and then fall came

Learning about my body in this chronic pain yoga class. Holding patterns. How stress affects pain. Stored emotion. Reprogramming the body through somatic movements. Just two classes so far and I've received a wealth of information. GREAT instructor: www.twelvepetalswellness.com

Oct. 4 and quite chilly.

Going to start teaching more starting next week. New places, new faces. A fresh new beginning. Each day is new here. Each breath a chance to become aware again and again of this very moment.

People are so spoiled here, I hope they know it. Lakes all over our neighborhood and beyond. When you drive, lakes and trees and just gorgeous. At the dog park, a lake. First time driving to my new yoga class, two lakes. Everything is close and open at the same time.

Animal Collective comes after Ani Difranco on the iTunes.

Less and less pain when I design my life with good health in mind.

Taking the ego out of everything I do, a tall order and scary to face.

Enjoying time with Danielle and Turtle in our new home and I'm in love with those two.

Living In a Box

It's true that sometimes I can only listen to Apjiw - right now it's "Living In a Box" - and god, it's just so damn beautiful. It's mystical and pretty and gorgeous. All songs tell a story and I love that.

Sunday morning

It's Sunday morning and I'm up early because I'm subbing a yoga class. Sipping on coffee after a shower and allowing time to pass. I like to give myself ample time to get ready...and I was going to do some sort of yoga before leaving but that's not happening.

I loooove my new dance class at Zenon Dance Company, it's perfect for me. I had one class so far. From the beginning of class, I knew I was in exactly the right place for me. I have this little dream that I'm going to keep taking classes and get better and better and then who knows? Maybe I'll make it to the stage someday. The style I'm learning - "modern" - is so appropriate for me, why did I not do this sooner? The teacher is great, the other students range from the most beginner to professional, and it was a fun class.

Danielle and I now go to the Wedge Co-op and love it! It's a place that I WANT to do my grocery shopping, and all the local stuff is marked by which farm it came from or at least if it came from Minnesota. Prices aren't bad, and it's just a good place to be. I'm feeling it.

So the Yoga for Chronic Pain class I'll be taking can't come soon enough. I signed up for this in I think early August and it's starting Sept. 26. I had to have an initial intake with the teacher and she knows her stuff. I felt very comfortable with her. I'm really looking forward to this class and learning more about Yoga Therapy, something I've wanted to research and learn about for a while now.

Cold weather has arrived. Well, not super winter cold but it's definitely fall. Feels great outside. I know they don't get a long fall here. Yesterday it started in the 50s...and went up to 62 I think. I'm just not used to that on Sept. 18. But...it's all good and we'll survive! :)

Stars

I'm listening to Stars in my living room, which is sort of the bulk of the apartment I guess: living room/kitchen/dining room all in one room combo. It feels cozy especially since incense is burning and a candle and the gloomy sky turned gloomier and it's now raining. Luckily it's not coming in windows and so they're open and I can here the rain, the cars, a little bit of the world outside.

Tonight I start a dance class. I will be taking beginning modern dance at Zenon Dance School. I'm happy I signed up for it, and looking forward to whatever happens. I had a dream that I was on a stage and some music was playing and I was doing my thing, dancing to it. It turned out I had an audience and afterward there were nothing but nice things to say about my "performance." Music has always been a huge part of my life, and I went from dance to playing instruments to dancing for fun and teaching yoga. I need movement in my life. Sometimes I just want to stay on the couch and it's when I decide to get up and get into my body that life makes a little more sense for me.

I think about me teaching yoga a lot these days because I'm starting over with it. I want to be a good teacher and I feel I need to start being good to myself more so that I can. I need to get back into reading the things that inspire me, soothe my mind. I want to get more creative with music and sequencing. I need to practice at home ahead of time to get these ideas into my body so I can offer it with a smile.

There are things I miss since we moved: students, studios, teachers, roads, buildings, food, family. There are things I don't miss too: traffic, attitudes, road rage, 100 degrees in the summer, not enough nature. And that's saying a lot because I thought I did have plenty of nature where I was. Here though it's more liquidy with all those lakes, there are more green spaces, and the sky is just huge with low, fluffy clouds.

