Sea Fog

The beloved firstborn on the day of departure

This summer was a lot of things. It was awesome having my son home from college in Seattle. The weather, for the most part, was glorious, and we had an amazing family adventure.

It also included a big loss, when The New Englander and I broke up, and now I'm faced with another one: My son heading back to school.

I don't know if it will ever get easier to leave his company. It's just such a nice place to be, and it doesn't help that I am ready to make my cross-country move too. Only, I'm not. I've got two more years here.

So I took myself to hot yoga yesterday afternoon, for the first time in a long time, and this was the song the teacher sang to us in savasana:

The sun bleeds in, hear the magpie sing for sorrow
It makes things better
Maybe we'll get to spread our wings tomorrow
If luck will let us

Can anyone fly into these grey skies?
Is there somewhere I'm meant to be

Off he goes!

Sea fog comes, like a river rolls a stone
It's rolling me

I missed my turn in the dark
I hear your voice
It makes things easy
I strayed too far from the road
Wish you could always make things easy

And I won't fight through the rising tide
If that’s the way it has to be

Sea fog comes, like a river rolls a stone
It's rolling me
Sea fog comes, like a river rolls a stone
It's rolling me

Sea fog rolling
Sea fog rolling
Sea fog rolling

Which felt apropos for today in a couple of ways -- my son is indeed spreading his wings today, and he's headed back to the land where sea fog rolling is a daily occurrence rather than an obscure reference in a song lyric...

I'm on Fire

Went to an incredible yoga class today, with an incredible teacher and an incredible playlist which included this incredible song:

Hey, little girl, is your daddy home?
Did he go and leave you all alone?
I got a bad desire
Oh-oh-oh, I'm on fire

Tell me now, baby, is he good to you?
And can he do to you the things that I do? Oh, no
I can take you higher
Oh-oh-oh, I'm on fire

Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby, edgy and dull
And cut a six-inch valley through the middle of my skull
At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet
And a freight train running through the middle of my head
Only you can cool my desire
Oh-oh-oh, I'm on fire
Oh-oh-oh, I'm on fire
Oh-oh-oh, I'm on fire

And I kinda was, since it was a hot yoga class!

I Know

I've been wondering about this song since my favorite hot yoga teacher sang it for the first time while we were in savasana -- and then he sang it again tonight:

So be it, I'm your crowbar
If that's what I am so far
Until you get out of this mess
And I will pretend
That I don't know of your sins
Until you are ready to confess
But all the time, all the time
I'll know, I'll know

It's these next two lines that have been on repeat in my head:

And you can use my skin
To bury your secrets in
And I will settle you down
And at my own suggestion
I will ask no questions
While I do my thing in the background
But all the time all the time
I'll know I'll know

In some ways this song doesn't fit my experience with my man, and in some ways it does. It doesn't because the waiting time for us really wasn't about being with other people. We were never an affair.

And it does because I couldn't change the situation or make the time go faster or somehow ensure we'd end up together:

Baby-I can't help you out,
While she's still around
For the time being,
I'm being patient
And amidst this bitterness
If you'll just consider this
Even if it don't make sense
All the time give it time
And when the crowd becomes your burden
And you've early closed your curtains,
I'll wait by the backstage door
While you try to find
The lines to speak your mind
And pry it open, hoping for a encore
And if it gets too late, for me to wait
For you to find you love me, and tell me so
It's ok, don't need to say it

Patient I was. So patient. Because I knew, in the deepest part of me, he was my person. And we're both super grateful that it didn't get too late for me to wait before he was ready to declare me his...

Time After Time

Seeing that yesterday was spring forward day for our clocks, I thought for sure the song the teacher would use to serenade us in savasana at the end of hot yoga would be this classic:

Lying in my bed I hear the clock tick,
And think of you
Caught up in circles confusion -
Is nothing new
Flashback - warm nights -
Almost left behind
Suitcases of memories,
Time after -

I was wrong. It wasn't. Yesterday. I said something to him about it, and tonight, as we wrapped up another hot yoga practice, I smiled as he began to sing:

Sometimes you picture me -
I'm walking too far ahead
You're calling to me, I can't hear
What you've said -
Then you say - go slow -
I fall behind -
The second hand unwinds

If you're lost you can look - and you will find me
Time after time
If you fall I will catch you - I'll be waiting
Time after time

After my picture fades and darkness has
Turned to gray
Watching through windows - you're wondering
If I'm OK
Secrets stolen from deep inside
The drum beats out of time -

If you're lost...

