Let the Great World Spin

Wow, just read the final lines of "Let the Great World Spin" by Colum McCann, and am stunned and ready to start again from the beginning, imagining already how I'll re-savor the words, re-eat the images. A truly great read, best thing I've read in so long, definitely one of those books that I'll re-read on a schedule, much like I used to regularly read "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" or "Fortress of Solitude," two other particular favorites.

I'll return this borrowed copy to Peggy and buy another, another to crease and carry and eventually shelf on January 1, 2011, along with all of my other 2010 reads.

Highly recommended!

Pranayama and Percocet

My Goal #2 for this gear is to reduce the frequency of migraines I experience. Sometime in my 30s I started with migraines, and last year they really became an utter plague. Seems every time I turned around, I had another. And it's so weird that someone, me, who does so much yoga (presumably relaxing, self-caring) still couldn't get a leg-up on this regular skull-crushing. So in December I picked up and devoured an excellent book, "The Migraine Brain" by Dr. Carolyn Bernstein. Seriously helpful. At the same time, though, I have to say that mostly I am straddling two very different worlds: the woo-woo world of yoga with all its ayurvedic, new age-y, homeopathic trappings, and the world of pharma, which seriously saves my ass over and over again, making it possible for me to get through a work-day or a weekend or whatever without losing a beat.

Because that's the thing about me: I don't want to be stopped by anything, least of all by a migraine. So even if my head is killing me, I'll swallow whatever I have to to just keep going, do what I want, not miss out. Life doesn't stop just because the walls of my cranium are pressing in hard. I refuse to sit out. I will not spend four days in bed just because my head hurts.

And that's how I found myself, last weekend, a beautiful weekend in Tahoe with my yoga buddies and 3 hours a day of practice, swallowing percocets just to be able to sit upright on my mat and not fall over in pain. Don't get me wrong: I hate taking pills, but sometimes I really feel like I have no other option if I want to live my life the way I want to. [Sorry, that's a bit of a lie: I don't really hate taking pills, I just hate taking them when I *have* to. If it were for fun, then I wouldn't mind so much. Just didn't want to lie.]

Since January, I've had two four-day migraines. And that's an improvement! The first (January) started the night before my birthday and lasted throughout the long weekend, the last woke me up last Friday, the morning we were leaving for Tahoe, and lingered through the end of Monday. I was triumphant not to have one in February, particularly because I was really paying attention and knew exactly why.

According to "The Migraine Brain," migraines are "a complex neurological disease," "a chronic neurological illness you were born with." The migraine brain is "high-maintenance, hypersensitive, demanding and overly excitable. It usually insists that everything in its environment remain stable and even-keeled. It can respond angrily to anything it isn't accustomed to or doesn't like." And clearly what my poor little migraine brain doesn't like is stress at work, hormones, sleeplessness, dehydration and excess caffeine. Throw the altitude of going to Tahoe into the mix, and last weekend's four-day migraine is inevitable! If I managed to escape a migraine in February, it's because during the precise week that I was in most danger of the killer head-pain [the book says 2 days before your period, migraine is 71% more likely to occur], I was super-hydrated, well-slept and on Cloud 9 in a 5-day yoga immersion. Yes, clearly and no-duh, my brain doesn't like my job. I don't blame it!

Now that I'm out of migraine #2 of 2010, two days free from pain and drugs, I am already planning ahead to April and watching for the warning signs that should manifest in about two weeks. I'm hoping next time I can get through it with more pranayama and less percocet, but I don't encourage betting on that.

Austerities at work 2: saumya

This week I'm adding saumya (gentleness) to my work-practice. It's a four-day week for me which should make the layering-on of saumya over last week's manah-prasadah a little less daunting.

What I'm remembering from practice is that this gentleness that Krishna speaks of to Arjuna is not to be confused with weakness. Rather than an absence of strength, saumya is instead the discernment and application of exactly as much strength as is needed in any given situation, no more, no less. It's also a self-gentleness, appreciating where you are in any moment.

So far I have to say that saumya has been an extremely rewarding practice for this day. Rather than become upset that my boss has yet again taken on an area of work that I thought was mine to do, I am softly, gently, and genuinely watching that and considering. [Of course, to be honest, I should say that the exact words that ran through my mind initially were, "Ok, take that piece, too. As long as I get paid the same amount, why should I be upset?"]

