You Can Get It If You Really Want

I am feeling a hodgepodge of things on this final day of July 2016:

1) GRATEFUL. So grateful for a life with so much meaning. Grateful for two healthy, smart, beautiful, funny and increasingly independent kids. Grateful for challenging work. Grateful for amazing friends. Grateful for a beautiful and comfortable home. Grateful for the path that led me to my home in Ashtanga yoga and the practice that makes me a better person every day.

2) READY TO SURRENDER. Yesterday in the car I heard one of my favorite Red Hot Chili Peppers songs, Under the Bridge. Ever have the experience of a song filling your being? I love that feeling, and it happened yesterday when I heard this song. Just now, when I looked at the blog post I wrote about that song back in 2012, I felt ready to do something I've been contemplating but haven't yet really managed to do: Surrender. Especially when it comes to my lovelife. Stop checking for wedding rings, stop drawing conclusions about people who fit my narrative, just fucking give up on being the one who is going to find me a partner. I'm not in charge. I want something different than anything I've had before, and if that is going to happen, it's going to come from a place of surrender, not search. Consider this my white flag, Universe. I surrender.

3) READY TO GET TO WORK. As I've mentioned before, I feel deeply compelled to change the way we treat people in our jails and prisons. Last night I sent an email to a professor I had years ago who now does work with prisoners on forgiveness. I love what he said in response: "Congratulations on your vision that justice within prisons is vital for a just society." Yeah it is. And I will work toward that vision. I already got signoff from my boss to put together a team to work toward this essential justice.

All this has me thinking of the serenity prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

What has happened or what will happen in my lovelife, I have no ability to change. But I can, and I will, change policies and practices that retraumatize and dehumanize prisoners.

Just ask my friend Jimmy Cliff:

You can get it if you really want
You can get it if you really want
You can get it if you really want
But you must try, try and try, try and try
You'll succeed at last

Persecution you must fear
Win or lose you got to get your share
You've got your mind set on a dream
You can get it though hard it may seem now

You can get it if you really want
You can get it if you really want
You can get it if you really want
But you must try, try and try, try and try
You'll succeed at last

I know it - listen

Rome was not built in a day
Opposition will come your way
But the hotter the battle you see
Is the sweeter the victory now

You can get it if you really want
You can get it if you really want
You can get it if you really want
But you must try, try and try, try and try
You'll succeed at last

It will take time, it will take energy, it will take an incredible group of like-minded and committed individuals, but we will reform our jails and prisons. Mark my words.

Pinball Wizard

So this is midlife. So many things coming together. So many hard things getting easier. Eating the vegetables I planted for dinner tonight. My stiff body becoming supple.

I think I like 45.

It's not perfect, mind you:

My pasta primavera didn't taste that great: but I GREW the vegetables. There'll be time for refinement. How many years did I wish I had a vegetable garden but never plant seeds?

My body still has its quirks, but overall, it feels strong, and beautiful, and my friend actually used the word supple to describe it when she was adjusting me during my yoga practice today. Supple. I've waited a very long time and worked really hard to let go of all the stiffness that calcified my body, including my heart, for all of those years.

Supple. I was so excited by that six letter word being used to describe my body, I chose the only song I could find with the word supple in it to mark this day:

Ever since I was a young boy,
I've played the silver ball.
From Soho down to Brighton
I must have played them all.
But I ain't seen nothing like him
In any amusement hall...

That deaf, dumb and blind kid
Sure plays a mean pinball!

He stands like a statue,
Becomes part of the machine.
Feeling all the bumpers
Always playing clean.
He plays by intuition,
The digit counters fall.

That deaf, dumb and blind kid
Sure plays a mean pinball!

He's a pinball wizard
There has to be a twist.
A pinball wizard's got such a supple wrist.

See that? And it just happens to be a classic:

'How do you think he does it?
I don't know!
What makes him so good?'

Ain't got no distractions
Can't hear no buzzers and bells,
Don't see no lights a-flashin'
Plays by sense of smell.
Always gets a replay,
Never seen him fall.

That deaf, dumb and blind kid
Sure plays a mean pinball.

I thought I was The Bally table king
But I just handed my pinball crown to him.

Even on my favorite table
He can beat my best.
His disciples lead him in
And he just does the rest.
He's got crazy flipper fingers
Never seen him fall...

That deaf, dumb and blind kid
Sure plays a mean pinball.

I saw my acupuncturist today, and we worked on the heart channel. On integrating the mind and the heart. On stepping away from cognition and into feeling. I gotta admit, it feels scary. The last time I went there I ended up getting very badly hurt.