You said go slow -
I fall behind
The second hand unwinds -

If you're lost...
...Time after time
Time after time
Time after time
Time after time

One more week in my month of hot yoga. So good for me in the winter!

Human Touch

I can't seem to get enough hot yoga these days. Partly that's because I bought a month unlimited from my friend, and partly it's because it's Winter.

I particularly love the hot yoga teacher who sings to us in savasana.

He's not the boss, but he's a teacher who inspires me to be my best and do my best:

You and me we were the pretenders
We let it all slip away
In the end what you don't surrender
Well the world just strips away

Girl ain't no kindness in the face of strangers
Ain't gonna find no miracles here
Well you can wait on your blessings darlin'
But I got a deal for you right here

I ain't lookin' for prayers or pity
I ain't comin' 'round searchin' for a crutch
I just want someone to talk to
And a little of that human touch
Just a little of that human touch

Ain't no mercy on the streets of this town
Ain't no bread from heavenly skies
Ain't nobody drawin' wine from this blood
It's just you and me tonight

Tell me in a world without pity
Do you uthink what I'm askin's too much ?
I just want something to hold on to
And a little of that human touch
Just a little of that human touch

Oh girl that feeling of safety you prize
Well it comes with a hard hard price
You can't shut off the risk and pain
Without losin' the love that remains
We're all riders on this train

So you been broken and you been hurt
Show me soomebody who ain't
Yeah I know I ain't nobody's bargain
But hell a little touchup
And a little paint...

You might need somethin' to hold on to
When all the answers they don't amount to much
Somebody that you can just talk to
And a little of that human touch

Baby in a world without pity
Do you think what I'm askin's too much ?
I just want to feel you in my arms
And share a little of that human touch...

It's not human touch, but when he praises me, it makes me shine. When I got home, I had a cool conversation with my son about teachers who inspire you to do your best. He was able to name several he felt that way about, which made me feel heartened about his high school experience.

And I did get a little human touch, in the form of a hand squeeze from my favorite yoga buddy in savasana...

Winter

Picnic point - much different from last weekend!

Winter came back today. I still made it out to Picnic point, this time with my kids in tow. It was beautiful in a much different way than last weekend.

I also managed to get to hot yoga again today, and I loved the teacher's selection to sing to us in savasana - this song is one of my faves:

Snow can wait
I forgot my mittens
Wipe my nose
Get my new boots on
I get a little warm in my heart
When I think of winter
I put my hand in my father's glove
I run off
Where the drifts get deeper
Sleeping beauty trips me with a frown
I hear a voice
"Your must learn to stand up for yourself
Cause I can't always be around"
He says
When you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do
When you gonna make up your mind
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses are still in bed
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change my dear

Boys get discovered as winter melts
Flowers competing for the sun
Years go by and I'm here still waiting Withering where some snowman was
Mirror mirror where's the crystal palace
But I only can see myself
Skating around the truth who I am
But I know dad the ice is getting thin

When you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do
When you gonna make up your mind
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses are still in bed
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change my dear

Hair is grey
And the fires are burning
So many dreams
On the shelf
You say I wanted you to be proud of me
I always wanted that myself

He says
When you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do
When you gonna make up your mind
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses have gone ahead
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change
My dear

That they do. But sometimes, they come back around again, better than ever...

Smooth Operator

It was a glorious, Spring-like day again today, so I celebrated in one of my favorite fashions: I did the 8-mile run from my house to picnic point and back. When I started out, I knew it was much farther than I've been running this winter, so my thought was to take it easy. But the first mile felt good, and wound up being pretty good time, so I decided to try to stick with that pace.

It always feels so great, that first run out to picnic point in the "Spring" - it's a reclamation of sorts.

Soon after I got back, I got myself ready for hot yoga. I knew it was ambitious to do them back-to-back, but I was feeling energized by the warmer weather. It wasn't easy, but I made it through the whole practice, and as usual, there was a reward at the end: the teacher singing to us in savasana.

