here we go

Music, loud enough to feel the beat in my chest. Boom ba boom-ba. Boom ba boom-ba.
Marc Broussard.
Home.

two, three, four.

As I dance around the house, ipod nano tucked into the band of my yoga pants (okay, the truth is it is tucked into the side of my hanes boy shorts), my own private concert, snapping my fingers to the beat, I have no inhibition. None. I pass the guest room where my husband glances up from the laundry he is folding, an amused look on his face (which has more to do with my having fun while he keeps the laundry going in anticipation of my mother's arrival tomorrow). A tornado could pass through our neighborhood and I probably wouldn't even notice.

here we go.

This is my favorite part. I have to clap now...and the singing begins. Arms above my head. Millie looks on from her spot in the middle of the hallway.

you don't know nothin' about me...

Summer heat is here, windows are open. Do the neighbors think I am crazy? In pain? I don't care. Toe. Heel. Toe. Heel. Pass the mirror in the hallway and decide not to look. Why bring judgment in now? I feel the beat in my soul...nothing will stop me.

take me home...

When I finished listening to this song for the fourth time in a row tonight, dancing to each encore, I thought about the conversation my friend Heather and I had earlier this week. The one about dancing. I started ballet at four, so dancing has been a part of my life for 26 years. A long time. As I child, I spent hours in the basement "practicing," which really meant having my own private dance concerts. From Tchaikovsky to Phil Collins to Madonna to (yes, you guessed it) Kenny Rogers, my body would move to the beat of the music. Twirling, tapping, waltzing (sans-partner). I would pretend Baryshnikov had come to take me away to be a dancer on Broadway in New York (has anyone else seen the PBS special Baryshnikov on Broadway? My dad taped it for me in the 80s, and I probably watched it 1000 times). Sometimes Prince Charming would come to twirl me in circles. Other days I was a back-up dancer finding my inner Solid Gold dancer.

Through all of this play, I learned to feel the music. And yoga has brought this to an even deeper level. It isn't just about feeling the music, it is about feeling my body. Feeling myself. Letting it out through movement.

My mind also turned to Jamie's day in May and Meg's post from March. Two different perspectives. The love of dancing and the desire to want to love to dance.

Heather reminded me that not everyone feels as comfortable dancing as I do. I mean, I will sometimes bust out into a time step in Target. And Jon will twirl me around on the sidewalk and I don't even care if other people think we are odd. I sing in the car, sometimes even when I meet people for the first time. And I dance in my seat. A lot. Dancing (and the occasional karaoke moment) are such a part of who I am that I don't even think about it as odd.

Thinking about all of this has become a theme lately. And I am wondering if dancing may be yet another avenue toward healing. Another way to find yourself...

Do you think you might want to feel the music? Feel your body? Find yourself as you let it out through movement?

my least favorite of them all {poetry thursday}

There are several words that make me cringe. I do mean cringe. But there is one, one that I dislike above all others. (Now, I am not including words that are derogatory or extremely offensive. Those are in their own category that is beyond and to the side of this one.) There are also words I love. Adore. Words that make me feel light and happy. Words that bring joy to my heart. And words that are simply fun. This poem uses some of these words. The ones I do not hate. And this poem takes you on a trip around the one word that is my least favorite of them all. The one that could be in the title. Can you guess what it is?

The word that must not be spoken

At the widow’s peak, gravity pulls the
droplet toward the crease between chaotic eyebrows.
Fingers dance by memory, though the mind is engrossed by the
droplet as it travels to the indentation at the left of the nose.
A faithful assistant, the ears seek distraction for the mind,
finding the “click-click-click-click,” side to side with no intermission.
The next inhalation diverts attention to a tickle, as the
droplet dives into the left nostril and dangles with prudence.

Exhale. The mind suspended with hope and dread, awaiting the
next intake of breath. Will it plummet to a gratifying demise?

