Day 93 What’s That Smell??
Hot yoga is hell on the laundry schedule. Every class means one large towel, plus a hand towel, and one entire outfit – top, bottom, underwear, headband. Also I usually have a third towel for the car, so I don’t soak up the upholstery.
On the days my daughters join me it means an instant mountain of drench-n-stench in the laundry room. Of course, I toss it in the washer right away – when I can. But I’m not the only one who does laundry in the house (thank god) so sometimes the machines are in use. Then, the towels have to sit there, emanating their funk. Imagine those cartoon wavy lines of stink rising up into the air, creeping up the stairs, ghostlike, until they’ve infiltrated every room in the house.
Now, I’d like to point out that one of the lesser-known side effects of menopause is an increased sensitivity to odours. Which is fine when you suspect a gas leak. But it seems I’m always asking “What’s that smell?” or “Can’t you smell that?” until people just tell me to shut up. Which makes me doubt myself.
I should know better.
Back to laundry. Since the laundry room also houses the litter boxes (two of them; we’ve also got another set upstairs. Four cats, sigh.) it’s not a happy room for me. To make matters worse, the garbage cans into which the used litter is dumped is just around the corner, in the garage. It’s a trifecta of gag-orific odours congregating in about 25 square feet. The girls are very good about staying on top of the litter boxes, rather than face the wrath of my nose. But still.
So, yesterday I noticed that the mat in front of the stairs just outside the laundry room looked a little murky. I got down on my hands-and-knees, turned it over and picked up the unmistakeable slap of ammonia.
Cat piss. I knew it! I knew I’d been smelling something more than my own mouldering, sweaty yoga duds. The cat in question has a history of such transgressions, but she’s been good lately. Or so we thought. Or maybe it’s one of the others, letting her take the rap.
I got out a bucket of Mr. Clean and channeled my disgust into adiosing every iota of cat urine out of the tile. And the grout. And the wall. And that thing at the bottom of the door that keeps out drafts. And the baseboard.
But it’s like trying to unring a bell. Once cat urine gets in a wall, can you ever really get it out? Even if I succeed, I’ll have the olfactory memory forever. Is it real? Is it my imagination? Does it matter?
So I’m employing a product called Nature’s Miracle Urine Destroyer, Just for Cats. Nature’s Miracle is a staple in our house, and it really does work. But the cat urine variation was news to me.
I’ve soaked the affected area and you know what? It smells better already.
Day 89 & 90 Still on Track! And Inner Conflict…
Yes, that means I did a double day on Friday. It was a calculated risk; at the 9:15 am class, I noticed it didn’t feel as hot as it sometimes does.
“The heater’s not working right,” explained Dan. “It’ll be fixed on Monday.”
Hm, I thought. This is about the best chance I’ve got to do another class in a day without killing myself. So I went back for 3:30 pm.
“Weren’t you here earlier?” asked Angela.
“Yup,” I said. “So if I can’t do much, that’s why.”
But I ended up having a second strong class in the same day. It felt awesome. It completed my 90-day challenge without using my loophole-day on the front end… and… it means I can continue my challenge. New goal: 100 classes in 100 days.
Ten more days… piffle.
*
And today, I spent the day with a group of writers learning about novel structure with Michael Hauge. I learned two things in particular that struck me, as they have to do with Real Life, as much as they do writing. He said that a character arc is the journey a character goes through from living in what he calls his Identity, to moving into his Essence.
I love this concept. Our identities make us feel safe and protected, even if they aren’t healthy. Our identities are who we really believe we are – even though it isn’t, not really – and this ignorance is key, which is disturbing to me because I like to think I’m a pretty self-aware person. But I guess that’s why they call them “blind spots.” If ya could see them, they’d just be called “spots.”
Example: in The Titanic, Rose starts out completely in her Identity as a kept woman, the unhappy fiancee constrained by a man who objectifies her and a mother who sees her as a meal ticket. She clings to this identity, this persona, this mask, so tightly that she’d rather pitch herself into the deep blue, than change. She sees no way out, although obviously, she could just tell her mother and Cal to shove off. But that wouldn’t be something her persona would do, so she can’t. But Jack sees something more in her, and helps her see it herself. He sees her Essence, and helps her gain the courage to embrace this part of herself.
