrow (I am as excited as a five year old on their birthday) and I can feel the sweet relief of nearness, the safety of surety and the deep warm arms that will hold all of my worries and pain as far away as possible.

In reflection on the detox that ended on Tuesday, I loved it. I know I did not stick to it religiously, but it did serve to offer a forum for thought into my diet that I had not previously explored. I have come upon several habits that I am gratefully following – One, is the “raw till dinner” principle, where I can have as much veggies and salads and smoothies and fruits and nuts all day, until dinner, when I can have a moderate amount of anything else I want. (I’m sorry if I have relayed this info on the blog previously) So for all of you friends worried I am not eating much, if at all, and am going to be one of those weird raw foodists, worry not! I like the idea that I can stuff all of my veggie and fruit servings in before dark, and fully give myself permission to enjoy ice cream and ravioli and pizza and donuts if I want, and beer and wine, etc. True, it is not the best way to teach children how to eat, but thank zeus, I am no longer a child and know the value of nutrients. Also I have begun to eat breakfast at work, which gives me a full 12 hours between meals which my body enjoys, and it offers me the chance to be quite attentive to what I eat as opposed to rushing out the door. This morning I had a wonderful grapefruit and deeply appreciated the feeling of slicing the layers apart, the smells of the acid and the bright cheery color opposed against the dark gray of the day.

The past few weeks have been thick with the universe pushing me to reflect, telling me there is something to discover in myself and I should listen. I have been resisting, but something has broken through this week and I am now more eager and aware to open my ears to what is being said. I am inspired by the program I found, by the upcoming events in my life that I am forced to contemplate on (the wedding, the funeral, etc), by my friends. I am seeing links between the before-seeming oddities of my life that are stringing together a future, an upwelling to create, more focus on real skill. I think, in all, it is an adult movement.

Still, a need to do more yoga than I am doing, a physical desire to utilize the mornings for movement, and a push towards meditation. It is as if there is a need within me to maintain deliberate stillness, to hold minutes in front of me and ensure intentionality to them, so that every breath matters to its utmost purpose for all it can.


None of this makes sense, which is okay, because I have been reading Dostoevsky and I am upset at the translator (seriously, how many times can you use the phrase “laying it on thick” when you are clearly referring to many different types of dialectical styles?). An interesting note – I am more and more aware of an element of writing I had never considered before. As I listen to my brilliant friends speak of their efforts I realize that I never consider style as I write, I never pace around studying the perfect way to communicate an idea. Instead I just write until it appears on the page. This is not, clearly, the most effective method, and I hope to start utilizing my efforts more towards an efficient, and actually styled, approach. (This blog is an exception - I am clearly writing as a tool for communication and not writing for its own sake, so I make no edits here) Perhaps all of my actions need a more deliberate approach. This at least is what is necessary at work. But what room for flippancy and fun? Where does the lightness and energy of spontaneity reside? Is there space for purposeful impulsiveness?

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Stormwater

Today is one of those days where everything seems just a little bit off –
I have a lot of “should have’s” in my head – Yesterday I should have gone to yoga instead of … I should have gone to bed when I got back from dropping off laundry instead of…. I should have not done this and that and this again …. And today – I should have looked that over again…. I should have paid more attention here …. I should have washed out my coffee cup last night so I didn’t get a mouthful of week old dregs …. Etc.

There is a lot in my mind. I feel as if I have plans and goals for the future that have finally clicked, that make sense and inspire me. I was thinking yesterday about how if you want to be successful in anything, it must be your passion. What is my passion? Do I even have one? The answer “the environment” is nonspecific, and even that does not inspire an upwelling to act, it does not move me to long speeches at a bar or a street corner, it is a category. In my caffeine-induced searches yesterday I came upon a graduate program that I want to do, and it does not eschew the law school that I do in fact feel is inevitable in my life, it just puts it off a few years until it is more feasible in my mind. Most importantly, this program got me thinking about next year.


anyway, somehow in this thought process I realized that my passion, weirdly, really is stormwater management. It is fascinating, that even with all of our technology and encroachment upon the world, we must still succumb to the ferocity of nature’s passions. As we grow in population we are seeing the effects of our thoughtlessness and our heady insistence that we are powerful enough to ignore the environment that created us by the clear declining of those same resources we relied upon to get to this point. And do we believe that we are in fact, so powerful, that we can keep right on growing beyond the point where these resources no longer exist, that we have effectually outgrown our maker? We are teenagers in this world, fighting against our own good, insisting on our independence and not yet aware of how deeply indebted and reliant we are upon our increasingly annoying parents. Storms are proof that we are children, that there is still awe and wonder in the simplicity of the place we live, that the rawest of forces still utterly control our world, and that for all of our predicting power and scientific prowess we are utterly incapable of predicting the weather. Stormwater is a chore, a side effect of living our urban lives in an environment, like cleaning. Dust happens, things get dirty, and if we do not clean it up we get sick. Likewise, since we have imposed ourselves on the world, water lands on the ground and if we do not direct it back to where it is supposed to go, we get sick – dead zones happen, fishes die, plants die, etc.

