Bye-bye, birdie

At lunch a few weeks ago, a new colleague was telling me about a book she was reading on divorce. Apparently, one of the things the marriage counselor/author found was that there was generally one simple little thing that festered in a relationship, a thing that somehow became the deal-breaker. Such as, one partner wanting to travel and explore, and the other just wanting to be a home-body and never go anywhere. As time passed, the traveling partner began to feel the confinement unbearable and from there, the whole thing would unravel. Strangely, post break-up, the home-body partner would suddenly begin traveling the world in a way that would rankle the ex even more. I don't know the name of the book. Not even sure I'm repeating this correctly, but then again, by this time it's third-hand.

The point is that there's an "If Only You Would" kind of thing that's happening, as in, If only you would travel with me, that can become the make-or-break. And apparently, asking this question of your partner, inquiring if there's something really important that your beloved wants and is not getting, can lead to a stronger relationship, provided it's something you're prepared to give. Interesting!

So this new colleague, when prompted by nosy you-know-who, said that her husband would probably say that in their case, the straw that would probably break the marriage-camel's back is her on-going resistance to cooking dinner every night. She works full-time, just doesn't have the inclination, just doesn't want to -- and it's something that matters to him. In her case (more nosy questions from me), the thing that would probably be the deal-breaker is his continued smoking and drinking, despite radical bypass surgery and near-death experience. Pretty serious stuff, right?

Naturally, because we were about to go away for the weekend, I stored this question up as potential excellent fodder for the road-trip, something deep we could delve into while wiling away the miles.

And naturally, with some trepidation. Because who knows what can of worms (or whoop-ass) I'd be opening with that question: my temper, my cleaning- and perfection-mania before people come over, my periodic total losses of my shit.

Truth is I can't think of a single deal-breaker with Joe. He's perfect. Honestly. Makes me laugh, he's foxy, driven, creative, loving, sweet, a good person through and through. Perfect. Truly.

But there we were, driving to his training camp in Santa Rosa, so I told the story and popped the question. And waited.

After a pause, he said, "the only thing I can think of is that damn bird shirt of yours. That's the ugliest thing you own, it looks terrible on you, and I hate it."

I was stunned.

Of all my flaws and foibles, the only thing he could think of as a deal-breaker was a shirt? My first response was pheeeeeeeew, I got off so easy on that one. Because seriously, I have some bad habits.

But then I realized, with a little sadness, that he was talking about a beloved blouse purchased at Anthropologie last year with birthday money, a blouse I always get compliments on (from other women, I realize), but a blouse I love.

LoveD.

If he hates it so much and thinks it looks that bad, I don't have a problem parting with it. Is that weird or weak or lame? Whatever, I don't care. If he thinks it looks bad, then that's enough for me.

Because really, when all is said and done, I couldn't care less about the shirt. And maybe now I can make him get rid of that sweatshirt I hate, or that particularly ugly old pair of pants.

XX

Sunday farm-y field trip

I'm on this new kick of doing Sunday Field Trips.  So far, pretty inconsistent, but I'm working on it.  If we can manage a field trip a month, I'll feel pretty good.

Today's edition: visiting Ghost Town Farm in Oakland, then picking up chicken coop bedding/manure courtesy of Marin Freecycle.

Seeing Novella Carpenter's farmlet, Ghost Town Farm, on 28th Street in Oakland, was a big treat.  It was a gorgeous day, and it was great to see so many people in there and to hear her speak about her adventures in urban farming.  If you haven't read her book, Farm City, I highly recommend - super-entertaining. She started out as a squatter-farmer, using the empty lot next to her house to grow in. She bought the lot two months ago and now is no longer, as she put it, a renegade, instead someone who pays property taxes.

One of the things I like best about Novella is how she doesn't seem to over-think or stress the details too much.  Many people asked super-detailed, nervous questions, "What about this?  What about that?" and her answer was almost always, I don't know, I didn't worry about that. That's not to say she's not knowledgeable.  She just seems to be the kind of person who can just do without over-organizing or worrying about every little thing.