Today's song was an old fave:

Diamond life lover boy
He moves in space with minimum waste and maximum joy
City lights and business nights
When you require streetcar desire for higher heights
No place for beginners or sensitive hearts
Sentiment is left to chance
No place to be ending but somewhere to start

No need to ask
He's a smooth operator
Smooth operator

Coast-to-coast, L.A. to Chicago: Western male
Across the North and South, to Key Largo: love for sale

Face-to-face, each a classic case
We shadow box and double-cross
Yet need the chase
A license to love, insurance to hold
Melts all your memories and change into gold
His eyes are like angels'; his heart is cold

No need to ask
He's a smooth operator
Smooth operator

That he is!

Sweet Surrender

Went to hot yoga today, and the teacher sang us this beauty in savasana:

It doesn't mean much
It doesn't mean anything at all
The life I've left behind me is a cold room

I've crossed the last line
From where I can't return
Where every step I took in faith betrayed me
And led me from my home

And sweet surrender
Is all that I have to give

Take me in, no question's asked
You strip away the ugliness that surrounds me
(Who are you?)
Are you an angel?

Am I already that gone?
I only hope that I won't disappoint you
When I'm down here on my knees
(Who are you?)

And sweet surrender
Is all that I have to give
(Who are you?)

And sweet surrender
Is all that I have to give

Super appropriate Valentine's song for me this year, because I really do feel like I have surrendered to my current circumstances -- single, with lots of non-romantic love in my life, and a still-in-process letting go of an old love:

Don't understand
The touch of your hand
I would be the one to fall
I miss the little things
I miss everything about you

It's quite an experience to love someone as much as I love(d) the New Englander and then not spend your life with him. It helped me move through so much old sadness, and it's propelling me forward in the writing of my memoir, which is really exciting, especially because that's helping me prepare for/create a love that is just as sweet but more sustainable...

Urge For Going

I'm on round two of the Whole 30 right now, this time with my son, and one of the many awesome things about being on this diet is the quality of sleep I get. Night before last I slept nearly 8 hours without waking up once, which is pretty much unheard of for me, and last night I slept even longer with just one brief wake up. So good.

This morning my friend and I were supposed to go to hot yoga together, but she decided to bail because unlike me, she wasn't tucked into bed with a book at 9pm. (So good. Love that I'm feeling settled enough right now to read -- I often find that I can't -- this is probably also partly a result of being on the Whole 30.) But I decided to go anyway, and saw a couple of people I knew there. Mostly though, as you do at hot yoga, I saw myself. In the mirror. And I heard the teacher's message about incremental change. About not forcing anything. About being where you can breathe.

I decided this would be the year that I stopped worrying about when my hip is going to open up so I can get lotus on the other side. This year I will just show up and practice, knowing all the time that the incremental change is happening. Or as the founder of Ashtanga says, "Practice and all is coming." Yeah it is.

At the end of class, this particular teacher always sings to us in savasana, and today, this is the song he sang:

I awoke today and found
the frost perched on the town
It hovered in a frozen sky
then it gobbled summer down
When the sun turns traitor cold
and all the trees are shivering in a naked row

I get the urge for going
But I never seem to go
I get the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown
Summertime is falling down and winter is closing in

Last night at my son's soccer game I was talking to a woman about her desire to travel and be adventurous, to live by the ocean, and her husband's desire to be a homebody and work in the same lab he's worked in for 20 plus years. She said she didn't know what would happen when the kids leave home.

I told her I too had gotten the urge for going, many times, but haven't gone yet because my babies are here. I also told her about the man I had, who also got the urge for going, and so he went:

I had me a man in summertime
He had summer-colored skin
And not another girl in town
My darling's heart could win
But when the leaves fell on the ground
Bully winds came around
Pushed them face down in the snow

He got the urge for going
And I had to let him go
He got the urge for going
When the meadow grass was turning brown
Summertime was falling down and winter was closing in

Yes I did, have to let him go, that is. After talking with this woman, I was reflecting on how the things I thought I wanted/needed when I was with the New Englander, marriage, another child, are not things I really want or need anymore. She said: "You scared him away!" Maybe I did, but if I did, it was for a reason. Some part of me must have known that the only way to communicate the kind of commitment I wanted/needed from him was to insist on those things. They seemed SO important to me then -- to be able to have a child with this man I loved so dearly, to be able to marry him -- but now neither one seems important, with him or with any other man. I simply want love, companionship, presence, adventure, laughter, passion, comfort and ease. For now, I'm doing my best to offer all of those things to myself, my friends, and those that are appropriate to offer to my children, offer to them.

