On our way home from lunch today, we passed a church being built. My four-year-old-sage-of-life son asked, “Mom, God’s in there, right?” As I opened my mouth to tackle this question, he followed up with a quick, ” ‘Cause He’s there and in the other one, too, so He’s in two places at once, and how does that happen?”
Ok. Where’s my mom when I need her?
My response: “Well, He’s so big that He can be in all of the churches all at once.”
A few nights ago as I rifled through the bathroom cabinet looking for the “good” toothpaste (not the baking-soda-blech one, but Tom’s of Maine cinnamon-clove. Oh yeah.), I spied my electric toothbrush. Dare I say that we had a moment?
I hadn’t used it in a couple of weeks in favor of my new dentist-provided old school toothbrush. Since I was feeling pretty feisty, I pulled out the electric one and fired it up.
Oh man. It barely spun. Oh no!
my son, saying a resounding "YES!"
About two years ago, our then near three-year-old had this hilarious habit of asking
questions and then immediately asking, “Yes? Or nope?” And we could really get him going with it. If he forgot to ask yes-or-nope, we would ask “yes?” and he would say yes-or-nope over and over and over and over and over and, yeah, you get it. It sent us, as well as innocent bystanders, into fits of giggles nearly every time.
My husband refuses to speak Starbucks. While I found it frustrating at first, since I am fluent and enjoy practicing my language skills, it’s now kind of funny. My drink: a grande-soy-no water-chai. His drink: a grande-triple-nonfat-latte. When my husband orders, it’s a medium-chai-made-with-soy-milk-and-no-water and a medium-skinny-latte-with-an-extra-shot. The baristas correct him ruthlessly, every time, with me snickering in the background. To me, ordering in Starbucks is easy and rolls off the tongue, since that’s where the majority of my chai ordering has been. For him, he worked through college as a barista at an independent coffee shop (truly yummy coffee, and my many thanks to our friends Matt & Kelly for the caffeine that kept me going through college) and has a festering dislike for the man, aka Starbucks, and Starbuckese makes absolutely no sense to him.
I’m reading, well re-reading actually, a trilogy about three sisters from Ireland. The stories are by no means a literary work of genius: they are simple works of fiction and stories of being found by love. (Go figure, my favorite movies are chick flicks as well. Sue me.)
But even though the stories are fluffy and everything works out in the end, there’s a thread of something so precious, so fulfilling there. It’s the essence of community.
Why is it that when the idea of community comes up, it brings a sense of obligation? “Community service” is oftentimes a sentence, a punishment in order to restore to our society what we’ve taken.
As I googled images for “joy” recently, there were myriad photos of older folks laughing, loving, and living fully. It reminded me of the hallway in the recreation center where I teach yoga, which is lined with a photograph exhibit of people in the prime of their lives.
I love walking that hallway.
It’s filled with flirtation, laughter, orneriness, accomplishment, community, and family. There isn’t an emotional mask of any kind. It’s raw, naked, fun; proudly portraying deep laugh lines, wide open smiles, and hands grasping hands in a hedonic banter.
It’s purely and simply…bliss.
I am always amazed at how lessons in life happen. While they seem like subtle nudges if I look at each of them individually, I get a lot of nudges in a short period of time. Something way bigger than me is making sure that I don’t miss the signs.
This week’s nudge/shove was all about time. And it is…about time.
Douglas Brooks, a professional scholar and teacher of the Rajanaka Yoga tradition, recently blogged that “yoga…makes roots in revelation.”
Yes!
Quite a few years back now, pretty soon after we moved to Colorado in fact, I really opened up to yoga. It was during a tremendously painful and emotional time in my life; one during which my old ways of coping betrayed me. In those vulnerable moments on my mat, I began to heal. Prayer finally made sense to me through meditation. The frightened and protective fist around my heart began to let go, revealing a bruised yet hopeful soul. I was astonished at the depth of teaching and receiving that yoga gave and the insight unveiled by moving through the physical to get to the emotional. It was a revealing experience in what I have dubbed, my “revelation revolution.”
I’ve been going through a major observation of self over the past few months as I prepare for my 40th birthday. This svadhyaya, or self-study, has revealed a recurring presence of tightness. In my upper back…in my thinking…in my chest. In my patience.
My practice has changed without my permission. I’m very frustrated by this.
There was a time, in my former career as a counselor, when I was an excellent listener. There was thoughtfulness and grace and acceptance in that. But if we only listen, where is the dialogue? In the dialogue, we find change and truth. In the conversation, we find our breath. In the exchange, we find pause.
Three weeks ago (yes, it’s taken me three weeks to admit this), I looked at my postpartum body just before scootering off to teach yoga. Keep in my mind, my “work” clothes are form-fitting, body-hugging, bump-showing spandex.
As my eyes went directly to the section of black tops & pants that fill my yoga-clothes-drawer, they skimmed over…my Spanx.
I did it.
I actually wore Spanx under my yoga clothes to teach a class.