What a Difference a Day Makes

Best Birthday Dinner Dates Ever!

This song came into my head yesterday as I was contemplating the difference in how I feel about my birthday this year as compared to last year:

What a difference a day made
Twenty-four little hours
Brought the sun and the flowers
Where there used to be rain
My yesterday was blue, dear
Today I'm part of you, dear
My lonely nights are through, dear
(Since you said you were mine)
What a diff'rence a day makes

I know that the lyrics only sort of fit -- it's a year, not a day, and I'm not talking about finally finding my love -- but it does feel like I'm in a completely different place this year than last:

1) This year I'm free to do what I want to do with my day and my life in a way that I wasn't last year.
2) This year I'm not in a romantic relationship where I don't feel acknowledged; I am not in a romantic relationship and I feel acknowledged.

Both of those are huge shifts!

There's a rainbow before me
Skies above can't be stormy

My very own slice of carrot cake 

Since that moment of bliss
That thrilling kiss
(It's heaven when you find romance on your menu)
What a difference a day made
And the difference is you
(What a difference a day makes)
(There's a rainbow before me)
(Skies above can't be stormy)
Since that moment of bliss, that thrilling kiss
(It's heaven when you find romance on your menu)
What a difference a day made
And the difference is you

No Dinah, the difference is me. The difference is going with the flow. It's not trying to force anything to work that just isn't working. It's not needing to have control or to hold myself back because I'm afraid.

And my kids! I've always felt loved by my kids on my birthday, but there was something about this year that I felt it even more so. My son arrived home from school on his bike with this slice of carrot cake -- my favorite -- for me. Both kids made amazing cards, each of which expressed how much they appreciate all different aspects of my being. AND they bought me a new shirt -- which I'm donning in the photo above!

Overall, I feel a sense of fullness rather than a sense of lack -- who could ask for anything more?

Sun Giant

When I was downtown today, I overheard a three year old saying to her preschool teacher: "I love it when the sun shines right into my eyes." It was super cute.

I like it when the sun shines too. A lot. It makes life a more pleasant experience overall -- just ask the Fleet Foxes:

What a life I lead in the summer
What a life I lead in the spring
What a life I lead when the wind, it breathes
What a life I lead in the spring

What a life I lead when the sun breaks free
As a giant torn from the clouds
What a life indeed when that ancient seed
Is a-buried, watered and plowed

What a life
What a life
What a life
What a life

What a life I lead in the summer
What a life I lead in the spring
What a life I lead when the wind, it breathes
What a life I lead in the spring

Day By Day

Janu Sirsana -- yAy -- with adjustment by Zoe

I spent the weekend at an Ashtanga workshop with one of the most fabulous teachers I know, Zoe Mai. It was a pretty wonderful weekend. Most of my workshop weekends are filled with big releases that come in the form of tears and are often accompanied by difficult feelings. This one didn't have as much of the latter, maybe because of all the releases that have come before, or my relationship with Zoe, I don't really know. But it was a relief.

We did, however, find ourselves talking at meals about how deeply I feel things and my predilection to tears. I assured them that being an empath was something I carry with me everywhere I go -- I don't just feel things deeply in the studio. They laughed when I told them the story of my real tears during CPR training last week when I had to ask a pretend mother if her pretend baby needed help after falling into a pretend pool. And it is funny, in a way -- it can also be a little awkward socially to be so prone to tears.

The weekend's emphasis was on the subtle body and making adjustments from that place and space rather than from the gross. It was about seeing students whole being rather than just the shape their body has taken. It's a cool concept and one I intend to work with as a teacher.

As I was listening to her lecture, this song from my childhood came back to me:

Day by day, oh, dear Lord, three things I pray
To see thee more clearly
Love thee more dearly
Follow thee more nearly, day by day

Day by day, day by day
Oh, dear Lord, three things I pray
To see thee more clearly
Love thee more dearly
Follow thee more nearly, day by day

I remembered how the sound of this song used to fill my childhood home, and I would wonder what it meant. I'm getting it now -- not necessarily in a prayer to the Lord, but in a the Universe is bigger than we are and there are powers we may not fully understand but can still harness and use for good kind of way...

