Body of Work

When being a soccer mom feels awesome

I had a really tough morning today. I realized about two hours into really fighting with myself and being contentious with my coworker that I was triggered.

So I left the office, shed some tears, ate an avocado spring roll, and reminded my beautiful traumatized self that I was ok, that what was happening this morning was not in fact threatening to my security or some kind of indictment of my character and being, it only felt like it.

While eating my lunch by the lake -- I feel so fortunate to work right next to Memorial Union! -- I got a text from a friend who also works nearby about grabbing lunch. I explained about my morning, and then while looking on Facebook this evening, I saw that she had posted a pretty perfect song with which to mark this day:

Before you get out I want you to know
You get so many lives in just this one
Sometimes you’re a roller
Sometimes you’re the stone
Sometimes you’re an avalanche in whole

But you can be wild horses on that hill
You can be wild horses
You can stop at will
And you will

Before you get out on your one way
I’ve got a ticket waiting for you under any name
You can be holy or a roller, oh anything
But whatever you choose — stay

Yesterday happened just exactly as it did
You can’t go back and undo it
You’re not a knot you’re not a dead end
Don’t ever forget
You’re a living thing

“Freedom is what you do with what
With what’s been done to you”

Before you lay down in this place
Remember you can see a blackbird
A thousand ways
You can be a soldier
You can be the snow
Under the boots of an army with miles to go

And you can be white horses on that hill
You can be white horses
You can carry heaven until

Yesterday happened just exactly as it did
You can’t go back and undo it
You’re not a knot you’re not a dead end
Don’t ever forget

You are a body of work — Edit it
You are electric — So sing it

“Freedom is what you do with what
With what’s been done to you”

So true. And the morning I had made getting my kids back tonight all the sweeter, because if I've done one awesome thing with what's been done to me, it is raising my kids with a gazillion times more awareness than my parents had...

Bed and Breakfast Man

The Sanskrit chanting crew from the weekend

I went to Ripon this weekend to take a level 1 Sanskrit course that my teacher recommended (which was an awesome experience).

None of my yoga buddies from Madison could make it, so I looked for an Air bnb that might be close by and inexpensive. And did I ever find it!

I had a super interesting experience at this house. I was on the same floor as the family, and they had two small children. The owner was super chatty and made it pretty clear he likes to establish ongoing friendships with his guests. I wasn't super up for that, but I was super touched by his review of me:

Here I am on the scratchy sheets, deeply settled in my soul

“Great... Sarah comes across as low key and deeply settled in her soul. The house felt peaceful with her in it.”

And wouldn't you know it? There is a song about a bed and breakfast man.

Here she blows:

Well, there's a man I know
At least I used to years ago
I didn't really mind
He used to come round all the time

Of course he had to be fed
I had to give him a bed
He used to kip on my sofa
They used to call him a loafer

I've heard he's changed a lot since then
But some of his ways he just can't mend

Till the other day
When he'd offer to pay
He didn't like his bed
He earned all he'd ever had

He didn't have no shame
He was a master at his game
He never showed his hand
He was the bed and breakfast man

Oh, he was, he was the bed and breakfast man
He was, he was the bed and breakfast man
He was, he was the bed and breakfast man
He was, he was the bed and breakfast man
He was, he was the bed and breakfast man
He was, he was the bed and breakfast man
He was, he was the bed and breakfast man

Phoenix

This morning my friend/colleague and I presented self-regulation, mindful movement and meditation to 75 staff members at our daughters' middle school. What an honor to be asked, and what an excellent morning it was.

As I sat listening to my friend talk about self-regulation, trauma, the stress response, and our ability to keep learning new ways of coping, I couldn't help but think of my own path. It is even clearer to me in the wake of that trip to Michigan how profoundly I both was and am affected by my upbringing. But it's also clear to me how far I've come, largely through mind-body practices.

The principal made the comment that she hoped the teachers weren't just picturing poor minority students when hearing about trauma and the stress response, since many poor people live full lives and many middle and upper class people live with trauma.

Since I followed that statement, it felt important for me to share that I'm a perfect example of that: My father was a professor, my mother a nurse -- I don't think many people (if anyone) knew what was going on behind our closed door.

But I knew, and as a result, I didn't take a full, deep breath until I was in my 30s. Literally.

After our session, one of the teachers came up and told me that she had the same story. Wow. Here's hoping we can teach today's kids how to breathe, to be in their bodies, to learn to self-regulate, and to find their voices even under very difficult circumstances.

