Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day

Talk about Groundhog Day (referring to the movie, of course with Bill Murray). Every morning at 6:35 a.m. this digital demon wakes me up with what is supposed to be an upbeat ring tone. It’s like elevator music on steroids with, it’s the stuff that makes you want to run. It’s perfect for getting my ass out of bed. I feel pretty darn well rested even though I’ve only been getting four to six hours sleep. The yoga is oxygenating my blood everyday and relaxing my mind so I need less rest. I force myself out of bed the first time the alarm goes off because I can’t imagine having to actually wake up to it again. My roommate Erin goes for five or six rounds. She must like the tune. I go pee, push a little button on the coffee machine that makes me some hot water, make some tea, put on some skimpy yoga wear, go outside and get my mat off the deck, eat some hemp hearts mixed with a banana, drink the tea, hope to poop, wake up the roommate after the fifth ballad hasn't gotten her up, make her coffee and say goodbye. I walk down the hall 54 steps to the elevator. I wait, other little yoga bodies walk up in time. The elevator door opens we shuffle inside, push “L” and wait. Sometimes we go down sometimes we go up and down, eventually we make it down. We walk towards the yoga room with zombie like movements, slow, careful, dazed. I sign in, put my mat down and depending on the time I head for the ocean or the pool. I prefer the ocean but can’t enjoy it so much after I was late one day and had to do a make up class on Saturday. Now I’m a little edgy about the time and tend to err on the side of caution. Eleven yoga classes is enough for one week, although surprisingly, 12 wasn’t too bad.

Cheeseburger in Paradise

Sunday night in Waikiki. Jimmy Buffet is playing at Dukes, says one over anxious surfer I met out at ? Bowl. The waves are small with an occasional over head set that looks amazing. I took one wave to the right, through a pile of people, luckily I actually turned, and then I looked down. Holy shit! The reason this place “bowls” like it does and creates such a perfect tubular wave is because the wave hits a reef and jacks up. Well, I’ve been surfing over reef for a few days now but I have never seen it whizzing by me like this. I was about five inches from the reef trying to keep up with this wave on my nine foot long board. The water is crystal aqua marine blue. Stunning. When you’re waiting for waves you can see your feet dangling below you, when you’re surfing on a particularly shallow section, the reef looks like it’s going to jump up and grab you and mangle your body. Zooming precariously over the reef was amazing, thrilling, scary. After that I started going left where the water is deeper.

Back to Buffet, so this lovely man with tattoos all over tells me Jimmy is playing a free impromptu concert. RAD! I walk a mile or so down the beach to Duke’s; it’s packed. I see the surfer and some of his friends and It looks like the buzz was just a buzz, or if anything Jimmy wasn’t going to show up til later. I’d like to say that at least I got a cheeseburger in paradise, but I was pooped and turned around to saunter home through the tourists and baby surf. Sunday is a wonderful day here at yoga boot camp. It is so sweet to take in the island life, but it is over so soon. Come Monday, it’ll be all right, come Monday, I’ll be holding my foot tight (in standing head to knee). Back to boot camp.

Backward bending

After getting creamed by a car in February of 2007, my head was not the same; my life was not the same. Headaches filled my days, the computer I worked at seemed offensive to me because the more I stared at it the worse my brain felt. I gave up hockey and skiing for the season once I realized I needed to NOT fall on my head again. I was a bit down and out but always realized it could have been so much worse. So I kept a good attitude and started going to yoga again. Bikram's 90 minute meditation brought me back into my body, it made me feel strong when I was feeling weak. I practiced a few times a week, whenever I felt like I could fit it in.
My friends Bel and Emily opened up a Bikram's Yoga studio in Carbondale in July. It is four blocks from my house. I started going more regularly. Soon after I went to the new studio I had an epiphany that I wanted to go to the teacher training so I could teach yoga, so I could get out of my office and move my body more and sit around less. And I wanted to do something where I had a little more control over my schedule and could take more than two weeks vacation a year. I quit my job at the local newspaper, a difficult move for me but something I don't regret. I called my credit card company and in five minutes had a $10,000 credit card limit and a lower interest rate. I maxed out the credit card and signed up for the training the day before I left for a three week river trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon in August. I went to California to see family, then I came back to Colorado in time to pack my bags and ship myself to Hawaii for nine weeks. Now I've been here for two weeks and its changed all 30 years of my life in a very positive way. Seven more weeks to go. My husband is a saint and a very knowing man. The absence, on the river and here in Hawaii, has made that so abundantly clear. The night before I left I had some dinner with friends and they looked at me and said "You're going to be so much different when you get back." I thought, "yes, I'll be able to bend backwards." But really, the physical transformation is nothing compared to how deep I'm bending my mind.

Having doesn't mean anything...

If you don't know how to use it.
Blessed enough to grow up in America, the richest country in the world. We have everything: air conditioning, heat, food, water, posture pedic mattresses and nose hair clippers, back scratchers, maids, nannies, public restrooms with free toilet paper; opportunities to live fully and well. But we don't know how to use it. People obsess about their hair and nails and weight and skin and boobs, and time and money and money and money. Yet, we constantly spend more than we have, usually buying meaningless crap we justify that we need somehow becasue we've been brainwashed by advertising. And we waste so much precious time! If only we all knew what it is like to lose a child or a loved one or to be terminally ill, to really start living each day, each moment, without actually having to go through it. We might actually take advantage of what we have. The present.

Breathing in I calm my body, breathing out I smile
dwelling in the present moment.
I know this is a wonderful moment.
- Thich Nhat Hanh

Ripple...

Step by step, moving towards a mountain top, I stop. Bending down at a clear, cool pool, breaking the reflection of the clouds, I dip my hand and take a drink. A tiny drop falls from my fingertips; it ripples. I dive in and make a giant splash, it ripples and ripples; the wind rises and ripples the surface of the water. I scream, with joy, with pain; the echo ripples through the mountain tops. I feel the presence of a friend, long gone. It ripples through my blood like an electrical current and I remember what I am supposed to do. I keep walking, step by step.