As though in cahoots with the crescendo, “drip,” the
droplet plunges into a pool atop a sharp ivory landing.

dear dad

so i didn't get you a father's day present.
i do not usually remember father's day and mother's day in time to send presents and cards.
and i know that i conveniently forgot father's day for a few years in the 90s.
but today, i remember.

and i wanted you to know that i am glad you are my father.
and it is only in the last year that i had the realization that this day, every year, must be hard for you because your father passed away when you were younger than i am now. and i guess because i think of him as my grandfather, the man i will never have the chance to meet, the man with a voice i will never hear, the man with hands i will never hold, i simply did not think of him as your father. but then, when grandma died, i began to understand. every day, in some way, you must miss him. and every year, on this day, you are reminded.

i am glad you are in my life.

this is one of my favorite pictures of the two of us. getting ready to leave for the notre dame/florida state game in 1993. i miss moments like this. but we grow up and relationships shift, for many reasons. but i am glad that this moment was captured to remind me of the time before i was too grown up, before things shifted.

and i am glad that in the last couple of years they have shifted again. and we both have remembered.

happy father's day, dad.

love you,
me

something unstoppable

I am editing (in bed...because I work from home...and I can...and it is chilly today and I like being under the covers) and listening to my new nano. Paul Simon is singing the songs from his new album. I close my eyes and pretend for a moment that he is sitting on a chair with his guitar, right here in my room, singing:

If you leap awake
In the mirror of a bad dream
And for a fraction of a second
You can't remember where you are
Just open your window
And follow your memory upstream
To the meadow in the mountain
Where we counted every falling star

I have been listening to these words since I heard him sing them on the Academy Awards in 2003. Then I bought this soundtrack. And during the first 40 or so times I listened to these next words, I cried.

I'm gonna watch you shine
Gonna watch you grow
Gonna paint a sign
So you'll always know
As long as one and one is two
There could never be a father
Who loved his daughter more than I love you

Something about this song...my heart feels grief, hope, joy at the same time.

And then Paul begins a new tune, one I am just beginning to feel in my soul. These words...

Once upon a time there was an ocean
But now it's a mountain range
Something unstoppable set into motion
Nothing is different, but everything's changed

My head bobs to the beat. I feel my shoulders begin to sway from side. Left. Center. Right. Center. Feeling the beat in my heart. My hips begin to move. I sit up away from the pillows piled high behind me. I ask him to start the song again. My fingers begin to snap with the rhythm. My hands rise above my head. Snap. Sway. Snap. Sway. I breathe deeply. Something unstoppable. Snap. Sway. Hips move. Head moves, side to side. Snap. I do not even realize, but I have started to add sound. I do not know the words so I sing to the beat. I feel chills as he surprises me with these lines.

I figure that once upon a time I was an ocean
But now I'm a mountain range
Something unstoppable set into motion
Nothing is different, but everything's changed

And the first tear falls. How did he know? I close my eyes and fold my body forward. Still swaying from side to side. Left. Center. Right. Center. My head comes to the covers of the bed. I take a breath. Something unstoppable. Breathe. Sway. Left. Center. Right. Center. Breathe.

Nothing is different. I am me. Sitting here. Working. Breathing. A woman, daughter, wife, lover, friend. Feeling my body's rhythm through music. Feeling my beat as I breathe. I love words, singing, lilies of the valley, blue, twirly skirts, the touch of my husband, and peanut butter on bananas. I wear the same favorite pair of pajama pants to bed, have the same best friend, still love to watch reruns of MASH.

Something unstoppable set into motion. Life. This is the part you cannot anticipate. Life happens. It just moves forward. All the time. With every breath, second, sigh, laugh, tear. Life moves you forward.

Everything's changed. My heart has been broken. Though I thought I knew pain, I thought I knew, on a day in April in 2005, life handed me something else. And the echo of this moment will reverberate through me forever. I can be laying in savasana at the end of a yoga practice far away from all I know. And I can drift into that place of calm and quiet. For a moment I forget I know this pain and nothing is different. But the mind knows what the heart wants to forget, and I am forced to remember. The tears fall. But then today. These words, a different reminder. Through the pain, through the momentum of living in my life, I have found myself.

Something unstoppable set into motion. My shoulders sway from side to side. My arms lift above me. Snap. Sway. Left. Center. Right. Center. Hips move to the left then right. As the rhythm finds me, the words twirl into my heart.

Thank you Paul.