Example: in Jerry Maguire, when Renee Zellweger’s character says about Jerry “I love him for the man he wants to be, for the man he almost is.” (Loosely paraphrased, don’t sue me if it’s a bit off.) She sees beneath the mask he’s constructed, to the Essence of him.
We love to watch characters go through this development from shallow to deeper, from someone who’s immature, afraid, insecure, wounded, and who wears a mask to protect the tremendous vulnerability he can’t even admit is there, and become something more, something better.
That constant tug-of-war between living in one’s identity and living in one’s essence is what inner conflict is all about. I think most of us get that. Super-scary.
“You can be safe and unfulfilled,” says Michael Hauge, “or you can be fulfilled and scared shitless.”
Here’s the message to both ourselves, and our characters: “You can have everything you long for, or need on one condition: you must give up your Identity and live in your Essence.”
Can I write characters like this? Oh, how I hope so.
But more than that, I want to live it.
So what does that look like for me, I wonder?
Day 87 & 88 Still Here, Still Me
Yes, yes already, those of you who’ve been virtually nudging me. I’m not dead or on the lam. I forgot, okay? I forgot to blog.
So here I am. Happy?
This might be an appropriate time to check in on the whole 90-Day Challenge thing. My goals, as you might recall, upon embarking on this endeavor, were lofty. Lose a bunch of weight, gain Gumby-like flexibility and a Buddhist-monk sort of serenity. Oh, and I wanted my hot flashes to disappear, too. And my depression/anxiety/chronic identity crises/general mental deterioration to magically lift. Maybe, if I worked really hard, I’d get a complete physical, mental and emotional makeover.
If you’re gonna dream, after all…
But here I am, 90 days later, pretty much the same person I was when I started. Not quite as dramatic as I was hoping. Here are a few more details:
Weight loss: negligible. (However, I’m eating like a horse, so it’s not really a fair assessment) I’m much more toned now, though, so I’m fitting into a smaller size of jeans. Still have the poochie-mommy-tummy but hey, I never expected miracles there. You know. Pie.
Flexibility: definite improvement here. I’ve got more mobility in my shoulders, that persistent knot in my neck is gone, my hamstrings are much looser and my hips don’t hurt anymore. Right now my lower back is sore, but I’ve been at my Iron Gardening again and I suspect that it would be a lot more sore, if it weren’t for the yoga.
Buddhist-monk serenity: um, yeah, about that. If I can still freak out at a sniffer, I’d say serenity is still in the “goal” column, as opposed to the “achieved” column.
Hot flashes: they’ve actually been better lately. Don’t know if it’s the yoga, cutting back on caffeine and alcohol, or the herbal supplements and progesterone cream. But I’m NOT CHANGING ANYTHING, just in case.
General mental disorder: meh, I’m still me, what can I say? The sun is shining now, which makes the whole world a better place. I do think the intense physical activity has had a good effect on my brain, you know, endorphins, serotonin, dopamine, etc. The discipline of sticking with A Hard Thing like this is good, makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something. I am happier now. Is it the yoga? Who can say. But sort of like the hot flashes, I don’t want to stop the yoga, just in case.
And having fallen into this daily chronicling of my yoga challenge has been excellent for my writing-muscles. Again, the discipline of jotting down something more-or-less coherent every day (I know, I KNOW, I missed a day. Can you just let it go??) forces my brain into channels that open up creativity, letting loose little nuggets that might have otherwise have been lost.
Believe it or not, this is fun for me. (Yup. I’m a riot at parties.)
So, I’ll be continuing on with the yoga, and the blogging. Don’t know if it’ll be quite as every-day-ish as it has been, or if it’ll be mostly musing about yoga.
I guess we’ll see. Stay tuned, readers. (And thanks for hanging in there with me – it means more than you know.)