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.

get a massage!

i've updated my website. please visit!

now offering thai yoga bodywork...mmm, give it a try you won't regret it. so good for you!

i organized my yoga/massage room in my house, it is now clean and organized. what a nice feeling.

ouchies

I wake up in the morning. I sit up slowly, sit on the edge of the bed. I feel stiffness in my lower back. Other areas feel sore from exercise the day before but this pales in comparison. It doesn't register. Only now, thinking away from the situation, do I feel these other little aches. It's the lower back region that immediately grabs me and forces me to stare at it.

I feel people who live with chronic pain are very misunderstood. They might be taken for being selfish, narcissistic even, instead of simply in a great deal of pain. Feeling pain every single day is a blessing and a curse all rolled into one. I've been thinking lately how chronic pain has made for a great deal of depression in my life. Feelings of helplessness, loneliness, unworthiness, and oftentimes feeling suicidal because there is no "end" in sight. Many times desperate attempts have been made to feel relief: a back crack, a neck crack, an alcoholic beverage, sleep, mindless eating, over-exercising, crying and feeling sorry for myself. Most of these actions were taken when I still worked behind a desk, sitting for very long periods of time, which ultimately led to the deepest pain I've ever experienced on a regular basis. There are days now when I feel angry because I don't make a lot of money, and I feel helpless as I remember that I actually can not go back to what I used to do for money: work at a desk 9-5.

Why does this make me feel helpless? The thought process usually goes something like this: I am frustrated because I want to make more money, there is a moment where I ask myself why I feel this way? And this (evil) part of me usually steps in to say, obviously, that this isn't the point - the point is that because of my back I can not work a 9-5 job, even if I wanted to. This makes me feel helpless...and pissed off. At what? My back, the situation, the people who don't take this issue seriously, the overeating I did yesterday because I just didn't care, the car I drive because I have to sit in it, all the people who just don't get it because they don't feel pain on a daily basis, you get the picture.

Do I sound sorry for myself? I kind of am. It's been a long, long time I've been feeling this way. It's become habit. Nowadays I realize this, and then continue to beat myself up for feeling this way - obviously not the solution. Just another mess. I try to be aware that I'm ok, in fact I'm more than ok, it takes a lot for me not to jump on the pity train and go far far away. It's as if being on that train is sort of what helps me to understand. I wish some other people were on the train with me.

I do have people in my life to talk to, but I'd like someone who really gets it, who identifies with the very real issue of chronic pain and the debilitating effects it can cause on a life.

In this moment I am irritated because my back hurts bad as I sit here and write this. I took a yoga class this morning, felt fine immediately following, and now the pain is back.

I know that people can feel quite unsettled when they hear other people complain. I don't want to complain, I want to share, to relate to someone, someone to relate to me. I think I just need to verbalize some deep-set feelings within, I'm not sure people take chronic pain seriously. Our society wants you to just get better. To shut up, and just deal with it. They believe a sickness is temporary, there's a medicine to fix it, a surgery to fix it, right? So strange, this situation to be in, so frustrating. It makes me feel...aloof, alone. Maybe I am unique.

I guess I'll leave it with a quote that runs through my mind almost every day by Ani Difranco:
"Would you prefer the easy way? No? Well ok then don't cry."

Mount Washington

pretty
Originally uploaded by kathryn_nulf

One time I hiked Mount Washington in New Hampshire. That was a day.

now or never

it's now or never...time to take my workout routine out of the gym and into my own hands. it is the only time i see results and stick with it. by doing Ellen Barrett dvds at home, and other dvds, I feel way better and get a more well-rounded workout. i also need to get into taking Turtle for long walks again. i used to be very dedicated to my home workout regimen and really enjoyed it and the results. now is the time to begin again. what goes around comes around!

poetry from 2002...wowzers

can it be
that you were there
just for me
that I counted it down
and then you came
I know (it is fact) that you followed me so well tonight
Because I saw you (watched you closely)
didn’t know you
but liked
your ideas
I could read them in you
you came to
!me!
and everything has echoed ever since
you came
to that road!
Where I exited,
you entered
your blood was warm inside your shoes
(I liked your socks)
and you
looking over your shoulder
as if the first few were not enough
but
(oh my god)
they were.

--
4.20.02
I’m so much lighter than you!
You were there, warming
Getting ready-oh my
(god god sweet I love this place lift me up hiiigher)
I’m lighter than you!
When you were young, I came to you
Where you were
I knew it by heart
I memorized it without you knowing
And I ran there every single night for a year
To be light with you and your touch
That gives me such a nostalgic essence
It takes me away from now
It brings me back to where I used to belong
With you
Nothing was so wrong then
Except empty blades of grass
I sang to you on the weekends
Handed you my hand
I rested my headache on your lap
Counted all of your hairs and
Warmed you

--
stay oh my god why don’t you?
I just warned you
It’s not enough?
Sweet you
Be wicked with me!
I’d love for you to
Be by my side
During each meal
I’d turn and smile
I’d love you
I’d turn your eyes into light.

New Hope

wrote this a while back, too. to my friend Ashley, we've definitely talked since i wrote this (4.14.2004), but not as much as i would like. miss this.