(The first song mentioned above is "Father and Daughter." The second, "Once Upon a Time There Was an Ocean." Both can be found on his new CD. iTunes. It's a beautiful thing.)

home and grounded

i spent the weekend away from phones, cell phones, laptops, email, blogging, television, and responsibilities. it was a breath of fresh air. literally as we were tucked away in the woods in oregon. i am still a tiny bit under the weather though i think the fresh air and hot springs did help my ailing bits. i am trying to learn this lesson of doing enough. not doing everything. hmmm. it is not easy.
and even though i have been home for 24 hours, i am not quite in the swing of everything. but wanted to just share that my weekend retreat was incredible. my sangha, the group of people who made it through these two years and were able to attend the retreat, is amazing. these people have opened my mind and heart. i am blessed to know them. and my teacher has such a way with words and ritual and invites us to stretch in ways (literally, spiritually, emotionally, personally) we didn't plan on stretching. i spent time thinking about some things that have really pushed me. and recognizing some incredible gifts i have received over the last two years (and over my life).
one of these is this. during this two year yoga teacher training intensive, i have become grounded in my body. even though my self-esteem is still low when it comes to how i look, i no longer think about it all the time, just some of the time. i have confidence in the ways that my body can move. and i move my body whenever i want, however i want. i feel the strength of my hips and thighs, even if i wish that they were smaller. i feel my body. i feel it. i stand in front of people and feel strong and capable. this is new. and this is huge. an unexpected gift in the midst of this training. i move my body and i do not think about how i look as i move. i simply know i am moving the way i was meant to move. and maybe, just maybe, i can begin to see this as beautiful.

answers (part two) and a little gratitude

A few more answers to the questions you asked last weekend.

michelle asked: Who are your favorite poets and/or writers?
Well, I love William Stafford. And the funny things is, a few months ago I hadn't even heard of him. Now, reading his words continually takes my breath away. If I could only read one writer/poet for the rest of my life it would be him. (And as I listen to the song “Virginia Woolf” for about the thirtieth time today, if I could only listen to one song for the rest of my life, it would be this one. Of course, that was not your question…)
I also enjoy May Sarton, Natalie Goldberg, Barbara Kingsolver, Joanne Harris, Rabbi Harold Kushner, Thomas Merton, Kathleen Norris…so many. I have a serious, deep relationship with books and the people who write them, and I am going to write more about this soon.

la vie en rose asked: If you could have tea with 5 poets (living or dead) who would they be?
William Stafford, Marge Piercy, Robert Frost, Hafiz, and May Sarton
(but that is just for today's tea. tomorrow i want to invite Dorothy Parker, Carl Sandburg, Ursula LeGuin, Rumi, and Pablo Neruda.)

Cate asked: Because we all love words so much, I feel like we focus a lot on reading and writing. In a different vein, which visual artists (not sure if that's the right word) inspire you the most? Do you prefer abstract art, photography, sculpture, fabric art, etc?

I am drawn to many different kinds of art. Most of all, I am drawn to the beauty of the world around us and to stories.

Some artists I have loved for years now:
Georgia O’Keefe
Leroy Neiman
Ken Jenkins
Brian Andreas

Some more recent favs:
Nina Bagley
Kellyrae
Christine Miller
Misty Mawn
Lynne Perrella
Laini Taylor
(and how the list goes on and on)

This had made me think about putting a list of links to artist's sites on my sidebar. I will do that soon.

Cate also asked: And maybe you've posted about this and I missed it, but how did you meet your husband?
Jon and I both worked at a boarding school back in Indiana. I was a dorm counselor there and he taught physics. My good friend Josh (who was my neighbor across the hall) insisted we have a “game night” and invite Jon and some other colleagues over. We did. Jon and I were partners at Trivial Pursuit and cracked each other up in our super-nervous geeky ways. Then two weeks later I invited him on a date because he was simply too shy to ask me. When he gave me a gift (the book Winter’s Tale) for our first month anniversary (and I hadn’t even remembered or thought to get him anything), I knew he was going to stick around for a little while.

(Susannah dear, your answer is coming. It is a work in progress at the moment.)

A little gratitude:

My grandpa is doing better. Thank you all for your kind words and wishes for him. Earlier this week we had some really scary moments after his surgery. His body did not react well to the anesthesia and we thought we were going to lose him. This forced me to really have some clarity about the realization that we cannot control when another person passes away. Another reminder about how the death of someone else is not about us. Our reaction to it is all about us though. But, he is doing better. Even well enough to call me on my birthday and sing happy birthday to me. He hasn't missed one yet.

Even though I was sick, sick, sick on my birthday, Jon made the day extra special for me. He came home to fix me my favorite lunch (grilled cheese and tomato soup), and he baked me a cake (and even bought a big 3 and a big 0 to put on the cake. seeing that lit 3-0 almost put me over the edge though. hee, hee). He also gave me an iPod nano, using the birthday money my father had given him. As you may recall, his parents gave him an iPod for his birthday and he fought with it for almost the entire Memorial Day weekend. After it started working, he fell in love with it. He didn't want me to miss out on the fun. I love it!