Somewhere along the way, I have faith that I'll get the urge for going, and I'll be able to go wherever it is my heart desires:

But she's got the urge for going
So I guess she'll have to go
She gets the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown
All her empire's falling down
And winter's closing in.
And I get the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown
And summertime is falling down...

People's Parties

In honor of our San Francisco-based Breathe for Change team member's visit to Madison this week, we are doing a yoga tour of Madison. First stop: Dr. Ruddy's Bikram class this morning at Inner Fire.

He's so amazing, and although our teammate had never done Bikram before and was a bit put off by the heat, she totally got what is so great about Dr. Ruddy.

One of his best features is that he always sings to us in savasana, and today he sang us a little Joni Mitchell:

All the people at this party
They've got a lot of style
They've got stamps of many countries
They've got passport smiles
Some are friendly
Some are cutting
Some are watching it from the wings
Some are standing in the center
Giving to get something

Photo beauty gets attention
Then her eye paint's running down
She's got a rose in her teeth
And a lampshade crown
One minute she's so happy
Then she's crying on someone's knee
Saying laughing and crying
You know it's the same release

I told you when I met you
I was crazy
Cry for us all, beauty
Cry for Eddie in the corner
Thinking he's nobody
And Jack behind his joker
And stonecold Grace behind her fan
And me in my frightened silence
Thinking I don't understand

I feel like I'm sleeping
Can you wake me
You seem to have a broader sensibility
I'm just living on nerves and feelings
With a weak and a lazy mind
And coming to peoples parties
Fumbling deaf dumb & blind

I wish I had more sense of humour
Keeping the sadness at bay
Throwing the lightness on these things

Laughing it all away...

One of the things he said in class was the next time your kid does something to incense you, as my daughter did yesterday when she locked me out of my own car in the parking lot of the libraray (and refused to open the door), just say to yourself: "That's interesting."

Yeah, so that's not how I reacted. I beat on the windows. I screamed. And when she finally let me in, I threw shit into the back seat. Definitely reactive. So reactive. Maybe next time, I'll just call it interesting?

Here's hoping...

Now and Always

I decided to spend the day today the way I sometimes spent the day when I had a boyfriend: In bed for much of the day. I'm not going to pretend that it's the same by myself, but it's still pretty nice to just luxuriate in the not doing.

When I did finally get out of bed this afternoon, I turned on the ipod player in my room, and this song came on:

You're in my mind baby, now and always
You're in my mind baby, now and always
The road I'm walking might fall away
You're in my mind baby, now and always

I like David Gray, but my first impression was something along the lines of: "Really, Universe? Do you have to make this harder than it already is?"

And then off I went to hot yoga with my friend. Afterward, sitting in her car in my driveway, I told her what had transpired for me over the last couple of days, and out came the tears. No, it wasn't as hard as it used to be, but it's still hard to be confronted with the power of my relationship with the New Englander and be with the loss.

A bonfire smoking into a low sky
The sparks they fly up into a low sky
Would that these demons let me rest
They're with me Lord till the day that I die

My friend asked if that experience (which I described more in yesterday's post) made me distrust my body. Interesting question, and one that I have definitely grappled with over the last couple of years as I've coped with the loss of this love. The answer is no. My body being so sure about him just feels like a testament to all that was right about us. I can't help it if he couldn't prioritize us, show up, be vulnerable:

Ill wind that blows in from all directions
Ill wind that blows in from all directions
Hey, easy boy giving it all away
And nothing left for your own protection

That's out of my control. But the physical connection, and the love, those were and are real:

You're in my mind baby, now and always
You're in my mind baby, now and always
The road I'm walking might fall away
You're in my mind baby, now and always

But like the shift from bursting into tears at the sound of his voice to being pretty much ok with it, slowly but surely, I am healing. And I'm gaining the wisdom I need to make the right choice next time around...

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...

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...