Maha booty

Yoga pants cost an obscene amount of money, generally speaking.  My skill at rationalizing purchases of said-obscenely priced items can be extraordinary, but lately I've been unwilling to come up with my usual story about how essential it is to trade hard-earned cash for close-fitting exercise togs.  

And yet, last week, there came a point, 6 minutes before class started one evening, when my own physical discomfort drove me to grab a new pair from the shelf in the studio and lay down $73 for what are, essentially, pyjamas.  I was so much more at ease as a result, sad but at ease.

I have, shall we say, outgrown most of my current yoga pants, the pants that fill an entire drawer in my room, essential when one practices 5 times a week in public classes (ideal) and at home (ok, only rarely).  [In case you missed it, that was an example of rationalization.]

Yes, outgrown.  For whatever reason -- I still don't know exactly why, but place responsibility on my low-functioning thyroid, recently-uncovered Vitamin D deficiency, and on my advancing age, and also, if I'm being honest, on the fact that since Jasper died (hate that word), I am not hiking or walking consistently -- I have gained weight in pants-places.  Most of the time I am just uncomfortable, constantly aware of it. Sometimes the awfulness of it for me wakes me from my sleep.  I am just that fucked-up in the head, I suppose.

So there I was, at 6:09pm, throwing on pants for 6:15 class.  Because I was moving quickly, the color choice was nothing special, a dark blue.  Dark colors are slimming, right?

But there I was, going up a size.

That's what I've been foolishly avoiding, avoiding confronting what is, in favor of holding onto what is clearly not happening any more.

As recompense for squaring myself to what is [thanks, Abby, that's your voice inside my head], can I just say that I was so much more comfortable throughout class?  No fiddling with the waistband of the pants, no constant yarding-down of the top, no anxiety about exposure in inverted poses.  I was more at ease, less guarded and buzzing with a low-level of unhappiness, less constricted.

But a size bigger and $73 poorer.

If there's a time for new pants, I'm afraid this is really it. [More rationalization.]

I tell myself, though, that I could save money and just lose the weight.  But let's be honest: I'm not losing the weight.  I am still too paralyzed to hike alone in our hills.  I can't walk around the neighborhood like I did for years, except in the company of Jassie's ghost, and it's still too painful.  I can't eat less, since I just can't muster the give-a-shit to put myself through that.  So it's down to acceptance, to squaring myself to what is, to accepting myself.

To being a size larger.

This is an excellent opportunity to put everything into practice, everything that I've been studying for years.  If I'm perfect just as I am, then I'm perfect with a fatter ass.  The fatter ass is perfect.  [OK, that's a hard one for me, ok, just sayin'.]  Things change, people change, asses change.  It's all good.  That's life, etc., etc., etc.  But now, using myself as the material, I have to mean it.  And that, my friends, ain't easy.

Lo and behold, three days after my big purchase (oh ha ha ha, in more ways than one), imagine my own delight/irritation that there was suddenly 75% off items on the sale rack at the very same studio.  [Rationalization: now I had no excuse not to step up and accomodate reality.]  For less than I spent on the first pair of fat-pants (and I mean that lovingly), I bought two more pairs, including a bright pink pair (sale rack, after all)  + a cute t-shirt.  How's that for squaring to what is?

So I throw down the gauntlet to myself.  Yeah, I'm rocking bigger pants (for now), but I'm not going down quietly.  I'm going to be comfortable, and hot-pink, if that's what it takes, taking my place in the front row with as much acceptance as I can muster, busting bigger poses with my bigger butt.

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July 15: The Trifecta of AMAZING

Today, Friday July 15th, 2011, is, as my genius sister Martine put it, quite simply the Trifecta of AMAZING!

Chez Nous: Maison Assibat, Arrens-Marsous

One: it's Stage 13 of the Tour de France, which passes through my family's country today, literally.  The stage begins in Pau, comes up the col d'Aubisque, across to and down from Col de Soulor and down through our little village, Arrens-Marsous, the village where my father was born, where our French family is buried, where my parents will be in just a couple of days.  Steps from this house was where I saw my first live Tour passing through, way back in the early 70s with a Poulidor cap on my head.  There again, in 2005, that we hiked to the top of Soulor and waited all day to see the caravane, the helicopters, the riders come by.  I'll be glued to the coverage today, eyes wide open for shots of our special place in the world, those beautiful mountains and gorgeous little villages.  I can almost smell it.  It's thrilling for me, especially now that Martine (deep, deep pranams, sister) prevailed on our parents not to sell the ancestral house and garden.  I am watching with even more intensity as a result.