We also talked a bunch over the weekend about how ultimately incompatible the study and practice of Ashtanga yoga is with another highly revered form: Iyengar. My own training was with someone highly influenced by Iyengar, but I have found myself straying from that school in both my teaching and my practice. Still, I like this quote that someone posted on FB:

"For them freedom is misunderstood. They think freedom is license to act as they like. Whereas freedom comes after discipline, it is the end of discipline, which later urges one to action from the inner voice. Freedom comes when the disciplined action is converted with rigorous discipline into a natural action." B.K.S. Iyengar

As a person who has been driven by a desire for freedom much of my life, I have found discipline much harder to come by. But through my Ashtanga yoga practice, and specifically after studying with Zoe for the first time last May, I have finally found discipline. And I've realized what Iyengar is saying -- that discipline makes freedom possible in a way that is sweeter than anything untethered could ever be...

Torn

The lyrics to this song were in my head after hot yoga this morning:

I thought I saw a man brought to life
He was warm, he came around like
He was dignified
He showed me what it was to cry
Well you couldn't be that man I adored
You don't seem to know, don't seem to care
What your heart is for
No I don't know him anymore

There's nothin' where we used to lie
Conversation has run dry
That's what's going on
Nothing's fine

I'm torn
I'm all out of faith
This is how I feel
I'm cold and I'm shamed
Lying naked on the floor

Specifically, these lyrics:

Illusion never changed
Into something real

If I can just remember that, I'm gonna be just fine. But it ain't easy, because when I was a kid, illusion was my best friend. So breaking up with it has been a long slow process:

I'm wide awake
And I can see the perfect sky is torn
You're a little late
I'm already torn

I may have been torn, but I'm healing. I can feel it...

Hold Back the River

I heard this song in the car on the way to my favorite Yin yoga class tonight:

Tried to keep you close to me,
But life got in between
Tried to square not being there
But think that I should have been

Hold back the river, let me look in your eyes
Hold back the river, so I
Can stop for a minute and see where you hide
Hold back the river, hold back

Once upon a different life
We rode our bikes into the sky
But now we call against the tide
Those distant days are flashing by

Which really set me up for another big release in class. As soon as I laid back on the bolster, as most people do while we wait for the teacher, the tears began rolling out the corners of my eyes:

Hold back the river, let me look in your eyes
Hold back the river, so I
Can stop for a minute and be by your side
Hold back the river, hold back

Of course, there's no holding back the river. Not the river that took away the man I loved most in this world and not the river of tears his departure left behind:

Lonely water, lonely water, won't you let us wander
Let us hold each other
Lonely water, lonely water, won't you let us wander
Let us hold each other

There's no holding each other. Not anymore. There's just me. Letting Go. Again. And again. And again...

Long May You Run

My kids on Bascom Hill

Library Mall

Marsh along Lakeshore Path

This was a pretty incredible weekend weatherwise. When I saw the prediction, I told the kids I wanted to go to some sort of state park and maybe even camp. They thought we needed to put more time into planning a camping trip and then couldn't agree on a destination for a day trip. So when we got up yesterday, and my son suggested we have a Madison adventure downtown, we agreed that was a capitol idea. The photos prove it!

Education Building

I heard this song today on the way to my son's soccer game in Marshall, which was especially fitting because I snuck in a run during his warm-up period, and it turned out to be a beautiful spot: Goose Lake Wildlife Area.

We've been through
Some things together
With trunks of memories
Still to come
We found things to do
In stormy weather
Long may you run.

Long may you run.
Long may you run.
Although these changes
Have come
With your chrome heart shining
In the sun
Long may you run.

