Category: Yoga
Tuesday, Jun 29, 2010 | Chores, Laundry, Photos, Running, Writing, Yoga |
I want to write about writing, but it may be that I’m just too tired tonight to write about anything at all. Therefore, insert photos! This 365-day project has had the unexpected effect of being like a tutorial in portrait photography (don’t know why it took me till day 150 to figure that out). Last night, Kevin and I watched The Young Victoria (a very pleasant romance, if you’re into Victorian costume drama), and what kept diverting my eyes? The lighting. How is her face lit? It looks like natural lighting, but is it? And if not, what is the director using to give the appearance of natural lighting? Etc.
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It’s nearly July. The big kids have one day of school left in grades two and three. And my Fooey has completed junior kindergarten. (See photo, above, of her getting ready to go to school this morning).
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Last week, I only exercised one day out of seven. Wow. That was not good. And I felt it. I felt tired, which made me feel less like exercising … which made me feel even more tired. So, with great intentions I went to bed at a reasonable hour last night and set my internal alarm for early morning yoga. Slept without stirring for approximately seven hours, and woke when my husband tapped me on the back. Apparently his internal alarm had sounded. Mine, not a peep, not a polite brrrrng-brrrng; nothing. Which meant I woke just as morning yoga class was about to begin; but, being awake and well-rested, I hopped out of bed, ate a banana, and headed for a run. It was surprisingly less tortuous alone than I’d anticipated. I even heard a rooster crow in the park’s zoo. I didn’t think about much, just ran. It wasn’t super-early, so people were out and about, lots of construction workers heading to sites in the area, friendly hellos from other runners and cyclists. And I enjoyed the endorphins, and felt ready for my day in a way I hadn’t all last week.
My goal is to exercise four times a week: two runs, two yoga classes. I will report back. I enjoy setting goals; don’t always meet them, but enjoy setting and re-setting them. Life is flux.
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Photos above include AppleApple on her last day of horse lessons (at least for this round), with Sunman, who was her regular ride. I love how comfortable and affectionate she is with all animals, even ones that are so much larger than her.
We also had some awesome rainstorms this weekend; guess I was over-optimistic about the laundry-hanging on Sunday.
Wednesday, Jun 23, 2010 | Blogging, Confessions, Yoga |
CJ is only pretending he wants to nurse, come night-time. What he wants is to get himself cuddled into my arms. He will then say, “Mama, I gonna tell you something!” (He pronounces something like some-sing.) And then he launches into elaborate made-up stories told at high volume, about little lions and little moths and sometimes Master Yoda makes an appearance. Books are thrown off of shelves. Little moths are “grumpy.” Little lions drink chocolate milk and are happy. Milk is spilled and Mama cleans it up and she says “thank you!” (Would that this were so).
Tonight, when I laid him in his crib (and he’s still up there, wide awake and protesting loudly), I said, “Goodnight, bub.” This sent him into paroxysms of hilarity. “I not bub, I CJ!” Just repeating the word “bub” had him in tears. The world is funny. Things sound funny.
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Tonight’s yoga class was killer. There was something in that room–anxiety, fear, something like that. It was really hot. And I was tired. And there were lots of people there, including some who were trying out hot yoga for the first time. A lot of people were suffering through the class, and it was easy to read on everyone’s faces and in their postures, including my own. But my problem was my mind. It just would not settle. I did not believe that I could manage, and over and over again I had to pull myself back to remembering that, yes, I could, and I have many times before. Toward the end, we all settled, somewhat, as the instructor found us a pose that brought us some peace with the inner turmoil. I recognized what I was feeling: I had been telling myself that I was feeling sadness, but I noticed that I was enjoying what I was feeling too much for that. Aha! I was feeling self-pity. Ugh. Do I ever hate self-pity. And there I was, wallowing around in it, making excuses. Now, this isn’t to discount the legitimacy of experiencing sadness. But there must be some way to experience it that isn’t indulgent. Self-indulgent. What is the point at which enjoying an emotion is a cue that it’s become not healthy? Aren’t some emotions there to be enjoyed?