Then again, as it turns out, that pain ended up propelling more growth than I could've dreamed possible. I reckon it's worth it to venture back into that heart, and not just by fantasizing about unattainable men, but by inviting a real, live, available, middle-aged, supple-bodied man into my life.

Not to rescue me, but to be by my side.

Not so I can rescue him, but so we can ride the waves together.

Things are falling into place for me in my work life, proving I can do a lot with my brain. I feel like I know what it is capable of, but I've only scratched the surface of what's in store for my heart. I want to go deeper. It's scary, but I'm brave.

Ready when you are, Universe!

Exodus

I'm continuing to listen to/read the remarkable book Between the World and Me. It's such brilliant writing. Such a good prompt for reexamining one's beliefs. I just found out that I'm going to be teaching the Politics of Education in the Fall and I am thinking I will have my students read it, for what is politics but the relationship of the individual and the whole?

In the letter I was reading today, Ta'Nehisi Coates' talks about this song as being the soundtrack to his just-after-college time:

Exodus: Movement of Jah people! Oh-oh-oh, yea-eah!

Men and people will fight ya down (Tell me why!)
When ya see Jah light. (Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!)
Let me tell you if you're not wrong; (Then, why?)
Everything is all right.
So we gonna walk - all right! - through de roads of creation:
We the generation (Tell me why!)
(Trod through great tribulation) trod through great tribulation.

Exodus, all right! Movement of Jah people!
Oh, yeah! O-oo, yeah! All right!
Exodus: Movement of Jah people! Oh, yeah!

Yeah-yeah-yeah, well!
Uh! Open your eyes and look within:
Are you satisfied (with the life you're living)? Uh!
We know where we're going, uh!
We know where we're from.
We're leaving Babylon,
We're going to our Father land.

2, 3, 4: Exodus: movement of Jah people! Oh, yeah!
(Movement of Jah people!) Send us another brother Moses!
(Movement of Jah people!) From across the Red Sea!
(Movement of Jah people!) Send us another brother Moses!
(Movement of Jah people!) From across the Red Sea!
Movement of Jah people!

I wish I'd known the power of Bob Marley while he was still on this Earth. We could use his healing vibes in this country right about now...

Full of Grace

Most of y'all know I like to have an old TV show that I missed the first time around queued up for when I need a little background noise and an alternative plot line to the one in my own life. I generally like storylines on the lighter side since there are so many feels in the real world for me. My latest Netflix show is Dawson's Creek. It's pretty unremarkable, which means it doesn't slow down the chores I do while I watch. And dang, do I have a lot of chores to do.

After being gone last weekend and being super busy all week both of the last two weeks, I feel buried. Buried by laundry. Buried by weeds. Buried by dishes.

As I work to unbury myself, I am grateful for the company of Dawson and co., especially when this song came on in the background:

The winter here's cold and bitter
It's chilled us to the bone
We haven't seen the sun for weeks
To long too far from home
I feel just like I'm sinking
And I claw for solid ground
I'm pulled down by the undertow
I never thought I could feel so low
Oh darkness I feel like letting go
If all of the strength and all of the courage
Come and lift me from this place
I know I could love you much better than this
Full of grace
Full of grace
My love
So it's better this way, I said
Having seen this place before
Where everything we said and did
Hurts us all the more
Its just that we stayed, too long
In the same old sickly skin
I'm pulled down by the undertow
I never thought I could feel so low
Oh darkness I feel like letting go
If all of the strength
And all of the courage
Come and lift me from this place
I know I could love you much better than this
Full of grace
Full of grace
My love

Love Sarah McLachlan. So grateful to be in a space where I had all of the strength and courage to both lift myself from the place I was in, (a place filled with grief and loss and regret and stagnancy) and to allow myself to be lifted.

Both are necessary for movement, in my view...

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

So often, especially these days, the articles and videos that I see in my Facebook feed are heavy, but this video of FLOTUS doing carpool karaoke is the complete opposite. It's light. It's joyful. It's exuberant. It's real. It's honest. It's awesome!

