Home

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Home

here's no place like home, and home can be any place.

I’ve never ventured too far from home.

I grew up down the street from where I now live. I went to the local university, and my biggest move came after college when I left campus for what was then my ultimate destination—a downtown Mary Tyler Moore studio apartment.

To this day, even though I am hardly home, I remain a homebody.

Having a home base has always secured and centered me, even though its location has changed half a dozen times.

At this point in my life, I am surprised to find another home at yet another location, this one being my yoga mat.

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Fear

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Fear

I'm hoping the third time's a charm.

I hit my head at yoga. Then, I did it again and, shortly thereafter, once more.

These three hits happened accidentally on purpose as part of my efforts to drop into a backbend from standing.

It’s scary, but I am not ready to stop. I console myself with the thought that hitting one’s head is supposed to happen in three’s so, hopefully, I’ve also hit my quota.

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Energy

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Energy

"We were born before the wind ... " ~ Van Morrison

It’s taken me a long time to figure out what yoga’s all about, and I still don’t think I am totally there yet.

Really, at the beginning, I just dipped in for some exercise.

I had no way of knowing that it would connect me, especially since I didn’t even know I was disconnected.

Some people refer to yo

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Sun Spot

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Sun Spot

It’s Sunday morning, and I lay out my mat near the window along the back wall of the studio.

It’s a winter day, and the sky is blue and cloudless. It’s cold, but the sun is shining, and I am glad my parking spot is several blocks away. It’s good to walk in the early morning quiet, only a few others out and about on this bright and beautiful day.

The class before ours is crowded, and the room gets heated, so those leaving pry open the windows in their wake. I keep my long sleeves on while setting up, chatting with some of the others and trying to warm up my mat, still cold from the night it spent in the car.

This class is Rocket yoga. It’s challenging and strenuous and one of my favorites. It’s an interesting mix of people, and an interesting mix of flows and inversions and arm balances. I am pushed to my limits each time.

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Seeing Stars

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Seeing Stars

I've been seeing stars at yoga.

As soon as you see the floor, put your hands down!

The instructor is standing in front of me, holding my hips. My hands are in prayer at my heart.

The plan is for me to bend backwards and look for the floor, tilting over and saving myself last minute with my hands.

I think most people can probably identify a time when they’ve had to save themselves last minute. Such challenges can just be part of life, the part where you learn, the part where your head spins and you see stars.

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Muscles

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Muscles

Yoga is like a long car ride, and I feel like the kid in the back seat asking, "When are we gonna get there?"

I’m thinking I need some more muscles. Not necessarily big ones, just more than I’ve got.

I remember when I started yoga, I stood in a studio with a group of women who had probably been working out most of their days.

It was day one for me.

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Grief

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Grief

“And when the tears you cry are all you can believe, just give these loving arms a try, and have a little faith in me.” ~ John Hiatt

It has never taken much to make me happy.

In college, there was a boy who would bring me cookies in the dining hall and proclaim exactly that.

A kind word. A sweet gesture. A chocolate chip cookie. Nothing grand.

When I first got married, we lived well, but I knew in my heart I would have been happy with just some love in a shack.

The other night, someone was celebrating an anniversary of sorts and passed out roses. I was one of the many recipients and was so touched, you would have thought I had been handed a diamond.

Here and there, I am often the recipient of other people’s kindnesses. It is often no different than what I would do myself but, these days, anyone’s generosity towards me sort of catches me off guard.

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Rain

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Rain

Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet. – Bob Marley

It’s been raining. It’s been raining for two days.

And I’ve always loved the rain.

When I was a little girl, on rainy days at camp, we’d pile into the social hall with our sleeping bags and watch old movies. My favorites were the Gene Kelly movies, Anchors and Singin' in the Rain.

I worked for weeks on his move where he carries his black umbrella under the lampposts and clicks his heels mid-air, off to one side and then to the other.

It’s even been raining at yoga.

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Gratitude

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Gratitude

I was trying to make a late evening yoga class, and it was a bit bumpy getting there.

I am a suburbanite but have found some classes downtown and, in the evening when there is no traffic, I can zip down there fairly quickly.

The studio is hot, the people are warm, and the energy is high.

I love stepping in.

But, the other night, the road was literally blocked, and I had to take a detour.

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Reconnection

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Reconnection

You are loved by a God that is as close as your breath.

These words were hanging from the ceiling of a class I attended. They had nothing to do with the class. They were just part of the room in which it was held.

The class took place at night, a couple hours after work. I had already decided to stay home and had changed into my evening get-up, a funny striped long tee with a half sweater overtop and grandma peds on my feet. It is the outfit no one sees me in but in which I am most comfy.

For whatever reason, soon after I changed my mind and my get-up and left the house.

I arrived at class, sat down and looked up.

Each word was written on a card and hung from a string across the ceiling. The first word, You, was missing, and the cards were not aligned. They zigzagged, and it was difficult to decipher. Throughout the class, I kept looking up, trying to line up the words.

Before the evening's end, I had it.

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Inner Strength

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Inner Strength

There is a pose in yoga called Tadasana, otherwise known as Mountain Pose.