She had her goats and one enormous rabbit, Sasquatch, on display. There were many more rabbits in cages on the second-floor porch of her house; she "processes" about 20 rabbits a month. Like us, she also lost her bees over the summer, though there were plenty buzzing around, attracted by some pieces of honeycomb. We tried the rabbit pot pie (tasty!) and drank nettle tea (not tasty!) and generally got re-fired-up about our home garden and our dream of creating a farm in the yard at the shop.

 

From Oakland, we dashed back across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge to pick up free chicken shit in Kentfield, all the while making silly puns along the lines of whether we'd get into a long-term relationshit with this chicken-keeper, so funny, ha ha ha.

Meeting people through Freecycle is always a curious thing.  You just never know what you'll find, who the person will be, what their house will be like.  It's ideal for a snoop like me, always wanting to see into people's lives.  This charming woman in Kentfield led us through her house (in which she's lived for 31 years) and took us to her chicken coop.  One of her chickens was healing from injuries sustained in a hawk-attack in January. Ominously, birds were circling overhead, a redtail among them, so she didn't let the chickens out, though they generally roam all over her yard.  We filled three buckets with poop-filled pine shavings she'd cleaned from the hen-house and were on our way.

Once we folded the manure into the compost, heads-hung low it was time to come indoors even though it's still bright and beautiful out, needing to get work done on this last working weekend of the month.  Joe is doing bids and I'm about to spend a few hours paying bills and sending invoices.  Fortunately, it's cold out, so the temptation to be out there is less strong than it will be in a few weeks, when the chicken manure has done its work and we've got sweet, sweet compost to dig into the spring beds.

Today's field trip was great to start stoking that spring fever fire.  If I didn't have to work, I'd be going through last year's left-over seed packets and figuring out what to put where, thinking ahead to what we'll want to eat come July, what might be a good thing to have to share or trade.  

Getting so excited about the growing season to come and all of the possibilities!  But now, back to work.  

XX

"Because there are rules..."

Because the work I do for money appears to be a true, true reflection of who I am inside, I tend to gravitate towards positions in which I am the Champion of Rules.  Whether this was the ESL Teacher Me of 20 or so years ago teaching grammar or the Controller Me of the present, it is really always about rules.

I like rules.

I spend a lot of time thinking about rules, about order, about grouping like things, whether it's Halloween candy or amphibians seen on a walk through the woods.  I love yoga because there are rules, principles of alignment that make it all flow blissfully.  I love science for the same reason, for the tools it offers to understand how the world works, a little crack into the mystery of it all.

So I particularly enjoyed the part of Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project (coming out in paperback next week) in which she explores "True Rules," her own idiosyncratic collection of principles for making decisions and setting priorities. True Rules are the unspoken rules that govern our individual behavior, our Code so to speak.  Some of Gretchen's:

  Get some exercise every day.
  Get some work done every day.
  My parents are almost always right.
  Never eat hors d'oeuvres, and never eat anything at a children's party.

Some of my favorite examples from her blog readers include:

  Always say hello.
  Don't get up in the 5:00s or go to sleep in the 8:00s.
  Things have a way of turning out for the best.

As we were driving home from Tahoe last weekend, I made a game (another example of rule-love) with Joe of trying to come up with our own True Rules.  Here are some of mine, scribbled in my notebook as I sat curled in the passenger seat.  Each one, of course, has a story, but that's for another time.

  Never drink coffee before 4 am.
  Always say Thank You.
  In certain situations you can choose to be bigger or smaller.  Choose bigger no matter how hard it is.
  Be invited back.
  Eliminate drag.
  Fix the small stuff.
  Taste what is offered.
  Give people the opportunity to tell you their story.

& of course, a favorite from Anusara: When in doubt, stick it out.

And because one of Joe's True Rules is "on a road trip, always have a meal," we then promptly stopped for lunch.

I know my rule-iness has the potential to make me intolerant, boorish, bossy and rude, but if I keep it in check -- follow my own True Rules, that is -- then really, it makes me so happy.  Everything's in order and I can see long vistas of possibility.  Then everything's open and fun.

And really that's probably my Truest Rule of all: Be happy, have fun.

XXX

Valentine's is for chicks...

With Valentine's Day 2011 behind us, I wanted to get down my Valentine's Manifesto as a way of already getting ready for next year.