She sang a few different songs, but this Stevie Wonder (her fave) classic was among them:

Like a fool I went and stayed too long
Now I'm wondering if your love's still strong
Oo baby, here I am,
Signed, sealed delivered, I'm yours
Then that time I went and said goodbye
Now I'm back and not ashamed to cry
Oo baby, here I am,
Signed, sealed delivered, I'm yours

Here I am baby
Oh, you've got the future in your hand
(signed, sealed delivered, I'm yours)

Here I am baby,
Oh, you've got the future in your hand
(signed, sealed, delivered, I'm yours)

I've done alot of foolish things
That I really didn't mean
Hey, hey, yea, yea, didn't I, oh baby

Seen alot of things in this old world
When I touched them they did nothing, girl

Oo baby, here I am, signed, sealed delivered,
I'm yours, oh I'm yours
Oo-wee babe you set my soul on fire
That's why I know you are my only desire

Oo baby, here I am, signed, sealed delivered,
I'm yours Here I am baby
Oh, you've got the future in your hand
(signed, sealed delivered, I'm yours)

Here I am baby,
Oh, you've got the future in your hand
(signed, sealed, delivered, I'm yours)

I've done alot of foolish things
That I really didn't mean
I could be a broken man but here I am

With your future, got your future babe (here I am baby)
Here I am baby (signed, sealed delivered, I'm yours)
Here I am baby, (here I am baby)
Here I am baby (signed, sealed delivered, I'm yours)
Here I am baby, (here I am baby)
Here I am baby (signed, sealed delivered, I'm yours)

It is a happy number, and it's a happy time, when you're in love and it feels certain that's where you will say. Impermanence, my friends. We don't stay anywhere.

Speaking of not being able to feel the ground beneath your feet, I just drove home through the biggest thunderstorm I've ever  driven through in my nearly 30 years behind the wheel. So scary.

And as I drove, I listened to Ta'Nehisi Coates' book, Between the World and Me. Wow. What an incredible, thought-provoking read. I highly recommend it for people like me who are grappling for answers to all the mayhem that is going on in our society right now. It's eye opening, and it's beautifully written, and it represents a perspective from which most of us can learn a lot...

Rockin' in the Free World

Tonight while I was getting ready to go out to dinner with a friend, I decided to turn on some Neil Young. I was just in the mood. I love Neil Young.

But I was surprised, when this song came on, just how topical it is today, especially given that it was written in 1989:

There's colors on the street
Red, white and blue
People shufflin' their feet
People sleepin' in their shoes
But there's a warnin' sign on the road ahead
There's a lot of people sayin' we'd be better off dead
Don't feel like Satan, but I am to them
So I try to forget it, any way I can.

Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world.

I see a woman in the night
With a baby in her hand
Under an old street light
Near a garbage can
Now she puts the kid away, and she's gone to get a hit
She hates her life, and what she's done to it
There's one more kid that will never go to school
Never get to fall in love, never get to be cool.

Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world.

We got a thousand points of light
For the homeless man
We got a kinder, gentler,
Machine gun hand
We got department stores and toilet paper
Got Styrofoam boxes for the ozone layer
Got a man of the people, says keep hope alive
Got fuel to burn, got roads to drive.

Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world.

Feels like I am more aware than ever that this world is only free for some of us...

Head Over Heels

My super awesome spot at Colectivo on the lake

I had a fabulous couple of days spent with friends in Milwaukee, which, in beautiful summer weather, is a pretty unbeatable place.

As I was driving home, I heard this song from my youth:

I wanted to be with you alone
And talk about the weather
But traditions I can trace against the child in your face
Won't escape my attention

You keep your distance with a system of touch
And gentle persuasion
I'm lost in admiration, could I need you this much
Oh! You're wasting my time, you're just, just, just wasting time

Something happens and I'm head over heels
I never find out till I'm head over heels
Something happens and I'm head over heels
Ah, don't take my heart, don't break my heart
Don't, don't, don't throw it away, throw it away, throw it away

Hearing it reminded me of how I felt when I heard it in my youth. I felt this sense of anticipation. What would head over heels feel like? I thought of the expression as entirely describing a feeling that I might someday have about a man:

I made a fire, I'm watchin' it burn
Thought of your future
With one foot in the past, now just how long will it last
No, no, no, have you no ambitions

My mother and my brother's used to breathing clean air
(Nothing ever changes when you're acting your age)
And dreamin' I'm a doctor
(Nothing gets done when you feel like a baby)
It's hard to be man when there's a gun in your hand
(Nothing ever changes when you're acting your age)
Oh! I feel so

My beloved Lake Michigan, Milwaukee side

Something happens and I'm head over heels
I never find out till I'm head over heels
Something happens and I'm head over heels
Ah, don't take my heart, don't break my heart
Don't, don't, don't throw it away

And now that I'm all grown up, I do know what it feels like to be head over heels for a man. But maybe more importantly, I know that the feeling doesn't necessarily last, and that it is still possible to fall head over heels over your life, even without a man:

And this is my four leaf clover
I'm on the line, want an open mind
This is my four leaf clover...