The other aspect of saumya that I'm experimenting with today is working more gently, i.e., slowly. I generally push very hard, work very fast, do a lot. Today I am moving more deliberately, without the rush-rush. Truly my tendency to over-work never serves me in the long run, since it establishes ever-escalating expectations. Using too much force has never done me that much good at work.

The fact that I had the best weekend in recent memory is helping me a lot here. I'm still coasting along on all of that love and good feeling, all of the harmony and delight, and guarding that little flame. Gentleness will surely keep that flame burning, not too big a gust of wind, just small quiet breaths.

Age: so weird and wonderful

This weekend I was chatting with some new friends and they reacted strongly to the fact that I have a son who's 22. "What? How does that work if you are only, like, 25 yourself," said one of them, who has my undying devotion. "You're forty seven? That's ridiculous," said the other. "I thought you were our age."

"I am," I answered. "I'm just older."

And then we laughed ourselves silly.

Which gets me thinking, again, about how weird it is to be getting to be old as dirt, especially now that I have friends of all ages with whom I hang out on a regular basis, altogether forgetting about the decades that might separate our birth dates.

As I enter the far side of my forties, it's so much fun to have such a range of people in my life, from my BFF Ruby who's 11 on up to Diana who's more than 60 (just guessing, Diana, don't know for sure since you defy categorization!). It's so weird to think about how ancient my grandmothers seemed when I was a child, and to know that my spry parents are at least 20 years older than that now and still living it up and growing and changing. Have things changed or just me? Probably a little of both.

No matter what, I'm still going to sit bolt upright in bed, out of a dead sleep, awakened by the thought, "Holy F*ck! I'm going to be 50 in three years!" The 50 makes no sense, doesn't match up at all with the idea I have had in my head for most of my life about what it represents. It's truly wonderful that it's different than my expectation and that each year continues to get better and better as the numbers go higher and higher.

What a shame it is that people have such a complex about their age, that we live in a culture that glorifies youth to such a degree that women and men will have surgeries to maintain the face, the ass, at 55 that they had at 25. How much more fun it is to see the passing years as an accumulation of wisdom and experience and capacity for sheer enjoyment of life, keeping youthful curiosity and enthusiasm alive while gaining an ever-deeper sense of how miraculous everything is.

Anyway, that's how I'm planning on rocking it from here to 95, hanging around with the youths, partying with my elders, each birthday's bigger number an opportunity to celebrate how great it is to still be on this earth, swept up in all of this wonder. And periodically, if I still get carded, that's cool, too.

Soaking In It

Our merry little band of yogis is on the road this weekend, up practicing and playing in gorgeous Tahoe. Our teacher Laura is leading workshops here at the charming Tahoe Yoga and Wellness Center in Truckee. Joe and I are staying at the home of the lovely Diana and Jim, reveling in the beauty of our surroundings and soaking it all in.

The first morning we awoke here was like Christmas. As soon as we saw sun on the fresh snowy branches of the pine trees, we were out of bed in a flash, ready to run downstairs to unwrap the beauties of the morning. And it's been a constant unwrapping all weekend!

The classes are fabulous, naturally. It's been lovely to come in out of the snowy cold and practice in a beautiful space. Laura reviewed the austerities yesterday, and it was so nice to feel the way the disciplines have taken root so deep inside me already, thanks to all of the repetition in class and the concerted effort to take them off the mat.

But really what I am so struck by this weekend, again, is the many, many unexpected gifts of yoga. Because of yoga I am in Tahoe this weekend, a weekend arranged by my lovely hostess Diana. Because of yoga, I am Diana's guest this weekend, in the most gorgeous Tahoe home I've ever been in, on the lake, beautifully appointed. Because of yoga, I am sitting at a long wooden table right now as my classmates and friends mill around the kitchen getting their breakfast together, chatting and laughing. Because of yoga I am basking in the warm glow of this abundance of friendship, the ease of meeting people and loving them instantly, not knowing a single worldly fact about them, meeting the truest aspect of their self and letting the rest unfold. It's truly remarkable and I am so grateful.

This weekend I am utterly surrounded by the goodness that yoga brings, bathing in it, soaking in it.