I know. Not at all the point. Yoga is about focus, about yoking (literally) the physical body to the breath with the ultimate goal of releasing each individual's potential energy (traditionally, prana, or lifeforce) and ultimately, eventually, step-by-step, attaining a higher truth.
It takes abhyasa - sustained practice. It's a concept I had tattooed on my arm after graduating from teacher training. I believe in it. It's hard, and it takes time, but it's so worth working toward.
That said, I also believe that sometimes even a little bit of unfocused yoga is better than none at all.
Take my personal practice today. It's the last day of 2013. This year has been fraught with tragedy and pain for me. Family and yoga and kickboxing and writing have held me up when nothing else would. I honor these things above all, up there with my mother's blessed memory and my belief that each person on this planet has the capacity for positive change. Today's a day when I'm leaving lots of loose ends untied in order to make meaning. I'm no longer tethered to the feeling I always used to have when December rolled around, the feeling of needing to finish all chores and errands and start the new year without anything hanging over my head. It's a near-impossible task, I saw time and again. This year, my mother's last year on this planet, is different.
I was on my mat, sweating it out after an intense kickboxing morning. The cat crawled under my leg as I panted through my evolving Hanuman (full split). She didn't have room to stand up straight, which means I'm getting closer to the full expression of the pose. I worked through other sequences that I'd like to teach in class. I breathed. And then, from the top of my mat, I realized I hadn't dusted my bookshelf in a while. I paused to get 'er done, and then I tried out more yoga shapes.
When you don't have time or energy for complete focus, spurts of focus are okay, I think. Yoga is part of my busy, sometimes fractured life, and I'd rather have it punctuating chores and writing and other pursuits than not present in my day at all. Sometimes those spurts shift my whole day around - I toss myself up into a headstand and come down with a new idea for a section of a paper, or calm my racing thoughts with a few minutes of pranayama (breathing exercises).
Your yoga, as my teachers teach, is yours. It's nobody else's. It should look and feel like you, even when it's changing you from outside to inside and back again.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Thursday, December 19, 2013
(Deep Breath) First Book
First Look at My Book sounded too Seussian for a post title, but that is what you are getting. Anyone who made it out to last week's Creative Fridays Showcase has already heard this (and thank y'all so much for being there! It meant so much to all of us).
Here's what I read. It's part of what will likely be an early chapter mixed with what will likely be a middle one. I started writing it after my mother died in January. Writing, along with friends, yoga, kickboxing, and grad school, is what kept me upright some weeks.
I am using other parts of the book as part of an ongoing project that sprung out of a final paper. When I read it in class, my professor suggested that I start blogging it to get it out there more. It's pretty amazing how many great mentors I still have (and find) even though my greatest one is gone.
Mom, this is for you. I hope you like it.
Love,
Hil
Nancy, my mom, had an absolute, all-encompassing interest in everything. She would read the New York Times and want to attend every cultural event and learn about every new issue. She was the embodiment of excited joy - she'd skip down the street in the rain, and would skip more assiduously if her only daughter got embarrassed. It wasn't until my adulthood that I really saw the importance of skipping, and of skipping together, with abandon.
This week is the eleven-month anniversary of her death. I keep thinking back to last year. I went home to visit her the weekend of St. Patrick's Day, and it was one of the last times we were able to walk around her town together. It was one of the last times I rode in a car with her driving. It was one of the last times that she was able to walk anywhere without incredible pain and at her normal speed.
It is still winter after my mother's death, perhaps creeping into spring. I make it to the platform just before the B train pulls in. I do not yet realize that I have left my travel mug of tea at home, sitting by the door. The subway smells like a damp dog. I read halfheartedly, sensing the dusty dull motes of sadness settling on me. Grief can be both blurry and hard: it comes in different forms, almost from moment to moment. It also has a strong grip, and I can feel it wrestling with my stress for control of my shoulder blades. I wish it were socially acceptable to take a sad day instead of a sick day. I could take an orphan day, a cancer witness day, a lonely day, a turning back time in my mind day.
I hope my grief lets me enter my kickboxing class first, trailing behind me like a wraith instead of sitting on my shoulders and driving me downward. My grief likes to remind me that it's still there. It's part of me now, because my mother will never come back. Even when I feel her presence the most strongly, and even when I am most in touch with the reality of her death, my grief sits right next to my other emotions. It's mine. It owns me, and I own it. Grief is disembodied, but attaches to you like a leech and stays there quietly. It uses your energy to keep itself going. It sidles up and grabs your hip and won't untangle itself, siphoning off as much energy as it needs in that minute.
