HER HOME HER HOME

I don’t know about you, but I have been sleeping a lot. I hear that some of you all are too freaked and depressed to sleep. I have a surfeit of trazadone if anyone needs some. It rained last night. Instead of listening to a book to fall asleep, I just let the rain soothe me. One wishes the rain would wash away the virus. 

I just read that LA County schools will be out of session until May. I feel for all those kids who not only can’t go to school for socialization, but can’t visit with their friends either. That must be some kind of hell for all involved.

Janet has been on lockdown for two weeks now. When it is not too cold or rainy, I get her to take a walk around the block. She fights me, but not too hard. I am going to try to get her to start reaching out to her friends via telephone because I can see that the lack of social interaction furthers her dementia. She’s slightly less oriented to the world around her. Her senior center friends are still gathering to play dominoes but I just think caution is the better part of health here. She's pretty depressed and somewhat bewildered.

I am just waiting, not thinking about it obsessively. Being mindful and careful and monitoring the news, but really trying to use the quiet to make progress on the shambles of my life.

Blooming milkweed. Welcome monarchs!

I am not bored, of course. I have enough to do to get me through a life time or two. Gardening and cooking are at the top of my to do list. The plan is to tear up the front lawn and just plant native plants and flowers flowers flowers! I had bought a clematis last year and was just on the verge of throwing it away when I spotted green. I managed to get it into the ground and the hydrangea as well. I have several roses, a purple hibiscus, and a hawthorn that need homes in the ground. I still have bolted basil that looks somewhat ratty, but the bees love them, as do the hummingbirds and butterflies so I cannot tear them out. I am much torn and scratched from battling with a Happy Chappy rose in the bed in front of the house. 

The backyard, being ringed by concrete walls and deck, get a bit too hot for some plants. The poppies, nasturtiums, calendulas, and bougainvillea all do well, but others, like roses, not so much. I have three or four more trees to try to squeeze into the pool area: pomegranate, cherry, and lime. The lime tree has been in a container for about two years and is full of blossoms this year. Well, if we are under quarantine for many more months, I just may get it done. Digging is hard work, though.

I am most torn between wanting to garden and needing to be on KP. I have some Jim Lahey No Knead Bread that has been sitting around for too long while it waits to be baked. Might be a failure, 

but who knows.

Janet is heading back to bed, which is a bit disturbing. She is bored but as she can't see enough to read so tv is her only option. After I get the bread in the oven, I should put more focus on entertaining and stimulating her. Her favorite yoga teacher, Teri Ann, is about to offer online classes, so I will try to get her to practice.

Much to the chagrin and horror of most, my teacher training continues. The yoga studio is closed for the most part. Cindy does an instagram cast a few times a week. There are only four of us in the training so we are able to keep a good distant in that big room. I feel as if this is the time for me to do this, so I will persevere. 

Two weird songs battling for brain space: Pretty Ballerina by The Left Banke and Dance to the Music by Sly and the Family Stone. If anyone can see a connection here, give me a shout out. Pretty Ballerina is hells-fey, but gorgeous if overly sentimental. Dance to the Music warrants no comment.   

My audiobooks are Andrew Delbanco's The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America's Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War and The Girl on the Velvet Swing: Sex, Murder, and Madness at the Dawn of the 20th Century. The latter is little more than a potboiler and not as compelling as American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, The Birth of the "It" Girl, and the Crime of the Century. The Delbanco book is excellent but not really fall asleep material.

Okay, off to kp and laundry land for now. Vera is of the opinion my time and raison d'eire would be better served as a luxurious lap for napping. Much less than I should force her to suffer the ignominy of washing the sheets. She is not to be denied.

THE SECOND

In any collision, one strikes;

the other is stricken. This

is a given with the nano-

calculations made possible

through silicon.

Earlier centuries depended

on testimony to know

the bender from the bent

and often judged an act

by how it ended. Many bumps

were simply abandoned to the

morass of simultaneous action.

Love being among them.

For who would second

as I find myself seconded—

the original feathered weapon

tattered. I love you seconded

for seven year. Whose love

comes second forever bears

a quiver of unsayable words,

unusable gestures; a boldness

lost—as if Ruth had not said

Whither thou goest, but merely gone,

making Naomi's people her people,

her home her home.