I am feeling a little better...so I will be going to the last weekend of my yoga training (the two-year program). Not sure how I could miss it really; it is like graduation. We are going on a retreat to Breitenbush Hot Springs. Hoping the sauna and hot springs might knock some more of this stuff from my body and help get rid of my wheezing. Though I may spend each yoga practice in savasana.

And I have lived for 30 years. And this feels good, good, good. Thank you for your happy birthday comments and emails! I can't wait to see what happens next...

under the weather {poetry thursday}

This week’s (completely and totally optional idea) over at Poetry Thursday sounded intriguing. I wish I would have actually left the house this week so I could have had the opportunity to eavesdrop. As I have mentioned before, when I am out in the world, I like to listen in for a glimpse of someone’s story. Who they are. Why people are happy, sad, silly, angry, perplexed, or throwing their head back with laughter. Even though I may not see them again, it gives me a tiny moment to peek into their world. However, this week, I have been sick. In bed, still in my pajamas, not leaving the house sick. And today is not any different.
 
When I was younger and not feeling well, I used to read Shel Silverstein’s book The Missing Piece Meets the Big O. Do you know that one? I haven’t read it in years, but I pulled it off of my bookshelf this morning. When I did, I saw Where the Sidewalk Ends on the shelf next to it, which reminded me of Silverstein’s poem “Sick.” So I looked that one up. Check it out here. I wish, like Peggy Ann’s symptoms, that this sore throat, sinus pressure, gasping for air a bit because I am wheezing was all an act to get out of something. It isn’t an act though, and I am feeling quite grumpy, so “Mr. Grumpledump’s Song” also seems to fit my mood.
 
However, because Thursdays have become one of my favorite days since my journey into poetry began, and because I had originally planned to write something inspired by seeing the movie Il Postino (stay tuned, I will still share these thoughts at some point), I will leave you with this gorgeous poem by Hafiz and Daniel Ladinsky.
 

In A Tree House

 

Light

Will someday split you open

Even if your life is now a cage,

 

For a divine seed, the crown of destiny,

Is hidden and sown on an ancient, fertile plain

You hold the title to.

 

Love will surely bust you wide open

Into an unfettered, blooming a new galaxy

 

Even if your mind is now

A spoiled mule.

 

A life-giving radiance will come,

The Friend’s gratuity will come –

 

O look again within yourself,

For I know you were once the elegant host

To all the marvels in creation.

 

From a sacred crevice in your body

A bow rises each night

And shoots your soul into God.

 

Behold the Beautiful Drunk Singing One

From the lunar vantage point of love.

 

He is conducting the affairs

Of the whole universe

 

While throwing wild parties

In a tree house – on a limb

In your heart.

– Hafiz, version by Daniel Ladinsky

from the book The Subject Tonight Is Love

shared with permission

Enjoy your weekly stroll into the world of poetry...I am going back to bed but will take my laptop so I can blog in bed.

answers (part one)

Thank you all for your questions from Saturday’s post. I have answered several here, and I will answer the rest yet this week. This was lots of fun!

C. Delia asked: do you have any specific adventures, accomplishments, or silly bits of ephemera that you hope to experience before 40 comes along?
Hmmm…am I allowed to admit that this question is the first time I really thought about the fact that I will be 10 years away from 40 soon? Have to take a minute for that one (long pause)…
Okay, I would love to travel—to Europe, Africa, and India. I would love to record a CD of chants (in Sanskrit and in English and maybe even learn some Native American chants as well). I do want to finish a book or two or three and send them off into the world. I would love to build forts with blankets and spend the day under them with my husband and a pile of books and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I hope to begin to make pillows and maybe even quilts eventually with my new sewing machine. I should have it figured out before 40 right? I hope to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I also want to tell the people I love that I love them and why. Over and over again. I would love to swim with the humpback whales but I imagine that one will not happen. Maybe I can at least see them a few more times in Alaska and Hawaii. This question does invite me to want to write an actual list though...things I would actually cross off.

