The Zen Out

It is so funny...I have been wanting to write about the concept of rushing (directly relating to my all-time favorite topic: time) and I happened to read my fellow yoga teacher/blogger's blog and she wrote about the same thing. What is even crazier is the other day when we were walking she told me about a class she had taught earlier in the week and I approached a very similar subject (why do we practice yoga?) in my class the next morning. Of course neither of us had been to each other's class. Pheromones? Full moon? Random coincidences?

Since I started this blog and didn't finish it, rushing will have to wait until another time. I am in a new non-rushing zen phase that occurs oh, about once a year, so I am riding it out until my usual self returns. I am a week and a half into a lull at the studio. I even hate to write about it because it means the phone will ring tomorrow, but it is the first time since I started that I haven't subbed or had private lessons and I have TIME. Lovely vacant hours to clean closets, bake, preserve food, be more present with my kids. Not manic, frantic hours where you are on a roll and get caught up because you are ON FIRE, no this is different. I actually have carved out enough time for the first time in a long, long time (maybe NEVER BEFORE???). Saying no is also a big part of it and the more you do it, the easier and easier it becomes. I am trying to savor every sweet second instead of sinking into doubt about my current desires to continue with the studio. Oh, I definitely want to continue with the studio EXACTLY how it is, but life never works like that and change is rearing its head - it is there looming in the distance and I want to fight it with every ounce of my being. Why can't things stay the same? I guess to remind us that isn't the way life works and to teach us to become better equipped to roll with it.

My lease is up in December. In my attempt to be more pro-active, I asked to meet with the owner to discuss our future. Results pending. Whatever the outcome, it means more work for me at a point when I am not feeling the love for more work. I love teaching yoga, don't mind doing the business end, but I need to keep myself free enough to continue to pursue my yoga education and all of the other things I truly enjoy. As my back gets stronger and stronger (being pain-free is also a strong motivator) my passion for yoga as therapy has grown and is a specific field I wish to explore. I have also been really enjoying my volunteer work in Ellie's classroom and am not certain that I want to give up teaching. None of these choices have to be made today, and I am loving the denial phase, but soon I will be forced to make larger decisions. There is always tomorrow. For now, gratitude.

My Sweet L....

My Belle, my Mademoiselle....There is a line in a kid's book, Eleanor, Elletony, Ellencake, or something close to that, that was given to me when Ellie was born. We read it all the time and of course I always call Ellie , either L or Belle, rarely Ellie. Anyways, my sweet L, is turning 7. Birthdays get a little harder as they get older. They get so much easier as they grow, but you are always reflecting upon when they were babes. So, she came up the other night and said, " I need a cuddle" about the sweetest words to any mom's ears. I told her that someday, like when she was 16, she wouldn't want to cuddle and I would remind her then when I wanted a cuddle, how she looked at me in disbelief. When I tucked her in she asked if she could live with me forever and that she DEFINITELY did NOT want to go to college. Of course I encouraged her to live with me forever.

My times with my eldest daughter are not always so smooth. A few times a year, during big transitions, she falls apart. She literally has tantrums equivalent to a two year old. It is awful and leaves a huge pit in my stomach. Her transition to first grade was painful. She endured and I am so proud of her, and quite frankly, of myself for keeping it together, but it might have been our roughest one to date. Just when I was ready to book the child pysch appointment, and soon after my book, "The Explosive Child" arrived, she found her groove again. What it all boiled down to? Connecting. My fellow yoga teacher and I have been walking at the crack of dawn and today she asked me if she thought everyone who practiced yoga saw the world through the yoga lens. I can't say they do, but we as teachers sure do.

Kids are so honest and while it sometimes takes Ellie awhile to connect with her feelings, when she does, she tells it like it is. She hadn't found her one friend to connect with. Of course this came out as, " NOBODY LIKES ME. I HAVE NO FRIENDS" but she is finding her niche and her connections and the emotional roller-coaster has evened out.

But why can't we as adults be so honest? Why can't we let our egos slip away and in times of our own emotional turmoil confess to what it is that really bothers us? Maybe we don't always know, but I do believe a good portion of the time we do. When I moved here and was finding it so difficult to connect, I didn't cry and say, I HAVE NO FRIENDS, even thought that is exactly what I was feeling. My loneliness, loss of self, and ego issues were masked by anxiety and turmoil, most of which I hid. It is so difficult to let down our guard, peel away the armour, and reveal our Self.

And of course, since I see the world through a yoga lens, I am grateful to my practice and my tool for saving myself from myself. I hope my greatest gift to my daughters will be to do the same. I am so proud of my sweet L, she is learning to conquer her emotional distress and find her lens.

