Good Guilt, Good Grief

If you've been reading my blog at all this year (and bless you if you're still here), you know that I learned about the death of my former friend/boyfriend in June. He passed away in January of 2009 under "suspicious circumstances." And when I found out - in June of 2013 - I lost my proverbial shit in more ways than one.

Because I was raised Catholic, or perhaps because I share so many neurological similarities to the alpaca, I spent a good portion of the summer wallowing in guilt. Whether or not anyone else knew, his death was clearly my fault. For one, I wasn't there. For two, most things that happen on Earth are my fault. It takes quite a lot of worry and effort to make the sun rise every morning, my darling friends.

I did some internet sleuthing, which offered little solace and less credible information. My unhealthy obsession with Florence + The Machine grew steadily less rational as I teetered on the brink of middle school level angst. Despite my intense meditation and wallowing, I could not remember the last time we spoke.

Because of my extensive list making and highly effective calendaring, I was able to determine that I was watching my hubbster perform in The Full Monty the night Jon died. I spent months in anguish about whether or not Jon was psychically calling to me for help while I was at the theatre.

Excessive Self Importance, see above.

One of my tremendous students happens to know a thing or two about Air Force legal matters and suggested that I file a Freedom of Information Act request to learn more about his death. Maybe nothing would turn up, but maybe I would get a hint or two.

Today was the day, my dear friends, when my guilt has transformed fully into grief. The FOIA informed me that his death was most certainly an accident and that he'd been out having a good time the night he died. He wasn't contemplating life and death and the great hereafter, he simply made a bad judgement in a place that was too cold.

It is terrible. Yes. A life that ended too soon. But he wasn't running from demons in flesh or mind. He died immediately after singing some karaoke. He drifted into the great dreamless sleep.

Tomorrow would have been his 33rd birthday, the day before Christmas. And as macabre as it sounds, this resolution is the best Christmas gift I've ever received.

This day has been an excellent lesson for me. Again, I constantly need reminding that I'm not responsible for the actions of everyone I've ever loved. I needn't be available around the clock to reach out over the ledge and pull friends out of the canyons by the ankles. My only job here is to grieve. To appreciate the life that graced mine, to mourn whatever futures I could have dreamed possible, and to move on.

Rest in Peace, dear Jon.

And happy birthday.

Yoga Sutras 2.16: heyam duhkhamanaagatam (The pain which has not yet come can be avoided)

Satya: For This I Am Thankful

I'm not so great at the Thankfulness month or the gratitude journal. Consistent, daily practice of gratitude is important, and while I'd like to think I keep Christmas in my heart, past, present and future, I'm still working on Thanksgiving.

So here, my dearest friends, are the things for which I am most thankful. They aren't in the order of the things I most appreciate, they're simply in the order in which they pour out of my fingers.

My body works.
Sometimes there are tiny aspects of my body that don't work so well. I have a bum knee right now, and I've managed to mangle my hand several times today alone. Tan is a place I'll never visit. But I can get to the places I need to go without worry or strife, and the trepidation I feel stepping out onto an ice rink for the first time in ten years or tying my bikini on in double knots are simply distractions from the truth: I've got it pretty good.

My family accepts my crazy.
While I haven't completed my MD or JD (or a doctorate in anything), I know that my family trusts in my process of finding my way in this world. I did not know this until after I had turned 30, but parents just want their children to be happy. They might pretend that they want their children to earn millions of dollars, have a variety of degrees or babies or sports cars, but the reality is that THE ONLY THING THEY WANT IS HAPPINESS. After telling students this for years, I finally heard myself say it and thought... well, maybe that's true for me, too.

My work is meaningful.
When I walked away from my corporate-ish job and into the world of self-employment I had a very hard time answering the question, "So what do you do?" without blubbering and trying to change the subject or causally dropping appetizers down my dress (true). When you come from a family of doctors (MD and PhD and in some cases both), "I teach yoga" sounds about as meaningful as, "I alphabetize spice cabinets for people." It would be untruthful to say I can now comfortably approach the people who attended college with me and tell them what I do, particularly if they are also doctors, lawyers, and professors (which they are). But that does not change the fact that people who work with me say thank you, and they don't have to. In fact, they don't even have to come back to my class, and yet they do, and they say thank you. They say, "That's just what I needed," or "no one else would answer this question" or "I am too embarrassed to ask my doctor."

My deep and lasting friendships.
Despite the fact that I was in a royally bad mood for about five years, I've managed to find some really good folks who are not afraid to tell me the truth, even when it is hard. My best friends are the people I admire the most: they believe in what they do and the want to have fun. Forget the American Dream (which eludes all of us) find happiness and people who answer when you call as often as they reach out to you.