See – I haven’t even scratched the surface of what I feel on the subject. This, my friends, is passion. Am I wrong?

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

30 Day Yoga Challenge, Day 14

Wow!
My first cup of coffee in two weeks has left me jittery as a new bride, so it hasn’t helped at all that I’ve found the first Grad school program that makes me super excited and eager to go back to school. I won’t tell you much about it, as I have decided to heed the advice of the study Rory alluded to (talking about plans/ideas etc. makes you less likely to go through with them, because it subconsciously lets you off the hook), but it is a dual master’s program with American and the UN mandated University of Peace in Costa Rica. I would have to sign up for the GRE’s BY FRIDAY and take them at the end of THIS OCTOBER. I just spoke with the boy briefly about it, and there is so much more thinking about it to do. First of all, it is very hard to get into, clearly, and my grades aren’t up to snuff. However, I believe I have the references and capacity to write a good enough essay, and I’m inserting as much relevant volunteer experience as I can. (on that note, last night I was about to tell the riverkeepers I couldn’t make the volunteer event, since I need to catch up with all of you instead, but since I found this I see that it is actually very important for me to go. Also another great contact will be there so I think it rather vital – SORRY  ). My main worry has to do with the plans the boy and I have for Chile, which he is relevantly worried about as well. I found this program because I was searching for ways I could go spend time in South America without racking up a whole lot of personal loans for no reason, and I figured I might as well try fellowships or study opportunities. When I found this it made so much sense, and in my mind we are so close that I can use personal loans for living expenses that include traveling while I’m there, or just before I am there, or just after, as I can search for a job or research fellowship that will take me to Santiago. See – so much to think about! So much excitement! So much caffeine!

Yesterday’s yoga class was wonderful,. I have to say I did not want to go, but as soon as I was there I slipped into the mode. It was one of those classes that makes me realize how far I’ve come in my practice. I feel so great today that I realize again how much I need to be guided through asanas. The class last night had no back bends, or inversions, which was great in my mellow mood, but I am hoping for some hip openers and spinal reversals today.

The detox is over today, and last night all I wanted after class was some white wine and chips and guac, but decided to save those $12 for when you guys come. Which was a wise choice, and as the diva detox women say if you are craving salt then you need more vegetables. So I went home and made a salad, which I was not looking forward to, but it certainly did the trick and I was perfectly satisfied (as soon as I had my last hotdog with ketchup, that is). Today has been more apples with cashew butter for breakfast, and a giant green smoothie for lunch (and lets not forget the half of a chocolate croissant left over from yesterday, or the coffee this morning). Yoga class tonight, and more salad, and plans for lima bean hummus and a homemade baba ghanoush to round things out.

Seriously, I can’t believe how excited I am about this study opportunity. I feel like I can’t miss this opportunity. So much thinking! So much caffeine!!

Monday, September 14, 2009

30 Day Yoga Challenge, Days 12 and 13

Yoga:
Friday was a bust, unless of course you count the almost continuous flow of independent asanas I perform daily – forward bends for my back, shoulder openers against the wall, etc. I even do twists regularly, and hamstring openers while I watch TV.
Saturday I took a long walk along the Potomac with my Mom, and went to the gym for a while, and did a short set as a post-workout stretch afterwards.
Sunday I woke up and did a half hour practice to a yogatoday hour-long option (I stopped halfway through), and went on the best bridge run in Annapolis that I have ever done. I walked another two miles after that, to loosen up a bit, and noticed that my ankle was indeed sore, and my legs felt like lead from the moment I put on my running shoes. Alas, it is perhaps because I have been eating very little lately.

Detox:
Friday I cheated a bit and had a drink at dinner, with a huge salad I could only eat half of. Saturday I had apples for breakfast, and the rest of the salad for lunch, and a glorious plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes for dinner that Mom made. I figure as long as I’m “making improvements”, as the help e-mails say, and I have no energy or money to seek out more appropriate food if my mother is making dinner right in front of me. Sunday I had apples again for breakfast, and bananas and cut veggies with an iced decaf soy city dock latte for lunch after the run. And a grilled cheese for dinner while I babysat. Compromises, people. I have yet to eat today as I have been on receptionist duty while a board meeting goes on behind me. I have apples and cinnamon-sugar soy nut butter waiting, and a smoothie, and the leftover pastries (yum).

