Positive Affirmations

I talk to myself when I’m running sometimes.

“You’ve got this.”

“You can do this” comes out through jagged breaths as I focus toward a point at the top of the hill – the lamppost or a shrub. “You’re almost there.”
 

Presentation of the Chakras by Joanna Barry.

I called the same forceful will today to practice meditation for 15 minutes. Again and again, a return to the breath. Again and again, distractions. Again, the breath. Again.

But I sat, returning to the breath. Things were going well for a span.

Suddenly, near 12 minutes the sitting was almost unbearable, my eyes fluttered open to my timer, legs twitched, and I caught myself completely outside of my practice of meditation.

And so, I returned with words of encouragement to myself as I would on any run “You can do this.”

“You can do anything for 3 minutes.”

(I’ll leave out the part where my mind cast my body aware yet again - acutely aware this time of tingling legs and aching IT band - when my eyes flew open to check the timer still with 30 seconds remaining)

And, I returned again, always returning, with practice, to the breath.

Inner Knowing

In a rare occurrence, my sister and I were at the same yoga class last night. It’s cool to share that experience with her because we first started going together to beginner yoga classes with Mary Kay at the Asheville Yoga Center in 2005. It’s really special that we share a town, and it’s neat to think about how far we’ve both come since 2005, on and off the yoga mat.

Yoga last night was focused on inner knowing, on trusting your gut feelings. Intuition can be an illusive thing when we focus so much on using our heads and our brains to be logical, create process, and define a path – rather than simply walk it.

Our teacher Rich focused on helping us bring focus to that part of the belly between the lower ribs and the bellybutton. He wanted us to rotate that inward. I had one yoga teacher in Kelowna who suggested that the best way to get that engagement in the body was to first draw the bellybutton in then feel like you are pulling it up toward your ribs. This automatically draws a hollowing out of the upper part of your stomach. This, coupled with a tucked tailbone, one gains a solid core and the opportunity to expand (or, I like the term “puff up”) the lower, back part of your ribs all the way down to your kidneys.

As a means of honoring the intuition I brought focus to yesterday, I decided to sit on a sunny patch on the hardwood floors – just sit – you know, meditate, because something in my body said it was a good idea.

Marathon Training

So, I'm doing this thing this year; you might have heard about it. It's called the Nashville Country Music Marathon. I'm doing it for a couple reasons.

This was a really good run the day after Thanksgiving.

1) It's a bucket list kind of thing. I have always wanted to run THAT specific marathon. I figure if I run it and decide never to run another than I've checked this one off my list.

2) It seems fitting that its dubbed the Country Music Marathon. For year, lots of years, I railed against country music, or what I thought was country music. The year I hiked the Appalachian Trail, 2003, there were times the radio I carried only received country stations. Low and behold, I discovered that I actually liked country music. Granted, the songs often sent me into tears. That year there was a song about baseball that made me cry. I never would have expect that.

Since 2003 my appreciation has grown for country music. Lots of times it makes me want to roll my eyes (unnecessary rhyming, stupid songs about red solo cups (is that a product-placement or what?), uber-nationalist jingoistic propaganda), but when I get beyond those songs I hear lyrics of living simply, putting love first, the tenderness of families, and life's quirks (the Camo is my Favorite Color song, anyone).

My friend Christina has always held an appreciation for country music. I used to pick on her for it. I came clean about my mutual appreciation when I visited her in December.  We participated in a terrible race with the crowd support of interstate (that we were running on) drivers stalled in traffic (gag on exhaust).

3) With any luck I'll be running around some guys who wear cowboy hats.

4) I've heard there's great crowd support.

5) I feel like I've reached a place where a half-marathon isn't a big deal anymore (I can't believe I just said that). It's not that running 13 miles is easy; it's that I know I can do it. Mentally, I've overcome the hurdle. Even if it didn't seem like I could do it last Saturday on my 13-mile training run with Elizabeth, I DO know it's possible to do it with relative ease and enjoy it.

Me and Elizabeth. I was very happy to be finished running last Saturday. It was a tough run for me (was I dehydrated or under-fueled?) And it was really, really cold. It took at least a mile or two before my fingers and face felt normal on my body.