— Kay Ryan, The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, New York, Grove Press, 2010

Here's the bedside stack that I am barely looking at:

A STOP ALONG THE WAY

Joan Brown, The Cat Bride

It is going to take some serious fortitude to get through YTT today. I am exhausted from yesterday. The day is rather blustery and tending toward overcast, although there are sporadic sun showers as the Washingtonian statefolk say. I am a champ at dreading, so I am worrying that I have such a long day ahead, four hours of teacher training and I signed up for a workshop. I may keep my participation on the low key side.

There are physical manifestations of my training. My right arm is not sure what is going on. I feel my arthritis all over my shoulders and neck. Having not practiced intensely for the past couple of weeks due to health and teeth issues, I am not at my peak strength. Stoved up.

Doing this training is walking into a wall of your own fears and self-reality. I made the grave mistake of putting my mat down yesterday next to one of the most advanced students in the whole studio. That doesn’t do anything for one’s confidence and feelings of accomplishment. I guess the contrast is easy to see with the best and worst side by side.

Realizing, really having to be in the moment(s) with one’s age is a challenge. I feel very much like an outsider, not unlike, in some respects, it felt to be the only female living in Boystown. I can never measure up, no matter how much I want to or how hard I try. I am at odds with myself, reminding myself that maybe I can’t do a jump back to chatauranga, but that there are other things I can do. I will be surprised if I don’t cry today in training. 

My conversations with myself that this is good, breaking down one’s ideas about abilities and limitations might bring me closer to a true self. Perhaps other bad or non-salutory habits can disappear along the way and maybe I will end up in a better place in life.

Right now, there is that old feeling of less than and not good enough. Old and in the way. Non-important. Non-essential. And very other.

WOODEN

In the presence of supple

goodness, some people

grow less flexible,

experiencing a woodenness

they wouldn't have thought possible.

It is as strange and paradoxical

as the combined suffering

of Pinocchio and Geppetto

if Pinocchio had turned and said,

I can't be human after all.

— Kay Ryan, The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, New York, Grove Press, 2010

THE LEAP, THE PURGE, THE QUICK HUMILITY

I spend significant time petting cats every day. They all have their moments, some being more demanding than others. If I sit in bed to read or write, I have Vera Paris to contend with, particularly in the morning as she is very playful. She is not shy about getting the attention she wants.

Oona Minnie Pearl Moonlight is highly attracted to my desk, especially if I have just returned from errands or outside work. She likes to knock things off the desk and manages to put nearly everything on the floor. I like to have a small vase of flowers on a shelf in front of me, but that invariably ends up soaking the desk. Fortunately, the laptop was elsewhere.

On a whim and at a post-Christmas sale up in Wrightwood, I bought my mom a pair of slippers with cats on them (natch). These were adorned with the exact bells Oona and Vera wear. I can tell which cat is which by how they move, but now there is the added cacophony of Janet walking around in her slippers. Figuring out the other bells took me some time.

Here's a placeholder.

I want to stay up and write about how the yoga training is challenging me and all. But we are supposed to go to bed at 10:00 and get up at 6:00. And I do need to get up early because it is my desk morning. So instead of writing about how I notice I got some less-than-desireable eating habits from my mom, I am going to take my meds, turn out the lights, and hope I am similarly inspired on the morrow.

Another morning at the desk. The orange smell fills the lobby here.

RELIEF

We know it is close
to something lofty.
Simply getting over being sick
or finding lost property
has in it the leap,
the purge, the quick humility
of witnessing a birth—
how love seeps up
and retakes the earth.
There is a dreamy
wading feeling to your walk
inside the current
of restored riches,
clocks set back,
disasters averted.

— Kay Ryan, The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, New York, Grove Press, 2010

I think this is the first morning when I have not turned on the space heater. It is slightly chilly, but it hardly seems worth the effort. Spring is coming as evinced by the greater number of folks with little kids walking past to go to VIento y Agua. I brought my own coffee (and breakfast) this morning. The door is barely open but it feels much noisier. A white SUV pulled up with what sounded like some African highlife music playing.

I'm already having a hard time focussing. Even the swoosh of cars is distracting me. Maybe sound is carrying more because of a change in the air.

I don't entirely know what I expected from teacher training but it is different than I imagined. A lot of feelings come up when I give myself a moment to reflect. I am surprised at the amount of emotion I am having regarding my body, my age, my abilities, and just generally my entire person. I feel as if my being were squinting and slightly cowering a bit. (I just noticed that the space heater isn't even here at the desk!)