Thank you all for your support. I have many thoughts on this yoga and food experiment that I wish to share, and many more thoughts in general that I do as well, but it seems that for the moment I only have the presence of mind to recount the happenings and not the thoughts as well. Though they will come I assure you, I hope you hang in with me 

Friday, September 11, 2009

30 Day Yoga Challenge Day 10

Yoga, as per say a flowing asana practice, did not happen yesterday. In fact it got thwarted, as I received a call about a family tragedy (more on that later) while on my way. However, if you count the practice of meditation, deep breathing, and a focus on the space in between struggle and relinquishment as yoga (which many do), than I practiced it for several hours. Today I plan on doing at least some yoga when I get home, whether it is 20 minutes or an hour and 20 I will not know until I start the practice.

Detox

Yesterday went very well, up until I was at Mom’s, and about to leave for home to go have my salad. Mom had been very very tired, and we decided we had two options: go to bed, or go out to eat. We chose the latter and I sat and ate much pizza and two beers, as did she. This was not, however due to a desire to, or an need or a hunger or an urge, etc. but because it was the only thing appropriate for our family to do when faced with what we had to talk about. It was the most appropriate way to begin a mourning. So today I am water fasting again, except allowing herbal tea which I did not do before, and if I can’t stand it, which perhaps I won’t be able to, I will go out and splurge on a naked juice or something. I am not extending this detox, just counting the pizza and beer as a cheat, that can be repaired, so when all y’all ladies come to visit I will still be able to eat real food and drink real booze (thank god).

Now on to the rest of it:
Some of you may or may not know that our friend Danny has been fighting cancer for about a year. It started as melanoma, and made its way to his lymph nodes in his groin. He had those removed, and the wound became severely infected to the point of necrosis, and an ensuing surgery took out a baseball sized hole in his leg. A few months ago he was given three to six months to live, as it had reached his brain. Then, several weeks later, we found out that in fact in fact someone had put the wrong dye in his brain when he went for the CATScan and he actually had a lot longer than that to live. In the recent weeks he has been given a very strong cancer drug that was supposed to be the best fighter out there, but that also left him groggy and weak, but alive.

Well, last night my mother received a call from the firemen of Charles County, where Danny lived, saying that they had gotten her number from Danny’s boss, who they contacted because they found something relating to the local union in the ashes of a burned down house. There was a man inside who they could not identify, and whose body is being interned in Baltimore while the investigation proceeds, but they assume it was the man who owned the house, who it was known lived alone, and who was none other than Daniel West. That is all we know. But we have our theories.

So, who is Danny? Danny is about as much of father as my Dad ever was. Danny was the one constant element of our holidays, the man who knew my mother before she married my father, the man who I was always trying to impress. This man was a baseball player, a writer, an intellectual, a choreographer, a baker, a carpenter, and a friend. He took us on vacations to Smith Island, he sailed with us, he moved me in to college with a basket of books in French to translate, one of which was Les Fleurs du Mal. He was selfish and vain and dramatic, but the hardest worker I know and the most creative and culturally important as well, influencing the origins of Rolling Stone Magazine and modern dance as we know it with his dance troupe the Daniel West Dancers. He refused to give us the recipe to his famous cheesecake, which still has yet to be topped by any other cheesecake to this day. He had stories that gave you greater understanding of people as weirdos and heros, as family members and as profligate vagabonds living according to the words they heard in a Dylan song.

As I write this I have to keep changing the tense to past. My sleep last night consisted solely of several short extremely terrifying and deeply disturbing dreams involving suicide and every childhood fear (such as a bad grade) I had ever grown out of. All lines have been curved since midnight, all spaces between them warped, as if there was nothing definitive about Euclid’s Postulates in any manner. There is never a single point. There is no such thing as space. Life is a compressed liquid and thought only energy bursts, our existence no less real or inert than the objects around me, our importance moot.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Detox Day 2

Well, the detox yesterday was actually pretty easy. Ridiculously so. I felt so good I actually thought about going to yoga, and decided even though I felt like I had enough energy to go for a run, I still hadn’t eaten anything in 22 hours and it was probably a bad idea. So I went to Mom’s, and the brother promptly dragged out every grumpy emotion because he also hadn’t eaten – but not by any choice other than laziness – and so was in a fighting mood. So Mom and I escaped to the grocery store, where we picked out a couple day’s worth of fruit and veggies, and she – the sneak – saved me from financial ruin and bought it. That’s right friends, not only do I have to borrow $ from her, she also buys my groceries. Because I’m that broke. Anyone know anyone who needs a tutor?