On a frigid morning in March, I finally wake up scenting spring. It isn't here yet, but I know it's on its way. As I let my shower energize me, I feel that I am again channeling my mother's inveterate optimism. Her energy is my energy. It's part of me now, keeping me upright and moving forward.
On the subway, later, the train pitches sideways, and I am strangely proud of the other bleary commuters for not falling. They don't even trip. I reflect on the toughness and strange centeredness of the New York tribe. I follow the smell of skunk up the subway station steps, realizing that it's burnt rubber when I hit the sidewalk, but still feeling like it adds to my spring premonition. For a minute, I hover in my childhood backyard, and then the light changes.
My mom was magic. She led me in rain dances and I really believed it would rain. Even when she was dying, when she said it was going to be okay, I believed her, and she was the only person who could say that and make it sound like truth. Her memory is part of my being - she is in my DNA, as someone told me soon after her death -- she created it -- but her love and her memory and the way she raised me are part of the fabric of my world.
Now we are in spring, and we are gifted with hints of warmth, punctuated by breaths of winter. I think the weather wants to be different things. It struggles against the confines put on it by climate change. It reserves the right to be capricious, like a cat. It laughs, gently, at our obsession with it.
And the sun always returns.
Here's what I read. It's part of what will likely be an early chapter mixed with what will likely be a middle one. I started writing it after my mother died in January. Writing, along with friends, yoga, kickboxing, and grad school, is what kept me upright some weeks.
I am using other parts of the book as part of an ongoing project that sprung out of a final paper. When I read it in class, my professor suggested that I start blogging it to get it out there more. It's pretty amazing how many great mentors I still have (and find) even though my greatest one is gone.
Mom, this is for you. I hope you like it.
Love,
Hil
Nancy, my mom, had an absolute, all-encompassing interest in everything. She would read the New York Times and want to attend every cultural event and learn about every new issue. She was the embodiment of excited joy - she'd skip down the street in the rain, and would skip more assiduously if her only daughter got embarrassed. It wasn't until my adulthood that I really saw the importance of skipping, and of skipping together, with abandon.
This week is the eleven-month anniversary of her death. I keep thinking back to last year. I went home to visit her the weekend of St. Patrick's Day, and it was one of the last times we were able to walk around her town together. It was one of the last times I rode in a car with her driving. It was one of the last times that she was able to walk anywhere without incredible pain and at her normal speed.
It is still winter after my mother's death, perhaps creeping into spring. I make it to the platform just before the B train pulls in. I do not yet realize that I have left my travel mug of tea at home, sitting by the door. The subway smells like a damp dog. I read halfheartedly, sensing the dusty dull motes of sadness settling on me. Grief can be both blurry and hard: it comes in different forms, almost from moment to moment. It also has a strong grip, and I can feel it wrestling with my stress for control of my shoulder blades. I wish it were socially acceptable to take a sad day instead of a sick day. I could take an orphan day, a cancer witness day, a lonely day, a turning back time in my mind day.
I hope my grief lets me enter my kickboxing class first, trailing behind me like a wraith instead of sitting on my shoulders and driving me downward. My grief likes to remind me that it's still there. It's part of me now, because my mother will never come back. Even when I feel her presence the most strongly, and even when I am most in touch with the reality of her death, my grief sits right next to my other emotions. It's mine. It owns me, and I own it. Grief is disembodied, but attaches to you like a leech and stays there quietly. It uses your energy to keep itself going. It sidles up and grabs your hip and won't untangle itself, siphoning off as much energy as it needs in that minute.
On a frigid morning in March, I finally wake up scenting spring. It isn't here yet, but I know it's on its way. As I let my shower energize me, I feel that I am again channeling my mother's inveterate optimism. Her energy is my energy. It's part of me now, keeping me upright and moving forward.
On the subway, later, the train pitches sideways, and I am strangely proud of the other bleary commuters for not falling. They don't even trip. I reflect on the toughness and strange centeredness of the New York tribe. I follow the smell of skunk up the subway station steps, realizing that it's burnt rubber when I hit the sidewalk, but still feeling like it adds to my spring premonition. For a minute, I hover in my childhood backyard, and then the light changes.