Yes, Tears for Fears, I feel super lucky to be head over heels all by myself...

Bullet with Butterfly Wings

It's really hard to know how to respond to what is going on in our world right now. In the past, when black men have been shot and killed by police officers, some right here in Madison, some further away, I have felt outrage. I have felt helpless. I have felt the weight of the injustice that in our courts of law and in our police departments, this behavior is treated as justifiable.

It is not, in my opinion, justifiable.

And it keeps getting worse. More blatant. More gratuitous. More, if it's possible, racist.

I know myself well enough not to watch the videos that documented the loss of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile's lives. I knew I would be triggered by them, and rendered even more useless than any of us well-meaning white people are in the wake of these senseless deaths.

So I called up my friend who was raised in inner-city Chicago, and has largely raised her own kids in the same ghetto, and I asked her how she goes on. How she makes sense of it. How she copes.

She said that it makes her sick. She said she had watched both videos, and was struck by the lack of any real danger in either situation that would have warranted the level of force the officers used. She also said that what makes her sicker is that on any given weekend in Chicago, dozens of black lives are taken by other black people, and she wonders why no one protests about that. She said the fact that so many poor black people use deadly force against each other does not justify the police behavior, but it does play into the fear that the police officers must feel when they go to work.

I suppose she is right. And I suppose that it is this fear that we must address, only I am certain that the fear these cops feel stems not only from the guns in these men's hands, but from the color of their skin.

Somehow, it feels like we are going backward as a society, and it scares the hell out of me. And while I in no way condone the shooting of police officers who are trying to do their job, I also do not condone all the acquittals that have been rendered by mostly white juries. And I understand that rage is fueled by feelings of helplessness. And I know that if we don't start treating these deaths differently as a society, we will continue to pay a high price. All of us. As a human race.

Not really sure there is an appropriate song to mark this day, or this string of days, but this is the one that comes to mind:

The world is a vampire, sent to drain
Secret destroyers, hold you up to the flames
And what do I get, for my pain?
Betrayed desires, and a piece of the game

Even though I know - I suppose I'll show
All my cool and cold - like old job

Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage
Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage
Then someone will say what is lost can never be saved
Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage

Now I'm naked, nothing but an animal
But can you fake it, for just one more show?
And what do you want?
I want to change
And what have you got, when you feel the same?

Even though I know - I suppose I'll show
All my cool and cold - like old job

Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage
Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage
Then someone will say what is lost can never be saved
Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage

Tell me I'm the only one
Tell me there's no other one
Jesus was the only son, yeah.
Tell me I'm the chosen one
Jesus was the only son for you

Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage
Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage
And someone will say what is lost can never be saved
Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage

Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a-
Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a-
Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage

Tell me I'm the only one
Tell me there's no other one
Jesus was the only son for you

And I still believe that I cannot be saved

Totem

My Father MADE this totem pole!

As if the glorious weather and lake-related play wasn't enough, we all also got to see, for the first time, the totem pole that my Dad MADE. I know, I've said that twice in this post and capitalized it both times, but I'm just so impressed. Wow! We were all impressed, and my son declared it an awesome addition to the cabin.

Cue Rush with a song about, you guessed it, totem poles:

I've got twelve disciples and a Buddha smile
Garden of Allah, Viking Valhalla
A miracle once in a while

I've got a pantheon of animals in a pagan soul
Vishnu and Gaia, Aztec and Maya
Dance around my totem pole
Totem pole...

I believe in what I see
I believe in what I hear
I believe that what I'm feeling
Changes how the world appears

Angels and demons dancing in my head
Lunatics and monsters underneath my bed
Media messiahs preying on my fears
Pop culture prophets playing in my ears

I've got celestial mechanics
To synchronize my stars
Seasonal migrations, daily variations
World of the unlikely and bizarre

I've got idols and icons, unspoken holy vows
Thoughts to keep well-hidden
Sacred and forbidden
Free to browse among the holy cows

That's why I believe

Angels and demons inside of me
Saviors and Satans all around me

So true. We can all be both at different points in our lives. I think the lesson for me is not to assume that someone who presented as the demon at one point will always and only be that demon. We've all got some of each inside us!

Balance Beam

Here I am, on the water AND maintaining my groundedness!

Here's the thing I found once we got up here (the cabin): for the most part, it was lovely!

-The weather was lovely
-The water was lovely
-The kids got along great
-I had great yoga practices assisted by my Mom and Dad

So why the dread? Methinks it is old dread, related to a time past, but still lingering in the body.