So we went back and I ate a gigantic melon. It was huge and super tasty and I was so full afterwords, and I went home and went to sleep. And promptly woke up at 2 am thinking it was 6, and went back to sleep only to wake up at 6 feeling so exhausted that I slept for another hour, and even then I thought I would never be able to get out of bed.

Until I did, of course, and I felt fine. I ate another melon at work, and have since only had mint tea, and I’ve been sipping on my green smoothie for about an hour. I’m not hungry, and I have noticed a disassociation with food smells and hunger. Normally I’ll walk by food and instantly think “o that’s nice, I want that” and as soon as I walk by I realize I don’t actually want it, but do recognize hunger. Now I walk by and think “o that’s nice”, and that’s it. No hunger. I have been drinking about six liters of water a day for a week or so, so I think that helps. But other than the ridiculous grogginess, I have had no side effects so far. Dinner tonight will be a salad of spinach, apples, beets, onion, basil, cucumber, tomato and lemon juice. I plan on going to yoga tonight, and going for a short run tomorrow after work.

This morning, in said grogginess, I had one of those unfortunate dressing incidents that leaves you sorry for yourself all day. The clothes I ended up with are quite sad – I look like a grandmother, with a teal cardigan that holds together with a half-broken brooch, and my plaid pants. I would take off the cardigan, but the oxford I picked out is cheap, filthy, and fits me poorly, so it’s even sadder. Also I get cold very very easily. Alas. I am off to knit sweaters.

PS Yesterday I successfully widdled away the blogs I follow to 51 - only half of what it was before!
Also, I am offloading most of my pictures from facebook, as the whole site is increasingly creeping me out.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

30 Day Yoga Challenge, Days 8 & 9

First of all, to Katrina and Brie –
I am sorry times a million about the cake. It was ridiculously inconsiderate, overly selfish, absurdly inappropriate, and generally not cool to do to friends that you love. And certainly no way of showing them how much you love them, which would have been the whole point of the g.d. evening. Anyway – I make mistakes, but I certainly learn from them. There will be no more pastry throwing at my home. Scout’s honor. I owe you guys a drink.

Second of all, the yoga.
Yesterday was a tiring day, and the metro made me late home, so I couldn’t make it out to yoga class. But I DID make all the right choices last night, and made good food and read instead of watching television all evening, and did a 20 minute set from yogadownload which was a beginner’s class for weight loss because I was tired and sore and the moon had gotten to me and that meant – no five minute lunges, no inversions, no backbends, and no overly strenuous sun salutations. So this was basically a drawn out version of a 5-sun-sal set, but was good. I also went to bed at a decent hour!

This morning I woke up to the rain nice and early, and rolled out of bed to do an hour class from yogatoday on detoxing! Which is highly appropriate considering this is day 1 of my detox (more on that later). This class focused on twists, which I thought was lovely as I have been stuck in shallow twists lately, and had no inversions or backbends. I am not sure how good “wetting the digestive fire” will be for me today so early, as I have another eleven hours or so of my fast, but we shall see! I’ll let you all know later how that goes. It makes such a huge difference to me when I do yoga in the morning for the rest of the day. I feel like I’ve already started and accomplished something, in a more forgiving way than running in the morning does because that often leaves me tighter and sorer.

Third of all, the detox.
That’s right, I’m on hour thirteen of my 24 hour fast that kickstarts the detox. My mom, apparently, is starting today as well so we get to compare notes. My last meal was a gigantic green smoothie that I had made that morning, but the mango didn’t have enough flavor to cover the spinach so I bottled it. When I came home I went across the street to the co-op (love of my life) and got a nice small melon and some lemongrass soup. I added the melon to the smoothie, which solved the problem and also doubled the serving (two giant glasses), and added some leftover canned beets, corn from the cob, and a few tablespoons of the last of my tabouleh into a salad. Add some decaf chai and it was super delicious as it rained outside. I must report, that at hour thirteen, I am not hungry, after a liter of water. I have a cup of hot water in front of me, and the countdown begins! I plan on having a dinner of several cantaloupe’s when I get home.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Blogworld

So it has become ever clearer how neurotic and strange some of these bloggers are that I have on my blogfeed. I mean, really? Photographing EVERY meal? Telling us EVERYTHING you do? Is this necessary in a public forum?

there are several blogs whose bloggers are sweet and generous, and have a focus - I am invested in them as people who tell the ongoing story of an aspect of their lives. Some blogs offer fantastic recipes, or tips, or food porn, and others inspiration. Quite a lot are just new avenues for those with eating issues to manifest their focus.

here is a post from a fellow blogger about it: http://irunisweat.wordpress.com/2009/09/07/food-exercise-blogger-comparison/. Now if you ever read any of the blogs on my blogfeed you will know exactly who this woman is talking about.