There's a hiccup in my plan to run this year. To achieve my goal, I need someone with a conversion van waiting at the finish line to pick me up and drive me, non-stop to the middle of South Carolina. I'll sleep in the back and hopefully I can convince my massage therapist and friend Audra to flush the lactic acid from my body as I snooze.

Yes, damnit, I dream big! A marathon, a van with room for a massage table, a driver, my massage therapist, and arrival "just in time" for my evening appearance is possible. I believe it!!

Miracles happen every day, I'm just looking for about six to happen in one day.

The Fastest Way to Put Out a Grease Fire

It got pretty messy in here a couple days into the New Year. I had a grease fire.

I was making the Liberian black-eyed pea soup recipe from my favorite cookbook, Moosewood Daily Specials on a burner that some grease had spilled onto over the holidays. We had cleaned it up from the burner itself but neglected to get the rest off the drip plate below. I cranked the burner up to its highest setting to start boiling the water for the peas. Soon the burner was smoking. I ignored it for a while, but when the billowing smoke became too much to ignore, I moved the pot and turned off the burner in synchronicity with the burner pan catching alight.

I stood baffled for a split second since only a couple days earlier on New Years Eve my friend Audra and I had been exchanging stories of our childhood, watching our mothers put out fires with baking soda. This memory of my mother and my conversation still fresh in my mind, I turned to the cabinet and reached toward the second shelf where I’d last seen the baking soda.

With a few solid shakes of the baking soda the fire was put out; the mist of powder hung in the swirling smoke.

My pride broke with the ear-piercing sounds of the smoke detectors of the house going off in unison, since my dad has wired them all to coordinate in the event of an alarm.

I threw open the doors and windows, and turned on the fans.

When the ringing subsided, I eased back in to my position by the stove. I felt thankful for all the lessons mommy taught me, and I contemplated the way that particular story re-told came alive again. 

A Word on My Word

Get this, my friend Desiree has a word for each year. The word represents what she wants to be, do, or cultivate in this world during those twelve months. Over lunch at the end of 2011 as she talked about her plans for breakthroughs in 2012, I determined to come up with a word for myself for 2012. 

I thought about this for days and weeks. I vacillated between thinking about it and letting it come to me naturally.

I finally settled on a word during the last days of December: Kindness. I will speak it. I will spread it. I will act it. I will feel it.

It seemed almost too simple, and yet its essence is so powerful. It just kept coming back to me, again and again.

As I played it out in my head it represents how I want to be in the world. I reasoned that if I acted with kindness at the forefront of my decision making then I can make a difference.

I told friends, and they razzed me a bit. They think it will be easy. They asked, fairly, if this will stretch me and if it will be a challenge for me.

At the same gathering I heard of another woman who used “why the hell not” as her mantra for 2011 and planned to use “step it up” as a focal point for change in 2012.

I began to feel like my little commitment to kindness was meager and without courage. Do I need a powerful word to represent my place in this world and set my stage for 2012? I toyed with “unabashed” because it seemed to capture boldness and shamelessness (after all, you serve no one by playing small, to paraphrase Marianne Williamson), but the word is clunky. And I think that kindness still fills the niche. If I speak boldly and fully embody myself in my words and actions, I am kind to myself. If I ensure my words and deeds consider others as much as myself, then that is also kind.

It’s almost two weeks in to 2012 and I do think having a word helps. I have given more pause in the space before I speak and act, to try harder to bring kindness into my interactions.

It seems small, but I hope the effect will be large.

At the Top of My Lungs

Singing is medicine, isn’t it? I’ve never researched it. I’ve never heard or read any news reports on it. It’s just something that I know to be true. I know that when I’m belting out lyrics along with the Dixie Chicks it serves as salve on my road trips, healing the distance between where I’ve been and where I’m going.

I know that as I make up silly songs to friends as they answer the phone to simply wish them well, appeal for a coffee break, or re-create how it sounds to wish Happy Birthday that I feel better at the end of the song. They feel better, too.

After I sang my version of birthday wishes to Marcus last week, he said he was blushing. I can imagine. Overtaken by a song, not lyrically advanced, not delivered on vocal chords trained for precision, but genuine, unrepentant excitement for friendship.

My singing wasn’t always well received. Growing up, my father often admonished me for singing at the dinner table or while he watched TV. After all, his guiding precept until we were all 18 was that children should be neither seen nor heard.