            

Carlita and Joe,
Col de Soulor, 2005

The Kid and Ben: full fan regalia,
Col de Soulor, 2005

Two: Harry Potter opens today.  The Kid saw it at midnight last night, but I'm waiting until Saturday, waiting until the crowds of screaming girls in capes subside somewhat.  It'll still be plenty raucous, though, I'm sure, since we're not delaying long.  I've been waiting and waiting for this final film to come out, to go sit in the dark and revel in the story, in the love and heroism that's so deep in that story.  The last one was so good.  I really am so excited to take it in.  It occurs to me, naturally, that it's really the very same story in different outfits as the Tour de France in so many ways: bravery, struggle, friendship, loyalty and love.  Sweet!

Three: It's Guru Purnima!  The July moon was fat and bright last night, blasting my room with light as I tried to get to sleep, illuminating that today's the special day when we honor our teachers and the entire lineage of teachers who've brought us to this point.  I bow deeply today, all day, to my many, many teachers, with so much gratitude for all they've taught and continue to teach me, in the great unfolding of consciousness that is this life.

It's going to be an AMAZING day.  Live it up!

other kinds of heroes, unassuming

I've been reading Oak Park Hates Veggies all morning, the blog of a woman in Oak Park, Michigan who is battling her city over her decision to plant vegetables in her front yard.  The family has been ticketed and fined, and goes to trial at the end of this month.  For growing vegetables in their front yard!

Given that we also replaced lawn with garden beds out here in the renegade badlands of Santa Venetia where pretty much anything goes -- and that I did have moments of wondering whether we'd get in trouble for that (of course not.  Anything goes, remember?) -- and just given my general obsession with anything home-farming related, it's natural I should take an interest.

But the thing is that I am enjoying reading her so much.  About herself, she writes, in a blog post titled "rosa parks i am not":

... this was so accidental, so unintentional. we just did our little thing on our little lawn in our little city- and here we are.  we never decided to “take a stand” or fight injustice or be held up as an example. i feel like what we did is so little in comparison to what really heroic people do that what we did is almost silly.

i think i am a good person. i am a loyal friend and a caring mom and hopefully a decent wife. but i’m so……….regular. there are so many truly wow people in the world- i don’t want to pose as one of them when i’m so not.

i am touched beyond words when people say nice things here and in other places about our family. i am awestruck at the outpouring of support and kindness from people who don’t even know us. i don’t want to downplay that one bit.

but at the end of the day, i am soooooo not wow. i am so astoundingly regular. i think our garden is great, but even the garden is pretty unimpressive in the greater scheme of things.  i think people should have a right to grow food. i think people need to take more responsibility for the choices they make. i think more people need to think before they act. i think governments, large or small, should not be allowed to ride roughshod over their citizens. i think power should never trump truth. but there are so many people out there who are really fighting and really suffering and being truly heroic- they are living these principles when i am just sitting here in my air-conditioned den and blogging about them.

i just want to be clear: i am not rosa parks or gandhi or mother theresa. not even close. i am just me.

And just her, not Rosa Parks or Mother Theresa, planted what is a really modest starter veggie garden.  It's four beds, mulch in between, tidy, modest.  No big deal, no great shakes.  Actually, what it is is totally accessible.  Some people who've never gardened will look at it and think, "Oh, that's it?  I can totally do that."  It's right out there, in front of the house, not as a provocation, but because that's what worked.  It's small-scale, do-able for regular folks.  It is exactly what municipalities should be encouraging rather than attacking.  Crazy, silly Oak Park: what an unfortunate tempest in a little tiny teacup, leaving city officials looking like utter asses.

If you are so inclined, there's a Facebook page to Like, as a way of showing support, and also a petition hosted by Care2.

Heroes are made, whether they want it or not, sometimes out of the most unlikely characters.  Julie and family in Oak Park: it's your turn!

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jusqu'au bout de son courage...