Interesting. I feel as if I would be perfectly happy giving up my home internet connection, unsubscribing from all (i mean, most) of my blog feeds, cutting off the cell phone, and having more time to be quiet.

30 Day Yoga Challenges Days 4-7

So yoga can be done in many forms, and for much of this weekend in came mostly in forms not associated with asanas.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday's yoga was practiced mainly in the form of individual asanas throughout the day, with a lot of the practice of empathy thrown in (babysitting on Saturday) and flexibility exercised according to physical needs. So no giant sweaty practices, no deep hip openers or flying dancers, except occasionally. Instead, there was a lot of log pose, a lot of spontaneous twists, a lot- a lot of standing forward bends.

Today however, Day 7, was a day of commitment. A two-hour walk with a friend in the woods awakened the need to stretch, and a 40 minute practice to a video focused on hamstring stretches. This video however, is always difficult for me to finish, cuz the teacher is a bit of a dip, and the video focuses mostly on this one blonde with a very snooty look on her face and it bugs me. Also I cannot practice yoga for more than forty minutes on a floor that desperately needs to be vacuumed. So the shower and vacuum prevailed after a time, and I am excited to dive into next week, full of meditation, yoga, and detox fasts.

Friday, September 4, 2009

30 Day Yoga Challenge, Day 3

If you listen to the universe, it will provide….

I spent all of yesterday listening to whistful, beautiful tunes and thinking about the internal ruminations of the boy, feeling a need to deeply examine life – the equivalent of a mental deep twist to get all the broken plans out of the way – and not in the mood to do a quick or overly challenging vinyasa class. I picked up my mother, feeling the need to tell her these thoughts, but not at the moment, in fact all I wanted to do was play her Ryan Adams’ Wonderwall. So I did and we went to class, and we set down our mats and waited. And then the news comes that our teacher, Gopi, was in a fender bender and would not make it (she is four months pregnant, so let’s keep her in our thoughts okay?). Two of the students there led us through a 20 minute meditation, and an hour of vinyasa.

See – the universe provided. The 20 minute meditation was – and I cannot emphasize this enough – just what I needed, as I have been moving towards this need for the past week but have not been able to kickstart it myself. And the student-turned-teacher ( this is what I love about yoga) led us through a very simple class that had be thinking she was very experienced. A few surya’s, with a dancer thrown in (I love dancer – and I know I should not have done them because of my ankle, but I couldn’t help it) and even a half and a king pigeon which were so sweet to me ( could only do king on one side, the ankle tendons caught up the other). The teacher’s hands radiated an energy of trust and healing that everyone was buzzing about after class, especially since it turns out the teacher was brand new! She was, however, a cranio-sacral therapist, which explains the energy in the hands.

So there you go. I left the class ready to chat with Mom, and went to bed with my bulging discs screaming at me. So I found a hot water bottle (which has a history of leaking) and accidently fell asleep with it on, to a half-soaking bed. Interesting morning, to say the least. But now my back feels better than it has in weeks!

More about Raw

Here is a link to a blog that has posted a VIDEO from last weekend's Raw Food Fest: http://purejeevan.com/blog/

Also - I found it! Just the right detox diet for me:-) Today starts Day #1 of the 1st Five Days - a lead up into the real detox. What this entails is thinking about food, and daily cutting back on one element of food that the detox limits out - such as caffeine, meat, dairy, breads, and alcohol (oh and sugar too but that's a given). When these five days are over, a I will fast for until six PM on the first day of the detox, and then eat meals that are basically ginormous portions of salads and smoothies, for seven days. And that's it! The site I found it provides a menu, a shopping list, daily guidance, and a forum to connect you with other detoxers, and focuses highly on the cerebral portion of fasting - focusing on how you feel, what you associate with certain foods, breaking down cravings, and teaching you to acknowledge real hunger. I'm super excited. Not too long, not too much fasting, just right for me. I will keep you posted.