My mom was magic. She led me in rain dances and I really believed it would rain. Even when she was dying, when she said it was going to be okay, I believed her, and she was the only person who could say that and make it sound like truth. Her memory is part of my being - she is in my DNA, as someone told me soon after her death -- she created it -- but her love and her memory and the way she raised me are part of the fabric of my world.
Now we are in spring, and we are gifted with hints of warmth, punctuated by breaths of winter. I think the weather wants to be different things. It struggles against the confines put on it by climate change. It reserves the right to be capricious, like a cat. It laughs, gently, at our obsession with it.
And the sun always returns.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Shyness, Bravery, and Compassion
I'm often struck by the perceptiveness and compassion that (comedian) John Hodgman shows in his rulings on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. The latest episode, The Right to Remain Silent, blew me away. The show is described this way: "Chris wants his daughter, Sophie, to get over her shyness and show more confidence in uncomfortable social situations. Sophie believes she is making progress in her own way and doesn't need any pushing from her Dad. Who's right and who's wrong? Only one man can decide." In these terms, the episode centers around a chance encounter Sophie and her dad had with comedian Eugene Mirman, one of Sophie's favorites (who happens to be one of my favorites, too). In an attempt to encourage his shy daughter to talk to Mirman, Chris pushes her forward, when she's already starting to cry from, it sounds like, sheer overwhelmedness. (It can be a word. Hush.)
Twelve year-old Sophie is much like I was at that age. She's the child of an outgoing academic type (difference: her dad is vice president of a college, my mom was a professor). She's shy. (I was incredibly outgoing through my early teens, and then took on shyness until early college. Now, I'm an outright extrovert.) I was firmly on her side for much of the episode, feeling like her father was pushing her too quickly and too hard to be someone she isn't sure she wants to be (yet).
Thing is, I do empathize with Chris. I can tell from what he says about his kid that he's genuinely proud of how smart and articulate she is, and how much he wants that to shine out for the world to see. (He also shares that he was even more shy than Sophie when he was a child - I wish he had elaborated on what that means.) His daughter writes poetry, and he wants her to participate in a poetry reading at his college. (As a faculty brat, I never would have submitted to such a thing. Even now, my poetry is winsome at best, and it's written for me, not for students six years my senior.)
What bothers me, other than the actual pushing, which Sophie said had gone too far, is his attitude that her shyness is something that can be "fixed." I'm not a parent, but as a formerly shy kid, what worked for me was having a parent who let me be who I was when I was it. My mom encouraged me to speak up and to try new things, but she also let me pull back when I needed to. The extrovert that I am today is shaped by the three decades of choice I got in that matter. I was never not enough for my mom. I don't think Chris' feelings about his daughter are that simple, by any means, but I think it's an important realization for any child to have. They are loved just as they are. They're encouraged to make changes, and to challenge themselves, but they're always loved, and the developmental stage they're in is (assuming nothing abnormally dangerous is happening) respected.
In the limitedly short glimpse I got of everyone's interactions with Sophie, I much prefer the way the comedians talk (to her) to the way her father does (about her). Mirman, in a surprise call-in appearance that initially breaks Sophie down, is gently funny in his typical deadpan manner, zeroing in on the problem with the pushing as he witnessed it. Hodgman puts it more bluntly - "Chris. Don't shove your daughter" - and talks to Sophie almost like she's a peer. He nudges her toward telling Mirman how much she likes his work, pointing out that "almost everyone in the world appreciates a polite, 'Hello, I think you're great. See you later.'" Bailiff Jesse Thorn, similarly empathetic to the girl, asks if she has "any plans to break out of [her] shell on [her] own time." The ruling Hodgman gives is in Sophie's favor, and in a lovely twist, the punishment Chris receives is just what he initially wanted his daughter to do: read poetry in public.
Twelve year-old Sophie is much like I was at that age. She's the child of an outgoing academic type (difference: her dad is vice president of a college, my mom was a professor). She's shy. (I was incredibly outgoing through my early teens, and then took on shyness until early college. Now, I'm an outright extrovert.) I was firmly on her side for much of the episode, feeling like her father was pushing her too quickly and too hard to be someone she isn't sure she wants to be (yet).
Thing is, I do empathize with Chris. I can tell from what he says about his kid that he's genuinely proud of how smart and articulate she is, and how much he wants that to shine out for the world to see. (He also shares that he was even more shy than Sophie when he was a child - I wish he had elaborated on what that means.) His daughter writes poetry, and he wants her to participate in a poetry reading at his college. (As a faculty brat, I never would have submitted to such a thing. Even now, my poetry is winsome at best, and it's written for me, not for students six years my senior.)
