Paean to Yoga in Cliché Mode

One of my sisters asked me recently why I did yoga. Her view was that it was a waste of time. She’s a person with lots to do: a full-time teaching position in a European university, and two beautiful but willful little boys. She used to love to go to the gym and sweat. She seems to feel that unless something is strenuous both in appearance and subjective experience, it’s not really physical exercise. She doesn't really want anything less than her ideal workout (although she stays trim running after her children and shorting herself on meals) and laments her former-fitness-buff fate. I understand that; I am still addicted to cardio machines and weight work, and glad I have time to do it. And yet, I love yoga. It’s really more of a complicated discipline than either of the above, an exercise not of exertion but of control and precise forms. Rather than heavy breathing to pull in the air, the breath is coordinated with movements, usually very slowly done, calling for a lot of muscular strength in places you didn’t know you had muscles. The movements themselves are at the edge of what is possible for most amateur practitioners in terms of stretching and flexibility. American yoga doesn’t ask the impossible, and offers alternative positions for those who can’t quite do the lotus or the various twisting “binds” that conclude some of the more advanced postures. Poses like “triangle” are a balance challenge for me (let’s not even talk about “standing tree”)! The spiritual aspects of yoga are downplayed for Westerners; in my state-sponsored university gym, any “meditation” at the end of an hour-and-15-minute yoga session is verboten. But the vaguely-Eastern music drones on. Sometimes it’s pleasant when kept at a low volume. At the very least, it helps create the illusion that one’s movements are smooth, not jerky. I have achieved more of that “good achey” feeling (particularly in the hamstrings) from yoga than from almost any other workout. Friends of mine have had to take naps afterwards; even the instructor ends the class with, “Don’t go tossing any hay bales today. Be kind to your lower back; it’s probably very vulnerable right now. Drink plenty of water.” This is also what some massage therapists say after giving you a deep rubdown. I rarely follow the advice, but it indicates that there have been enough unfortunate post-session events for both yoga instructors and massage therapists to be wary of lawsuits. So something must be getting done to the body! I’m a once-a-weeker, not all that devoted, but I look forward to it. My Saturday morning yoga class makes my weekend.

Having a beer

It's really my fault for playing the do-gooder role with other people's possessions. I fervently wanted my spouse to give his old computer to my friend who just had her appendix out. I overheard he'd transferred all the data from the old computer to the new one. I heard wrong. I must have seemed appallingly eager to take away his "box" that still had allegedly important e-mails on it. I put the pressure on. He got irritated. I got irritated. He left for a while, and in the interim I had to have a beer to calm down. It was only 5 pm, too early for a beer, according to MY rules (my rules are only for me, and I never expect others to obey them). Having the beer led to making chicken soup, which negated our plans for going out to dinner. See how out-of-control I can get on ONE BEER? By the time my spouse got back I'd calmed down and had a basic dinner to offer him. Things seemed peaceful. However, I soon found another source of irritation. I had promised to send an "estranged" friend a copy of some writing I'd done (about her) 30 years ago. I knew it was in my file cabinet somewhere, but I couldn't find it. Leo, the good (and still wonderfully alive) cat, tried to help me, but was only a hindrance, and I became agitated, once again, to the point of using bad language audible to my spouse, who was in another room, trying to "chill." At this point, I craved a second beer. But my "rules" said, "No!" These rules have waxed more stringent lately by the Buddhist influence, the idea of allowing oneself to FEEL COMPLETELY what is going on at the time, not smothering the opportunity to learn by distractions like alcohol, drugs, or television. Oh, I felt it completely. I was ready to smoosh up all the papers I've carefully saved (for whatever pitiful reason) and make a trashy bonfire on the front lawn, just as I often wish my spouse would do with HIS papers. Ranting, I drank an entire bottle of flavored club soda (about as expensive as one beer) trying to avoid the additional alcohol which would have provided the dulling sensation, the RELIEF. But relief did come as soon as I located the elusive materials in a red folder inside the cabinet. Looking at these papers gave me pause. I'd always been a writer. Here I had been fictionalizing a "breakup" between friends, using poetry and film scripting. Perhaps the person I'm sending it to will say, "What the HELL was she thinking?" But I'm fearless. I'll launch it off in the mail, thus bringing full circle one of the mysteries of my life: my obsession with abandonment by various women whose wishes I've "obeyed," thinking I was "pleasing" them by doing so. This one woman's response is not as important as the fact that I've made a tentative reconnection with her. But if I DON'T get an answer in a few days, I reserve the right to have at least TWO BEERS!

Learning from the boob tube

Watching good television (namely, the last season of “Six Feet Under” episodes) is like dreaming. It feels as if it’s coming from your own mind. You know those people; you are with them in their kitchen, mourning a death or eating yogurt or chasing a bird out the window, and it’s all so deliciously angst-filled, like a tragic pastry. The few minutes after watching an episode are necessarily a streaming of that dream into your life. You haven’t woken up quite yet, and the phone call from your girlfriend who’s having an emergency appendectomy seems like a continuation of the show. Fortunately, you’ve just learned how to behave like a well-written amiga or family member should; you’ve seen many interesting examples in the last hour or two. These examples, combined with short-term memories of emphatic things your girlfriend has said to you when you’ve momentarily let her down in the past, guide you in your speech and behavior, and you want to serve. There would be exhilaration in venturing out into the night on an errand of mercy, whether it would be to feed her dog or to park yourself in a hospital corridor to tenderly greet her when she’s wheeled out, groggy and grateful. As it turns out, you get to do none of these things. Still, you were willing, and you think maybe she knows that, though others have taken the available positions. You go to sleep wondering, for the fourth or fifth time in about twenty years, what exactly the appendix is for.

Complacency, procrastination, identity

I am way too comfortable at my desk at work. It leads to a false view of the world for hours at a time. The situation is extraordinarily forgiving. When I think of jobs I've had in the past, I'm amazed I have landed here. Students and callers-in seem to think I actually have power to help them. My boss is two hallways away and rarely bothers me with requests. People stop by to chat. My tasks are relatively easy (if sometimes tedious). I don't have to think about "teamwork" or group projects. I can indulge in personal e-mail and postings like this. I am respected and get regular raises. Something's terribly WRONG here! I don't deserve this! That's why it's convenient to have a failure-in-the-offing, such as my un-done thesis. THAT's what I've done with the old Marylyn; I've wrapped her up in the guilt and worry of a nearly-complete master's degree, and I can take her with me wherever I go. If I'm feeling uncomfortably satisfied, I just unwrap the psychic bundle of un-done thesis, and there she is, babbling incoherently from the middle of a pile of books about Calamity Jane and the Western novel.