Johnny Hoogerland, comforted on the podium
by legend Raymond Poulidor
photo credit: Bettini, cyclingnews.com

As much as I am enjoying the hours and hours of coverage of this year's Tour de France, the familiar sights and sounds pouring out of the TiVo, the excitement of watching the moves and finishes, the gorgeous countryside unfolding, the courage and strength of the riders, I have to admit that the number of crashes is working a weird number on my head.  Yesterday's stage, #9, in which Johnny Hoogerland was sent flying into a barbed wire fence after Alexandre Vinokourov ended up in a tree, just about did me in.

It's not even about me.

But with every crash, I just cringe, remembering Joe's crashes, particularly the last one, re-living that sick feeling of the phone call, the drive to the hospital, the first sight of the beloved in the ER in some stage or other of unconsciousness.

And yet how beautiful and brave and remarkable that that poor Hoogerland picked himself out of the barbed wire, got back on the bike and finished.  That he went, as the French announcer says in this video, to the very end of his courage to stay in, despite his injuries that later required 33 stitches.

That's amazing.

That's why I'll keep watching every year, for these feats of endurance and strength and courage.  And for the loyalty, the laying down of the bike for a teammate, the entire peloton slowing down and waiting following the catastrophic crash.  It's such a great rolling story every single year, with so many opportunities for individuals to shine, both for their own strength and for their bigness of spirit.
,
Thank goodness it's a rest day today, so the riders can recover.  And so that we can, too.  Yesterday's action was so horrific and yet amazing -- Thor Hushovd's leadership even as his yellow jersey was slipping away, Thomas Voekler's joy on the podium, Johnny Hoogerland's tears.  We are invited to watch the full gamut of human possibility and to go, vicariously, to the every ends of courage.  After which a rest, really, is needed.

Tomorrow it's back in the saddle.  Fingers crossed everyone stays upright and Voekler carries the yellow through Bastille Day!

Vive le Tour!

Always Say Thank You

one week, three cards!

This has been quite a week for Thank You cards -- I have received three so far!  

Receiving personal snail-mail of any kind is always notable, but three Thank You cards in one week?  That's some kind record.  Makes me think I must be doing something right.  

Actually, what's more true is that other people are most certainly doing something Super Right -- i.e., sending notes to say Thank You, which is always an incredibly thoughtful thing to do. 

This is a super-social season, filled with dinner parties and graduations, so there's plenty of generosity to feel grateful for.  Personally, right now, I am just feeling grateful to those who've taken the time to send their handwritten expressions of thanks, such a lovely habit which we should really and truly never lose.  Becca, Nicole, Heather and Michael: thank you!  No matter how much faster and simpler to write an email, a card is just so much better.  It has life in a way that an electronic communication just can't, no matter how well-worded.

I know this is my training talking.  The Thank You note was a cornerstone of my politeness training, after all, and it lives on in me, deeply, in the form of one of my rules, Always Say Thank You.  It and its companion, Be Invited Back, mean I always have a stack of cards at the ready for just this expression.  I may suck at sending birthday cards, but Thank You cards I can manage.   At Thank You cards I can excel.

There's something so pleasant, I think, about re-living the experience, the birthday or the holiday or the dinner, through the action of choosing the card, and then the words, to send.  For me, it's a kind of reveling in the memory of that moment, celebrating the friendship, the thoughtfulness, all of the deliciousness of time spent together.  So good and tasty both in the giving and in the receiving.

We went to a great party last night, and I was so happy to find the perfect card to send today.  I think it sums things up quite nicely.  And now I just have to find the right way to express the fullness I feel remembering what it was like to be in the company of people I love.  How very precious it is, indeed, to love and be loved.  And how essential to take the time to say it.

perfection!

everything is connected to everything

Let me see: for the past few weeks, I've been suffering from, not writer's block, but from what I think of as Writer's Blah.  Writer's Block seems (to me) to imply that there's something to block.  I've just been blah, had nothing, really -- extremely limited energy, some ideas but execution zero -- and have been sleeping like the dead, which is insane for me.  But today, I'm feeling like I'm back.  And so's insomnia, no surprise, my more-usual companion.  There's a crash coming later on, but for now, I'm enjoying feeling so much more like myself than I have in weeks.

No coincidence that last night was the first time I've been to class in weeks. Literally, weeks.  Which is also super-weird for me.  My rationale was that I was injured and recovering, and also grieving still.  That's all true, but it's also true that it was more of the above Blah taking me over.  It's like a Dementor got me or something, just every drop of joy sucked out of the universe for a bit.