I love Valentine's Day so much I should marry it.  At minimum, I should make it its very own Valentine, covered in stickers and glitter.  I love Valentine's like I love Santa and Christmas and New Year's Resolutions and a host of other holiday traditions that make so many people grumble.

And there are really so many haters out there!  I get it.  For some people, these externally-imposed obligations are such a drag, create so much pressure and anxiety.  The cynicism and negativity abound.

That's just wrong.

It's such a missed opportunity to use it for your own ends, to make something beautiful out of what might otherwise be a chore.  Somewhere recently (maybe in Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project) I read, "if you can't get out of it, get into it."  Such great advice!

The essence of my Valentine's Manifesto is getting into it, getting deep into it, up to your elbows in glitter glue and construction paper.  

I have been doing it this way for years, so long that part of the fun of the activity is thinking back on the old days.  It's bittersweet for me, too, because my strongest memories, the sweetest, are of hours spent over teacups and music, making delicate, beautiful Valentine's with a friend who's entirely lost to me now, eaten by substance abuse, vanished from the texture of my life.  I think of her so much as I cut out hearts, remember being in her house surrounded by her mewling cats.  For some years, we'd make a tea party out of it, but she was always at the center of the making, its creative hub.

Even then, like now, for me Valentine's Day is not a romantic thing.  It's a celebration of love between girlfriends, between friends, a day for me to express love to all those people -- besides my husband -- who fill my little world with love all year long.  For some, those for whom I have addresses, this means a Valentine in the mail.  And that's the super-fun part.  

I devoted an afternoon to Valentines this year, a whole leisurely slow happy Saturday afternoon while Joe was off racing, to cutting shapes from construction papers and doilies, applying the glitter glue, then the stickers.  It was a three-step process, since they had to dry in between.  It was sweet, listening to music, thinking of my friends the whole way through.  They had to sit for a week to be good and dry before going into envelopes, then I had a little schedule for mailing, to  ensure that the East Coast people got theirs in good time, the West Coast people not too early.

This is, no doubt, another manifestation of my Inner Dork, but like I said, Get Into It.

And, to be clear, I do not refuse the box of See's dark chocolate Nuts and Chews which Joe always brings me.  

So here's my Manifesto for next year.  

- Make an Open House out of it
- Lay in a supply of paper, pens, glitter, glue, stickers, what have you
- Bake a batch of cookies, make a big pot of coffee
- Put on music and 
- Go

I can only fit a certain number of people around my table, so I'm inviting others to have their own Valentine's parties.  Really, it's so fun.

Because Valentine's Day really is and should be a way to love up your friends, to let them know in a small but powerful way that you're thinking of them, holding them in your little paper heart.

And how nice would it be for me to receive some Valentines by mail next year!  Get Into It!

Listening for my teacher's breath

It took a while for the idea to sink in that yoga class is a group activity.  A long time, like the first couple of years when we were taking classes in gyms. Then, each mat was an island with at least a foot of empty space around it.  No touching.  Heaven forbid.  In that context, on each floating island a yogi does his or her own poses, alone in a room full of others.

That works for some people.  It worked for me in the beginning, way back in the beginning when I was looking for a purely physical practice.  Chanting?  Gross.

Gradually though, under the influence of other teachers, Anusara classes, the class truly became a group activity, something which we are choosing to come together to do together.  We line up the front edges of our mats, we stand next to each other, we don't mind if our hands brush on their respective ways up into the air.  The mats are cozy-close sometimes, as the room expands to accomodate more friends and we contract our personal space to make it possible.  The joke is always that I'm happiest now if the mats are actually touching, if we fill the floor, wall-to-wall with one big connecting uber-mat.

It's true.

I think about this a lot, my own progression in the practice from a time where I would rather have died than touch my neighbor, to now, when I'm positively jumping around with glee at the start of a really packed class, so excited to have all these people practicing together, cozy cozy cozy.  To now when I'm so sorry to be missing the really huge community classes this weekend while John Friend is in town, these classes where there are 250 of us in one big room, with probably an inch around all sides of each mat.  Cozy!

Because now I do think of it as us.  Us practicing instead of just me.