After teaching at the middle school and then at the jail, I went to the gym for a core class, and one of the songs was about a phoenix rising from the ashes. I'm not altogether sure this is the song I heard today, but the subject matter is right on:

Why you hanging in the background?
Like a painting that's been turned round
Come on, come on, come on, come on
Come on, come on, come on, come on
Why you humming with your mouth shut?
It's like Aretha singing backup
Come on, come on, come on, come on
You know the words, go write your song

Make it loud
It's your time now
Can you feel it now?

You got the heart of a phoenix
So let them see you rise
Hey-ey-ey, hey-ey-ey
Let them know that you mean it
Let them see you rise
Hey-ey-ey, hey-ey-ey

You feel it burn when you're knocked down
But let the fire be you crown
Come on, come on, come on, come on
Come on, come on, come on, come on
So go and claim your kingdom
Then slay all your demons
Come on, come on, come on, come on
I know you know where you belong

Don't look now
But you're off the ground
Can you feel it now?

You got the heart of a phoenix
So let them see you rise
Hey-ey-ey, hey-ey-ey
Let them know that you mean it
Let them see you rise
Hey-ey-ey, hey-ey-ey

Let's see you show how high you can go
Flying right past the ones who said no
Let's give them all one hell of a show
Hey-ey-ey, hey-ey-ey

You got the heart of a phoenix
So let them see you rise
Hey-ey-ey, hey-ey-ey

You got the heart, you got the heart
You got the heart of a, heart of a, hey
You got the heart, you got the heart
You got the heart of a, heart of a

You got the heart of a phoenix
So let them see you rise
Hey-ey-ey, hey-ey-ey
You got the heart of a phoenix
So let them see you rise
Hey-ey-ey, hey-ey-ey
Let them know that you mean it
Let them see you rise,
Hey-ey-ey, hey-ey-ey

They see me rise alright. And I'm so grateful...

Breakdown

Usually when I go to acupuncture, I tell her what's going on with me and I trust my acupuncturist to give me what I need. It's not that I didn't trust her today, it's just that I was very clear on what I needed: to lie on my stomach and have the needles in my back assist me in releasing all the grief and fear I had been housing since the trip to Michigan (and some of it for a lot longer than that).

She agreed that was an appropriate treatment, and onto my belly I went. The release came almost immediately, and it was so, so helpful to let go of some of it.

Later in the day, I heard Tom Petty's song about breakdowns, and it feels like just the song to mark this day:

It's all right if you love me
It's all right if you don't
I'm not afraid of you running away
Honey, I've got the feeling you won't

There is no sense in pretending
Your eyes give you away
Something inside you is feeling like I do
We said all there is to say

Baby Breakdown
Go ahead and give it to me
Breakdown honey take me through the night
Breakdown now I standin' here can't you see
Breakdown, it's all right
It's all right
It's all right

Breakdown
Go ahead and give it to me
Breakdown honey take me through the night
Breakdown now I standin' here can't you see
Breakdown, it's all right
It's all right
It's all right

Since I don't have a honey with whom to breakdown, I sure am grateful for my acupuncturist (and other members of my pit crew), for being there for me...

Cruel to Be Kind

I heard this song last weekend and although it's been around almost as long as I have, I felt like I was really hearing it for the first time.

And I didn't like its message:

Oh I can't take another heartache
Though you say you're my friend, I'm at my wit's end
You say your love is bonafide, but that don't coincide
With the things that you do
And when I ask you to be nice, you say

You've gotta be cruel to be kind, in the right measure
Cruel to be kind, it's a very good sign
Cruel to be kind, means that I love you, baby
(You've gotta be cruel)
You gotta be cruel to be kind

But do you really? And then today I went to the chiropractor and told him I'd developed full-on yoga butt. On the table I went and man, was the treatment painful.

When I complained, he said "I'm of the mind that you often have to make something worse before it gets better."

Ah, I said, you mean:

You've gotta be cruel to be kind, in the right measure
Cruel to be kind, it's a very good sign
Cruel to be kind, means that I love you, baby
(You've gotta be cruel)
You gotta be cruel to be kind

When I left his office I had a bunch of cupping bruises and my yoga butt felt much better, so I guess I'm going to have to concede that sometimes:

You've gotta be cruel to be kind, in the right measure
Cruel to be kind, it's a very good sign
Cruel to be kind, means that I love you baby
(You've gotta be cruel)
You gotta be cruel to be kind

The Sound of Silence

My daughter has commented on my silence several times lately. "What's the matter with you? You haven't said a word for a long time."