Well, it was
Back in Blind River in 1962
When I last saw you alive
But we missed that shift
On the long decline
Long may you run.

Long may you run.
Long may you run.
Although these changes
Have come
With your chrome heart shining
In the sun
Long may you run.

Maybe The Beach Boys
Have got you now
With those waves
Singing "Caroline No"
Rollin' down
That empty ocean road
Gettin' to the surf on time.

I love me some Neil Young. And as my kids and I strolled around downtown Madison this weekend, I thought how long my run has been to this point, both on this Earth and as their mother. And I couldn't help but join Neil and his buddy Stephen in wishing this for my babes who are growing up so fast:

Long may you run.
Long may you run.
Although these changes
Have come
With your chrome heart shining
In the sun
Long may you run.

Shooting Star

Yesterday at the gym this song was playing when I walked out of my yoga class:

Don't you know, yeah yeah, Don't you know that you are a shooting star,
Don't you know, don't you know. Don't you know that you are
a shooting star, And all the world will love you just as long,
As long as you are.

And I sang along, at least I thought I did, to one of my students:

Don't you know that you are a superstar?!

Isn't it shooting star? She corrected. I guess according to Bad Company, it is:

Oh oh oh, Don't you know that you are a shooting star,
Don't you know, yeah, don't you know', Don't you know that
you are a shooting star,
Don't you know, yeah,
Don't you know that you are a shooting star,
Don't you, don't you,
don't you, don't you,
Don't you know, don't you
know, oh, yeah, you are,
Yeah, a shooting star, yeah, oh
oh oh oh oh......
Don't you, don't you know
that you are a shooting star,
Don't you don't you know......

I'll tell you who did not turn out to be a superstar or a shooting star, and that was the dude from Tinder whom I talked to on the phone on Friday. So not someone with whom I enjoyed talking.

I decided after that that I either need to get away from online dating altogether or engage in it a little more -- being a potted plant on those sites is doing me zero good.

So I decided to reach out to a dude who looked cool and sounded interesting. He's a fellow ginger, which I find intriguing -- I've never dated another redhead. Not sure I'm gonna date this one, either, but when I asked him if he is a biker, either mountain or road, he said mountain. I said cool, we should go together, he agreed, and then, here's the kicker: He signed his name, and it was, of course, one and the same name as:

1) My first real boyfriend;
2) My first love; (different person from 1)
3) My last love.

I almost wrote back and said nah, never mind, I have a policy against going down this same road again, but I stopped myself. Although some of my friends agree with me that maybe I need to steer clear of boys with this admittedly popular name (but still), others have suggested that the ones that came before are all a warm-up for the real deal who'll have the same name. Who knows? We'll see how this one plays out...

This Year's Love

I usually have my kids on Wednesday nights but I didn't this evening so I decided to once again go to a Yin yoga class. Just before I left, my phone rang. I didn't recognize the number, but I thought it might be the man I've been corresponding with on Tinder to whom I recently gave my phone number.

Lying in a pose for 3-5 minutes (which is what you do in a Yin yoga class), I thought about the prospect of talking to a man (who is a potential romantic prospect) on the phone. And the next thing I knew, tears were rolling down my face as I thought of when the New Englander and I first starting talking on the phone. We fell in love on the phone, before we spent any real time together in person. When I think back to that time, I can't think of any reason in the world why it shouldn't have worked out for us. It just doesn't make any sense to me, and I still find it sad. Little by little I am letting myself feel the sadness and letting it go, just as I did tonight. Because if there's one thing I learned from that relationship it's that I don't get to choose who I fall in love with and I don't get to choose if it works out or not, either.