I think the biggest surprise, something I had not factored in to the decision to do this training, was the internal focus. I wasn't expecting the self-examination and likely personal "re-tooling." My well-being, my integrated being, has really NEVER been an aspiration of mine. The threads of selfhood here are knotted and gnarly. This comes as a bit of a shock and definitely brings up some fear and loathing.

And there is a lot ... and I should get to some more review before this afternoon's session ... Even just trying to move towards the first round of ayurvedic eating, for instance, has much going on. I spent a couple of days in a mental kerfuffle, worrying about how I could make any of this work. And then I hit upon the idea that I could just pick an item or two and focus on integrating those things into my life. Hey! I don't have to do this all at once.

One of the things is not to overeat, not to get so full you don't even feel well. And this is where Janet comes in. Both of us have a deep addiction to Trader Joe's Popcorn with Avocado Oil and Himalayan pink salt. I managed to stop without getting to the disgusted point yesterday. When Janet woke from her nap in the evening, I asked her if she wanted dinner. She said no as she had eaten so much popcorn she was ill. Bingo.







A PLAIN ORDINARY STEEL NEEDLE
CAN FLOAT ON PURE WATER
— Ripley's Believe It or Not

Who hasn't seen
a plain ordinary
steel needle float serene
on water as if lying on a pillow?
The water cuddles up like Jell-O.
It's a treat to see water
so rubbery, a needle
so peaceful, the point encased
in the tenderest dimple.
It seems so simple
when things or people
have modified each other's qualities
somewhat;
we almost forget the oddity
of that.

— Kay Ryan, The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, New York, Grove Press, 2010

Janet voted for Elizabeth Warren.

THE ALMOST TWIN OF MAKING DO

(Vera Paris sees all.)

I didn’t get very far on some of the recommendations and preferred outside-the-studio-in-real-life practices that go along with this training. There are a lot of them and I am slowly stumbling across (not in a unpleasant way) echoes of our lecture yesterday.

As I clearly have issues with food that I have been wrassling with since my teens (unwanted male attention anyone? ambivalence about attractiveness? what to with life when you have much-coveted breasts?), some of those suggestions came up this morning. (Last night I was too gobsmacked stimulated to pay much mind.)

An hour and many thoughts later ... (I will refocus on that food thing) ...

I wonder if my always-wary-sometimes-hostile attitude toward my mother has to do with her sure-to-be-soonish death? Is there resentment and denial in my treatment of her? And her of me? That begs some further thought. But I put on my gardening shorts so I could get some of my plants into their summer homes.

And that was yesterday, and yesterday's gone ...

I started my YTT (yoga teacher training) homework last night. I am rusty at the whole process of studying and !! news alert!! it's better not to do it when you are tired and really want to watch tv!! However, I pushed on for a bit of it but I know I will need to review.

Other topics we touched on float around. CZ, our trainer?teacher?instructor? lead yogini? (take your pick) has become a minimalist. She recommends this. There is a degree of this to which I aspire. (All of my friends and family can take a gasping laugh break.) Okay, I am not going to a minimalist probably ever. However, I am open to learning to have less and even more to want less. But you know that as I have written about it ad infinitum in these so-called pages.

My nephew decided to that he was ready to be a parent, and that process is moving along. He and his partner as well as my brother and sister-in-law are coming to see Janet and the homestead, such as it is. So, there is a need to organize so that my family is not thinking about calling Hoarders Anonymous. I am exaggerating here, but it's not where I would like it to be.

To the rescue, again, my dear cousin SP,  who finds herself with time on her hands and some skills in the organization department (and other departments as well). With her efficient and excellent assistance, we went from this to this

and made a bunch of extra space in both closets and the living room. We have plans to continue next week.

SDS hasn't been here since my dad filled in the swimming pool with dirt because Walter didn't want to take care of it and wouldn't spend the money on some help. (Those depression babies don't get over feeling poor so easily.)  The patio became a very messy storage space with my households from Berkeley and Brooklyn and is where things get ruined due to the leaky roof. What passes for the backyard, the Swimming Pool Garden, is a true jungle.The butterflies, birds, and the bees enjoy the overgrowth and that project will keep.