That's funny, right?  But there's a way, when we practice together, that we become a super-organism or perhaps that we remember we ARE a super-organism, when we're breathing together, moving together, growing together.  Like a colony of ants or bees, or cute furry creatures if that works better for you.

When this works optimally, when we really merge, those are the times I listen hardest for my teacher's breathing, no matter how many people are in the room.  I like the exercise of going super-quiet -- which can be so challenging when I'm so excited, so surrounded by people I adore whom I've just jumped all over, happy dog, in greeting -- and being able to pick out the sound of her in-breath when it's time for us to chant together.

The chanting -- the oms, then the invocation: that's the initial threshold we cross, the melding of the super-organism, when we put our voices together into one sound.  Doing this well together means listening, singing together truly, making one sound out of many voices.  It means not out-Om-ing everybody, but listening and singing along.  No karaoke, no solos.

When it works, it's hard for me to keep my eyes dry.  There's something so thrilling about hearing my own voice and everyone else's at the same time, bringing my part to the big sound, making something together.

And underneath it all, the sound of my teacher's breathing is the anchor, the queen-sound around which we organize, the quiet that precedes the group voice ringing out.

I never could have imagined the many, many blessings and opportunities and friendships that yoga would bring me, here in my dotage.  Perhaps none is more precious than this simple gift of a group of people coming together to do something together, to connect our little island lives into one shared experience, mats touching, hearts for sure.  I wish this deep and simple happiness for everyone. It has given me so much.

XOXOXOXOX

Fasssssssssscinating!

If I'm being truthful, then I readily admit that I had some definite trepidation about signing up for a Herpetology class this semester.  I enjoyed my Mammalogy experience with the same instructor -- even though I had crazy highs and lows, loving him sometimes, not so much at others -- and really enjoyed my fellow students.  It was really super-fun and stressful too, since I can't let go of the need to do all the reading, do my best on the homework and field assignments, and ace the tests.  But since the teacher told me that I'd see herps in every single class, that it's the kind of class to which the students are likely to bring their pets snakes, lizards and frogs, I figured it was a prime way to get over my fear of snakes.

And there have already been ample opportunities to make new reptile acquaintances.

So far, in the first 3 classes, I've met 3 pythons, 1 Central American boa constrictor, 2 New Caledonia crested geckos, 2 firebelly toads, and 3 tree frogs.  All but the toads and frogs were readily available for handling, brought into class in carriers and pockets.  The ball pythons, especially the baby one, were gorgeous; the boa freaked me out a bit; the geckos were my favorites.  So cute and soft!  Even when a little nervous of the snakes, my inner Doolittle takes me over completely: I move quickly to be close to them, anxious to be friends.

My classmates are an interesting bunch as usual.  Many experts in the class, like last time -- afficionados, big-time.  Their willingness to share their own experience so augments what we can all learn.  I love that.

For this class we don't have a single textbook. Instead we've got 4 books: a field guide naturally, then one book each on amphibians, lizards and snakes.  I started the snake book this morning, which sparked my desire to write this post so that I could share an excerpt from the Introduction.  I'm on page 2 of the 306-page text and already completely hooked by the passion of the writer, Harry W. Greene.  How not to be swept away into the great natural history adventure of understanding the greatness of snakes?

Here is Greene's retelling of his abrupt departure from lunch in Costa Rica to see a Bushmaster Lachesis muta viper, a snake he'd only ever read about -- huge, rare and supposedly ferocious, said to suckle milk from cows and sleeping women.

For almost an hour we hiked south a twice my normal speed, up and down mud-slick trails -- and all on a full stomach.  The surrounding forest was hot and humid, almost claustrophobically dark and fecund.  Huge buttressed trees towered above us, obscuring the sky and everywhere were the deep greens and rich browns of living plants or their decaying remnants.  After a brief but torrential shower, the air reverberated with buzzes, screams, and croaks of countless insects, birds, and frogs, and a troop of howler monkeys roared in the distance.  Slogging along, I mused half seriously that within minutes of dying in rain forest one would be overgrown by mosses, vines, and fungi, all the while devoured in tiny pieces by ants and fierce green katydids.