I went out with my new coworkers a few weeks ago, and one of them asked me if I was quiet. No one has ever asked me that before, I told her -- which is true. But it was also true that that night, I was quiet.

There were a lot of things that worried me in my last relationship, but one of the biggest was my boyfriend's silence. He so often retreated to it, and I would wonder where he'd gone, and what was going on with him, and if he was wrong for me because he didn't want to share his inner life even though that's super important to me in a mate.

But lately, with my own silence emerging and causing issues for others, I wonder whether I do the same thing that he did, and if it was easier to fixate on his silence than to notice my own. I don't know.

I'm reevaluating a lot of things about that relationship. My friend asked me if I've been writing, and I told her I hadn't. She asked why. I thought about it, and answered: "I thought I had this great love story to tell. I thought I wanted to tell how worthwhile it is to work through your pain and come back to your body and your heart so you can truly experience love. And now I wonder if it really is a great love story. I wonder if I have truly experienced love.  No, I take that back: I know that I truly experienced loving someone but I'm no longer sure whether I've truly experienced being loved. I read posts like this one, which I found when I was looking to see if I'd used this song before, and it just feels like bullshit.

And that leaves me with not a lot to say, kinda like my friends Paul and Art:

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
‘Neath the halo of a streetlamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
No one dare
Disturb the sound of silence

“Fools” said I, “You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you”
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said “The words of the prophets
Are written on subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence

I talked to a friend today who said that when things shift, you have to reestablish the ground beneath you. I reckon that's what I'm doing. Quietly...

My Church

My parents, 50 years ago, outside the church where they wed!

I was fortunate this morning to wake up from a nice, long sleep and get to go to a yoga class with one of my favorite yoga teachers and one of my favorite yoga friends.

It was a great way to start this day, August 20, 2016, 50 years to the day my parents were married.

50 years!? I can't imagine being married to anyone that long, and I don't suppose I will be unless I get married again soon, stay married to that person, and both live a really, really long time.

I'm also ok with that not being my path, but I know it has always been the most important thing on my mother's path, so I am happy for her that she has been able to keep her vows and stand by her man.

Understanding that my path can be different from those of my parents' and from the one that my parents envision for me has been a long, hard lesson, and it works both ways: My parents' path may be different from the one I envision for them but it's not my place to determine that any more than it is their place to determine mine.

Yesterday a friend posted a list of his top 10 songs this year so far on Facebook. I've been having fun listening to all of them -- most of them were entirely new to me.

This song from his list seems apropos today -- we all get to determine our own church and our own way to worship -- might be a yoga class, might be staying married to the same man for 50 years:

I've cussed on a Sunday
I've cheated and I've lied
I've fallen down from grace
A few too many times
But I find holy redemption
When I put this car in drive
Roll the windows down and turn up the dial

Can I get a hallelujah
Can I get an amen
Feels like the Holy Ghost running through ya
When I play the highway FM
I find my soul revival
Singing every single verse
Yeah I guess that's my church

When Hank brings the sermon
And Cash leads the choir
It gets my cold coal heart burning
Hotter than a ring of fire
When this wonderful world gets heavy
And I need to find my escape
I just keep the wheels rolling, radio scrolling
Until my sins wash away

Can I get a hallelujah
Can I get an amen
Feels like the Holy Ghost running through ya
When I play the highway FM
I find my soul revival
Singing every single verse
Yeah I guess that's my church

Yep, you can get an hallelujah and an amen, Maren, and Mom and Dad, you can get a congratulations!

Love Is All

This morning I debated about whether to ride my bike because it was cloudy but decided to chance it. I rode to my friend's house to carpool to practice and soon after we got inside it started pouring. Lucky for me, she was willing and able to drop me at Colectivo on State so I didn't have to arrive at work soaking wet -- and I was able to stay at the coffee shop and work. I was super grateful.