I have so many books that I have not figured out how to move along. Perhaps this skill will develop along with some handstands or crow poses ... or even a perfect downward dog.

So I am gantry blowing (what the hell) ... completely this thing where you need to go to bed by 10:00 and get up at 6:00. It's 10:30 and I won't be asleep for another hour. I can finish this, however, and move toward more quiet.

Next morning re-read: gantry blowing? No clue how that got in there, but it has certain ring.

The food thing I was going to write about way back there was eating without doing anything but eating. I never multi-task anything. Vera thinks it is stop and pet me time.

5po0e´¢Ω (that's Vera speaking to you directly).

HOPE

What's the use

of something

so unstable

and diffuse as hope—

the almost twin

of making do,

the isotope

of going on:

what isn't in

the envelope

just before

it isn't:

the always tabled 

righting of the present.

— Kay Ryan, The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, Grove Press, New York, 2010

La mama votes at 93.

ANY STEP COULD BE THE FIRST

First off, thank you so much for your responses to my return to writing. Your encouragement means very much. Share with your friends, if you like.

Janet is having a vacant day today. She went to bed at 9:00 pm out of boredom. This worries me. I was out of the house all day, from 7:45 until 7, so her only stimulation was The Golden Girls, Two and Half-Men, and that awful Tim Allen show. The idea that laugh tracks and the hideousness that is Shark Tank is her amusement depresses me.

Later that same day.

I am supposed to be going to sleep by 10:00 and getting up before 6:00 which I have actually been slouching toward since I started going to morning classes. Although I love the Monday morning class, I haven't been going due to the buzz of petty annoyances and health blips. After two days of teacher training, I need to let some absorption take place instead of forging on in the usual routine.

Hard to know whether to philosophize about being with Janet or get all revved up about teacher training.

AGE

As some people age
they kinden.
The apertures
of their eyes widen.
I do not think they weaken;
I think something weak strengthens
until they are more and more it,
like letting in heaven.
But other people are
mussels or clams, frightened.
Steam or knife blade mean open.
They hear heaven, they think boiled or broken.

— Kay Ryan

Kinden isn't in any on-line dictionary and I don't want to go slogging through my print dictionaries when I should be asleep. I take it to mean getting younger or to become childlike. Thoughts?

Janet feels like that "something weak strengthens" to me. However, I don't think all of our household barneys are her fault. And there are times, when I can be more open, less stressed, and less focussed on fighting my way through the stuff, storm und drang jungle I have created both psychologically and physically, I nearly ache at her disorientation and vulnerability.

Neither of us is very willing to be vulnerable. Age seems to bring on a whole lot of that against one's will. In our case, this seems to be exacerbated by historical distrust and frustration. Sometimes I am so deep behind my own enemy line that I hear myself being sarcastic, or hard to get along with, rather than softening into kindness and compassion. There's a part of me that is ruled by my anger and frustration and perhaps some needing of revenge for those slights.

This mean and petty part goes against my self-image and aspirations to be a kind person, a compassionate person. Perhaps having articulated it here, I can let go of a bit of the carapace of revenge and see my mother for the vulnerable 93-year old she is. I've got to look at what I gain, besides self-protection in some of these situations.

I know, for instance, that she would like me to hug and kiss her goodnight but I have not been able to do so. I could relieve some of her arthritic pain with massage. I have a lot of resistance to these things. I don't trust her to not take further advantage of me. She can act like that ridiculous cat and try to lord it over me. I don't respond well to that.

I think at least one brother would agree with some of this assessment of Janet, that there is something faked or forced in her affectionate interactions with us. There is some negative power dynamic that slows or stops genuine response.

Well, I'll say it here now, that I am going to try to do better, be kinder, and more patient. She craves my approval and like an asshole, I withhold it. That doesn't do anything any good. But she still has the power to infuriate me like no one this side of an Orangemoronimmoralshitgibbon can.

The early word on teacher training is that it is so fun, it feels more like an indulgence than a training. I can ask almost all the questions I want any time I want. And you get so much attention and encouragement! find it easier to face my fears, faults, and shortcomings in that training space. Which may mean I am taking steps to be more of my true self, show some courage.