The terrain becomes more corrugated upslope from the entrance to La Selva, each ridge a little steeper and higher.  When we finally veered off the path I was soaked in sweat, almost giddy with exhaustion and anticipation.  Parting the leaves of understory palms and vines, we watched for "Balas" (bullets, Paraponera clavata), huge black ants with the most intensely painful and long-lasting sting of any hymenopteran.  Edwin stopped fifty meters or so up a broad ravine and peered over an enormous fallen tree.  Then, motioning caution with one hand, he pointed for Manuel Santana and me to lean over the chest-high log.  Coiled in a mound on the forest floor, its calligraphic black and tan colors blending with surrounding debris, was the most magnificent snake I'd ever seen in nature.  Thirty years after I'd read Ditmar's story, here was a live, wild Bushmaster -- perhaps two and a half meters long, and thicker than my arm.

As we scrambled over to it, the Bushmaster's only responses were slight elevation and retraction of its head, then a slow, vertical sweep of the long black tongue, aimed directly at us.  The snake's behavior was not exaggerated -- no lunging strikes, no frenzied escape efforts -- but there was a powerful sensation of measured readiness, like Clint Eastwood's squint in High Plains Drifter: "Don't come closer."  With no experience handling really large vipers, I simply photographed that first Lachesis muta and watched it slowly crawl away.  In the following decade our research group studied more than two dozen others, documenting a sedentary lifestyle, remarkably narrow diet of rodents and dependence on undisturbed lowland tropical rain forest.  Although much remains to be learned about Bushmasters, we now know more about this species than about many other vipers.  

Bushmasters embody our cultural and scientific traditions about what it means to be a snake: extraordinarily cryptic, they obtain infrequent but large meals with minimal risk, depend heavily on chemical cues rather than vision and sound, and convey a certain inscrutability.  Bushmasters invariably have symbolized grave danger, even though our fears are largely irrational.  Their bite is extremely serious, yet accidents are so rare than we lack a clear picture of proper treatment.  Perhaps no other serpent is such an icon for wilderness and the complex meaning of that word, including the profound uncertainties one lives with, and learns from, in remote places.

Hooked!  

Oh, the happy song of bees

I stood rapt under the apricot tree this afternoon, bathed in the loud thrum of bees. How I've missed these creatures in the time since our hives died last summer. Such a happy busy Summer-y sound, makes me want to swing in a hammock and stare at the sky.  

Like a little bee myself, busy planting lettuce starts and radishes in between the rows, next to the overwintering bokchoy and cilantro.  Chock full of summer salad dreams.  

How to Fold a Towel

Clearly I was inculcated into some weird cult of How To Fold A Towel as a child. There are rules for towel-folding that are as innate to me as breathing.  And to be clear, there is only one right way, one way that creates clean edges and neatly displays all the wares you have on offer.

At least one childhood friend bears towel-folding scars from an afternoon at our house.  I'll never forget her stunned face in the family bathroom when we were commanded to take down all of the towels from the open shelving area above the toilet and re-fold them correctly.  All of them.  Correctly, god damn it.  I was used to this, but she, coming from a very different kind of household, was clearly having a first-time experience of towel-folding rules.  I know she still remembers it, because we talked about it not so long ago.  And perhaps as a result she now folds towels correctly.

I think about this as I stand in front of the open linen closet this morning, marveling at the technique used by my spouse, marveling at how someone so precise in so many other areas can utterly fail to comprehend, despite repeated (now abandoned) lessons in folding.  Really?  This marveling is similar to what I experience when I find napkins in the dishtowel drawer (Really?  Do you see other napkins in here?) or dishes haphazardly tossed in the dishwasher (Really? Don't you see they fit better this way?).

But since this is my deal, the thing that only I notice, I long ago gave up expecting anyone else to do this the way I would.  Instead, periodically I stand in front of the linen closet, a bit in disbelief, pull it apart and start over.

Periodically my spouse also makes a game of it, literally tossing dishes haphazardly into the dishwasher for me to find while he waits, snickering, for my reaction.  I laugh, too.  Like I said, this is totally my deal so I take care of it.  And my spouse is too fantastic in too many ways for me to really care whether he folds a towel according to the Trelaun rules.