What bothers me, other than the actual pushing, which Sophie said had gone too far, is his attitude that her shyness is something that can be "fixed." I'm not a parent, but as a formerly shy kid, what worked for me was having a parent who let me be who I was when I was it. My mom encouraged me to speak up and to try new things, but she also let me pull back when I needed to. The extrovert that I am today is shaped by the three decades of choice I got in that matter. I was never not enough for my mom. I don't think Chris' feelings about his daughter are that simple, by any means, but I think it's an important realization for any child to have. They are loved just as they are. They're encouraged to make changes, and to challenge themselves, but they're always loved, and the developmental stage they're in is (assuming nothing abnormally dangerous is happening) respected.
In the limitedly short glimpse I got of everyone's interactions with Sophie, I much prefer the way the comedians talk (to her) to the way her father does (about her). Mirman, in a surprise call-in appearance that initially breaks Sophie down, is gently funny in his typical deadpan manner, zeroing in on the problem with the pushing as he witnessed it. Hodgman puts it more bluntly - "Chris. Don't shove your daughter" - and talks to Sophie almost like she's a peer. He nudges her toward telling Mirman how much she likes his work, pointing out that "almost everyone in the world appreciates a polite, 'Hello, I think you're great. See you later.'" Bailiff Jesse Thorn, similarly empathetic to the girl, asks if she has "any plans to break out of [her] shell on [her] own time." The ruling Hodgman gives is in Sophie's favor, and in a lovely twist, the punishment Chris receives is just what he initially wanted his daughter to do: read poetry in public.
Monday, October 14, 2013
Moving (E)Motions
On NPR earlier this year, Sebastian Junger discussed the death of his friend Tim Heatherington, a journalist killed. He used a phrase to describe the pace of fear in combat - "[combat is] scary beforehand, the anticipation is very scary, and afterwards the fear catches up with you." The idea of an emotion catching up with you fits exactly with my experience of grief. I didn't have a lot of time to grieve when my mom was sick. I did it alone, at home, when I wasn't with her. I cried in hospitals, but I mostly tried not to, and tried to send all of my energy to helping her and hoping for her recovery.
Now, a little over nine months after her death, I'm grieving. (I could say I'm still grieving, but I hate the implication of "should be ending" that that little word adds. I'll grieve for the rest of my life - in healthy and productive ways, to be sure, but it will never end. The only way grief ends, I think, is if you don't love the person anymore.)
Compare Junger to this line from Fitzgerald's "The Crackup": "The world only exists through your apprehension of it." The first time I read that, I defined the second noun - apprehension - as understanding, as I think he intended. The second time, I thought of fear. Fear certainly creates worlds for some people. We talk a lot in yoga about letting go of fear, but it's not always so easy. When I was faced with the prospect of losing my mom's physical presence, I was more afraid than I've ever been. Now, just like grief, the fear is still with me - because the world without her is a scary place.
What fear and grief both do over time, rather than disappear, is shapeshift and change. They mold themselves to changes I'm making in my life. They shift a bit to the background, hovering, when I share happy memories of my mom or think of how earthshatteringly proud she'd be of me and all that I'm managing to handle without her.
Just as my fear and grief are unending, so does my mother surpass all boundaries. She is in the air, the sky, the sun, my smile. This isn't what either of us wanted, but it's what we have to handle, and I'm handling it in all the ways she taught me.
Now, a little over nine months after her death, I'm grieving. (I could say I'm still grieving, but I hate the implication of "should be ending" that that little word adds. I'll grieve for the rest of my life - in healthy and productive ways, to be sure, but it will never end. The only way grief ends, I think, is if you don't love the person anymore.)
Compare Junger to this line from Fitzgerald's "The Crackup": "The world only exists through your apprehension of it." The first time I read that, I defined the second noun - apprehension - as understanding, as I think he intended. The second time, I thought of fear. Fear certainly creates worlds for some people. We talk a lot in yoga about letting go of fear, but it's not always so easy. When I was faced with the prospect of losing my mom's physical presence, I was more afraid than I've ever been. Now, just like grief, the fear is still with me - because the world without her is a scary place.
