Under a Red Roof

Opening with Yoga

February 1, 2011 in Being, Celebrating by Colleen | Permalink

Hello friends –

Thanks so much for the kind words these past days. They warm my heart, buoy my spirits, and are truly appreciated.

Something else that keeps me aloft, and that I mentioned in that last post, is yoga. I began practicing eleven years ago, answering the call to a $5 class at a tiny hot yoga studio on Ankeny Street here in Portland. That first time was a singular experience. The room was crowded with people, and I worked earnestly and completely alone for ninety minutes, sweat dripping from every pore. It felt wonderful, and I enjoyed this new and sometimes baffling way of moving my body: the clarity and stillness of mind, and the particular sense that I found something right for me.

This sense of right came from the fact that I was not yearning to be elsewhere or wondering how much longer it would take. I was immersed in being the postures. I was (and remain) gratified, intrigued, interested, and excited by my body and its capabilities (more with each day, though sometimes less – it’s funny like that). With every other form of exercise, save walking, it is a means to an end with a hyper awareness of time. One dozen bicep curls, a hundred sit-ups, a thirty minute run, spin on the elliptical, or row. Everything is measured.

With yoga, I choose a sequence, and go. I honestly have no sense of time, only the flow of the postures, the challenge and sheer pleasure of each asana. It is never a nuisance or a chore to practice, and a day with yoga is always better than a day without, no matter how troubled my mind. I am nourished, relaxed, and rejuvenated, if only during the space of my practice. It tickles me pink as a summer peony.

There is an expression (Buddhist, I think), “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” Yoga is my teacher. It opens my heart, teaches me patience and perseverance, and gives me a flexibility and strength I never imagined possible. With yoga, I am better able to see with clarity, live in the moment, and love what IS. So much for just twisting like a pretzel!

p.s. Yesterday was number seven of twenty-one of the challenge. I am in love and held a back bend, with a smile on my face, for one long minute. It doesn’t get much better, at least for now…

Tags: Depression, Yoga

Me and Camus

January 28, 2011 in Being, Feeling, Learning, Practicing by Colleen | 4 comments

So, I’ve been in a bit of a funk these past few months, mostly depressed with a chance of mild gloom and occasional laughter and smiles. There have been ample examples of feeling the sadness switch come on a hair’s breadth after a moment of sincere joy, bursting into tears in public for no good reason, and spending long spans with my eyes squeezed shut against the world.

Some of it is a sincere longing for accomplishment in my life. I want my novel published! I want to contribute financially to our household without doing crap work I don’t like. Is this ever going to happen? Anyone? The rest, I blame on genetics, as the melancholia, like the Force in Luke Skywalker, is strong in me. Thankfully, it is at its menacing worst only every few years, but dang, when it is here, it’s H-E-R-E, no matter what I do. Just in case you’re wondering about medication to get me through, no thanks. I’ve been down that road, and it was pretty awful. The side effects distracted me from my sorry mental state, to be sure, but certainly were not worth it. I lost hair, felt sick to my stomach much of the time, saw spots in my eyes, felt like I was on a merry-go-round every time I sat down, not to mention the literal and rather unpleasant taste in my mouth. It took my liver years to recover, and that, mind you, was before my fondness for whiskey!

Now, for a bit of cage rattling (like not posting a spotlight today – they’ll come when they come) and my friend Camus. I got to thinking about myself as Sisyphus and my gloom the rock. It should be punishment, right? The rock is heavy and burdensome and only comes rolling back down. But what if, like Camus, I didn’t see it as a burden but a struggle worthy of filling my heart? That’s life, isn’t it? It is my job to keep the rock going. I can do it with appreciation and joy at being given another day to do it, or I can focus on poor little me pushing a fucking rock. My choice. I choose happiness, whatever version that may be. A glimmer seen at a distance, a whole day of sunshine, or a fully belly laugh, I’ll take it.

I also choose to nourish myself with good habits. Instead of beating myself up for being depressed (so helpful!), I’m really trying to just acknowledge its presence and keep moving forward. Though the photo shows me about to indulge in a Beef Wellington (our delicious Christmas meal), I am eating healthier than ever – less sugar, less junk, more goodness. As well, I am shaking it up physically. The hubster and I are off to a big-band dance tonight (gotta love the Norse Hall), and, as of Monday, I started the Yoga Journal 21-Day Challenge – practicing every single day. I am eager to propel my body and mind to a new level of fitness, grace, and ease. Who knows, maybe I’ll push that rock right over the top!

