Day 21

So yesterday was Day 21 (see "I am Happy To Be Alive" post from September 3rd.)  I did not remember this in the morning when I was writing my morning pages at 6am but this is how I began, "I like this day.  I like everything about this day.  The Tuesday.  The September.  The 24.  The 2013.  This is going to be a good day."  (mind you, this is not a typical way that I begin my morning pages.) 

And then, after 45 minutes of writing and a cup of coffee, I went home and my positive spirit expressed in my first words turned to fire.  My energy was so strong (or, as my sweet Matt said, "different") and somehow I immediately got into an odd power struggle with my little three year old, poor dear.  It was about routines and discipline and, although I had an awareness of my crazy energy juxtaposed with my sleepy family, I could not stop.  I will not bore you with the details, but I will tell you this: it was a sad, out-of-control moment.  For my daughter.  For me.  For my husband.  And it came from me.  Yes, there are expectations about routine, yada-yada, but the sad moment - it came from me.  I know this.  I own this.  

You may ask - what in the heck does this have to do with Day 21?  Well, here is what happened next . . .

I scooped my baby (the only one unfazed by this moment) up out of Matt's arms.  I placed her on my hip and marched myself right into my bedroom for my own time out (I have to say, it is nice to have someone with you in time out.)  I gently closed the door and I sat down.  I placed the babe square on my lap.  And I took a breath.  We nestled into our familiar position and the smoke from the fire dissipated.  And I will try right now to express in words the feeling that washed over me, "well, that was a big mess.  And I am happy to be here.  In this sun drenched room.  In this mess.  I am happy to be here."  Oh, breakthrough!  Oh, immediate forgiveness rooted in the practice of self love!  And with this sense, this touching of the true essence of my self, I was able to begin to clean up the mess.  First through processing and investigating what happened.  Then by action. 

I can't tell you for sure that it was my 21 days of practicing this mantra when I wake: "I am happy to be alive" that created this radical shift for me (historically I can be really hard on myself in these messy moments), but I can tell you that it felt good.  That it felt like life.  And growth.  And, yes, truth.  And I can tell you that I am going to keep doing it.  Hello Day 22!

Scattering Seeds of Change

Are the changes that are most profound the ones that we do not force?  Are they the ones that we scatter seeds of over the years sometimes with urgency other times with a gentle push, although mental, and then, one day, we notice how we have changed?  Like the idea of letting go? 

I had thought about and practiced this direction for so many years; I had even given others this direction in my yoga classes: "let go of expectations" or, more simply, "just let go."  It seemed like a good thing to say; a good thing to do even though sometimes I felt annoyed when people would tell me to let go like, "what does that mean?  I don't understand!"  And I would lay on my mat, aware of my frustration.  I thought about this idea in the car on my way to work sometimes too when I was trying to move through a difficult feeling or circumstance.  And therein lay the problem: I was thinking about letting go and often times trying to force myself into a place that I did not yet understand.

And then I experienced it in my body.  I was nine and a half months pregnant with my first child and I was out for a walk.  I was so overdue that the concept of time had been stripped away and I had actually moved beyond expectation.  It was another steamy day but my gentle determination, guided by feeling rather than thought, led me outside.  I walked slowly down the block and I felt it: a loosening in the thousands of muscles wrapped around my enormous belly.  My body and mind in perfect union released her - my daughter - into the world.  A simple freedom filled my heart as I walked home.  About five hours later, I had my first contraction.  And I finally experienced perhaps the most powerful lesson of motherhood that Francesca has continued to teach me: Let Go. 

I like to think that the years of speaking these words, of mulling them over in my mind, of reaching for the feeling on the yoga mat helped prime me for this experience and allowed me to notice it when it happened.  And, if that is the case, perhaps this is the lesson: we have to practice the things that we want like love and letting go and being present so that we can be open and aware of the experience of them when they show up and thus, without really knowing it, change. 

Yoga Poet

 

Last week I met Leah. It was 7:45 in the evening.  It was a Tuesday.  After putting my littlest one down to sleep, I ran to the studio without looking back.  Although I had thought about not going to the class, once I got out the door, I was on a mission.  I climbed the stairs to the new studio.  I saw flowers and a familiar face and a mat on the floor that was calling my name ("here," it said, "come here.")  I listened and settled in. 

 

But back to Leah.  Leah is a Yoga Poet.  I have had the great fortune to meet a few yoga poets in my life, most of them at Kripalu, and it is like nothing else.  For me, it is the blending of these two forms of art/awareness that I love so fully.  Leah's language was concise and thoughtful and beautiful ("your shoulder should be plum over your hip," and "reach out through your radiant fingertips.")  But most of all, her words stemmed from a place of truth and confidence.  I could sense Leah's authenticity almost immediately; I trusted her completely without knowing her at all.