I'M BACK

Ok so I have 20 minutes and DAMNIT I am bloggin! No more excuses, no more procrastination! I actually haven't really even pondered why I stopped blogging other than something had to give and it seemed to naturally phase itself out of my life. But in my need to keep making connections, keeping in touch with humanity, so to speak, I have to keep writing.

I have been living with constant back pain since August. Not many people, except those closest to me, would now that. As I FINALLY come out of this excruciatingly long bout, I feel like I can get my head above water again. Living with back pain is another full-time job, and another hat I have no choice but to wear. I accepted a long time ago that managing a bad back is a life long commitment, however, this time I decided to take it a step further and in addition to PT and body work, I had an MRI. It didn't show much except arthritis, which I was thankful for, but at the same time, quite frustrated by. For years, my only goal has been to avoid surgery, but the past few months I changed my tune. Having gotten ZERO relief from my usual remedies, I did start thinking about what it might be like to possibly get some relief through surgery. Now that it looks like it is unnecessary (at least until the surgeon in Seattle tries to convince me I need it.....I am really only self-diagnosing based on the report that went to my primary care doc) I am highly motivated to save myself. It is shocking to me having now had a few pain-free days, how much it just drains you. It really is another full-time job, except a full time job with no rewards, just a series of frustrations and set backs. But now that I can see again, I feel ready to trust in the process.

Yoga is a life-long process. I remember after a few back zingers crying the blues because I would have to start over again - rebuild my practice. Well, rebuilding my practice is what I do best, and really what it is all about - peeling back the layers, moving forward, moving backward, getting frustrated, celebrating success, a continual unraveling to learn more about yourself and tear down some walls.

My Counter Runneth Over

I returned from the farmer's market this morning laden with produce. I have been entirely re-energized by the book, A homemade Life. For those of you food bloggers out there, the author has a blog - Orangette, that is equally as lovely as her book.

Last night we had fresh coho salmon. My husband is the fish cook. It was melt-in-your-mouth perfection. Dressed with nothing more than the bare necessities - dill, butter, and lemon, and poached in foil over the BBQ, it couldn't have been more delightfully prepared by (insert popular chef name here). The green beans from my CSA were so fresh they needed nothing more than a toss in the pan with a splattering of olive oil and plenty of salt. For me, though, the highlight is always the carb. I gravitate toward bread like ( what I really want to write here is "like a crack whore towards crack" isn't that terrible?? But a flowery metaphor doesn't do my carb-addiction justice, so I will leave it at that.) The carb: Ina Garten's panzenella. I skipped the peppers and accidentally forgot the basil, but I read an online suggestion about mixing half of the bread and vegetables a few hours before serving, then mixing in the remaining bread maybe 20 minutes before. You do get the best of both worlds - garlicky, saturated bread, and crunchy chunks as well. Molly, the author, (we're on a first name basis, since most assuredly we would be friends) has a recipe as well, and it was what prompted my memory to last summer when panzenella graced the table at many a party I attended, but why step out when what you already have perfectly fits the bill?

As I was leaving the house this morning for my Sunday yoga class, Shawn was making the girls Dutch Baby. Quite symbiotically I might add, as Molly also writes about it in her book. Shawn of course had no idea , but maybe he is picking up through osmosis my re-dedication to food. Sadly, I missed it, but since I ate almost a 1/2 loaf of bread in the bread salad last night, I needed to skip the carb/oil combo. My mom made this ALL THE TIME, and I might have actually taught it to Shawn. For those of you who don't have a recipe, I liked hers for its simplicity:

preheat oven to 425. Melt 2 Tb butter in a 8 or 9 in. ovenproof pan. In blender mix 4 eggs, 1/2 c. flour, 1/2 c. 1/2 and 1/2, 1/4 tsp salt. Pour egg mixture into melted butter and bake for 18-25 minutes. Don't forget to call the kids over to the oven to see it puff. Serve promptly with lots of lemon and powdered sugar.

Which brings me to my counter (and cup for that matter) running over. I went whole-hog at the market. The energy was electrical and maybe everyone is reading my good friend Molly's book and blog, because it was THE place to be (after yoga of course) on a Sunday morning. it was the market I have been waiting for. Everything is present: the soft fruit so perfectly ripe, it begs for sinking your teeth into it right then and there, (I recommend Johnson Orchards. The owners Eric and Jill are wonderful people and I so admire their dedication to sharing, literally, the fruit of their labor) the vegetables abundant and colorful, and of course who can resist Essencia bordelais for the carb-lovers out there.

The garden tended to, the yard perfectly coiffed by my very own Edward Scissorhands, the provisions from Safeway procured, the local produce overflowing, it has been a perfectly productive weekend.

Oh My GOSH Ohanepecosh!