DebR asked: If you could travel to any time in the past—your own past, the recent past, or the ancient past...any time at all!—and spend one day there just as an observer, no one could see you or interact with you, but you could see and hear everything going on around you, when and where would you go? What would you want to see?
This one is hard for me. I keep coming to the idea of watching Jesus after they put the boulder in front of the cave. Watching him to see what happened. That may seem cliché to some, but really, I want to know if what some people are “fighting” about really happened. I would also like to see the pyramids being built or life on the plains when the American Indians were the only people in this country or watch Chagall paint or listen to the Beatles sing live. I would also really want to be in the room with “the founding fathers” when they figured out that second amendment thing.

These two are similar, but I am going to answer each of them because my answers are slightly different based on the subtle differences in the questions.

Marilyn asked: How about this...if you could spend one day being any previous age, what age would you be and how would you spend your day?
I would be the age I was when this picture was taken. I want to be right there helping my mom plant flowers. And I think this was the day when we went to the playground at Marshall School and flew my purple octopus kite. And a family friend encouraged me to be brave enough to slide down the slide (with him helping me). This was conquering a big fear for me; as a little girl, I was afraid of almost all equipment at the playground. But I this day I let a little of that go. If I sit quietly, I can still hear my giggles.

Alexandra asked: You have to live one day over from your past. Which will it be and what will you do differently?
I would live this exact day two years ago. I had the flu. That is not the part I would really want to live over. But this was the last full day I spent with my grandmother. I just wish I would have paid attention to every single moment. She spent part of the day talking with me about her childhood and members of her family. She shared many things I had not known. But I was sick so I wasn’t taking it all in as much as maybe I would have on another day. So, if I had to do it over again, I would journal about the entire experience right away and maybe even ask her if I could write some of it down. I would touch her face and hold her hand. And I would take a nap next to her and cuddle up with her one more time. I thank the universe for the gift of that day though. As I explained in this post, if I hadn’t gotten sick, I wouldn’t have gotten to spend tomorrow two years ago with her (so this meant I got to see her on my birthday).
On a much lighter note. I would also want to go back to a moment my senior year in high school when I was standing outside Beason Hall (the senior-only “hangout” at my boarding school) looking up in my friend’s face, and he was saying, “don’t look at me like that,” after he had just told me that he was in love with me (oh but never fear he was also dating my good friend’s sister at the time). In that moment, I realized that women do have a bit of magical power when it comes to men. If I had to do it again, I would have kissed him. In a big way. Though I wonder how different my life might have been. Not necessarily with him, so much as my own journey. This one will always just stay a wish, even if the genie comes along and tells me I could go back.

January asked: What in your life gives you your greatest sense of peace?
I love the moment at the end of a yoga class when the students come out of savasana. They come to a seated position, and I invite them to find their breath again and then to find the space they have created in their body with the awareness of their breath. Then I share a meditation, a chant, a poem, a thought that comes to me as we breathe. The moment right before we say namaste together, that moment gives me great peace.
I also love listening to music. Laying with my head on my husband’s chest listening to him breathe. And the moment in the morning when Millie, our golden, will sometimes climb up onto the bed and put her head on my foot.

bb: How did you begin your relationship with yoga?
I had an opportunity to take some training in yoga back when I lived in Indiana. It was part of my experience working at the boarding school (you might be catching on to the fact that I went to boarding school, then a year out of college I went back and worked at that same boarding school). A yoga teacher from the Boston area was brought in and I had about 60 hours of training with her over a year or so. I started teaching classes at the school. My only experience has really been in viniyoga, so when I knew we were moving out here, I found a teacher who connected me with my teacher who practices viniyoga. And as soon as we arrived, I began the two year teaching training intensive I am finishing up this weekend. (To learn a little more about how yoga has affected me and my philosophy about yoga, visit my “in-progress” website.)

gk girl: What’s your favorite jello color?
I like green. I also really love it when someone layers the red and green together around the holidays. Yum. (since I am sick today, this actually sounds quite good to me right now.)

megg: If I was to have you over for four courses of your very FAVORITE foods and because we were eating together there were no calories or consequences, what would those courses be?
Hmmm…
First course: Brie with a cranberry jam and fruit and carmelized walnuts and fresh bread.
Second: A caprese salad with balsamic vinegar and oil dribbled over the top.
Third: Sushi. Wild salmon is my most favorite of all.
Fourth: Mint chocolate chip ice cream with hot fudge sauce.
I hope we have hours to consume this, and I can’t wait for the good conversation and wine that would of course come with this meal right? And when we get done with the ice cream, can we start over with the first course?