---

Dear Ashley,

I’m near the water now, standing on the bridge, minutes from the dozens of shops we used to almost live in, and I’m very close to your favorite, the one with the stickers and candles you like so much. It’s very rainy, but I’m fine. The rain lets the water do its thing, straddling the legs of the bridge and punching the sides of the land with great strength. How are you? I want to find the love those shop owners once shoved in our faces—I wonder if our giggles that followed were riddles to their ears, or if inside there existed a kind of connection. I remember watching the ducks in that one pond, near the theater, and I would look at you and them, you and them, and then most likely we’d head to lunch after a cigarette. Summers are beautiful here. In my old car, before it went far off that road and died, we listened to good music, music we understood and felt. So many dollars we let melt out of the ATMs and into cash registers. But it didn’t matter, the future didn’t exist to us then, nothing else did except the streets with unusual shops and food and people. Now, today, I’m alone. No one I know is here, I can’t feel, and I’m hungry. I just went to that one ice cream shop that has the almond flavor we adored, with the mean employees that always seemed extremely bored with life. And the stairs where up top we threw away our cares and turned to books and magazines. In a desperate attempt I guess to somehow ignore the cold rain drops on me, I’m thinking of that place as I write you. And it’s working, kind of. We are slightly stoned as we saunter along the brightly lit streets. We just indulged in the almond flavored ice cream and I see that the summer is working hard for us, the night is lovely, and the idea comes to me that we should get tattoos. Tattoos below our shoes, I say. On our feet. Like sisters, friends, good friends, forever. But neither happened: not the tattooed feet, not the part about forever. That’s why I’m writing this letter, because this place is beautiful still, even when it’s raining hard, you’re still slipping through the cracks of the sidewalk as I check the clock above the bank and climb the stretch back to my car. Here I go again shouting aimlessly until there is no end, whispering to you the silent story of my life. I say whispering because I do not call, I write instead, as if all is ok when the truth is that I miss you terribly. Perhaps we’ll talk one day, maybe here at the restaurant with the outside seating. Do you think I’m asking too much? God knows I want the tea with all the sugar. He knows that I want the thick milk to stir it with. And when I sip the power, he also knows that I often think of you. I know I’m selfish and I’m so afraid to find out the truth that I hide in it because I can’t admit that I want to know the answer. I want two years ago back: when we shook our hips around and around and our eyes never once touched the ground. I still want to dance the streets at midnight with you, bow to the fancy moon at dawn, wrinkle our noses at people. I want to wear a morbid face as we swallow espresso in unison. I want to bow to the goddess, although our heads held high, drink from the almighty sky, then fall below into a shop with trashy hippie skirts. Perfect insanity led us to each other. Gotta love New Hope. Gotta love us.

hands and feet are all alike, but gold between divides us

some ooolllddd writings. circa 2004.

---


I want you to be more focused
on poetry, my ass, eyes, smile, and lips,
on the fact that we don’t have serious conversations.
I’d like for you to rub my back, soft and hard,
and thank me for letting you do it,
wanting to envelope me afterward, kissing my naked back, bare shoulders.
What is it with us? Are we ok?
I can’t stop looking in the mirror and I feel that this is a problem.

---

trying not to be loud by crying
trying not to cry loud while crying
desperately seeking someone to listen to me cry and not say a thing just
hold my entire body against theirs for a very
very long time.

---

Free write....
The time you went to a drugstore wearing red and wanted a hat but you will never look good in hats. Instead buy fish so that you can be free when you look at them, they’re cheap anyway, and very pretty. Free. They’re free unlike you who are taken by a girl under your belt you are wet by her and you are not strong enough to leave the vulnerable thoughts behind and concentrate on life rather than love. It is night and I’m sitting across the table at the library with Gerard. I am stating the obvious while he draws lines with a ruler with a pencil on a white piece of paper. He is concentrating and busy. My back is out of line, again, I am too strange to care, I care but I’m lazy and without money to go to the doctor. I need a massage. Maybe I’ll get a massage. Get rid of all the bad in my muscles and bones, let it crack healthily instead of by me, a forced crack that kills and injures, doesn’t help.

---

Sorry, sad Jeff Buckley music.
So sorrowful, so full
of words that most humans are afraid to speak

---

a girl at the bar in white pants
sings it.
Sings the songs that make her feel neat,
in place.

every search opens

opening
searching
everywhere
searching searching opening opening every
search
opening searching searching opening every
opening
searching searching opening everywhere everywhere
everywhere everywhere
search every opening
every search opens
open every search

:::

yesterday i went to a contemplative dance and authentic movement workshop...let's just say i had no idea what to expect. it was sort of like this: you know free writing? like putting pen to paper and not allowing pen to leave paper...just going and going, not thinking so much. imagine doing that but with movement. that's kind of what this workshop was! needless to say it was intensely raw, organic, open, emotional, awkward, scary, precious, authentic. very, very authentic. it wasn't even so much "dance" how you would think of "dance" in your mind. it was moving into stillness, seeing what came up, and then going with that. with closed eyes. with people watching you. at first that was just weird, but i had to commit to being totally open to the experience, it was that or be embarrassed and fearful. and what's fun about that? not much, just a lot of added tension that i really don't need. so i decided to be open to it all. for 3 hours i continued to surprise myself, i watched others open and take risks with their whole being, their entire heart. it was graceful and awkward and hard and soft. it really encompassed a little bit of everything and i'm so grateful for the experience. it was about getting out my head and into my body, and seeing what came up and being curious about all of it. pretty wild stuff!