In Tadasana, we move to the top of our mats and just stand there straight and tall. Nothing fancy. No twists. No binds. No balancing. We even get to close our eyes.

Sounds simple enough to just stand there but, actually, a lot is going on.

I always feel as if I am building this pose, bit by bit. The instructor usually runs down a checklist of the body. First, we stand as tall as possible with our feet rooting into the ground and our necks stretched long. Then, we are told to press our shoulders down and reach our arms along our sides. We are reminded to face our palms forward and reach through the fingertips.

We draw in our bellies, close our eyes and breathe.

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Confessions

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Confessions

We all carry some secrets, large and small.

The small ones are universal. They are the everyday thoughts we keep quiet as we walk around doing whatever it is that we do.

And what I do every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning is yoga.

For the most part, the practice clears my head. Whatever is on my mind seems to leave through the music and the movement.

After one such practice, a fellow yogi walked up to me to compliment my poses.

How long have you been doing yoga? he asked.

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Suck It Up!

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Suck It Up!

It seems like forever that I've been working on my handstands.

In every single class, I am upside down and trying to remain so. If I happen to be at a class where none are done, I stay after to work on mine.

At one point, I was in a class where we were all helping each other. Pressing down on my mat, I moved my feet as close to my hands as possible.

In my mind’s eye, I press down to go up. I want to pull in my belly and straddle my feet while raising them up to land a handstand.

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Soul Searching

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Soul Searching

Yoga is supposed to be mindful and meditative. Its transformative effects are supposed to infiltrate the body, mind and spirit.

To me, that means it should touch my soul.

Sometimes, I can lose sight of this as I focus my attention on advancing my practice.

My soul must have been very sleepy the other morning because I ignored my alarm and closed my eyes instead of going to my six a.m. Vinyasa class. So unusual for me, but I felt bone tired.

My body, mind and spirit seemed to need some more time under the covers.

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Inversions

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Inversions

Okay, let’s play with an inversion.

These are the words of my yoga instructor towards the end of each class. We get about five minutes to go upside down before our final stretches.

Any kind of inversion will do, as long as our legs are above our hearts.

Some people are in shoulder stand, on their backs with their feet in the air, arms tucked under the hips for support. Some people rest their legs up along the wall.

Others are in Headstand or Handstand or Forearm Stand, trying one and then another other and stopping in between to chat.

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Sky Watcher

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Sky Watcher

On a recent Sunday morning, I attended a yoga class in a new timeslot, and I saw the sky for the first time in Half Moon.

I have always been a sky watcher.

Really, not a day goes by when I do not look up and note the sky. I love clear blue skies, dark and dangerous skies and white cloudy skies.

I especially like the night sky and have always stopped to look up at the stars. I have watched the constellations appear on one end of the sky and later in the night make their way to the other end.

And the moon! My favorite!

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Neil Young

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Neil Young

Neil Young spoke to me the other day.

Not directly and not exactly, but I did hear him!

It was an unusual day which allowed for midday yoga, a rarity and a treat.

Earlier that day, I caught an interview on television with singer/songwriter Neil Young.

I had forgotten all about him and how much I love his voice!

I made a mental note to download some of his songs.

The interviewer asked Neil Young about his life. Were his songs autobiographical?

The singer hemmed and hawed, explaining that the songs came from inside, so inherent in each was indeed some truth. And, he admitted, not all his songs were so rosy.

The interviewer pressed further but received a cryptic answer.

It’s not all great, Neil Young said, but I’m sure glad to be here while it’s happening.

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Motivation

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Motivation

I have given my daughter an assignment.

And that is to send me photos of Buddhas from her travels in and around New York City.

I figure I need them for my blog, and they have become an item of interest for me, anyway.

Hopefully, just knowing they are on their way will help motivate me to write.

My daughter understands this, as she happens to be a yogi, too, and so I have gotten pictures like this from her in the past.

But, like with all of us, sometimes, it is just hard to get up and go; to actually start the day.

It might be raining. It might be too hot. There might be hiccups like not enough sleep, too many customer orders, or some daunting tasks.

Or, there could be just too much humidity like the other day when I received a photo of my daughter, a mass of curls atop her head with a text that simply said, Help!

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Reflection

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Reflection

At yoga, we practice in front of mirrors.

Not every studio is like this; in fact, I think on the whole, most are not.

So, almost every day and often first thing in the morning, I am eye to eye with myself in front of floor to ceiling mirrors.

And, because my mat is placed closely by, it is a pretty close up view.

I see myself, then, like this, head to toe, in a little outfit, hair back, and many times with not much make up.

Basically, arriving at the yoga studio is like coming out of hiding. I am there on my mat with no armor, so to speak.

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Religion

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Religion

I grew up in a fairly observant household.

My father’s grandfather was from Russia, and his parents raised him in an Orthodox Jewish home. There were strict rules on the Sabbath.

No driving, no work, no writing, no telephone.

And the men and women sat separately in synagogue.

But, my father was a bit of a rebel in his younger years regarding religion and its related rules.

As a child, the day he broke his wrist, my father was supposed to be sitting safely in Hebrew school and not falling out of a cherry tree where he had chosen to sit, instead.

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