So very excited to have Ellen here in a matter of weeks, the life traveler herself, to see just what I'm talking about. I think that she of all people will appreciate the differences, the things that make this place pretty damn cool. And a Dr. Dog show the week she's here will help us all have a little Philly feel in case we miss it.

lavendar

new aromatherapy diffuser. lavendar in my nostrils. perfect early fall night.

new

I changed up the look of this blog...

to inspire myself?

I WILL write in this blog! I hope.

New teapot

Hard at work.

 

Second Chakra - Open to Change

Chakra two’s location is in the lower abdominals, genitals, or womb. It encompasses the area between the navel and genitals, and all around. One of the malfunctions of this area is a stiff lower back and/or tight hips. Because I experience tightness in these two areas, I am working at releasing tension every day. This area relates to fluidity and its element is water.

This chakra is the center of sexuality, movement, emotions, and change. I feel most myself when I am in movement. I need change in my life or I feel lost; without a variety I become stiff and stale. So I need yoga to keep me flowing, thinking, and growing. The second chakra is geared toward pleasure that assists in our survival. I’ve spent plenty of time with pleasures that have made me depressed, angry, and ultimately took me in a direction that was horrible for my health. I like the concept of pleasure as a tool for personal growth. It was when I entered a serious relationship with Danielle that my life started to finally feel natural. As I began to grow with her, I no longer felt like I had to hide from myself. I am learning to accept myself. One outcome of the relationship’s pleasure is my surrender to a higher power. Growing up, I think we are taught to repress feelings of pleasure and sexuality; in my case, anxiety tends to get the best of me because of my upbringing and my fear of rejection. I am just now really focusing on nurturing myself so that I can nurture others.

Second chakra exercises that I practice are goddess pose, pelvic tilt, and pigeon pose. I think these poses, goddess pose in particular, promote a feeling of surrender as you practice. That sense of openness and vulnerability is there in these poses. I love to focus on this entire area (chakra one and two) because it’s a place I think about all the time. To strengthen, open, and release tension in these areas is important for my overall physical survival.

always my way my way my way my way my way

No I’m not that selfish. I’m listening to The Good Life and those were the lyrics.

In one week: Moving to Minnesota via new car with Danielle and Turtle. Please wish us grace in this transition.

I dislike ipods very much, mine always seems to be corrupted. Maybe I am just missing something.

Haven’t gotten too emotional about the move…yet. Perhaps when our house, which isn’t ours for much longer, is filled with boxes and nothing on the walls, the paint that was painted left for the next homeowner, the new kitchen counters and new kitchen floor left without more than a couple months use by us, the trees in the background will stay the same but we won’t be around. It is sad.

What is important in life? Is it a house? Is it a patio? A certain shade of orange that you choose to hang as curtains? Is it a phone call that has one of the most familiar and loved voices on the other end wanting to talk to you? Is it a new car? Is it a handful of favorite songs? Is it a dream you have? Is it planning goals? Is it your favorite time of year? Is it rain or shine?

As we move on, move forward, drive away from this house that we bought no more than 7 months ago, we’re leaving 3 stories of something we may think helps to define us. Does it? I always sort of defined myself by my hometown, the house I grew up in, the look of the backyard even, from an old bedroom window. The sound of the train as it comes and goes just blocks away. Being able to pass by certain things – a high school, a previous place of employment, a house that a good friend grew up in, a college, restaurants and bars where I drank and ate with friends.

Now that we will move away from here, I often question why we came back. We did used to live here, in West Chester. It’s where Danielle and I met, fell in love, began to create memories. It’s where we grew up in many ways and figured out how to make choices and learned from mistakes. It’s where I walked the uneven sidewalks many many times under the influence, and searched for myself in the nighttime of familiar territory. Is that what brought us back? Familiar roads, memories we wanted to get back, a more carefree time when we had less responsibility, less decisions, less stuff. For me, college was often an open road where I soared down, sometimes driving at full speed, sometimes letting this person or that person take the wheel, sometimes too indecisive to know what street to turn onto next, or too drunk to decipher between where I was, where I was supposed to be, and where I wanted to be.