What fear and grief both do over time, rather than disappear, is shapeshift and change. They mold themselves to changes I'm making in my life. They shift a bit to the background, hovering, when I share happy memories of my mom or think of how earthshatteringly proud she'd be of me and all that I'm managing to handle without her.
Just as my fear and grief are unending, so does my mother surpass all boundaries. She is in the air, the sky, the sun, my smile. This isn't what either of us wanted, but it's what we have to handle, and I'm handling it in all the ways she taught me.
Research Errata
I'm currently going through citations collected by another research assistant. I'm also taking some time to add in new citations, and the process makes me think: how can we determine the search parameters of a previous person?
The answer seems obvious: from the results. I think it goes deeper, though. There's a kind of looking backward that puts you into that other person's head for a minute. Why did she choose this article? Did she overlook this other one, or did she just think it wasn't helpful? Which articles have been published since she worked on this?
I'm also getting into my professor's head a bit. Even though she encourages me to gather all I can, I'm trying to use what I know of the shape of her book to gather items that would be most helpful. Sometimes I come across something I think might give her a new insight - it will be very interesting to see what comes of those. She also encourages me to use the articles for my own research, which I deeply appreciate.
I'm also getting into my professor's head a bit. Even though she encourages me to gather all I can, I'm trying to use what I know of the shape of her book to gather items that would be most helpful. Sometimes I come across something I think might give her a new insight - it will be very interesting to see what comes of those. She also encourages me to use the articles for my own research, which I deeply appreciate.
The Shape of Surprise
I'm a schedules person, generally, and I set goals. I like to have plans and I like to accomplish things. I am not fabulous at relaxing without another person to motivate me. (Motivate me. See? Even relaxation can be a goal - even when it should, arguably, just be.)
To honor the beauty that I know exists in openness (as yoga and my upbringing both teach me), I'm setting myself some mid-fall non-goals. They're only goals insofar as that's how my brain works. They aren't check off-able, or schedule-able. They just exist.
Make room for serendipity - and room within time, really.
Breathe more deeply.
Know that most things return. Most experiences repeat.
This is the life you're living. Live fully within it.
Nobody's keeping score but you.
More people admire you than you even can imagine.
To honor the beauty that I know exists in openness (as yoga and my upbringing both teach me), I'm setting myself some mid-fall non-goals. They're only goals insofar as that's how my brain works. They aren't check off-able, or schedule-able. They just exist.
Make room for serendipity - and room within time, really.
Breathe more deeply.
Know that most things return. Most experiences repeat.
This is the life you're living. Live fully within it.
Nobody's keeping score but you.
More people admire you than you even can imagine.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Blogging Thoughts
It's been about two months since I wrote my first public blog post for a class in my doctoral program. I have been blogging for personal edification for about a year, and I've used Blackboard to post discussion questions for my previous master's degree. Blogging as a community in a context that only that community is familiar with, really (those of us in the class), is a fascinating web of meanings, interpretations, and author/audience interactions.
Taking the last point first, it seems that if we have any readers at all, they are also CUNY faculty or graduate students. Just as in a seminar class, we are our own audience, constantly taking turns shifting the course of the discussion by what we choose to declare or to ask. The structure that surrounds our writing environment is pretty open, too. Our professor's RA, who is also in the class, posts a web of references for the works we are studying, and we are meant to engage with at least one reference per week and comment on it. In addition, we're free to post on anything relevant to the course, and then other students (and our professor) can comment on that as each of us sees fit.
Taking the last point first, it seems that if we have any readers at all, they are also CUNY faculty or graduate students. Just as in a seminar class, we are our own audience, constantly taking turns shifting the course of the discussion by what we choose to declare or to ask. The structure that surrounds our writing environment is pretty open, too. Our professor's RA, who is also in the class, posts a web of references for the works we are studying, and we are meant to engage with at least one reference per week and comment on it. In addition, we're free to post on anything relevant to the course, and then other students (and our professor) can comment on that as each of us sees fit.
This web of connections is very different from the way I write my personal blog. I haven't quite figured out how to tip over to an astonishing (or even respectable) number of viewers/readers, so I often feel as though I'm blogging to myself. One might argue that all blogging is like that, except for people like Nick Kristof. One might point out that I'm free from the often insidiously vilifying comments that some people seem to spend all day on their computer in order to post. What I would like is to develop a reading and writing community around my blog - perhaps even a network of several blogs where we all follow each other. I'd rather be in dialogue than monologue.
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