There are four other students, three young women and a fellow who is probably closer to my age in the group. K is a kinesiology almost-grad from CSULB so she brings a lot of interesting information to bear. I don't know much about L yet, other than she has two young sons, and has been in and out of a serious practice for awhile. A is a cat lover and got into yoga from the spiritual aspect to begin with. S, the fellow, is one of the best yogis that I have seen at the studio. I feel old and loud, but that is kind of interesting.

I generally keep my spiritual side to myself. I am fully willing to proselytize about music, politics, literature, and food, but spirituality is personal. And my spirituality waxes, wanes, and transmutes. The preachers of my religion are Van Morrison and Aretha Franklin, or the shredding of Richard Thompson or Ry Cooder.

However, ayurvedic practice and all the eight limbs of yoga are part of the training so I have to keep my skepticism to a minimum.

I talk the talk of being open to change, but given what I am investing in this, I might as well walk the walk and see what happens. My immediate observations, which were really not about the practice but about looking at food and other forms of exercise and excess, was that changing might not look or feel like I think and project they will look and feel like. Does that make sense?

Enough for tonight. Oona Minnie Pearl Moonlight does not much like me being gone so long so is insistent about following me around, demanding attention when I get in. Of course I am in my usual what-needs-to-be-done-what-can-I-make-even-a-little-progress-on-did-anyone-throw-up-anwhere mode. We will see how this all goes.

I did manage to get the Oysterband CD, Deserters, into the player yesterday. Although most of the song We Could Leave Right Now doesn't obtain to my current state, I was particularly taken with a couple of lines: Any step could be the first and don't be afraid.



WE COULD LEAVE RIGHT NOW
- Alan Prosser and Ian Telfer

We could leave right now
We could just walk away
It wouldn't cost a thing
Hardly anyone would see
The wind would hide our tracks
The clouds would fill our shoes
Don't be afraid
Don't be afraid

We could leave right now
Any step could be the first
Any word could be the last
Any door would do
We can forget our names
Forget each other's faces
Don't be afraid
Don't be afraid

Put down the music and talk
Your rumours and your regrets
Fading silhouettes
All you need to do is walk away
Don't be afraid
Don't be afraid

Put down the music and talk
Your rumours and your regrets
Fading silhouettes
All you need to do is walk away

GOING IN SOME DIRECTION

View from the desk.

“Oh, I show my butt crack every day. (Pause.) I didn’t really get it before, but now I get it. I get it.”

These were the words that came out of the coffee shop proprietor’s mouth as I got in line to spend a lot of money buying not enough coffee to get me through this morning. B was talking to someone else and the next thing I knew they were talking about masks. Being non-caffeinated, I couldn’t really make any sort of rational connection, so I just let it go (I did worry that they were some sort of reenactors or furries or something I neither wanted to think nor know about). Later, B told me they were talking about coronavirus masks, but I didn’t even want to know the connection between butt cracks and coronavirus masks.

So here it is. The day of destiny, in my mind somehow. I am much calmer today. Is it a big day? I am still trying to understand why I was so deeply in meltdown mode yesterday. Maybe embracing the new is truly letting go of the old in ways that are too deep for the naked mind’s eye. My friend/teacher KF said it must have been cleaning out old karma to make way to the new or Mercury in retrograde.

I have been working the Saturday morning desk shift at the yoga studio since November or so. Which reminds me I haven’t done all the checks I am supposed to. (Thanks for reminding me. The paper towels needed refilling and we could use a couple of spare rolls of toilet paper.)

Flurry of check-ins later.

That cartoon is sooooo Oona Minnie Pearl Moonlight. She thinks she is so badass. And she thinks a mere hiss will abruptly stop whatever displeases her as if she were the queen and the stakes for not ceasing and desisting were beheading or flaying. 

I am pretty sure this is how Oona sees herself. Please note, I am the canine at her feet.

This is how I see her.

I am sure that dragons are descended from cats. When Oona hisses, it begins in her belly (she must have some prana training). She sinks into herself, opens her mouth and then nano-moments later, something that she thinks is force and fire disperses into the air, sure to disintegrate anything or behavior that displeases her.

If I were a better co-exisiting creature, I would not find this so amusing. I should be thankful that she is not much of a scratcher or biter. Her extreme umbrage should be a cautionary for any that dare cross her. Might ruin her imagined manicure to touch skin.