I haven’t had quite as much energy recently. I wonder whether it’s more mental or physical. I’m not sure. But it is now nearly 10pm: all four children are still awake; AppleApple is weeping because she can’t find her Pooh Bear (just found him–phew!); Fooey is trying to sleep on a blanket on the floor because she’s a cat; the dishes are completely undone; I need to pack a picnic for the whole family for a “special people picnic” in honour of Fooey tomorrow; I feel the need to blog (talk about self-indulgent!); we have to take a snack for AppleApple’s soccer team tomorrow night, and have nothing suitable on hand; and we have no coffee in the house!!!! No coffee! Now that’s an emergency. I just sent Kevin on a quick run (in the truck; eco-confession) to the nearest grocery store, which is open till 10. There. Happy ranting.
Back to the dishes.
Friday, Jun 18, 2010 | Big Thoughts, Mothering, Spirit, Writing, Yoga |
Why have I not felt like blogging, this past week? I’ve had a moment, here or there, that could have been turned into time to blog. But I chose not to.
Because …
1. My head is full. Too full. Which makes it hard to zero in on a subject. I’ll be honest with you. My head is full of Life, good and bad, dark and light, hope and despair, grief and excitement. Sometimes I just want to sit and let myself feel what I’m feeling, quietly. Without trying to put it into words.
2. This hasn’t been conscious, but I’m finding some balance in my days and hours. In a sense, I’m making compartments for different tasks, different identities. This morning is quiet and interior: I am writing. The house is empty. My mind homes in on this other world I’m making. There’s some of the source of excitement: making something, gathering up the disparate pieces and sensing that it’s coming together, even if it’s not quite there yet. (I abandoned the memoir awhile ago–did I ever write about that? I am working on the story collection, the Juliet stories.)
After school, I’ll enter into the noisy chaotic compartment of motherhood. I’m trying harder to check email less frequently, sit down with a kid in my lap more frequently; that also means not squeezing in a blog post while a child stands at my knee and screams for attention.
Whatever it is, it seems to be working. The full-on mothering days feel sweeter because I have these other days and opportunities to express other parts of myself. I am luxuriating in the freedom I have within every day. I just have to accept its seasoning and flavour. Say, freedom to go out for lunch with a friend. Freedom to bake sweet treats for/with my kids. Freedom to walk rather than drive. Freedom to volunteer at the school fun fair.
It is amazing to discover that commitment to an activity offers up space for real relaxation and enjoyment.
Example … I volunteered at the school fun fair. Yes, I left clothes hanging on the line and it poured rain and I couldn’t run home to rescue them; guess what–they stayed on the line overnight and dried the next day, having enjoyed a lovely soft water rinse. Yes, I had to bring along all four kids; guess what–they had a blast helping out. Yes, Kevin was stuck in Toronto; guess what–AppleApple missed her soccer practice and the world did not end; plus, everybody rose to the occasion, and the big kids were able to do activities with the little kids. Yes, I applied fake tattoos for several hours; guess what–it was a blast chatting with the kids who streamed through, and their parents. I didn’t waste a minute worrying that the evening wasn’t going precisely as planned, or that we were staying longer than anticipated, or that the kids were going to be grumpy the next day.
I am a naturally impatient person, and I’m just beginning to grasp that conceptualizing any time as a waste is itself the biggest waste of all. I don’t have a lot of spare time, so it can be easy to resent time spent doing something that isn’t my first or second or even third choice; I am finding myself more relaxed about that. Inside every moment is a potential discovery.
What comes at me so strongly this week, as I sit inside quiet and some sadness, is that this is my life. I am alive. I am breathing, in and out, and I am living this present moment whether or not it is the moment I want to be living. Can I embrace each moment? Probably not. But the more moments I embrace–chosen and otherwise, going according to plan or going hay-wire–the more moments will embrace me.
You know it when you find it. You likely won’t recognize it till afterward. But you’ll know–an hour, an afternoon, longer, those moments when you are out of time and inside the experience, just being within it. Often, you have a sense of not wanting this–whatever this is–to pass. Or even no sense at all of time passing. You blink, and hours are gone. You wonder where you’ve been. You’ve been inhabiting yourself, that’s all. For me, these moments seem to come more easily when connected to something physical, walking, running, kneading, drinking, laughing, sometimes with company, sometimes alone.
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Guess I was ready to blog …
This is what happens when I get up early and exercise. I didn’t even set my internal alarm this morning, it just decided to go off.