We moved back here to get a fresh start? How can we do that when there’s not much that is fresh here for us. It is used, stomped on, memorized even. I guess we wanted to make it ours, for real this time, because back then we were never officially “together.” There are many wonderful things about moving here, except that it’s missing much of what we’re looking for in a place to live: diversity, younger crowd (not just 21 year olds), higher lgbt population, walking distance to lots of stuff, a CITY.

So we’ll be off next week. One week from today. We’ll drive and then maybe it’ll begin to feel real. We’ll be in temporary housing and then we’ll find a place to live. We’ll continue to live our lives the best that we can, not much different than any other person. I’ll look for teaching jobs, I’d love to write as well and flourish in some way with that, even if it’s just keeping up with a journal or blog. I’d like to get away from FB more and out into the world, have more at my fingertips, more yoga choices, a different way of life, a fresh place where I can meet someone and they have NO idea who I am, and I get to decide how to be again and again in each conversation, each new encounter.

I once wrote, and I think this was it:

I am change. I am like the ocean, always changing. If you don’t like change, you will hate me. I love me.

<3

Love After Love

The time will come
When, with elation,
You will greet yourself arriving
At your own door, in your own mirror,
And each will smile at each other's welcome,
And say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
To itself, to the stranger who has loved you
All your life, whom you ignored
For another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
The photographs, the desperate notes,
Peel your image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

-- Derek Walcott

I am like the ocean, changing all the time

"Can you endure silence?
Are you a night fighter?

Or more a child bored
with outgrown toys
trying to win at
tip-the-cat?

If you have any patience
left, we know what to do.

If you love sleep,
we'll tear you away.
If you change into a mountain,
we'll melt you.

If you become an ocean,
we'll drain you.

THIS IS HOW A HUMAN BEING CAN CHANGE:

There's a worm addicted to eating grape leaves.
Suddenly, he wakes up,
call it grace, whatever, something wakes him,
and he's no longer a worm.

He's the entire vineyard,
and the orchard too,
the fruit, the trunks,
a growing wisdom and joy
that doesn't need
to devour."

Rumi

Funny

it’s funny that when i am feeling good, when i can sit down without pain, i end up looking for jobs in my “other” field: writing and editing. i search for FT positions in this field. it’s so rare, this feeling of No Pain. it kind of hits me out of no where – i notice there’s a little something different, something is…missing? oh wait, i am sitting at the computer and my back feels NOTHING, an awesome experience.

most of my days are spent figuring out how to get comfortable and not be in pain. i plan on what i need to do physically to feel better. once i do that (yoga, walking, exercise, rest, etc) i feel better for a little while. and sometimes i don’t even feel that much better, it’s kind of like i put a band aid on it, so the sting might be gone but there is a wound underneath that is still present. it gets pretty damn exhausting waiting to feel better. i feel i am usually in that state of waiting. i know that i need to figure out new strategies in this battle…meditation? acupuncture? yoga therapy? massage? it’s just a lack of funds, so i do what i can on my own, which works for me most of the time.

i’ll never be totally without pain (except for a few moments ago! but alas, it’s come back, just barely, but there it is). will i ever be without pain for more than a day? i wonder. do i accept the pain? it’s difficult to accept that the pain is not “me,” because it affects everything i do, and can make me in the worst mood imaginable. there are many times i’ve experienced deep depression and anxiety, to the point where i feel like i am suffocating and desperate for relief from this way of living.

so will a full-time editing/writing job make me feel more complete? probably not. sometimes i just wish i could make the salary i used to and go to happy hours and dress up for work and feel important. eh, i guess that is overrated. so for now i’ll go take a yoga class this morning and get this week started.