I'm sure the towel-folding is one of those rigid Type A Capricorn Enneagram 8 habits I could probably let go of.  On the other hand, I do derive aesthetic pleasure and satisfaction from a tidy row of towels upon opening the closet.  [OK, maybe it's OCD when this same delight in ordered presentation prompts me to organize the jams and sugars at table in a restaurant.  Whatever.  It amuses me.]

For now, I'm just marveling at how different we are, how differently we can see the things in the rooms we live in, how differently we notice our surroundings.  I know it's not the only way, but it's the way I like things to be so I make myself in charge of making them that way.

For the record, this is the proper way to fold a towel.  As a Trelaun, I approve this message.

Viveka: what good's a theme without a test?

For the past two weeks, I've been seriously dragging by Friday morning, so so sleepy and eager for the weekend and rest.  School started three weeks ago, and the Shri Series with Laura Christensen last week, so I'm gone from home Tuesday - Thursday evenings, getting home between 8:30 and 10.  I recognize that for regular people that's not late, but since we wake up at 5:30 around here, by Friday, I am little more than a caffeinated zombie.

Naturally, I exagerrate.   It's the caffeine talking.

I am remembering that my theme for the year is viveka, discernment.  For me, this really means being discriminating about how I expend my energy.  Since I said Yes to pretty much everything last year and ran myself ragged, this is the year to practice saying No.  So far, sort of good.  But as an indication of how things are going, for the past couple of days I've been carrying around an index card in my calendar, adding notes to my list of Priorities: Allocation of Personal Time.  So far I've written:

- more time to read, read more consistently.
- more time to write, write more consistently.
- time outside every single day.
- set a bedtime and stick to it.

There's more but I'm too tired to get up and fetch the card.  The details matter less than the point -- which is that already, 6 weeks or so into the new year and my new theme, I have come to its first test.

Excellent!

I am really, really serious about doing less and being more particular about what I say Yes to.  I have definitely said No to some things already this year, and made some different choices about how to spend my time.  It's been fun and a little sad also, as I shift the pattern.

So what's the problem?

The problem is that I arrive from class or yoga, excited to be home and eager for kick-back family time on the couch.  Which generally means that the TiVo is in someone's hand and I'm hanging around, in a pile of pillows, watching an animal show or comedy or enjoying Steven Tyler as a judge on American Idol.  Watching TV isn't an activity that really does anything for me at all, except that it's companionable time under a shared blanket, laughing together or discussing yet another delusional singing contestant or crying about some astounding feat of vocal prowess.

But it's keeping me up way too late at night.  Because of course, once the tv goes off and we make our way to bed, then there's the book I've been waiting all day to resume reading.  I can get by on 6 or so hours of sleep for a couple of nights, but if insomnia happens to strike somewhere in there, I'm done for.

Wouldn't it be so much easier to stick to my resolutions if there weren't so many distractions? If it weren't so hard?  But that's exactly the point, ain't it -- if you want it, sometimes you have to work for it.  For me in this year of viveka, I know I need to come back to foundations, re-establish some fundamental discipline at the core of every day.   I need a schedule, damn it, including a bed time.  Since I started my new job at the beginning of January (not coincidentally, at the beginning of viveka-year), I've been de-toxing and floating a bit, part of my recovery.  Enough!

Tomorrow, while Joe is gone at his race, before and after I go to yoga in the morning, I'll be sitting and thinking about how to structure my new schedule so that I'm spending my time on what I really want to spend it on -- reading, writing, thinking, being outside, hanging out, having fun, and still getting enough beauty sleep.  'Cause lord knows, I do need that beauty sleep.

Already full

Just a quickie post to say that I am engaged in a debate with my teabag this afternoon.

Every time I pick up the cup of tasty Lemon Ginger tea and re-read the little paper tag, I find myself arguing with these words, Empty yourself and let the universe fill you.

Wait, if we're not filled with the universe in the first place, what the heck is in there?

I am convinced, I know, that I'm filled with the universe all the time.  It's just that sometimes I forget.  And it never occurred to me that there could be other stuff in there besides the universe.  Should there be something else in there?