Once I found my equilibrium again, I was fine, able to stay grounded even on the water, which felt pretty damn amazing. The experience brought to mind balance, and with that theme, this song:

I haven't been quite the same
So sure the story of my life would never change
In a bright eyed way
I rinsed out the soap in my eyes and wrote a song that I'm about to sing
'cause it's about a girl that I hardly even know
So this is not another love song
Just a list of things that I should know
Everyone should know that...

One: You've got to take it kind of slowly
Two: You've got to hurry up and make your move
Three: You've got to tell her that she's pretty
Four: You've got to be the perfect gentleman
When you shake the wall, you've got to make it bend
Yeah you're got to show her that she's a balance beam
And I keep falling all around this fairy tale.

I'm not entirely sure what this song means, but clearly, as the last verse suggests, I am a balance beam...

Heartache Tonight

Today was the toughest day I've had in a while. My kids pointed out that I always get stressed when packing to leave for trips, as we did today. They are not wrong.

I'm not sure why I find it so stressful, but I do. And this time, the stress made me lose sight of a lot of what makes me feel good, like healthy eating. That went right out the window today, as we hit the road to head up north to the cabin to spend time with family.

En route, we heard this song, which felt apropos of how I was feeling - a sense of dread of inevitable hurt feelings coming my way:

Somebody's gonna hurt someone
before the night is through
Somebody's gonna come undone.
There's nothin' we can do.
Everybody wants to touch somebody
if it takes all night.
Everybody wants to take a little chance,
Make it come out right.

There's gonna be a heartache tonight,
a heartache tonight, I know.
There's gonna be a heartache tonight, I know.
Lord, I know.

Some people like to stay out late
Some folks can't hold out that long
But nobody wants to go home now.
there's too much goin' on.

This night is gonna last forever.
Last all, last all summer long.
Some time before the sun comes up
The radio is gonna play that song.
There's gonna be a heartache tonight,
A heartache tonight, I know.
There's gonna be a heartache tonight,
A heartache tonight, I know.
Lord I know.

There's gonna be a heartache tonight,
the moon's shinin' bright
so turn out the light, and we'll get it right.
There's gonna be a heartache tonight, a
heartache tonight I know...

Coming Home

What a day.

It began with a beautiful early morning practice, then some taking care of my children, and then off I went to the Dane County Jail to teach yoga to the women in minimum there.

Talk about a grounding experience. Wow.

And when I left, I felt lucky. Because I was the only one, of the six of us in that jail recreation room, who actually had the opportunity to feel the ground, the actual earth, beneath my feet today.

One of the places my feet took me was a core class, where this was appropriately one of the songs played:

I need that
Ground beneath my feet to feel that
Ground beneath my feet
I need that
Ground beneath my feet to feel that
Ground beneath my feet
I need that

We all need that. And while I get that we have laws for a reason, and I get that we sometimes need to protect people from hurting themselves and/or others. But the way that we do it is so far from anything that might help empower these people to make better choices the next time around.

Today I learned that the women are not allowed to stand up in the pod (dorm area). They have to be sitting or laying down. One said she does her squats in the shower because it's the only place she's allowed to stand. Really? Talk about not being able to feel the ground beneath your feet, even if it is the floor of the jail. What an unfortunate, fear-based policy.

Anyway, besides the humbling and heart-opening experience of being present to those women today, I also found out my part time job at the University is morphing to full time this month (yay!), and had the incredible experience of biking up my driveway and being greeted by my 16 year old son, standing in the window, making dinner.

I am so, so blessed.

And so glad to be coming home in all these many ways:

I need that home, I'm coming home, I'm coming home
Cause it's life that I've been living in my home
Home, I'm coming home, I'm coming home
Cause I'm tired of being out here on my own
I'm coming home, oh yeah yeah yeah
I'm coming home, oh yeah
All of this time I've been living it up
All that's is left is rubble and dust
Oh oh, I'm coming home

I know if I can find my own way back
There's a life I always knew but never had
I'm tired of fighting things that I can't change
Letting me go so I can finally find my place

I need that
Ground beneath my feet to feel that
Ground beneath my feet
I need that
Ground beneath my feet to feel that
Ground beneath my feet
I need that
Ground beneath my feet to feel that
Ground beneath my feet
I need that
Ground beneath my feet to feel that
Ground beneath my feet
I need that

We all do. Every single one of us. Not just those us fortunate enough to either have the resources to make good choices, the resources to not get caught, or the resources to avoid doing time if we are caught.

Imma see what I can do about changing some of these inhumane policies...