I know that in college I could entertain my walks between classes with humming that would string together highs and lows in what I felt was on par with the intricacies of superb classical music. And I liked the way the resonance felt in my throat and chest.

I sang growing up, both at school and at church. I sang in the church choir with my mom for a while, and I sang in the middle school choir after I withdrew from orchestra (read: never practiced, thus completely demoralized myself during an violin exam when I had to play Ode to Joy solo). In our school performance choir we wore gold sparkly bowties and cumber buns, and sang show tunes; I still recall lyrics to Barbara Streisand movies that I’ve never seen (“memories, light the corners of my mind…”).

I was never as good as my sister who heard pitch and tone, but that never bothered me much until I tried out for Governors’ School for the Arts one summer for singing and didn’t make it. I think that’s when I realized that I wasn’t very good after all, even if I did enjoy it.  

Some of my favorite memories of childhood are visits with my mom and my sister in my mother’s bed. She would have her guitar out along with her songbooks and we would gather together to sing. The pace was often slow for new songs as she found the right placement of her fingers for the chords, but we had “our” standards, like “Tiny Bubbles” that were easy for her to play and for us to sing.

I still like going to church and singing with other voices. I like singing songs of hope, faith and love. I like that singing lifts a heaviness from me each and every time I do it.

I can sing about anything, seriously, anything. My friend Joanna received so many singing phone messages from me that she couldn’t save them all (though she tried), because she was convinced I have a future in jingles.

Singing just feels different than speaking. Messages in song without pretense of pitch, tone, or topic make me feel better. Singing releases the feelings on my heart.

In saying this I’m reminded of an interview I listened to of Krista Tippett interviewing Bobby McFerrin. He suggested that if you ever feel angry or upset that you should sing, because it’s impossible to be upset when you sing.

So here I am, singing at the top of my lungs.

Now, you try…

If you need someone’s ear or voicemail to experiment on, please feel free to use mine.  

Please sing me a message, and I’ll get back to you just as soon as I can.

(this actually used to be my outgoing message…) 

Making Choices

I’m single. No doubt about it. I’ve spent more time being single in the last 15 years than being in a relationship.

Now I’ve reached a time in my life when having a partner doesn’t feel like it can wait. Not one second longer. But my readiness hasn’t yet been answered with a Disney-story prince appearing at my door. So I’ve appealed to friends to set me up on dates with people they know, I’ve signed up for online dating, and I’ve been trying the old tried and true method of flirting like I’m 20 again. 

Sometimes Lots of times my singledom frustrates me. It’s the monster that sleeps under my bed reminding me that no one shares my bed, or my meals, or other great and small aspects of my life.

Granted, this is the precise path I have chosen up to now. Going forward, I hope that my road less traveled may be holding hands with my soul’s mate. Until then, I walk (and run and dance…)

During a recent pep-talk email with a girlfriend of mine, I pointed out to her as much to myself that the tardiness of our finding love is, after all, about choices. In this particular case, it is word choice; she called it “slow,” I frame it as “choosy.”  

I consoled us both with these words: 

You are being selective in finding a mate. You are being deliberate about finding someone who is good to you, deserving of your love and highly compatible. Making the right choice takes time, and that’s something we can never resent. Sometimes rushed decisions can lead to mistakes (I’ll point to my car purchase of this summer as a perfect example). The trick is how can we live fully and happily doing what we really enjoy without feeling like we’re compromised by being single or missing out because we’re not with our someone.

I, too, struggle with the dilemma in terms of wanting to share activities and partnership now verses waiting until it happens. I just have to hope (and this might not resonate with you) that there is divine timing for union with my man because sometimes I feel like I’ve done all I can do.

Friends, if I haven’t already talked to you about this, and you feel compelled to help, please take advantage of this very public invitation to set me up with someone you know, respect and believe to be a compatible person for me. Feel free to consult with me if you feel stumped about the qualities that I’m looking for in a guy.

(This just goes to show that my former internal debate about what level of transparency I’ll have on this blog has rapidly slipped from opaque to Cling Wrap.)

Then again, if I say I’m ready for my life’s love then it’s best heard from rooftops, not simply as a murmured whisper to the monster that’s been sleeping under my bed.