This here piece of concrete got stuck under my car last night, just to keep a bad day going and the stress level high. Someone had annihilated a curb and the parking lot managers had not deigned to clean it up at all. I was avoiding some dead person attempting to drive a car and this got caught under my back wheel. I stopped. I did not panic, although I dismayed mightily. I called Triple A. The fellow who jacked up my car said it was an inch from my brake line, but nothing was damaged. Except my psyche. 

On the other hand, it was a bad thing. It was dealt with. It is over.

There is a ballerina, or so she is dressed, outside the window who fell and now wants her daddy to kiss her ass where she fell. Same as it ever was.

I did go to bed pretty early last night and slept okay, but was not able to actually drag myself out of bed. The leisurely, organized morning did not transmute to reality. The alarm starts at 5:45, then goes off at random-ish increments until I generally get up around 7. But I didn’t get feet to floor until 7:18 and given that I have a 20 minute drive to get here, there wasn’t much time for breakfast and coffee making, cat feeding, or coffee-making for my mother. And I left without the coffee I did make.

I may have to sneak out to my car, which is in a lot behind the studio, to nap before teacher training starts. I even have a blanket (yoga) to cover myself. There is undoubtedly more coffee in my future as well. 

When I got into the car this morning, all prepared to play an Oyster Band disc I had dug up, Lowell George started singing "What Do You Want the Girl to Do?" came at me, so I had to listen to that a  few times. This one is about romance and that doesn't obtain for me in the knowable moment, but the question is a damn good one. (Lyrics at the very end, should you want to sing along.) The question is one that I asks I pretty often.

I had not meant to write this morning. Hell, I have not even looked at the NYT or WaPo yet. There could be problems in the world. It is nearly time for the next flock of humans to come in, so I will end this for now. See you on the flip side.


THE FIREFLY

Few master a form to be conspicuous in the night.
Sometimes I think I am the night,
Having nothing, not even a broken line.
The winter night across the neighborhood

Of past fireflies. Having lost their slow
Radiance, their disconnections of someone
Pacing back and forth before a lamp,
Their teasing flight like the doubt in two voices.

Can I see you? and Do you really see me?
Day might see one,
Stopped, eating from the yellow ray-end
Of a dillblossom. But night after night

I am the stretch it once bit into
With hard catchable light,
Going in some direction, I never knew which
Until I saw it twice.

— Sandra McPherson, The Antaeus Anthology, Bantam, Toronto/New York, 1986

WHAT DO YOU WANT THE GIRL TO DO?

— Allen Toussaint

So you think the girl is crazy

To eat up your lies like it's good

(Your lies like apple pie)

(She don't even cry)

She is not a fool

She's just tryin' to do what her heart says to

To love you

And as you take to the wind

(to the wind again she breaks down)

And as she breaks down within (within, within)

She waits for you patiently

Hopin' that someday you'll see

[That] all she really wants to be

Is yours and yours alone, eternally

 What do you want the girl to do

[Don't you know] you're breakin' the child in two

[Can't you see]

What do you want the girl to do

All she really wants is you

She knows what you are

Still she'll be your queen if you let her

(Just say the word today)

(Build the world around her)

Now and then you'll promise

All the way-out things you're goin' to get her

(You will see, you will see)

(You're so damn glad you found her, found her, years ago)

Cause ma she knows better

As she watched you come and go (all you'll show)

And as she watched your promises erode

She waits for you patiently

Hopin' that someday you'll see

[That] all she really wants to be

Is yours and yours alone, eternally

What do you want the girl to do

[Don't you know] you're breakin' the child in two

[Can't you see]

What do you want the girl to do

All she really wants is you

She knows what you are

Still she'll be your queen if you let her

(Just say the word today)

(Build the world around her)

Now and then you'll promise

All the way-out things you're goin' to get her

(You will see, you will see)

(You're so damn glad you found her, found her, years ago)

'Cause ma she knows better

As she watched you come and go (all you'll show)

And as she watched your promises erode

What do you want the girl to do

Don't you know you're breakin' the child in two

What do you want the girl to do

Can't you see you're breakin' the child in two

I KNOW WHERE I AM GOING BY GOING

(Bed-making deterrent.1)

I know, you thought this blog was ooooover and that I had lost interest (and maybe so had you). The last time I sat down to write was apparently November 19 of last year. I think about writing all the time and somehow, most likely lack of discipline because always give yourself the worst motives, it rarely happens. I have taken some notes here and there for a personal project I hope to write in the next year or so. And I have even tried writing some actual letters to people instead of dashing off an email which seems so transient and has such a good chance of being ignored or overlooked.