Monday, Jun 14, 2010 | Chores, Cooking, Music, Yoga |
I got tired yesterday. Or, woke tired. Saturday was productive: I made yogurt (4 litres of yogurt!), and baked a batch of bread. I also made almond milk from scratch. But yesterday I felt weary of kitchen work. So I baked a rhubarb crisp for supper (dessert) and left it at that. Our fridge is full of homemade. Our house is in disarray, and thank heavens for my crocs (which I wear as slippers) because the floor is crumb central. (“You don’t have to work all the time, you know,” Kevin told me yesterday, as I was confessing an overwhelming desire to do NOTHING AT ALL.) Yesterday evening, the whole family went into a fugue state: Fooey went off to sleep, CJ puttered with Little People, Albus played piano in order to figure out a song on the guitar with Kevin (and Kevin was amazed by everything Albus knew about music–his ear, his rhythm, his understanding of musical theory; I just knew putting in all those years of early childhood music, and this past year of piano lessons, would be worth it! yay! I truly believe in giving kids the rudiments, so they can take them and develop on them; I’m so excited by Albus’s new enthusiasm); and AppleApple and I worked on her school project (that child has an extremely organized mind!). Time passed. Soon, it was 9:30 and we were like … um, responsible parents, bedtime, sheesh. So, children all put to bed, Kevin and I collapsed in the living-room with a beer, and I said, you won’t believe this, but I swear I spent a lot of time tidying this room today. He said, you won’t believe this, but so did I. It was a puzzle/games disaster, and mixed-up puzzle/game pieces are just endlessly frustrating to sort. The things I found under the couch. But the kids had a fun morning playing restaurant (at least, it was fun till they called me to be their customer, and I showed up and went, AAAAAGHGHG! Mommy has to leave the restaurant right now or she will make you start cleaning all this up!). Anyway, by the time Kevin and I wandered to the kitchen, post-beer, it was past 11. I did not try very hard to set my internal alarm for early morning yoga. And my internal alarm did not go off. Here’s the thing about the early mornings: I love them. But I have to go to bed early. There is no compromising on this. My body makes darn sure of it. So, if I have to choose between quiet early morning and hanging out with my husband, I generally choose the latter. I’ll get a wee bit of exercise right about now (though hardly a zen moment) as I walk to school to pick up the kids.
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PS That photo above is my boys this morning: my biggest and my littlest. One off to work, the other off to nursery school … leaving me alone in a quiet house for a couple of blissful hours.
Friday, Jun 4, 2010 | Kids, Yoga |
Above, images from our morning, yesterday.
Today, a quiet house. (Plenty of noise from the nearby road construction to balance that out). Yoga to start my day, early, and serenely. Waiting for the perfect moment to drink that first cup of coffee. Will hang laundry first, and mull and meditate and prepare, because today I have stories to plot, and words to labour over, and I love love love having the chance to do it.
Friday, May 28, 2010 | Bicycles, Green Dreams, Sick, Yoga |
Green Dream # 6 Front yard veggie patch.
Green Dream # 7 Re-purpose household items (ie. found this old curtain from our last house, hiding in the bottom of the linen closet, and it fits our front door; better yet, it replaces the lace curtain that has been there since we moved in SEVEN YEARS ago, which never ever felt like ours.)
Green Dream # 8 Wash, dry and re-use plastic bags. We haven’t bought new for years. When these run out, I am considering making/buying cloth bags instead. One question: for freezing food, especially liquid food, what would replace the plastic bag?
Green Dream # 9 Reusable mugs and water bottles. Milk in glass containers.
Green Dream # 10 Cloth wipes. We haven’t gone the no-toilet-paper route, however (as per No Impact Man). The used cloths are stored in a diaper stuff sack, (a welcome re-purposing that marks the end of our cloth diapering days). I launder them every other day.
Green Dream # 11 I just wanna ride my bicycle.
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This morning the house is Friday Quiet. Ah. I actually sighed while typing that last sentence–a good sigh, a cleansing sigh, as one might put it in yoga practice. I am drinking my ginger-garlic cold fighting brew, because apparently spring ain’t sprung without a touch of the ague. CJ caught it first, and I coughed all night long. Would I choose to set my internal alarm clock for 5:40am, or would I skip early morning yoga? My alarm went off (it’s inside my head; I set it when I’m falling off to sleep by picturing the numbers on the clock–the time at which I’d like to wake; and it almost never fails me). Turns out, I wanted that time for myself; how could I sleep through it? I couldn’t. I leapt out of bed.