This song came on during class just as I was drying my tears and telling myself that as hard as it is to put myself out there again and risk getting my heart broken the way it was the last time, I'm gonna do it:

This year's love had better last
Heaven knows it's high time
And I've been waiting on my own too long
But when you hold me like you do
It feels so right
I start to forget
How my heart gets torn
When that hurt gets thrown
Feeling like you can't go on

Turning circles when time again
It cuts like a knife oh yeah
If you love me got to know for sure
Cause it takes something more this time
Than sweet sweet lies
Before I open up my arms and fall
Losing all control
Every dream inside my soul
And when you kiss me
On that midnight street
Sweep me off my feet
Singing ain't this life so sweet

This year's love had better last
This year's love had better last

So whose to worry
If our hearts get torn
When that hurt gets thrown
Don't you know this life goes on
And won't you kiss me
On that midnight street
Sweep me off my feet
Singing ain't this life so sweet

This year's love had better last
This year's love had better last
This year's love had better last
This year's love had better last

I hope I do fall in love again this year, and I join David Gray in feeling like it had better last, even if I know better than to think we have any control over it...

The Transfiguration

A selfie with shoes in the frame is no easy feat!

The ipod player in my bedroom has been busted for months, which is a real drag. I need to get something else so that I can play music in that end of the house, but for now, what I have is an alarm clock with an ipod sitting on top of it. When I bump it, the ipod turns on as if it were going to play, only it doesn't. Its screen just lights up and shows the title and artist for this song:

When he took the three disciples to the mountainside to pray
His countenance was modified, his clothing was aflame
Two men appeared, Moses and Elijah came
They were at his side
The prophecy, the legislation spoke
Of whenever he would die

Then there came a word of what he should accomplish on the day
Then Peter spoke, to make of them a tabernacle place
A cloud appeared in glory as an accolade
They fell on the ground
A voice arrived, the voice of God
The face of God covered in a cloud

What he said to them, the voice of God, the most beloved son
Consider what he says to you, consider what's to come
The prophecy was put to death, was put to death
And so will the son
And keep your word, disguise the vision
Till the time has come

It's happened so many times that I thought to myself "I should blog about this song" and now seems as good a time as any. After all, spring has sprung and Easter just passed:

Lost in the cloud, a voice
Have no fear, we draw near
Lost in the cloud, a sign
Son of man, turn your ear

Lost in the cloud, a voice
Lamb of God, we draw near
Lost in the cloud, a sign
Son of man, son of God

I love the story of the resurrection and the idea of rebirth. And this season does feel like a rebirth of sorts. Unfortunately, there is one thing that has not changed, which is my desire to be understood by the people who birthed me and their inability to do that in a number of ways...

Little Lies

I had an incredible bodywork session this afternoon. I could feel so much energy moving around, especially in my heart chakra. It felt amazing, and like such a gigantic relief. I reckon the energy was trapped there for a long, long time.

My bodyworker noted all the energy movement, remarking that there was more than in any other session in all the years we've worked together. He said he could feel that I'm ready now to meet the world from a different place. That I've been betrayed on a number of noteworthy occasions by people I love, but it's only served to open my heart wider.

This Fleetwood Mac song, playing as I settled onto my yoga mat tonight for Yin, seems like as good a song about betrayal and what comes after it than any that I can think of:

If I could turn the page
In time then I'd rearrange just a day or two
Close my, close my, close my eyes
But I couldn't find a way
So I'll settle for one day to believe in you
Tell me, tell me, tell me lies
Tell me lies
Tell me sweet little lies
(Tell me lies, tell me, tell me lies)
Oh, no, no you can't disguise
(You can't disguise, no you can't disguise)
Tell me lies
Tell me sweet little lies
Although I'm not making plans
I hope that you understand there's a reason why
Close your, close your, close your eyes
No more broken hearts
We're better off apart let's give it a try
Tell me, tell me, tell me lies
Tell me lies
Tell me sweet little lies
(Tell me lies, tell me, tell me lies)
Oh, no, no you can't disguise
(You can't disguise, no you can't disguise)
Tell me lies

Thinking Out Loud

Woke up with this song in my head this morning:

When your legs don't work like they used to before
And I can't sweep you off of your feet
Will your mouth still remember the taste of my love?
Will your eyes still smile from your cheeks?