It is Saturday morning. woke up at 5:45 - really by choice. It is my first day with no obligations until this evening when my dad is coming to dinner. I want to make the most of it. I am reading This Homemade Life - one of my favorite genres, food memoirs, the theme always the same - little stories of the author's life with recipes intertwined. I was lying in bed crying. I finished the chapter of the death of her father and the recipe is one she prepares lovingly the last few weeks before he succumbs to cancer - an egg dish. I asked Shawn if he would make me an omelet this morning. He lovingly obliged. Fresh basil, tomatoes, and mozzarella with day-old crusty artisan bread. Could you ask for anything better?

I plan to garden this morning. I haven't spent ANY time in my garden. While I vowed not to plant one next year, I do have one to tend to this year. Lovingly tend? No, absent-mindedly neglect more like. But I did harvest a lot of snap peas and I am going to yank them and plant pumpkin seeds. Shawn is making fun of me saying they will never grow by Halloween, but it is the only thing the kids asked for in the garden, so I will attempt to honor their sweet request.

Last night Shawn and I watched The Road. I have been avoiding renting it for months. With dark, intense movies that I really do want to watch (such as Precious, which I still haven't worked my way up to) I have to find a framework of one concept and block out the rest. I knew from reading the book it was at its core, a relationship between father and son. When I went to Redbox yesterday (Barbie, of course, for the girls) I decided I was ready. Sure enough, when you view something in the context in which you want to see it, it is slightly less intense. I cried through out - for the sheer beauty of the relationship. It did not disappoint and I found it to be one of the most moving tributes to the father/son relationship ever to be viewed. I absolutely loved it, painful and emotional as it was.

It has been a good few weeks. My mindset shifted on our camping trip with our dear friends to Ohanepecosh two weekends ago. We took the RV and piled in 5 kids and 2 couples and off we went repeatedly exclaiming, " OH MY GOSH OHANEPECOSH!" In between the Moscow Mules (my new summer cocktail) gourmet fish tacos on the open fire, a delightful hike to Silver Falls, skinny-dipping in the stream (kids only), my friend and I broke it down by the campfire. She revealed two things: I haven't owned up to working and I need to hire more babysitters. I have been so attached to this concept of "riding it out" this summer with the studio, but in reality I can't ride it out. It requires my attention and I have been eeking out barely enough time for it so I don't sacrifice the kids' summer. Way too high of expectation. I have had more help this past week and it made all of the difference. I even treated myself to a massage and wine and more breaking it down with said friend over rose at Gilbert Cellars.

Those who know us to our core, like she does, can readily observe and share those areas in our life where we struggle but don't necessarily see (or own up to) ourselves. I am greatful for her insight, laughter, feisty-ness, and honesty. Our bond is unique as we have been friends from birth and remarkably, our daughters are proving to be steadfast friends as well. We decided it was genetic. Our mothers remain as tight as ever and we all love watching the third generation develop this bond as well. I will be devastated when she leaves next week, but we will always have our weeks of summer in Yakima.

Hello Out There...

Is it just me or is anyone else finding the grind of summer exhausting? Seriously. If you are out there, please let me know as I am starting to really doubt my parenting skills. I think the memory of youth I am trying to recreate maybe happened to me beginning at the age of 7 or 8, not 4. Between teaching, prepping to teach (under great duress as I never leave myself enough time), fulfilling the studio obligations (kind of), squeezing in an occasional walk/yoga practice, running a household and most importantly refereeing/ entertaining the kids, I am running all day long. How well am I really doing any of these things? When I feel great about teaching yoga, I don't feel so good about parenting. When my parenting is on, my yoga life is off. How does one strike a balance anyways? Or is it just me? and if it is just me, what is it that prevents me from achieving balance? One of my favorite Desikichar quotes is "the goal of yoga is to act in such a way that all of our attention is directed towards the activity in which we are currently engaged" When I am at the yoga studio I could not be more fully present. It is my reward for teaching. I am in the moment. I am engaged with the activity. At home? Aren't we pulled TNE THOUSAND different directions? My kids need something (mostly my attention - and lots of it), meals to be made, laundry, bills, phone calls, gardening, yard work, and on and on and ON. I rarely feel connected with one task. I clearly am falling short of of practicing what I preach.

I finished teaching at noon. Returned home to STARVING children and a hungry mom - me. Got us all fed, we sat down read a few books, sent them to different rooms for some quiet time ( Piper and Ivy really have a hard time being away from each other, they sneaked into the playroom together after about 10 minutes) Ellie helped me empty the dishwasher (she is such a great little helper), did the dishes - breakfast and lunch, returned a few calls, attempted to tackle the blueberries we picked yesterday-wash, sort and freeze, my mother in law dropped off the beets she is growing for me since mine didn't come up, put them in the pile with the blueberries and now my CSA delivery (at this point...seriously, what is wrong with Safeway??) then off to swim. Could have skipped that. Ellie wasn't feeling well and sure enough, the highlight of my day, she started puking on the way home and poor thing, just let her rip. She is asleep now, but something tells me it ain't over. Got dinner, lost it with Piper, sent her to time-out, fed them, fed myself, emptied Ellie's puke bucket, and at 7:30 Shawn got home and I hit the couch to blog and try and figure this whole thing out....is this just life with 3 kids? Do I make our lives harder than they need to be? (yes, I already know that...too many expectations, but I am working on it.)

