slipping

Lately I've begun to notice that people in my life whom I once considered pretty intelligent people are getting, well, dumber. As we age life takes over, kids take over. We stop challenging ourselves. We stop working our brains in different ways. We fall into a routine. And we get stupid.

It was when I realized that there was what I saw as a lapse in basic comprehension in a woman whom I have known for years that I am probably dumber too. And that is something that I really don't want to happen.

Have you noticed it yet in your life? What do you do to keep your brain working? I don't want to be a complete idiot by the time I am forty!

Sunday Tidbit

Most of the basic truths of life sound absurd at first hearing.

~Elizabeth Goudge

Ode to Bob

Bob is my new hero.

He came into class last night, an elderly man with a new idea. He set up behind me so I caught peeks of his progress as we moved through poses. I saw the same incredulous look on his face that I must have had during my first class. I saw him wilt, I saw him forget to breathe. I saw him start to pass out when we were in the middle of the second set of standing bow pulling pose. I was about to say something when the instructor finally went back to check on Bob.

Bob proceeded to pass out. Big time.

Gabe and I have seen a lot of passing out. People pass out in the tattoo shop on a regular basis. They do it in all different ways. Some with no warning, some with just enough warning that you can catch them, some with plenty of time to get them to a safe place. Bob passed out with plenty of time. The trouble was that no one but Gabe and I knew that he was just passed out, because his eyes were open the whole time. If you have never seen anyone pass out and not close their eyes while doing so, it is scary as hell.

Well, it's a bit scary even if you have seen it before, but at least you know everything is going to be fine. They were trying to decide whether or not to call 911 when Gabe finally spoke up and said we needed to get him out of the heat. As they were carrying him out, Bob started speaking again, and I knew for sure that he was just fine. No paramedics necessary.

An instructor that was there to practice came back in and led us through the next few poses. We were all a bit distracted, a bit freaked out. We just went through the motions of those few poses, and I don't think any one of us really was all that present for any of them. When our first instructor came back and told us that Bob was not only just fine, but that he was coming back into the room as soon as he was ready, there was a sigh of relief, and we all fell right into practice as one. Every one of us was focused and on point, every one of us did the very best we could and pushed as hard as we could through the entire rest of class.

Bob came back into class after the standing series was over. He fought through, sat out poses, did little more than lay down for most of the rest of the class, but he never left the room, he never gave up, and he took it all in stride. I couldn't have done it. If I had left the room during that first class I never would have gone back. In fact, I am actually afraid even now to leave the room, because I am afraid I won't go back. Balls of steel, Bob has, I swear.

When class was over I changed my clothes, spoke with the other first timer at class that day for a few minutes, then went out to the lobby, where I found Bob sitting, resting, smiling and handsome.

I shook his hand. "I'm Tara," I said.

"I'm Bob."

"Congratulations," I told him, " Every single one of us has wanted to pass out in there at one time or another. You had the nerve to do it."

new tools and hot peppers

Yesterday actually went pretty well. I received an unprompted apology that meant a lot to me, and I managed to breathe my way through the whole day and keep moving. My fuse is short, but I have been able to keep the flame away from it so far.

I honestly never knew how to do that until yoga. I know it may seem silly to a lot of you that I feel like there has been such a transformation in my self in only two months of practice, but you really just don't know until you've been there, I suppose. The regular struggle through those ninety minutes has taught me so much about what I am capable of, what I can live through, what sort of person I can be, and what sort of things I want to feel. I am sure that a lot of people who already knew that they can control how they feel to some degree. I am sure that there are a lot of people who naturally lean toward the positive without having to concentrate so hard about it.

I am not one of them. I have always been a complainer. I have always had a holier-than-thou, negative sort of attitude. I have always been a slave to my mood, whatever it may be.

The people I have always wanted to emulate are the sorts of people who are happy all the time. The sorts of people with radiant smiles, that make you feel like the most important person in the world when you are around them. The people who make you feel beautiful even on your worst days. I never thought I would be that sort of person.

I still doubt I will ever really be that fantastic. The difference is, now I feel like I have the tools to begin to learn how to be that sort of person. I have tools today that I never even knew existed. There are possibilities open to me that never were before.

It's as if I've been driving a Kia for all these years and someone just handed me the keys to a Ferrari. If I am not gentle with it I will never survive with all this newfound power, but if I take it moment by moment I may never encounter another obstacle that I cannot surpass.

Oh, and on a totally unrelated note, the dried jalapeño experiment worked perfectly. The peppers are safely stored in a plastic bag and I finally chopped a piece of one up last night for burritos. Yummy, jalapeño heat, without having to purchase any icky storebought peppers, or use slimy frozen ones. We are safe for the winter!

Breathe

Woke up this morning to a crying, sick dog. Early this morning. He is better now, but I lost some sleep, and the full moon is bearing down upon me, so I am in a pretty foul mood. The sort where there is a lot of tongue clucking and eye rolling going about. The sort where even if I would normally agree with you, I just want you to shut the hell up about it.

And that is not how I want my day to go. That is not how I want to feel. I have things to do today that I don't want to do, but that I am capable of. I have people to see that I don't care to see, but I can manage that as well.

So today, in spite of my biologically induced bad mood, I wish for deep, even breaths. I wish for compassion, even for the people I want to thump in the head. I wish to be, in some tiny way today, the sort of person I always wanted to be. I wish to radiate joy. I wish for a peaceful place within myself, regardless of how I might outwardly feel.

I may be doomed to failure, though. Wish me luck.

Sunday Tidbit

You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jelly beans.

~Ronald Reagan

letting go of misconceptions

But first, what's up with all the spitting in baseball? I understand that once upon a time most of the players were chewing tobacco and in a way spitting is a baseball tradition, but, um. Ew. It's disgusting and I really don't understand how anyone can watch a whole game. Especially since the advent of high definition television. Yuckeriffic.

Yesterday was my twenty-eighth Bikram Yoga class. I am still struggling with very little core strength, still struggling with focus and frustration. I am only now beginning to accept that some days I will be steady and strong and other days I will wobble and fall repeatedly. There is progress in my ability to perform the poses properly, and progress in my strength and flexibility, but as far as getting 'better' at it every time? That is not really going to happen.

I went into yoga under the mistaken impression that yoga is cut and dried, and that with practice I would be able to perfectly achieve and hold poses. What I am learning is that my practice is not about holding poses at all. In fact, I dare say that the actual poses are the least of it. It's mostly about getting past my own head. It's about calming my mind. It's about removing my focus from the tiny, skinny, bendy bitch in front of me, and placing that focus on myself. It's about concentrating regardless of what is going on around me. It's about relaxing regardless of what is going on around me. It's about letting my brain stop being so critical of my self for ninety minutes and just being where I am.

Even if that means that where I am is wobbly and weak and fat and angry and rigid.

That's the hardest part. But I am learning. I am breathing. I am settling into the floor and into my self at the same time. I am learning who I am and what I need to do to get through. I am walking across the fire and surviving on a regular basis.

Yesterday was my twenty-eighth class, and yesterday was the first time I felt stable enough with my locked knee to attempt to bring up that other leg a bit during standing head to knee. I quivered and shook and tried to remember to breathe evenly and felt like I was going to die. But I didn't wobble. I didn't fall. When my body came out of the pose it was by my own choice, with control, in order to start over and maintain control.

And it was all I could do not to shout for joy in the middle of the class and tell everyone that that was the first time I had ever gotten that leg out and look at how I kick ass!!

They would have laughed, and known just how I felt. Every one of them. So I didn't have to say a word.