Day 39 I’ll Take It
My practice today was strong. Even Standing Western union fees Head-to-Knee! My right hip is still stiffer than my left, but I can tell I’m making progress. One millimeter at a time, perhaps, but I’ll take it.
I’ve been told that in the first 30 days, you notice changes in your body, but they’re subtle. Deep, even cellular-level adjustments that might not be obvious to anyone else. You’re doin’ the work, you’re smokin’ Bikram’s Torture Chamber, but is there anything to show for it? Not really. Your ass is still your ass, even if you’re now aware that there are muscles in it.
In the second 30 days, the changes continue, becoming more evident as muscles grow accustomed to being longer, stronger. In the second 30 days, as the changes turn from temporary to permanent, others might start noticing. Your ass becomes ever-so-slightly unrecognizable. In a good way.
But we’re talking 40, 50, 60 days.
That’s a lot of days, is what I think. But then, on my way out this morning, my daughter told me today that my legs were looking good.
You bet I’ll take that! 40 days, here I come!
Day 37 Reduce, Reuse, Recycle… Reinvent?
When I was a kid, we lived by many rules, one of which was “use it up, wear it out, make do or do without.” Yes, we were environmentalists before it was cool. My people can stretch a dime, an onion, a teabag, a pair of jeans, like you wouldn’t believe. My mother sewed our clothes, patched holes, let down hems, and when the garments were truly unwearable, cut them into squares for quilts. And despite their deep distrust of all things artistic, Mennonites make quilts of breath-taking beauty.
Long-time tillers of the earth, we also take pride in growing and/or creating our own food. (Which leads to an aspect of stretching-the-jeans that isn’t so admirable.) I love to garden, but I’m married to a pave-paradise-put-up-a-tennis-court kind of guy with a deep distrust of things without UPC codes, so I mostly keep this to myself.
Crunchy-granola type things just excite me, though. I can’t help it. It’s in my genes.
I’ve been reading Katrina Kenison‘s memoir, The Gift of An Ordinary Day, recently, in which the author transplants her family from their comfortable urban home to a tumble-down rural saltbox, to live a “simpler” life. Their house is quickly deemed unliveable, however, and the project takes on a raze-and-rebuild complication, which she describes with guilt and mourning, as if it’s a kind of euthanasia. At the last second, however, they are able to salvage some of the 200-year old bones to incorporate into the new structure.
Perhaps because I spent a few formative years in a rehabbed school-house, I can understand this desire to “rescue” a building. (I’m a sucker for lost causes. Always have been. I once tried to save an abandoned, epileptic Pomeranian puppy, who turned out to be a nasty little land-shark. Sweetest, most adorable ball of fluff you’ve ever seen in your life – when he wasn’t convulsing or trying to take your hand off.)
So I was intrigued this morning to read in the Vancouver Sun about Barry Joneson. A self-described skid-row addict who dissolved after the death of his little boy, he now combines “social reconstruction” with his “deconstruction” project, in which houses slated for landfill are instead salvaged, and kids heading down a rough road are given a crowbar and a second chance. Talk about your reusing and recycling – and social justice too! This guy could be Mennonite!
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By the way, for those of you joining me recently, this day marks 37 consecutive days of Bikram yoga, my personal foray into fitness, personal growth, self-awareness and mid-life inner peace. 90 minutes every day in a room kept at a minimum temperature of 104 degrees, and 40% humidity. It’s hell on hamstrings, but that’s kind of the point.
I’ve reached a stage in my life where I need to change things up, body and mind. A rescue-and-reconstruction project on myself, you might say, and this is where I’m documenting the journey. Thanks for joining me.
Day 36 Who’s the Handsomest Prince?
Randee of Bikram Yoga Abbotsford has just returned to teaching after having her second child, and lucky for me, she taught the 3:30 class today. She was nervous, she said, coming back, but she did a great job.
And I so needed it today!
You see, it’s grooming day for my dog and I do it myself. It’s a bit of a job. He’s a poodle, very masculine, self-aware and has more important things on his mind than superficialities like ear-wax, cling-ons and eye-goobers. Important as in squeaky toys and Western union money transfer squash balls.
I’m not a professional groomer, nor have I had any training, but I groom him myself because a) it’s an unpleasant job that can make groomers justifiably impatient, b) he’s an unpleasant subject and c) professional groomers have injured him worse than I ever have, probably because of a) and b).
I have to be in the right mood to tackle the job. I must remain in a Zen-like state, using my best deep breathing, perfectly aware of his incredibly fantastic personality off the grooming table, or I’m liable to bean him in the head with a brush.
Big-Poo (to differentiate him from Little-Poo, who as you might have gathered, is smaller) is a twitchy sort, very responsive to the vibes around him. If he looks out of sorts, and I express concern about it, he immediately adopts an air of deathly illness.
“What?” his look implores. “I look sick? Am I dying?? SAVE ME!!”
He plasters himself against my knees, quaking, until I feel him over and pronounce him well. Then he leaps up, shakes off his terminal terror and goes off to hunt down his squeaky.
For him, the grooming table might as well be a guillotine. He’s tense, uncooperative, resistant, jumpy, everything you really don’t want when you’ve got sharp instruments at hand. I’m sympathetic: after all, imagine someone scissoring around your short curlies. Well, he’s all short curlies.
I go slowly and he tolerates it, trusting me not to hurt him. This is the main reason I can’t let anyone else groom him: I know where all his scars and tender bits are. His flanks, where he’s been clipper-burned and cut, his shoulders where the coyote grabbed him, the side where he ran into a sharp stick, opening up a three-inch gash, chasing a ball of course.
He trusts me, but he still hates grooming.
Once the job’s done, he’s gorgeous, sweet-smelling — and I feel like I’ve spent the day shoeing Belgian draft-horses.
So 90 minutes in the hot room was exactly what I needed to get the kinks out.
But he’s so worth it!