I began writing this blog ten years ago, in the misty mists of time. After having lost a job, and, as it turns out, my career and ability to earn a living wage, and having my car stolen, and having lost a beloved younger brother only a year after my mother’s boyfriend died way too soon, I was invited to be a guest at the Ojai Yoga Crib. I had pretty much stopped practicing when I moved out of Manhattan to Brooklyn in 2004 after a good nine years of solid practice in San Francisco and New York (shout out to excellent teachers Dana Trixie Flynn and Susannah Bruder who were the keystones of my practice). 

Kira, who ran the Ojai Yoga Crib with her then husband, E, must have known I was floundering in depression and invited my mother and I to go as her guests. The Ojai Yoga Crib gave specialized programs to each attendee. I hadn’t practiced much for several years so her prescription for me was gentle yoga and talks by Erich Schiffman and Ravi Ravindra. And it helped.

I have always been challenged by discipline, preferring to be productive where whimsy and passion took me. (Read some more blog posts to find how that turned out.) Yet I could see a relationship between the writing (which I have always wanted to do) and yoga practice (not as much). For those of you new to this blog, here’s a link to my first postwhich says largely the same things as this post.

Tomorrow, I begin my 200-hour teacher training. 

How the decision to become a yoga instructor at age 65.9 is a tale which will likely be spun as I do the training and hopefully continue to write and examine this process. 

Commitment and discipline. Two very scary words for me. 

And I am anxious today and more scattered than usual. I can start off in disappointment that my house is still a disaster, my desk not really work-worthy, and in the midst of a dental crisis of sorts. (Emergency root canal this week, but more on that, too. I am basically fine.)

I opened my Kay Ryan volume to see if I could find some inspiration and grounding. 

WHY ISN’T IT ALL MORE MARKED

Why isn’t it all

more marked,

why isn’t every wall,

graffitied, every park tree

stripped like the

stark limbs

in the house of

the chimpanzees? 

Why is there bark

left? Why do people

cling to their

shortening shrifts

like rafts? So

silent.

Not why people are;

why not moreviolent?

We must be 

so absorbent.

We must be

almost crystals,

almost all some

neutralizing chemical

that really does

clarify and bring peace,

take black sorrow

and make surcease.

WITNESS

Never trust a witness.

By the time a thing is

noticed, it has happened.

Some magician’s redirected

our attention to the rabbit.

The best life is suspected,

not examined.

And never trust reverse.

The mourners of the dead

count backward from the the

of the event, rehearsing

it’s approach, investing

final words with greatest weight,

as though weight ever

carried what we meant;

as though he could have

told us where he went.

LEARNED

Whatever must be learned

is always on the bottom,

as with the law of drawers

and the necessary item.

It isn't pleasant,

whatever they tell children,

to turn out on the floor

the folder things in them.

Kay Ryan, The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, Grove Press, New York, 2010

Well, that gets to some of the heart of some of the matters. 

Haven't done much gardening at all and other than weeding and tending, I won't be ambitious this year, although the back is a happy weed jungle. The hummingbirds greatly enjoy the several bougainvilleas and I see other sorts of butterflies and bees. The artichoke plant I thought I had destroyed has three blossoms or whatever you call them that need to be harvested ASAP. I bought some ranunculus bulbs at the 99cent store, managed to plant them in a newly-from-the-thrift-store acquired box, and by jiminey, if they aren't coming up.

It's weird. Very faintly over the the back fence and under some lively chirping and bird flirting, I can hear the Fifth Dimension warbling 'whisper a little prayer for you, my baby" which kind of brings me back to summer at the beach listening to a transistor radio. (Here's the Mamas and Papas version of Dedicated to the One I Love which I like less.) Back to birds and saws.

I woke up with Buffalo Springfield in my head, wondering why Stephen Stills hasn't written an autobiography.  Sit Down I Think I Love You, the guitar part is quite sweet.

I have been fortunate and blessed to have pals who are helping me by contributing to a gofundme. Here's the link should you want to check it out. Or you can just PayPal me at sasyberg@gmail.com.

Why isn't it all marked, indeed.