In the car, my friend played this beautiful number for me by a band I hadn't heard before:

Well I walk upon the river like it's easier than land
Evil's in my pocket and your will is in my hand
Oh, your will is in my hand

And I'll throw it in the current that I stand upon so still
Love is all, from what I've heard, but my heart's learned to kill
Oh, mine has learned to kill

Oh, I said I could rise
From the harness of our goals
Here come the tears
But like always, I let them go
Just let them go

And now spikes will keep on falling from the heavens to the floor
The future was our skin and now we don't dream anymore
No, we don't dream anymore

Like a house made from spider webs and the clouds rolling in
I bet this mighty river's both my savior and my sin
Oh, my savior and my sin

Oh, I said I could rise
From the harness of our goals
Here come the tears
But like always, I let them go
Just let them go

Well I walk upon the river like it's easier than land
Evil's in my pocket and your strength is in my hand
Your strength is in my hand

And I'll throw you in the current that I stand upon so still
Love is all, from what I've heard, but my heart's learned to kill
Oh, mine has learned to kill

Oh, I said I could rise
From the harness of our goals
Here come the tears
But like always, I let them go
Just let them go

Rising from the harness of our goals is an interesting turn of phrase. As for me, I'm working on rising from the harness of my tight psoas and overstretched hamstring. It's painful, and it's not getting better. Wah!

Heavy

I see my therapist about once a month, and yesterday's appointment could not have come at a better time. My therapist is so awesome. She always starts out by saying "What would be helpful to you today?" Such a great question, and yesterday provided the opportunity for me to talk about some of what happened on vacation last week and continue the process of putting myself back together.

I heard this song on Pandora this morning, and it feels apropos of my experience with her:

If you're lost and lonely
Go and figure out why
Take a trip to your dark side
Go on and have a good cry
Cause we're all lonely
Yeah we're all lonely
Together

I want to see your sadness,
I want to share your sins
I want to bleed your blood and
I want to be let in
Don't you just,
Don't we all just
Want to be together

Leave what's heavy,
What's heavy behind
Leave what's heavy,
What's heavy behind

If your face is down
Take a look around
Do your fingers move
Do your lungs inflate
Are you tired are you weary
Of the hidden hate
You've been holding
Yeah

Did you lose that love
Or have you never had it
Are you feeling sad
because you did a bad thing

Leave what's heavy
What's heavy behind
Leave what's heavy
What's heavy behind

Are you feeling fearful brother
Are you feeling fearful sister
The only way to loose
That fearful feeling
Replace it with love that's healing
Are you feeling fearful brother
Are you feeling fearful sister

Leave what's heavy,
What's heavy behind
Leave what's heavy,
What's heavy behind
Leave what's heavy,
What's heavy behind

Yes, Birdtalker, to the extent that I can, I will. And I'm super grateful to my therapist for continuing to be my partner in sorting through past and present experiences in order to move forward with the life I am consciously creating for myself and my kids...

Suffragette City

Once I was back home and at least partially unpacked, I decided to go to yoga at Perennial. On my way there, I heard an interview with Cameron Crowe. I was feeling super depleted from the trip, but his description of being 17 years old and getting to spend months hanging with and interviewing David Bowie brightened me right up (along with my yoga practice and an Alanon meeting afterward).

This was the Bowie song he played after telling the story:

Hey man, oh leave me alone you know
Hey man, oh Henry, get off the phone, I gotta
Hey man, I gotta straighten my face
This mellow thighed chick
Just put my spine out of place

Hey man, my schooldays insane
Hey man, my work's down the drain
Hey man, well she's a total blam-blam
She said she had to squeeze it but she... then she...

Oh don't lean on me man
Cause you can't afford the ticket
I'm back on Suffragette City
Oh don't lean on me man
Cause you ain't got time to check it
You know my Suffragette City
Is outta sight...she's all right

Hey man, Henry, don't be unkind, go away
Hey man, I can't take you this time, no way
Hey man, droogie don't crash here
There's only room for one and here she comes
Here she comes

A Suffragette City, a Suffragette City
I'm back on Suffragette City
Suffragette City

Ohhh, Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am!

Kick Drum Heart

My kids and I traversed so much of these two states last week!

Ah, Michigan.

You are so beautiful, and yet you are the site of so many awful memories.

Some, many even, of the awful memories are old, but some were formed on this year's family vacation.

I'm not going to write a lot of details about it, but I will share with you this song that I heard for the first time the night I helped my cousin cook dinner:

The footprints over the snow
the fabric of all the lonely
C-Covering only
the fables and hands
the rest is out in the cold
holding the last of the season
F-F-F freezin' Yeah

My my my heart like a kick drum
My my heart like a kick drum
My my heart like a kick drum
My love like a voice.