Just in case this is a temporary relapse to normalcy, with a return to Blah imminent, just wanted to get some stuff down on "paper."  Which is also the reason that I got up at 4:05, after 2 1/2 hours of trying to get back to sleep.

If I'm going to write, then I have to practice. 

Class with Laura last night was fantastic.  We did one-minute holds throughout the 90-minute class in our exploration of her theme of finding stillness in motion, motion in stillness.  And truly, finding alignment and then holding forearm plank or handstand for a minute at a time immediately drives home the point.  To hold on, you have to get quiet, go inside, pull in and focus.  Meanwhile, in that holding, so much ricocheting, pinballing motion.  Not to mention the despair of the monkey brain crying out, "is it time yet?"  We worked hard, I dripped sweat all over my mat, I lost my mind and found it again, waiting for me with my sandals in the cubbies by the bathroom.

As soon as I took my seat on my mat, I realized how essential the practice is to my creativity, how it lays down tracks for my train of thought.  It's no coincidence that I suddenly have this urge to write again, that it kept me awake from 1:30 am today.

When I practice, I have more words.  And more words is what I want to be having.  I have been profoundly uncomfortable and unhappy for the past few weeks, because I just was for various reasons but also because I felt so wordless.

Besides practicing and farming, writing is all I really want to do. 

I'm not sure where it's taking me, but I'm sure enjoying writing for this, my own, my beloved blog, writing for San Rafael Patch, writing for Bay Shakti, and now writing and social networking for the San Rafael Neighborhood Team of the Obama 2012 campaign.  Fingers crossed that a recent piece really, really does get crossposted (after ferocious editing, down to 250 words, by the national office, but whatevs, they can do with me as they wish) to the Barack Obama website.

I LOVE all of this and am not entirely sure where it's leading, but it's a source of profound happiness to me to be able to express myself this way.  So I'll keep doing it and see where it leads.  To be clear, it doesn't have to lead anywhere.  It's an end in itself, I suppose, but since I wish that this were all I had to do, that it really were true that this is what I did for a living (as a recent acquaintance assumed, so sorry to burst her bubble), then that does urge me always on to thinking of how to make that reality.  And well before retirement age, if you please.

Oh, and reading.

I've been reading like mad, too, something that's been a smidge worrisome, only because I have taken to using the time I formerly employed in hiking and walking with Jasper to crawl back under the covers with a book.  It has, actually, made me wonder -- what with the ridiculous sleeping -- whether I was depressed.  

Thanks to a new library card, I've been re-living my days of Summer Reading Program at the Eureka Valley branch of the San Francisco Public Library, and making my way through some re-reads and new reads of children's literature.  As a result of which I have now irrefutably established that Great Expectations, though assigned to me and the rest of my 7th grade class, is not a book for 11-year-olds.  Or at least not this particular 11-year-old.  I didn't remember a thing about the book, except for the way Ms. Silverstein's approach to dissecting the book nearly turned me off to reading altogether.  I enjoyed it as an adult, though, I must say.  Oh, Havisham: may we avoid becoming you.

I'll be finishing Graceling by Kristin Cashore this morning before work.  And then it's on to re-reading two E. L. Konisburg titles, From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth.  I am thoroughly enjoying this kid lit foray and thinking about this audience so much.  Who knows: maybe there's a book there.

everything is connected to everything

I am adoring a new show on FX, "Wilfred," perfectly weird and hilarious.  [In fact, I was rhapsodizing last night that FX has basically all of my favorite shows, which perhaps says a lot about my TVMA LSV tendencies.]  And yeah, it's just tv, but tv can be awesome, tv can be inspirational, tv can be delightful.

And so it is that I woke up with this phrase, "everything is connected to everything," spoken by the dog, Wilfred, on the show's second episode.  

Which is seeming so true, especially now when I am acutely aware of how connected my practice is to my writing is to my reading is to my writing is to my practice is to my ultimate happiness.  Sometimes it just takes an Aussie in a dog suit to remind me.


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Happ-bee Independence Day!

Celebrating freedom all day and loving on what surrounds us.  Happy Fourth!

RED

Pomegranate blossom

WHITE

Oregano

& BLUE

Borage