Tags: Depression, Yoga

Fierce Urgency

January 17, 2011 in Admiring, Being, Quoting by Colleen | 2 comments

“We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood — it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, ‘Too late.'”

It is Martin Luther King Day, and those are his words. Words of a wise man, who is so often in my heart and mind, inspiring me, guiding me, providing the gentle voice of encouragement and strength. And so it is today, a brand new day. Each one is, yet sometimes I forget how marvelous that simple fact is. Yesterday is exactly that. I am alive today. Right now. Now is the time for abandoning the insane repetition of the old ways, to shed all that doesn’t serve me, to rattle the cages, to sing at the top of my voice, to dance, love, create, and move forward.

See the light, and be it, too. Won’t you?

Tags: Quoting

Lovin’ in The Oven

January 11, 2011 in Being, Cooking + Baking by Colleen | 1 comment

Ceci n’est pas une pipe. Do you know that painting by Magritte? Well, it’s kind of in alignment with today’s post, as it really isn’t about pitas, though I did make them today, from, you guessed it, the book pictured above. I love home baked bread goods of all kinds, and the way these puff somehow make them even more delicious. Maybe it isn’t steam filling that interior but magic, the kind that you make with your hands. Make your own sometime, and see if you agree. I have a feeling you will.

So to what is not a pipe, but does, figuratively, have to do with the oven. The baby oven. If deciding at the age of eight goes far enough back to be considered never, I have never wanted children. While other girls played with dolls and chirruped excitedly about the day they would become mothers, I did not share their enthusiasm, save for anything but the play. Oh how I loved the play, and, come to think of it, I rarely pretended I was a mother, giving a baby her bottle. I preferred playing grown ups, arranging various blankets and scraps on the floor of my bedroom to serve as a house. I could go on for hours in this fashion (on my own or with any willing party – anyone? Please??) – sending someone off to work, making dinner, getting dressed up for parties. It’s actually a bit like my life now. That’s something interesting, too. Save for the part about me not making money (in my youth, I always thought I would have a successful career, though I didn’t ever imagine myself married, but living with my best friend – which is true, really), my life and house are pretty much as I imagined: I am happy. I travel. I cook. I do what I want. The house is old and has character. Each room is decorated differently. There is art, lots and lots of art.

The part that surprises me is that this decision arrived in a period of relative calm in our household, at least as calm as six loud talkers in a small space can be, anyway. Later, though not terribly so, external forces would add to the laundry list of reasons I needed to confirm that having babies was more problematic than anything:

1. A mentally unbalanced sister who would run away more times than I can remember. Beat anyone who crossed her, including me. Get caught stealing. Get brought home by the police. Get pregnant very young.

2. An equally mentally unbalanced grandmother who would disappear for days only to be found dancing on table tops at a Holiday Inn. Make up lies to send a SWAT team to a perfectly innocent woman’s home. Verbally abuse me for not being complicit in her “lies” (they were real to her).

3. Suffer through my own depression, shame, and heartbreak.

4. Be forced to be an adult by parents doing the best they could.

5. See the “giving birth” film in 10th grade biology. Oh god, that film!

For a while, it was all about the list. I had to defend myself. It had to be more than deciding as an eight year old, even though that’s what it was. I no longer need a list or a reason. I just never wanted to. It seems to me that I should want to have a baby in order to have one. It is not something one tries. Despite what seems to be pretty sound logic, I have been belittled, berated, and called hopelessly selfish, but I don’t and didn’t care. You’re not the boss of me! Besides, I’ve been called worse by people I thought were my friends. And then that day in May of 2009. My junk is no good. It would be a miracle for me to even get pregnant. Seriously?! After eighteen years of condoms? Do you know how much money we could have saved? Such a frugalista!

I owned the decision fully, held it as fiercely as a flag of victory, yet it was never truly my own. God decided long before I did and whispered it on the clouds, in a dream, somewhere, in 1979, saving me the infinite pain of wanting and wondering before the truth. For that and my ever determined nature not to fold under the pressures of society, I am truly grateful. I have seen that sadness and frustration. It has not stopped me from wanting for children, however: their good health, to smell them after spitting up, to ease their cries, to swaddle them in blankets of love, to see their eyes of wonder, and hear their raucous laughter. It’s funny isn’t it? “God plays with us!”