Day 1: Done and done!

photo via Flickr/Johannes-Konrad

It's really hot here. Again. At the for-all-intents-and-purposes-if-not-technical-end of summer. It hit 96 today, September 1.

Which was perfect for a home practice to kick off my 30-day challenge! It's great/awful not starting until 10 p.m., but it gives me a chance to enjoy dinner with my man and a little walk with the dogs. Then they sleep, and I practice, and we're all happy.

It was a good class, if small. Leo the dog didn't even join - he ran upstairs to the air-conditioning as soon as he was allowed to. I, on the other hand, was dripping sweat not 10 minutes into my practice. I didn't use the CD or anything tonight, and it was cool and peaceful to hear the pitter-patter of sweat drops on my mat. (I just realized how disgusting that might sound to people who aren't fans of Bikram yoga.)

I didn't push my back toooo far, though it did take a few tries before I could get past the fear of doing a backbend while "cold" - at 90 degrees instead of 105. But I did it. Classes for the next five days should be no-brainers as far as scheduling, so (knock on wood) I think I'm in good shape to keep this challenge going!

That's all I got for now, folks, as I have to be out the door in six or so hours. Happy September, everyone! Any plans for the long weekend?

Just in time for National Yoga Month! (with a long aside)

I'm planning on doing a 30-day challenge in September. Not just because it's on my 30 Before 30 list. There are a couple of answers to "Why do this now?"

1. September actually has only 30 days. Just four months can claim that! For some reason, it works better in my mind this way. I think I'd be inclined to excuse myself for one day if I were to challenge in a 31-day month. This may make no sense, at all, but it's how my brain works... Also, it isn't cold yet, so I can get a good sweat on even in a mostly-home practice.

2. My life finally has a semblance of routine: I work at the yoga studio one night and one day a week. I go to work and I come home and I play with dogs. Sometimes I cook, sometimes the boyfriend does. It's all very boring, but I wouldn't have it any other way. (Well, that's not entirely true. I wish I could magically transport myself to work in an instant, but it's not going to happen, and I love where I live and I love where I work, so. That's that.)

3. The New York asana competition is in October, and participating is also on my 30 Before 30 list. Doing this challenge will help me prepare for that in a couple ways. Getting stronger with postures. Getting stronger in general. Losing a couple of pounds (maybe). Developing Bikram's five aspects of the mind (that's a great link; you should click it!): faith, determination, self-control, concentration and patience. Taking part in the competition might not happen, however, because 1) My emails to Bikram Yoga NYC have gone unanswered; 2) I can't seem to find anything about this year's competition, including a date, and 3) My back is kind of angry.

Aside/explanation about the back; feel free to skip this:

I've had lower back pain on and off for years now, and I'm used to it, and it's a dull-ache kinda thing. Yoga helps, etc, etc. I love, LOVE backbending. However, over the past three weeks to a month, I've developed pretty bad pain and stiffness in my midback. Well, the muscles have always been tight, but now my spine really feels stiff. Backbending HURTS. Feels like a metal rod is in my spine.

In a trip to the chiropractor Wednesday (the first such visit in over two years), I learned that the apex of my pain is right at the apex of my spine's scoliotic curve, like the point on the left side of this character: < . OK, maybe it's not quite that severe, but it feels like it! I also learned that my spine is more of a wreck than I had assumed/accepted. The doc actually asked me, "What happened to you?" as though she thought I'd been in a car accident, or something. Maybe she was hoping to keep steady any business from me. Not to worry, doc.

It was interesting to hear her rundown of my structural issues, as her observations actually validated a lot of perceptions (proprioceptions?) I'd had. For example, even when my feet are together, toes and heels touching, I feel like my left hip is waaay forward of the right one. And I feel like my head is constantly tilted to the right. And like my right shoulder is trying to reach forward to touch my wacky left hip. (This explains why my half-moon to the right comes extremely naturally — I'm already halfway there.) And on and on. And I was right!!!

Well, she did some work on my neck (my chin goes straight down now! Yay!) and my wonky lower back, and although I was sore yesterday, it was a good sore. Just like I've heard at yoga, my body didn't get into so much pain overnight; it's unreasonable to expect it to get awesome overnight.

That doesn't, however, keep me from wanting it to be awesome overnight. In Thursday's class, I still had the midback pain, and in the first backbend I just tried to breathe through the pain/fear (about which a post is started and sitting in draft version). The second one I did OK, though nowhere near its usual depth. The last thing I wanted to do was jam everything up. Which brings me back to...

End aside/explanation. Sheesh, that was long.

4. My back is kind of angry. A challenge, undertaken with care and concern and compassion, can work wonders for my spine, especially in concert with chiropractic.

What I hope to learn from you, lovelies, is why you do challenges. And what are some of the biggest obstacles to completing them? How do you address those obstacles? I won't be able to use the "I don't have enough time" excuse most days. My time commitment will be exactly 90 minutes (or however long the CD really is), since at least three days a week I'll be practicing at home. It's nice to have dealt with that excuse (my favorite, by the way) up front. Let's see if I don't talk myself out of it. :)

It's good to blog again. If you're a blogger, yoga-related or otherwise, know that I am always inspired (or at least entertained!) by what you've been writing. I so look forward to hearing your thoughts!

