Day 98 Function Before Form
In case anyone was wondering, beer and yoga do not mix. Not when we’re talking Bikram Yoga, and I’m on my 98th consecutive day.
Today, the Vancouver Canucks played the San Jose Sharks at noon. By chance, some dear friends of ours were in town and able to watch with us. We had brunch together, and later, as the game went from great to awesome, we switched from coffee to beer. I don’t drink much, and knew it wasn’t the smartest move to add a second diuretic to my system, but what can I say? I like beer, I love my friends, the Canucks were rockin’ and well… I felt a little what-the-hell-ish.
I’ve had several very strong days in a row. I figured if I wimp out at today’s class I’ve earned it.
And I did okay – until the floor series. It’s strange that my energy seems fine for the standing series, which are aerobically more challenging, only to wilt and fizzle once I’m lying down. I wonder why?
My progress in the standing series is coming along nicely, I’m happy to report. Standing-Head-to-Knee doesn’t bother me much anymore. I still can’t hold my legs out for long, and Head hasn’t met Knee yet, but I couldn’t get either leg out straight at all, for a long time. Even the set-up was very challenging. So the progress is significant, if not particularly visible.
And the longer I do this, the less I care about the visible changes. I mean, sure, I’d like to be slender and willowy again like I was in my twenties, but only if I could get there without strenuous dieting. Which I can’t. And I find myself being less critical about my body, as I push the boundaries and discover new abilities. The pain in my hips I moaned about three months ago? Gone.
Slowly but surely, I’m changing my body, lengthening ligaments, tendons and muscles. When I began this, 98 days ago, I figured I’d see a massive overhaul of my physical self in 30 days. Then I got real; obviously it would take 60 before I’d be a super-model. Somewhere after that, I realized my physical self was never going to be on the cover of Yoga Journal, and that the real changes, the important changes, would come from the inside out.
Function before form, substance over style. I’m working on the essence of who and what I am.
Should’a guessed it might take more than 30 days.
Day 96 Scary Eyes
Sniffy Snifferson was back in class today. Really, there’s something wrong with a person who’s so oblivious. Lest you think I’m psycho-reactive, I wasn’t the only one annoyed, as I heard a few other pointed huffs and ahems. To no avail, though.
As I attempted to reach a Zen-like state of non-attachment to my sniff-free existence, it occurred to me that I probably have habits, tics if you will, that annoy others. “No!” I hear you protesting. “Not you!”
Nonetheless, I have to consider it. Unlikely, to be sure, but within the realm of possibility.
“I thought I saw you in Home Depot today,” said Randee as I swiped my pass card. “I tried to say hi, but you looked… busy.”
Why is it always that just when you’re at your smelliest, dirtiest, wearing garden-clothes and that horrible hat, that you run into someone you know? Of course, they recognize you despite the hat, sunglasses and the massive grunge, which makes you a little nervous because shouldn’t that be just a bit of a disguise? Or is that your baseline and you just don’t realize it?
“You looked a little… intense,” Randee added.
And there it was, the thing I do without realizing it. My kids call it “scary eyes” and it happens when I’m in a hurry and annoyed with people who have mnemonics up in their staff room to improve their customer service, but cannot in fact, put their snazzy little rhyme to practical use.
“Um, yeah,” I said. “I was trying to buy bark mulch and it wasn’t going well.”
No less than six people attempted to assist me in putting a bulk order through, a procedure we’d been assured a few months ago would be “no problem.” In the end, after about fifteen minutes cooling my heels, I was told they’d have to look into it and call me back.
So yeah, I had my scary eyes on. What can I say. At least I wasn’t sniffing.
Day 94 Free-Time Parenting?
In the paper this morning, I read about a 47-year old actress who’s cutting back on work because she needs “… a little more free time to be a mom” to the baby girl she and her husband have recently adopted to go with their four-year old son.
Now, she may be the Super-Mom of the Universe, I wouldn’t know. Maybe she just chose her words poorly. Maybe she’s read all the attachment parenting books, maybe she puts in more time than any other mom at her son’s preschool, who knows, maybe she’s wearing one of those tube-and-bag dealies so she can breastfeed her adopted daughter.
Having a second child at that age is a questionable decision, in my opinion, but hey, maybe her 47 years wear better than mine. (Pretty safe bet, she’s an actress after all.)
Here’s what I do know: it takes more than “a little more free time” to raise children. Parenting isn’t a hobby. It’s not a spare-time deal, a “fun” thing to do once you’ve checked off all your other life goals.
Nor is it necessary. You don’t have to do it. In fact, if you’re waffling on the idea of reproducing, take the hint and Just Say No. It’s okay. The world will manage without your genes being carried forward. And you’ll get to keep traveling, guilt-free and unencumbered.
But most of us still discover parenting by surprise, catapulted into the fast lane of the Grown-Up Highway before we thought much about it. (Surprise, not mistake. No baby is a mistake.) And we’ve found that parenting is the best, most rewarding and most important job of our lives. And bar none, the most difficult. There’s no room for selfishness once a baby enters the picture. Or there shouldn’t be, at least.
As Peter De Vries said, “Who of us is mature enough for offspring before the offspring themselves arrive? The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults.”
The key is parents who step up and embrace the new maturity a child demands of them, every day, all day long. Not just the free time.