And, darling, I will be loving you 'til we're 70
And, baby, my heart could still fall as hard at 23
And I'm thinking 'bout how people fall in love in mysterious ways
Maybe just the touch of a hand
Well, me - I fall in love with you every single day
And I just wanna tell you I am

So honey now
Take me into your loving arms
Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars
Place your head on my beating heart
I'm thinking out loud
That maybe we found love right where we are

When my hair's all but gone and my memory fades
And the crowds don't remember my name
When my hands don't play the strings the same way
I know you will still love me the same

'Cause honey your soul could never grow old, it's evergreen
And, baby, your smile's forever in my mind and memory
I'm thinking 'bout how people fall in love in mysterious ways
Maybe it's all part of a plan
Well, I'll just keep on making the same mistakes
Hoping that you'll understand

That, baby, now
Take me into your loving arms
Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars
Place your head on my beating heart
Thinking out loud
That maybe we found love right where we are

Which is strange, because I'm not feeling this song this morning. What loving arms, exactly? I'm feeling angry and sad, like the kind of angry and sad where I play Johnny Cash's version of Hurt on full blast in my car and scream along.

I don't like feeling that way, but then again, during my Ashtanga practice this morning, I could feel that my right hip was able to surrender a little deeper than it did yesterday or any day before that. Yep, it hurts to let myself feel the depth of the loss when those feelings come back around, but feeling them means that they can move through me, and that's so much better than keeping them trapped inside.

I saw this Steve Jobs' quote on a friend and fellow Ashtangi's Facebook page today, and feel it's worth repeating here:

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other people's opinions drown out your inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition."

What incredible advice. And I'm doing my damnedest to follow it...

Slip Slidin' Away

Heard this song in the car today:

Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away

...and it felt appropriate for marking this day for a couple of reasons:

1)  Last night I went to Yin, where you can only dream of something slip slidin' away -- nothing happens that smoothly or quickly or painlessly. And yet, it may well be that it's the place where the most letting go happens. Kinda like with life. It's the heartbreakers that hurt like crazy that really open up a person. I should know:

I know a man
He came from my home town
He wore his passion for his woman
Like a thorny crown
He said Dolores
I live in fear
My love for you's so overpowering
I'm afraid that I will disappear

Totally get that fear, but in my experience, the more you walk toward loving another human being with your whole self, the more that self is revealed.

2) I went to hot yoga this morning, and try as they might, my band aids just didn't quite manage to stay in place through all the sweating:

Slip slidin' away
Slip slidin' away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you're slip slidin' away...

Mercy! You Need Saving

This number was featured on the soundtrack to the latest episode of Grey's Anatomy:

The lord of lies stole you away from me
He filled your cup, it over flowed
The wine of deceit
Will never taste as sweet in the morning
The shame you wear, you put it there
It's yours to bare

Mercy, you need saving!
You traded a dove for a raven
A raven

I built an altar below that withered tree
For you to kneel, for me to heal your broken wings
Thirsty now from all your running days
The cup I pour, you'll thirst no more
My wine will restore

Mercy, you need saving!
You traded a dove for a raven
A raven
A raven

Ahh just stand up
Know what you're made of
Ahh just stand up
Know what you're made off

Mercy, you need saving!
You traded a dove for a raven
A raven
A raven

Did I trade a dove for a raven? I dunno. But I do know that whenever I watch that show, it makes me want to be part of a couple. I love this quote from the scene where this song was playing in the background:

"I think I'm falling in love, and I'm really afraid it's going to destroy me."

"Wouldn't be love if it didn't."

I'm gonna have to agree. Even under the best of circumstances, love destroys so much of what we tell ourselves to get along without it. I see that as a good thing, ultimately, but it sure isn't comfy getting there...