My appetite for learning is insatiable.
While it has gotten me into a few binds, like no lunch hour during high school, an attempt at a triple major in college, and a resume that leads most potential employers to believe that I'm 20 years older than I am, I am grateful for this. I want to get the most out of the minutes I have here. I'm a bit Mulder... #thetruthisoutthere

The yogis say, "satyameva jayate," which means, "the truth is always the victor". It is, in fact, the truth that we are most grateful for. It is what we seek, the kernel of wisdom that remains once all of the false illusions fall away. When we practice gratitude, we are really practicing truth. Satya.

One Thing Is Enough

If you've met me, you know how much I LOVE efficiency. I have lists and processes, containers and labels, and more google calendars than there are colors for. I went to a top tier liberal arts school that teaches one class at a time because it was the only way to triple major and still play in the orchestra, dance, stage manage, and work four jobs.

In high school, I didn't have a lunch hour because I took advantage of all classes. For the entirety of my adult life, I've had more than one job, and I think if you saw my exhaustive resume, you'd understand why I was perpetually exhausted for 12 years. Every day I knelt before the altar of One More Thing.

We've discussed a few of my secrets of efficiency, but I'll recap some favorites in case you'd like to add them to your collection:
- In the interest of healthy eating, I've resorted to pureeing everything into one unholy smoothie of gawd-awfulness. You can add spinach to a fruit smoothie, but if you also dose it up with protein powder, flax seeds, chia, seaweed, molasses, hemp, spirulina, probiotics, raw cacao and maca it starts to taste nearly exactly like shit.

- Reading with one-eye covered to preserve the vision for extended reading later. Like a pirate. You read for an hour with one eye covered, then take a break to do sixteen household chores (or pee) and then switch (it turns out this is not why one has two eyes).

- Planning a yoga class while taking a yoga class (this might seem rational but it is completely counterproductive).

My body retaliated against all of this supposed "efficiency" two years ago when I simultaneously had a sinus infection, ulcers, a mysterious bacterial infection that may have been Scarlett Fever, C. diff and chronic and debilitating exhaustion.

Touche.

This was my body teaching me a very important lesson: two can play at this game.

It was not easy to stem my addiction to overdrive. Sometimes I still notice myself layering in more than might be considered humanly possible. During those times, it helps me to think about my mother's favorite saying regarding toddlers:

"Only give the baby as much juice as you'd like to clean off of the floor."

What you ask your body to juggle, your body will ask you to juggle. And you'd better be ready for all of it to fall on your head.

Turns out that (as of this writing) we only receive one body with which to navigate this one most precious life.

These bodies are not built to withstand constant multitasking. Our eyes point in the same direction. Our hearts have one function.

If you are compelled to do more than your body can manage, you will pay for it later. As tempting as it is to push to the breaking point, I urge you to push instead towards the point of comfort. Then add one new thing. If it becomes stressful, then stop. Remove one thing. Find the sweet spot of just enough challenge that life is interesting, but not so much that you're eating a sandwich in the shower or peanut butter straight from the jar.

If you need to practice, go to a yoga class. That's what it's for.

Atha yoga anushasanam. PYS I.1 

Movie Stars, Hungry Ghosts, and The Cycle of Life

I've been riding a roller coaster for a year and a half right now, which is well-predicted by my BBT (if you're out in a field beyond fertility lingo, that's basal body temperature... it tells you which hormones are at play and whether you are ovulating, pregnant, or not). If I were to graph my emotional well-being and overlay it atop the BBT charts, you would see a striking resemblance, like a mountain range and its shadow. 

When my temperature goes up, so does my mood! My hope! I could be just nine months away from a bouncing baby human!

When my temperature goes down, my mood withers. I try to think of all of the consolation prizes like another trip to the hot springs without the fear of nuking a baby, at least one more month of binge-watching The West Wing while painting my toenails, or 30 more days of rock-hard abs (yes, I have two of them!).

In high school I spent some time acting. I thought I might go to Los Angeles and be the Next Big Thing, or possibly fetch coffee for the Next Big Thing, or at worst sell tickets to the movie staring the NBT. It is entirely possible that I was good, or that I had an "interesting look," or that someone was taking pity on me, but I was referred to a local agent who referred me to an agent in Hollywood. Holy smokes, I thought, this could be it.

My acting coach at the time (we'll call him "Bonkers" for the sake of this blog post) took me out for a cup of coffee and gave me his frank opinion: Hollywood will eat you alive. There is always someone taller, prettier, blonder, younger, or more willing to eat caterpillars than you are. You don't have the guts or the drive to make it all the way. They'll eat you up and spit you out. Plus, I'll tell you a secret: they're never happy anyway.