Guess what? I’ve been biking to morning yoga. It takes less time than travelling by car, at least on the way there, because it’s downhill and there’s little traffic. Coming home takes more effort and attention (focus, blissed-out yoga brain, focus!), but I don’t lose more than a few minutes in the commute. I am riding Kevin’s old mountain bike, and the front-riding baby seat is perfect for stowing my bag; but I’m coveting a more upright ride that would fit my body better. Add it to the (short) list of Things I Covet.
(Also add: fire pit for the backyard).
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As I tinker with a slight re-design for this blog, I’ve changed “Eco-Attempts” to the friendlier and more optimistic “Green Dreams.” Riding bike is going on the list. I fully intend for that to be our family’s main summer transportation. My only concern is that the roads are not terribly safe for cyclists. Apparently a bike trailer was recently struck in the north part of the city, resulting in a broken arm for a small child; and the driver fled the scene.
Our cities are designed around cars. As Michael Enright put it, in a recent editorial on The Sunday Edition (a three-hour radio show that airs on CBC Radio One): There is no war on cars; the war was won ages ago, and we already know the victor: the car. The Walrus recently ran a fascinating article on green cities in Europe (Chris Turner’s “The New Grand Tour”), and the author’s description of cycling around Copenhagen on rented bicycles, one of which included a double seat on the front into which two children could be strapped … well, count this reader as pretty darn envious. He and his family cycled the city on lanes exclusively designated for bike traffic; they never felt safer.
In our city, we have a few paths on which only cyclists and pedestrians can travel, but the paths are broken by busy streets, across which one must dash without any marked crossing or traffic signals. I frequently let the kids bike on the sidewalk, and wrestle with biking on the sidewalk myself, considering that I’m pulling two vulnerable children behind me in a carrier.
I spend a lot of time coaching my children on how to be smart and safe pedestrians: no, it’s not fair, but even if a car is doing the wrong thing (ie. running a stop sign, or not giving the right-of-way to the pedestrian at a crossing, or swooping around a right-hand turn without checking for pedestrian traffic), the walker has to let the car do what it’s doing. Because in human versus car, car wins, human loses.
I wonder whether that’s an apt description of the peculiar lives we’ve built on the altar of car. Car wins, humans lose. Think of everything we sacrifice in order to propel ourselves inside our own individual motorized compartments. Think of the oil gushing out into the Gulf of Mexico, right now. Consider the air we breathe. Remember what it feels like to walk and talk, to exercise, and meet our neighbours, and take time. Cars give us convenience, without question. There are jobs that could not be done without cars (ie. midwife). But a lot of us don’t really need to use cars, not as often as we do, or think we do.
In thinking about my Green Dreams, I recognize that many of these choices and changes demand time. Hanging laundry to dry every day does take more time than throwing it into the drier–not a great deal more, but a bit. So does washing the dishes by hand. Baking my own bread. I’m still trying to figure out how to make snacks more convenient without falling prey to the ease of the prepackaged treat, grabbed as I dash a pack of hungry grumpy children to piano lessons. All of this extra labour would cut into my productivity, if I were employed at a regular job. But part of where I’m headed, I think, is viewing this home-based production as valuable on a number of levels. It doesn’t fit into the stock market. It doesn’t work comfortably with capitalism, but I’ve got a few problems with capitalism anyway; nothing in nature grows indefinitely, and it seems like madness to base a businesses’ success on eternal growth: it’s a recipe for corruption.
This work is valuable because it keeps me humble. It’s valuable because it’s my offering to the earth. It’s a small and humble offering, but so be it. I would like to offer my time–because I have it, and I’m grateful for that gift–to living creatively. Anyone who’s ever made anything knows that there is a great deal of invisible work behind what’s created. There is the original vision, changed and altered and made deeper by reflection and time, there is work, there is error and recognition of error, and incorporation of error, too, and there is luck, happenstance, improvisation. There are bursts of production and activity, and lulls of wondering, daydreaming, even doubt. There is sacrifice. You have to figure out if it’s worth it to you–figure out what you’re sacrificing, and why you want to.
Mostly, though, you just do it: you do the work you’ve chosen to do.
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I want to write about writing, but it may be that I’m just too tired tonight to write about anything at all. Therefore, insert photos! This 365-day project has had the unexpected effect of being like a tutorial in portrait photography (don’t know why it took me till day 150 to figure that out). Last night, Kevin and I watched The Young Victoria (a very pleasant romance, if you’re into Victorian costume drama), and what kept diverting my eyes? The lighting. How is her face lit? It looks like natural lighting, but is it? And if not, what is the director using to give the appearance of natural lighting? Etc.