Here is the site: therawdivas.com/7daydetox

Thursday, September 3, 2009

My Current Playlist

Samson by Regina Spektor
Across the Great Divide by Nanci Griffith
Buckets of Rain by Bob Dylan
Skinny Love by Bon Iver
Sundays by Lucinda Williams
Don’t Think Twice it’s Alright by Bree Sharp
Love and Some Verses by Iron and Wine
Clean Getaway by Maria Taylor
Reckoner by Radiohead
Wonderwall by Ryan Adams
Heartbroken, in Disrepair by Dan Auerbach
Wicked Game by Chris Isaak
Down in Mexico by The Coasters


also I have pandora stuck on Gillian Welch Radio at work

Thirty Day Challenge: Day Two

I really confuse myself. On a regular basis. And frustrate myself. Sometimes I feel as if I do not know this other person that does these things.

Like decide that wow, it is a really beautiful afternoon. Perfect for a run, or a long walk, or some yoga on the lawn, and certainly some meditation and probably the art projects I have sitting in the living room.

And then as soon as I walk in the door I decide that instead of all that, I am going to make myself a drink, which turns into three, and pan-fry chicken pieces, and sit and watch television for the rest of the night.

But- don’t worry – I did take a break from a Bones marathon to turn on some Exercise TV and did two short yoga segments, isolating my abs, and my glutes. So I did keep up with the challenge (go me) but also…. The second two drinks and second two hours of television really were unnecessary.
Why is it so hard for me to NOT do this all the time?

So, because I let myself do this last night, today has been one of those days that has been pretty busy and everything goes really well – up until it doesn’t. It’s okay though, I’m taking mom to yoga again tonight. And tomorrow I get paid, which means I can buy food. Which is a really good thing.

Also I am trying really hard not to worry about not having any tutoring lined up – because when I do worry about it, it devolves into anxiety about not paying off anything needless to say not saving anything, and then not being able to go on any of the trips I have planned, and basically feeling like a terrible girlfriend and a terrible, scared, stuck person. So I try not to worry about it. Which is why I need to start running again. My goal is Monday. Wish me luck.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Dia Unica

30 Day Yoga Challenge:
Day 1:
My mother came to yoga class with me last night, which was wondering for several reasons. I learned that my favorite teacher there – who is leading the teacher training program I wanted to do – is teaching the late class on both Tuesdays and Thursdays now (yay) so I can actually take her, and she is four months pregnant (exciting!). She led us through a slower class of vinyasas, focusing on heart openers, which I have been craving recently. Today, of course, my upper back between my shoulders are terribly sore.

What does this mean? Why shoulder openers?
A sequence of “Shoulder Openers” or “Heart Openers” refers to asanas that stretch and strengthen the muscles between your shoulder blades and on the front wall of your chest. These are connected to the green-colored Heart Chakra, and exercise your emotions of acceptance and openness to new experiences, along with your compassion and reverence. I have been feeling, not tight in the shoulders, but tight in my compassion, struggling in my acceptance of self recently (and not in a high-school, I am unhappy with who I am way, but more in a deep rustling, awareness of some searching force inside of me type way). I have been more aware of this because of my longing for heart opening yoga moves and less of any other feeling I have noticed. So I was grateful when Gopi led us through much of this last night, and today I am feeling an upwelling of a small sorrow and anxiety in the day. This must be partly because it was released through all the muscle work last night, partly because (I am borrowing a term from a yogi whose blog I love) my Lady’s Holiday is approaching, the moon is soon in a crest of its wave, I miss my boy, and generally I have things to be anxious about. But because of all of those, I have needed to release this tension.



Every class for me is a hip-opening class. By nature my hip joints are twisted, which means walking can be painful most of the time because they are fighting against gravity. A simple hero’s pose can open up the most potent elements of anger within me. I am used to craving classes full of pigeon’s and malasana’s, because they hurt in a way that makes me stronger.
Hip opening classes are those that provide sequences of stretches all around your ball-and-socket hips and pelvis. These focus on the Red Chakra of the Root, seated within your groin, and exercised the emotions related to your life’s history, your anxieties, and your deep wells of passion. It is not uncommon to discover a fellow student crunched over their knee in pigeon, weeping. I have certainly been one of these students, but only after I moved past the intense anger and self-loathing that came up every time I moved into this asana. No joke. Now I feel a sweet sadness, but one I accept and almost look forward to, as if in grievance, as my hips grow looser and healthier.

I have never craved a heart opening class like I did, usually just hip openers as a way of self-healing. But perhaps with my heart so far across the country (past Denver now) I am provided a time to “Clean House”, to locate all my fears and find the time to hold them up in my hands, examine them, and blow them away. This will be the focus of my first meditation attempt, which will occur later tonight after a second yoga class.