This was absurd, of course, as all teens raised in These United States can tell you the exact recipe for happiness: go to LA, get famous, enjoy.

Except we slightly older and more jaded folks know that this isn't true, otherwise the poor unfortunate famosas wouldn't be rehabbing over and over, or buying and selling rights to their organs, or insuring their buttocks. They've fallen victim to what the Buddhists call something like Hungry Ghost Syndrome. Hungry Ghosts are enormous, surrounded by delicious food, and have a pin-sized holes for mouths. Even when they eat constantly, they can never satisfy their appetites.

In my case (and perhaps in yours, too?) my mouth isn't the size of a pinhole, it is my focus. By gluing my eyeball to the end of a scope I've managed to tear the focus away from the wonderment that surrounds me in the world and keep my full attention on a distant target that is... well... distant.

It isn't our fault. Whether you're transfixed by the dream of singing with Billy Joel or the cure for cancer, if you're unaware of where you are, you're living your life through a pinhole. I'm not saying you should ignore your dreams (or seriously, if you're onto something cancer-wise, rock on with your bad self and we'll help you with teamwork or something). But take some breaks from star-gazing every once and awhile to live with your feet on the ground. Feel the sand in your toes.

Sometimes the sand is the fact that I'm going to be an auntie in a few quick months, or the wild bobkittens who live underneath my house, or the 353+ people who think I have something to teach.

Sometimes the sand is you, off somewhere in the dark, having a moment because I had a moment and said something about it.

And sometimes the sand is just sand. But that's not too shabby, either.

La Frontera: A Cultural Comparison of Boundaries (and bulls#it)

I attended an insightful presentation once at The Colorado College. It described the differences in perception of borders and boundaries based on linguistic criteria. To simplify, we talk about the geographical limits of countries as "borders" while in Spanish they refer to this as La Frontera or "the frontier."

One sure seems a lot friendlier than the other.

Or at least, that's what I used to think. I used to think that borders and boundaries were about keeping certain things IN and other things OUT and that the "frontier" was the undiscovered country. I got very ethno-un-centric and romanticized a culture that thinks that strangers are just friends they haven't met yet. But I'm not entirely certain that this is what is meant by the frontier. And I'm not so sure it is unromantic to define certain things as in and others as out.

Case in point: my first lesson in boundaries. When I was about three or four, my progressive if not hopelessly fearful parents decided to tell me about where and when it was appropriate to be touched and by whom. Bathing suit area: totally off limits to everyone, kisses limited to parents, grandparents, and siblings, and hugs only if I wanted to hug the person and never if I didn't.

Fast forward a few decades and I read a number of self-help books, most of which described how this same bathing suit rule applies in emotional circumstances: you get to decide who hurts you. This was novel. I sort of assumed that there were evil people out there, lurking, hoping to inflict emotional harm and sadness. And the suggestion that other people emotionally damaging me was somehow my fault? That didn't sit well.

The idea that I had any role in my own emotional suffering was infuriating. In part, because it was true. Those people who said they were my friends, but only came around when they needed something? They were just suffering, they weren't trying to hurt me. I was rescuing! Because I was a good girl, a good friend, and a HERO!

Or, possibly, I was just yelling across the frontera and into the abyss. I was casting ropes and launching search parties only to learn that those I was trying to save didn't want to be saved. They wanted to suffer, to stew, and to offload their pain onto me. But they had no intention of offering support in return because they couldn't. When you're on the bad side of life, you can be the best person in the world and yet you are utterly useless to others. You simply cannot rescue a drowning man when you are drowning yourself. That's the first lesson I learned in lifeguard training.

And so I have built walls around myself (don't worry, you're invited to the "inside" club)! The walls are short and easy to reach over. But if you continue to jump ship I cannot continue to reach for you. All I can do is send you my love. Whisper my blessings for your journey. Allow you the space to traverse the lesser-known places, the outside, the frontier.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

And I'm too old for shame.

The Grudge: Fear and Grammy Baggage

Sometimes on quiet nights I think of my grandparents. This is partially inspired by my father's bulimic interest in genealogy: frantic searching and categorizing for a month, then nothing for years. Recipes and wine-soaked wonderings of the great beyond round out the pie chart of grandparentish inspirations, with one sliver left over: The Grudge.

If your inner cinephile is thinking of this:

Exquisite photo from Abby at Love Roots Photography

Take a moment and regroup, pocket that for later.