So much to say, so much to say...

But where has my time gone? Been wondering if I should think about looking into modes of internet access for my laptop while I do the commuting thing every day. That's two whole hours a day I could be relating my yogic summer adventures (or lack thereof, honestly)... I could get caught up, at least.

But today... Today calls for a note to self.

For several days now, but especially today, I've been itching to stretch out these tight muscles and creaky bones. I was once again compelled to bust out a triangle in the bathroom stall. My left hip wanted more, more of that tinglyburnygetdeepinthere sensation. The lower back demanded it, too. It felt good to move into the posture for just a quick couple of seconds, to shush those clamoring voices for a while.

It'll be hard to keep this in mind, of course, in just over three hours, when the ABSOLUTE LAST thing I want to do is two sets of triangle.

The stoke, the motivation, the itch to do our yoga often comes easily outside the studio.

How do you honor that fire while in the studio, in the heat of the moment?

(Can't wait to post pics and a roundup soon. Very soon. Just as soon as I find a new mini-USB cable. Puppy chewed the old one...)

I really, really, don't wanna go to the studio/class tonight. There is so much to catch up on at home: dishes, laundry, blah, blah, blah.


Over the years, it has become super-obvious to me that days when my (dirty) plate is too full are the days I most need to go. No doubt it'll be a good class. :)

As the saying goes, the only classes I regret are the ones I don't go to.

Happy Thursday, y'all! As one coworker said today, Thursday is like a prequel to Friday. Let's rock it.

On the outside, looking ... around.

Every Second Saturday of the month, all the art galleries and many businesses on Main Street stay open late, serving wine and cheese (and tiramisu!) and celebrate new openings. One of me and B's favorite storefronts, School of Jellyfish, was hosting a multimedia presentation/installation/poetry reading/dance performance. I'd met the artist a while back, just hanging out one night outside the shop, and didn't get a very good vibe from her; she seemed like another city person marveling shallowly at the "cuteness" of our town.

So cut to this past Saturday night. When I got to the shop around 7, it was packed with people dressed quite fashionably and air-kissing one another's cheeks. (Those things are, of course, fine, but they rub me the wrong way in certain settings when innumerable other, nameless things are rubbing me the wrong way, too.) I said hi to B (who was volunteering) and got my plastic cup of Prosecco, then wandered toward the back to look over the crowd.

Out of the blue, tears welled in my eyes. Not from the magic of the performance (which was more engaging than I'd expected). No, it was from thoughts of how I don't fit in here, and I don't fit in anywhere, and why, oh why, is it bothering me? I so often feel like I'm just too frumpy, too boring, too vanilla, too soccer mom-style, for anywhere I go. I *so* long to be this fashionable, elegant, interesting, avant-garde-y woman. But I'm just me — which is really ok, most of the time.

The crowd shape-shifted as the artiste introduced her dancer and explained her concepts (check out ekphrasis and kinetochore). Taller-than-me people pushed back to make room, spilling into the space where I'd been standing. I went outside, where I could see the dancer better through the wall of windows on two sides of the building. She was ravishing. Though neither the poetry nor the eventual music were audible outside, I wouldn't have noticed either even if I had been inside. She was that great (and I usually have a hard time watching modern dance). So many people walking by had been headed for the next gallery, only to surprise themselves by stopping in the drizzle, taking in a bit of the performance. Those huge windows really are spectacular. As the rain intensified, I headed back in.

Last week, while writing a long-overdue email (Hi, E!), I spent too many words trying to explain my feelings about where I've lived, how the various places have affected me, and how I am sometimes frustrated by some things about some residents of my little city (some have never left, and hate NYC, and think it has no redeeming qualities, while others have moved up from NYC to the town, and have patronizing attitudes about it, e.g. having a backyard garden is somehow both quaint and exotic). When I lived in the Bay Area, I was so different because of this. When I moved to Utah, I was so outsider because of that.

So it shouldn't have been such a surprise to me, when a little later on Saturday night, after two more cups of wine, it occurred to me that I apparently reinforce this "I don't fit in" feeling. It got me asking: Why am I so invested in identifying as an outsider? So far, I think the answer is that I'm not "invested," really; I just don't know what my niche is (yet).

Except, except, except — at the yoga studio. There, I'm just me. I fold the laundry, sign people in, try to reassure new students that they won't die in the hot room, breathe. Right after class on Saturday, I was goofing around in the studio, trying some arm balances (note to self: bring a dry towel next time; they are much harder when you are sweaty). The teacher, W, was walking past the door to the hot room and saw me, then ran in and did a couple of postures with me! It was fun, a kind of playful challenging...

I guess that around the yoga studio (this one as well as my last one in UT), just about everyone is stripped of the outward affectations that I see as separating us. To be sure, there are women with the swankiest lululemon tops and perfect hair — this is Westchester, after all. But there, I don't feel less-than, or not something enough. It's enough to just show up for a common purpose, a common 90-minute moving meditation, where we attempt to drop our baggage, our drama, at the door, and just sweat out the issues in our tissues (as my old teacher Alex says).