 

And this is when it dawned on me.  Again.  That realization that all that really matters is that I am myself in whatever it is that I am doing - teaching a yoga class, mothering a daughter, working on a grant, talking with my husband.  Authenticity is the only first step. 

 

I have already searched out more yoga classes taught by Leah for this simple, age-old message that we must be ourselves, well, it is good to have role models.  To hear others authenticity and to learn from them because "being ourself" must be practiced.  Like poetry.  Like yoga. 

Peering Through the Window of my Life

There are a two hotels near Bagels, Etc. (where I now get coffee and write every morning): one right next door and one directly across the street.  This makes for some interesting early morning coming and goings.  This morning, I saw a little family packing up to leave the hotel.  The mom and dad passed the little guy - probably about six or seven months old - between them.  It was not quite dawn and he still had his pajamas on.  In the instant I saw the mom holding the baby, I longed for him.  Or for my baby sleeping at home, or another baby altogether.  I longed for baby.

I investigated the feeling as I found it odd to long for something that I already have - full on, six month babe - just a block away.  Since we do spend much of our days together and have hardly been separated in the past six months, I thought it is quite possible that I missed her.  But I also wondered if seeing this baby was a reminder that someday, in the not too far future, I will miss this sweet spot of my life.  And I felt gratitude towards this family as they drove away into the rising sun of the day and I thanked them in my heart for allowing me to peer through the window of my own life and recognize the dream that I am already living. 

Welcoming the Mundane

People have told me:
do the things that makes your heart sing.
that this is brave. 
that this is the key to happiness. 

I would nod at these words that sounded cliché; half believing them.  Until I took a step.  Just one small step; an inch closer to my heart's work.

And freedom is felt.  And by freedom I mean that there is no grasping; no wanting more.  With this brand of freedom, I can be present in my own life.  Reside here for a bit.  Yes - challenges arise and thoughts continue their steady stream (sometimes still raging up onto the banks of the soul), but it is within the life that I am living rather than a life that I am trying to escape from or to.

While I sit, I find my thoughts going to the food that I am going to eat or prepare or Francesca at school or Lilian's nap schedule, but these are all mundane thoughts that circle through my daily life.  Oh, how I welcome the mundane for, right now, the mundane is the precious present. 

A Slow Walk into Wonder

A late afternoon stroll.  Late August in DC - steamy and slow.  A sleeping baby snuggled into my warm chest.  A need to find shade and relative quiet.  Newport Street.  Walking up and down; up and down.  Slowly.  Noticing. 

It was these walks that seemed to happen for a few consecutive days around 5pm that allowed me to open my eyes to the mystery and beauty of the city that I have lived in for seven years.  With the slow walk that is foreign to a city dweller, I soon found myself in awe of the sheer number of people who nestled into just one block of this city street.  People's lives stacked on top of each other; a mishmash of stories. 

I wondered: what is it that draws people to the city?  Is it the undeniable human hunger for connection?  For closeness?  Is it the desire to live amidst the chaos and to have others to share it with?  There are many things in the city that distract us from our humanity and the earth on which we reside, but perhaps it is just this - our common humanity - that pulls us here in the first place. 

"I Am Happy To Be Alive"

I had this thought the other morning: I wonder how much our thoughts right when we wake up, whether it be in the middle of the night or the morning, shape our attitude towards the day and thus our life? 

So this is my experiment for the next 21 days: immediately when I wake up I will think this thought: I am happy to be alive.  I chose this thought because it is simple and it reminds me of my mortality.  It also contains the word "happy" which is really, deep down, what I want to experience each day. 

Do you want to try this too?  What might be your waking thought?

My One Thing

For the past fifteen days or so, I have developed a new morning ritual.  In near silence, I put on my red raincoat, grab my purse and sneak out of my home.  Walking through the alley, I remember about half way to the coffee shop to look up at the sky.  And I breathe.  Grateful.  Remembering the sky, the earth, that I am alive.

I enter the coffee shop.  Now that the ladies know my ritual too, they say, "small coffee?  $1.49."  I pay in change.  I thank them and fill up my cup: half decaf, half regular (typically hazelnut, but sometimes I mix it up.)  I step outside, again noticing the sky (see photo) and take a seat.  I always sit at the same table and in the same chair; I tried to mix it up, but it didn't work.  I realized the power of ritual.  I take out my big journal and my orange pen.  I write the date and then begin.  I write and sip and write and sip.  These are "morning pages" (Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way) so there is the sweet relief that comes from no expectations.  I write, usually in small print, whatever is floating through my mind.  I write as much as I can and then I always end with this: a writing of gratitudes, three things that I can want to accomplish in the day, and an intention.  If time permits, I then take out a second journal: my "Sacred Work Journal."  I work on something connected to my goals and dreams: blog ideas, article or book ideas, workshop ideas, poems.  Then I take my half drunk coffee and head home.  Before I let it catch me, I have caught the day; seized it and set myself on my path with gratitude as strength and work already completed. 

This, right now, is my one thing.