My grandmother was notorious for her intense, impenetrable grudges. As an example, despite the fact that my mother is a software engineer and could create things like the internet (in which I'm sure she had a part), she keeps her addresses on index cards just as my grandmother did. This is so that when she sends a Christmas card but does not receive one in return she can DESTROY the card and never think of that so-called friend ever again.

(Just in case my mother is reading this, I need to include full disclosure that she does not abide by the entire procedure... I can personally attest that it takes several years of no return card/email before she will strike you from the coveted card list).

In a similar and more striking vein, my most vivid memory of this grandmother was not her cookies or her spit-shined floors and ceilings, but the day she pulled me aside to dish out her secret recipe for The Facts of Life. No, I'm not scarred by the graphic or clinical description of birds and bees. Instead, I'm haunted (recall The Grudge?!) by this sentence which she burned into my hippocampus and the backsides of my eyelids with her laser vision:

"If you get pregnant before you turn 18, I'll kill you myself."

Amazing in color. Thanks, Love Roots Photography.

A retired ER nurse, my grandmother's sensibilities had been eroded by decades of teen mothers and the deplorable circumstances that beget teen mothers. Whether it was society, lack of parenting, abuse, ignorance, or the imbalance of power, teen parenthood pissed my grandmother right off. She didn't want that life for me, most especially she had not worked so hard in her life to protect me from those very circumstances.

I think of this grandmother alongside my own interpretation of the yogic niyama of isvara pranidhana. Most people translate this as "surrender" or something so complicated it doesn't make sense to me. I translate it as "surrender of the attachment to the outcomes of one's actions." Which perhaps is simply a complicated way of saying surrender, but I think it is rather different. For one, when I think of surrender I often think of defeat, retreat, and being boarded by pirates. Given my ancestry of severe grudge-holders, surrender is not something I do lightly. But I have found some solace in the idea that I can do something nice, with my best effort, and then walk away without recognition.


To me, isvara pranidhana means giving a gift because I think you need or deserve it, not because I want
a thank you card.

It means acknowledging the person serving my food because they are a person, not so my date will think of me as an ultra-nice, totally confident person.

It means visiting my grandmother's grave because I never got past the love-threat, but it's the best I can do.

It isn't a license to be careless, to throw your garbage into the sea, to shoot daggers across the internet. It is an acknowledgement that you've done the best you could do.

The Grudge is the enemy of surrender.

How long will you keep score?

The Land of Disenchantment

I am both in love and in hate with the quote, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." The universe knows this and keeps subtly dropping it in my path. I've been known to dole it out myself, especially when my neighbor yells at their dog.

(The yelling isn't working.)

Lately I've gotten into a Miss Fix-It routine with various things in my life: my unter-sink and the mystery smell thereunder, the Harry Potter Closet/Where Lightbulbs Go To Die, and most regrettably, some people in my life.

As much as I dislike rolling up my proverbial sleeves and scrubbing the muck from the plywood beneath my kitchen sink, I am somehow doing the same thing to some of those loose pieces in my life. The untied ends and not-quite-family members. Unfortunately, both contain some unsavory mildew that is resistant to elbow grease. Worst yet, I don't realize what I'm doing until the entire kitchen is in shambles or I'm venting to the internets at 0-dark-30 in the night time.

The yog-ers specifically warn against this type of behavior. Sure, you're supposed to find cleanliness, and I can't imagine any yoga teacher worth their salt discouraging my housekeeping endeavors. But nowhere have I found the directive, "Get out there and fix your inlaws, your various and sundry relationships, and your kitchen sink."

I'm no expert in Sanskrit, but everything I've read says effectively, "Stop complaining about others/everything and deal with your own $hit." Like, literally. The same sentiment crops up in every major and minor religion that is not solely fixated upon cheese, and yet the world seems to be filled with people complaining about the behavior of others (like former child stars turned twerkers, those entirely fixated on having a heterogeneous set of genitals in all relationships, and in my case, the rampant fertility of every human I know, including the characters in all of my favorite shows).

Why is it so easy to point at others? (Aside from the fact that the vast majority their behavior is asinine). It's because it is easier to see from a distance. That's why we're all so good at Jeopardy and professional sports when we sit on our couches. It is both dizzying and disorienting to look at our own behavior... it is like looking directly into the sun.

My husband reminds me of this on a daily basis. It is not my purpose in life to highlight everything that others do wrong, it is my purpose to see what I do that isn't working. Then to do it again. Then to realize I'm doing it again. Then to do something different.

Insanity is continuing to believe we have control over anything other than our own reactions. Anxiety is the belief that worry has a purpose. Anger is the realization that our anxiety wasn't strong or effective enough.

Fear is forgetting we're capable of doing it right.