My most important task in life, to follow my intuition, is often the hardest, as regular emotion can so easily get in the way.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

i hear the universe in my sleep...


Okay so I wrote that last post and now finally feel as if I can calm down from the day. The boss is out to lunch and wont’ be back for literally hours, I have my jasmine green tea and some wonderful beer bread I made this morning after putting up my study course posters in my old high school and before coming to work, and I have some thoughts in my head. First of all, let me proclaim the wonderfulness that is the oncoming of Autumn. This is the second day – right on time – of the soft, crisp cooler weather that makes one excited to go back to school, to be productive, to wear woolen sweaters and sip tea after a full day. It is the perfect temperature to identify every smell you pass, when you breathe it deeply in and feel the edge of the day in your lungs. This weather makes me anxious to do things.

One of many conversations that occurred around me at the Raw Food Festival was between the dread-haired, tall and muscular, scantily clad woman in charge of the Sacred Exercise facilities and the small blonde energy healer in charge of registration. The Tall one has been migrating every six months between Florida and Baltimore for the past two years, unable to get away from both, but finally deciding that Florida is where her Thai Massage practice will better flourish. She described Baltimore as like “going back to an ex boyfriend that you know is bad for you but you still have the hots for”, not like she has ever done that before or anything. The small blonde kept saying that the universe wants to give you a million dollars, you just have to listen to it and the universe will plan everything for you. Too many people, apparently, think they have the power to plan their own lives. The tall one agreed, but then explained that she had to figure out what to do with her cats, and how she was going to get home. The small blonde answered “NO! That’s what the universe figures out for you!”.


I have been reading Crime and Punishment (why in the world delve into more Dostoevsky? Because he’s great right before bedtime – he puts me to sleep with a story), and came up on the main character’s thoughts about crime, which are aptly applied to life, this morning. He realized that it is usually when one does not have a fervent belief in the actuality of an activity that it falls through and fails. Thieves leave clues to their discovery and make mistakes because they do not actually have full faith that they are committing the crime. As long as one truly believes you are going through with something, all the details are taken care of because you have the attention and foresight to take into account all possibilities. Without this commitment, you cannot identify where a possible fault may intrude on the success of the action. Make sense? If you believe something will happen, you are taking the most important step in ensuring its success.

The boy called last night with a rave review of the book “The Four Day Workweek” that he has been listening to on audio book on his way to Colorado. This is the type of motivational book that I have been reading for a year or so now, except without actually reading this one. It is the type that gives you tips to apply to your life for efficiency, tips to help you identify your dreams, and reminders of how to orient yourself to success (if I may use that phrase without irony). They are powerful books and inspiring, leaving you with a refreshed look at what you do and how much time you actually spend dicking around and doing useless things all day. It makes you want to spend all your time listening to powerful podcasts and audio books instead of wasting your time with music on your way to work, and throwing out your television so you can spend more time writing and reading motivational books about how to spend more time writing and reading motivational books etc. It is the type that makes you look at your job and realize what you hate about it. It is the type of book that makes you look at your life to discover what you really want to do.

I am very happy he was excited about this book, because it got him excited to figure out what he wants to do. He encouraged me to read it, but not for some time because it might make me upset about my job and anxious to go to Chile. I am very happy he is concerned over whether I will hate my job and be anxious to go to Chile. The truth is that is already pretty true. But also not true. Although I “waste” a lot of time while I am here, I am at my job not to learn some new skill, not because I am working on a major project that I am passionate about while I am here, not to necessarily learn a whole new trade, but simply I am here to be here. I am here to have this job on my resume and so I can be in the atmosphere of a firm, both requirements of which are completely satisfied just by showing up at work. In fact, the more time I “waste” at work, by not having other tasks to do, the more time I spend successfully accomplishing personal goals such as submitting my poetry to online journals, or, let’s say, blogging. It is not a job that I can do from home, nor is it a job that I have any maneuverability around. It is necessary, I am here, and I necessarily will be here until my time is up.

Now when I was at Touchstones it was quite different. I was writing grants and could do that from anywhere. I made my own hours around a rough template of a 9-5, and had the freedom to work from a coffee shop. This is when I started reading all those motivational books and when I got really frustrated with what I was doing. This stuff was useless, the office was boring, I was not satisfied. So I totally get what the boy is communicating. And I am glad, because maybe he can make some major changes towards “satisfaction in the work place”.