As with so many things I've learned and practiced at the studio, I need to figure out how to internalize this feeling and carry it with me into the real world. It's enough to just show up somewhere, be me, and have a good time. Even if I'm standing in the back, in just a T-shirt and jeans.

He'll be fine, right?

Silence.

Then:

The crunch of gravel under his tires.

The clinking-gurgling-car-winding-down noises once he kills the ignition.

The heel-toe, heel-toe, of exhausted steps — just one set — up to the house.

The jingling of keys while he fumbles in the dark for the door.

The usually-barely-audible-but-suddenly-deafening whirr of microscopic fans in household electronics.

Then:

Silence.

* * *
Bryan stayed home sick Tuesday while I was here at work. We were talking on the phone, when suddenly the dogs (ohbtw, we got another one) started barking like crazy and I heard sirens. He said, "I have to go."

The two of us are, by 20 years or so, the youngest residents on the eastern end of our long block. Most others are in various stages of retirement, or have crazy 12-hour/3-day schedules. And Bry was home, battling a cold.

So I was the only one not around when the fire trucks and ambulances came for Bonnie, our next-door neighbor who, days after we moved in, brought over a tray of brownies. Then a little while after that, Girl Scout cookies (she's been a troop leader for almost 30 years, you know). Then just last week she and I spent an hour talking through the fence about camping, baseball and my hated (HATED) maple seedlings.

Don't worry: Bonnie's fine, or will be soon. Apparently, she had some kind of scary episode related to her diabetes (and probably not helped by the heat, now that I think about it), and was taken to a hospital. According to Bry, the crazily-scheduled-chemical-plant-worker-neighbors along our other fence drove Bonnie's husband, Jim, to the hospital.

I got home around 7, and Jim's car was gone. When I walked the dogs sometime well after midnight, it was back in its spot in front of their house. A desk lamp was on in the living room, but the house was otherwise dark.

With startling immediacy and emotion, that scene brought me back to October 2004. My husband of five weeks was in a coma after a car accident that killed his three friends. I knew he was in great hands at the hospital — not that there's a whole lot you can do for someone in a coma, most of the time, other than wait. His sister, whom I adore to this day, had flown in from Connecticut. His mom and aunt, too. After the first day or two, time spent at the hospital was actually not so painful — tons of friends brought food, the nurses and doctors were exceptionally brilliant and kind, and his corner ICU room had a killer view of the Salt Lake Valley and southern Wasatch Front. And a former coworker was running the 24-hour Starbucks in the hospital lobby — there were substantial discounts. Honestly, time at the hospital was OK.

Then I'd go home.

I only lost it one time, around 2 a.m. while waiting for the light at Foothill Drive and Sunnyside. That was the only time I wondered why... And the tough-girl side of me is inclined to chalk up that instance to sleep deprivation, nothing more.

But going home night after late night — alone — was truly awful. I hadn't reflected on it much over the years, not until I saw the little lamp glowing next door. The silence was the worst. The incidental noises and rustlings that I'd not noticed through two years of daily life with M — they were gone. It was like stepping into a place where time had stopped. M wasn't at work. He wasn't traveling. There would be no greeting, welcoming, door-opening. Not for a while, anyway.

Like Bonnie, M is pretty much fine these days. We talk a couple of times a month; he just got a full-time job (essentially, one identical to the one he had planned to start a week after the accident). He's dated a few people, but mostly hangs out with ourhis dog.

But walking in the door to silence... I think that fundamentally altered me, on some microcellular-subconscious-something level.

So I couldn't help but feel for my neighbor, Jim, knowing that he came home — alone — Tuesday night. I guess I'm a little worried about the guy: She has always seemed to be the sturdy one, the one who deals with people well. Oh, he and Bonnie aren't frail or anything, and they have lots of family and friends that will help with anything they need. But I couldn't ignore my visceral reaction to the scene. And it has stuck with me for days.

So I ask those reading this to keep Jim (and Bonnie too, I suppose, though I'm less worried about her) in their thoughts or prayers or good vibes sent into the ether as teeth are brushed in the morning. Because I really want him to be fine.

Things that make you go "Ommm..."

The image above popped up in my Facebook feed today. I captured it because I love learning the origins of the yoga terminology we use so often. I think most of us have heard that yoga, the word, comes from the Sanskrit word for yoke, bound together. And hatha comes from ha, sun, and tha, moon (incredibly oversimplified).

But guru's definition was new to me. I love it because I began my yoga practice in earnest during a period of such darkness, and as I've written before (I'm pretty sure), it brought me to a place of light.

There's so much to write, so many ideas to explore, but my head has been spinning a little bit lately. It's like my mind is an overstocked refrigerator, and I'm having a hard time figuring out what to make from all of this abundance... It's been so difficult to output cohesive bits of anything over the past month or so. Instead of going on a climbing trip over Memorial Day weekend with the boyfriend and his friends, I am considering staying put, slowing down, and catching up on the things I haven't foundmade time to do.

Much love. ♥