We're walkin' in to the fields.
We're walkin in to the forest.
The moon is before us.
Up above
We're holdin' hands in the rain
S-sayin' words like I love you
D-d-d'you love me? Yeah

My my heart like a kick drum
My my heart like a kick drum
My my heart like a kick drum
My my love like a voice

Mother Mary heard us approaching her door
Although we didn't make a sound.

There's nothing like finding gold
within the rocks hard and cold
I'm so surprised to find more
Always surprised to find more

I won't look back anymore
I left the people that do
It's not the chase that I love
It's me following you.

I don't know what a kick drum is, but I know what it looks like when someone is numbing their pain, and after this trip, I am, unfortunately, more familiar with how mean people can become if they choose to inflict pain on others rather than feel their own...

I Feel the Earth Move

Yesterday was a new moon, so blissfully, I got to sleep a bit longer and not do my Ashtanga practice. Man, has it ever been rough lately. I've been dealing with a very tender hamstring that gets very unhappy in almost all of the postures in the second half of primary, the postures that I previously loved practicing. I used to feel, when I got to that point, that I'd arrived at that place where everything would be ok.

Today, not so much. Where there was once a feeling of comfort, there are now tears. Lots of them this morning. I know, since they aren't really accompanied by a story of any kind, that these tears represent a release of something I've been holding for a very long time, and I know on some level that is a good thing. But it doesn't make it any easier.

This morning what came to me as I attempted to keep practicing through this release was that maybe this is groundlessness. Maybe part of my release is feeling like I have experienced groundlessness and I'm still here, I'm still ok.

In fact, I'm better than ok. Because I understand, as I didn't before, that no man, no food, no drink, no amount of money, no yoga posture, no nothing is ever going to put ground underneath me in the way that I have craved in my life after not having it as a child (when under the best of circumstances, one does). Which means I can stop searching for it, and waiting for it, and just live my life.

I know that Carole wasn't talking about groundlessness when she wrote this song, but it's the song that came to mind:

I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down, tumbling down
I feel my heart start to trembling
Whenever you're around

Ooh, baby, when I see your face
Mellow as the month of May
Oh, darling, I can't stand it
When you look at me that way

I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down, tumbling down
I feel my heart start to trembling
Whenever you're around

Oh, darling, when you're near me
And you tenderly call my name
I know that my emotions
Are something I just can't tame
I've just got to have you, baby

I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down, tumbling down
I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down
I just lose control
Down to my very soul
I get a hot and cold all over
I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down,
Tumbling down, tumbling down...

And it makes me think that maybe the next time my heart starts trembling, I can remind myself that the point of a romantic partnership is not finding stable ground. It's having someone with whom to navigate the groundlessness that is our reality as humans...

Don't Give Up

Had to be my deer medicine yoga pants this am

I woke up this morning having had an upsetting dream. I was alone in the kitchen of a friend's house -- a friend who was one of the closest friends I've ever had but whom I'm no longer close to -- and I saw an envelope addressed to me. It had a big fat letter in it, and it wasn't sealed, so I snuck a peak at it. It said three words over and over again for pages and pages and pages:

I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you

Oof. In the dream, when I saw it, I went to a place of rationalizing -- hate is not the opposite of love, she just needs to figure out what she is angry about and express it -- but when I climbed onto my bike at 6:25 am, a song came belting into my barely awake head that carried a different message:

Got to walk out of here
I can't take anymore
Going to stand on that bridge
Keep my eyes down below
Whatever may come
And whatever may go
That river's flowing
That river's flowing

And from that I took away the idea that it is time to let that all go. Whatever may come and whatever may go, that river (of life) is flowing. I'm trying, have been trying for years, to become more easy come, easy go. But it's not the way I was formed, so it's a struggle. I looked up the significance of deer -- I love my deer skull yoga pants -- and found this: Deer symbolizes the power in nature that is not easily subdued. Yup, that's me. That's how I'm constructed.

One of my favorite parts of this song is this:

Rest your head, you worry too much
It's going to be alright
When times get rough, you can fall back on us
Don't give up, please don't give up

I'm not gonna give up. That's not the way I'm wired. But I am going to keep trying to rest in the idea that I can let go of what is no longer serving me and settle into knowing I have my people and there's a place where I belong:

Don't give up
'cause you have friends
Don't give up
You're not the only one
Don't give up
No reason to be ashamed
Don't give up
You still have us
Don't give up now
We're proud of who you are
Don't give up
You know it's never been easy
Don't give up
'Cause I believe there's the a place
There's a place where we belong