Okay, so all of this has a point. First of all, it seems as if there are several steps towards being in the ideal work environment that are similar from all of these books, and from the past few experiences that I have enumerated here. They are something like this: You must realize that there is someplace that is perfect for you, that will make you the happiest you can be. This does not mean identify it, but just to realize that that place and job exists. You have to acknowledge that if you are open to it, it will happen to you unless you deliberately put roadblocks in front of you by trying to go against time. You have to revoke responsibility for getting there, and you must truly believe it will happen, as per Crime and Punishment. Ok, here is where a major issue happens – The small blonde would say that the next step is taken care of by the universe as well, but the motivational books would say that here is where you step in and deliberately make plans to change your life towards the better. I am somewhat in the camp of the motivational books.

Now I guess the summary of all of this is, the world is telling me to slow down and take a long hard look at my life. I am not terribly excited about this, I think I would prefer to keep on trucking along and focusing on my diet and exercise, which is part of it. But I believe this is one of those points where I am supposed to be really open to the universe, even if all the universe is telling me is that I should listen to it.

Busy Hippy

I notarized my second document today. The first one was under the guidance of Earl, for a client of his, and I got it all wrong. He had to print out three more copies of the document so I could get it right. This one was for one of the lawyer’s clients in the firm that we share a floor with and went very smoothly, as if I knew what I was doing. It felt strange to be this young girl in a skirt I went to a party in last week, doing something official for these two gentlemen doing very grown-up business like things. And they relied on me to do it well. Good luck to them.

Yesterday and today have been *SURPRISE* actually busy. To the point where the note I have taped to my monitor that says “GO SLOWLY AND DOUBLE CHECK EVERYTHING TWICE” in big bold cap letters, actually is needed. Busy to the point where I couldn’t find one file and had to practice deep breathing. Busy to the point where I had to put someone on hold because someone else was calling. WOW. My boss is actually happy – clearly because we are picking up in activities. He high fived me today because the IRS approved something eight months after we asked them to, and sent us a letter about it. Eight months is great timing. An actual letter is great proof. A high five from your dry boss is pretty confusing. He also sent me this joke, which I now have hanging up in my cubicle: Subject of e-mail is “Regulations for ‘professional capacity’”, Body of e-mail is “ ‘Employee’ shall include any person suffered or permitted to work by an employer except any person employed in a bona fide executive, administrative, or professional capacity (as such terms are defined and delimited by regulations promulgated by the Council of the District of Columbia)”. Get it? It’s an ironic joke. Because the definition makes the purpose of the word moot. LOL!!!!!! OMG FUNNY@!!@!!L!L!L



On another note, there are a few things I forgot to mention about Hippy Fest 09. One of the greatest things I realized is that the woman who is putting on the National Yoga Challenge online, Dashama, was there. She is ridiculous. Muscles galore is what her real name should be. Also, I met our purple neighbors. Well, purple Uncle is what I call him (did I mention this already?) The man that seems to be the brother of the Purple Man, Dr. Amen. He was very very very nice and mentioned that I was the lady that never says Hi when I pass and I looked very serious with my headphones one. I guess both of those statements are quite true. Thirdly, I forgot to mention the preponderance of tie dye. And if I did not forget, it is worth re-uttering. Fourthly, Giles Gratz would have been quite at home.



I realized there were three types of people there – the hippy dippy type who were beautiful and did a lot of yoga and talked metaphysics. They were about half. The other two halves were made up of people who were kind of like this one woman who I will describe. She wears a lot of quilted jackets, and purple, and matches her entire outfit. Her earrings and necklace match, but are made to look like a horse’s head, or a cat, and she has the same animal on her purse. She has boring hair, and asks if you like “earth activities”, meaning activities and events that are tied to the earth, but could equally have been smoking pot. She gives classes in belly dancing and offers parties for the solstice. Her name may or may not be Judy. These women, along with many people who call to mind Erica Stratton, find solace in a group of people who are exceedingly accepting and loving, and who have the same fascination with the mystical, tarot cards, and energy crystals. The third type of people is the type that you would never guess would be there. They tend to be overweight, have too much hair in a West Virginia type of way, and wear denim shorts past their knees and socks with their sandals. They are clearly just beginning this raw food thing. I only saw one girl who desperately needed to eat some cookies, and man, she could have used the whole G.D. Keebler factory’s worth. Please direct further questions and/or comments to the administrative staff of the blog. Thank You.

ok so after finding these tie dye images for this post, I realized i really need to have a tie dye party. Who's in it with me? Anyone? Lots of colored die and old clothing and probably cheap champagne? I have rolling stones records....!!!