How do you practice what you preach? I did one of my favorite breathing exercises in class today: "breathing in compassion, breathing out expectations" and revisited the brahmaviharas (pathways for developing more loving relationships with ourselves and others - today I talked about compassion. ) I have cycled right back to where I started: overwhelmed with my obligations, underwhelmed with my role as a parent, loving my kids to DEATH, but yet doubting my ability to raise them well and yet knowing that this is my yoga - finding the balance because this is IT. This is my life, one shot, one moment, one opportunity......

Better sort those blueberries.

Realism

It is Friday evening - 8:20. Kids in bed, hubby out of town and I told myself I would watch a movie or a show. I use to live for movies. I think because I go to bed so early that when it comes right down to it, it simply gets to be too late. I can't remember if I already blogged about this, but a yoga teacher, Max Strom, said to watch the news once a week. I use to watch the Today show every morning. When you tune out, you get to the point where you can't even tune in - not even for 5 minutes. It is so depressing. I don't feel like I am missing out. Really, the only thing that I ever really followed were the human interest stories anyways. Maybe I pretended to tune in to the latest political outrage, but in reality, I didn't. Even now, I ALWAYS flip to the very last pages of the Time magazine - the human interest section - the movies, books, etc. I think I already consciously know there aren't a ton of good movies out there that I am missing. I LOVE a good movie, but how often does that happen? Like the news, if it doesn't capture the human experience (in a positive light), I am out. I would rather read my book (except I fall asleep). So sad.

I saw a fantastic movie a few weeks ago - Mother and Child. So wonderfully acted, so beautifully told. Annette Bening and Naomi Watts are the adoptive mother and daughter who never meet and spend a solid portion of their lives mourning the loss. It was so.....real. Does that make me a realist? In fact, pre-kids I would thrive on those dark, depressing, intense films that just dove right into the harsh reality of life. I am not much of an escapist - seldom do I really like a mindless chick flick, but the problem is I can no longer watch many of the art films, so maybe that is why when it comes down to it, I don't watch many movies. Then again, maybe I just know our routine - early risers and busy days. A realist.

We were in San Diego over the 4th. My sis in law went all out - she was such a gracious hostess and stocked the house with lots of food and beer - and just went with the flow as we overran her newly remodeled beautiful, modern home. My niece and nephew have to be two of the nicest kids I have ever been around. I am not saying that as their aunt, I am saying that as an admirer of good parenting. They are a direct product of amazing parents - loving, involved, dedicated, and above all else CONSISTENT. I have been floundering in the consistency department this summer - (gonna get right back on that tomorrow). My sis in law took it even a notch higher than food and beer and scheduled a private yoga lesson on the bluff overlooking La Jolla (fabulous). We spent a day at the beach, eating, drinking, talking, FRYING ourselves and laughing at Jeff who said he got stung by a sting ray (he did). We spent a looong day at the zoo, adults drinking margaritas, kids just powering though - animal after animal - (the difference between traveling with 4 year olds as opposed to 3 year olds, is mind-boggling). We hung out at a neighborhood block party and just rocked out to my brother's band ( WTF? Seriously. How can one sibling get all of the talent? No offense to my younger brother - we certainly have our strengths, but playing in a rock band and leading trauma surgeons are not among them...where does that talent come from?? Why wasn't it more equally distributed?) We watched fireworks from their deck and the kids spent endless hours in the hot tub and pool. My other sis in law and I snuck out to Nordstrom Rack and went on a manic shopping spree ( I actually might have drooled at one point...oh the things I miss and didn't even know it, namely, FASHION.) We were gaga. We unknowingly drug our kids on the the Journey to Atlantis water "slide" at Sea World and it is debatable who clung to whom harder - Mommy or Ivy (it was just awful...had I known...but they actually ended up loving it...it is really only me with the lasting trauma), we ate authentic Indian food from two generations of Indian cooks after graciously being invited (all 13 of us) to a friend's ultra-modern, ultra-cool home overlooking Pacific Beach (such lovely hosts....you know if you are immediately comfortable in a home straight out of Architectural Digest it is the sign of gifted hosts). We ate, drank, slept like queens and kings - one night I slept 10 hours (freakin' TEN hours - not sure I have ever really slept ten hours) and didn't think about yoga once. It was a true vacation.

And best of all, I left overwhelmed with gratitude for my siblings and their families. At the end of the day - family is it. It just is. Realism.