Halfway . . .

 . . . to having the rock-hard arms of Madonna and the zen mind of Ghandi.

Wait. Was that not the promise?

Regardless, I have reached the halfway point in the 30-day yoga challenge, and I remain committed. I actually had to miss class yesterday (thanks, pinkeye!) and go to two classes today to make up for that. It did not kill me, so I assume it made me stronger?

Speaking of cliches (as though a 30-something upper-middle-class housewife rambling on about yoga wasn't enough), I have decided that the prize I will be giving myself when I finish this month o'yoga is an item of Lululemon clothing, which I have so far avoided buying because I'm afraid that what they say is true: this particular brand of $95 yoga pants really is the Best! Thing! Ever!

Eight Days a Week

This morning I took the cap off a dry erase marker and drew a nice, fat X under the number 8 on the white board on the wall of the yoga studio, so that now, a week into this thing, there are eight nice, fat x's behind my name. And here, for no real reason, are eight little lessons I've gleaned from a solid week of daily yoga.

1.  Showing up is 99% of the work. The hard part? It's the preparations (clean yoga blanket, full water bottle, correct clothes, actually getting in the car and going there instead of off in a million other directions), not the actual yoga. Once I'm in the studio, sitting on my mat, waiting for class to begin, I hardly even care what the poses will be. I know I can do them, or, if I can't, I know I can lie in child's pose for all anyone cares. Doing the yoga is easy, and getting easier by the day.

2.  You can do anything for one breath. The classes I've taken over the past week blur together, but one instructor said this one of the days, and I love the reminder. Not just while trying to hold a hard position, but during anything complicated or difficult in life, you can just be with it for one breath. Just breathe. Then breathe again. (Sometimes I think my older daughter was put on Earth to teach me this lesson.)

3.  Do things with purpose. It doesn't matter if it's deciding to work out or deciding to take a class or deciding to quit a job or deciding to move or deciding to stay up late watching Tosh.0; what matters is that it's intentional, that you're choosing to use your time and energy in a certain way rather than just drifting mindlessly into a situation. But, at the same time . . .

4.  Play more. I was so exhausted from the first four days in a row of yoga that I could hardly drag myself out of bed on Saturday morning to make the 7:30 class. I sat cross-legged on my mat, grumpy and sleepy, and wondered idly how little I could do without anyone noticing. Luckily, the instructor was one of the more colorful, irreverent teachers, and it ended up being the best class of the week for me, all because she encouraged us to play and have fun. We'd be clenching our jaws, frowning through the sweat in eagle or crow, and she'd yell, "Smile! It's just yoga! It's supposed to be fun!" Life, yoga: it's supposed to be fun! Play more.

5.  Be OK with looking silly and failing. I have very low standards for how I look as I go about my day, but even I am borderline embarrassed of myself when I emerge from hot yoga. If I go in the morning, I haven't showered before, so I'm holding onto what little shred of deodorant remains from the day before. My hair is held back by a wide headband that I like to think makes me look Earth Mother-ish but which probably makes me look like a hobo cleaning lady. Most importantly, I look like I've taken a shower with my clothes on and I smell terrible. But guess what? So does everyone else in the room. During the class, too, I inevitably fall out of poses or tip over backwards or land with a thud when I try to jump out gracefully. The first few times I did this, I felt strange and vulnerable. Now? I hardly notice. I need to carry this more into my everyday life.

6.  Being fully present in our bodies is so rare, and so good. I watched my little dancers perform in their spring recital on Saturday afternoon, and it was such a treat to see them fully inhabit their strong bodies on the stage. One of the bonuses of having daughters in dance is that I get to see such a range of dance performances that are totally unfamiliar to me, since I didn't grow up dancing (or even watching dance performances). Watching some of the older, more accomplished classes perform long, complicated, and original choreography, I thought about how I couldn't care less if Annie and Jemma continue to dance, but I do want them to experience in some way the joy of being completely immersed in something physical. It could be the underwater speed of swimming, or the musical immersion of dance, or the intricate passing of basketballs, or it could be dance. For me, it's yoga.

7.  There is power in community. At the start of almost every one of the classes this past week, the instructor has asked those of us participating in the 30-day challenge to raise our hands. (About half the class typically does.) The wall of the studio is covered in white boards, and each board is covered with names, and each name is followed by a row of x's or checks or colored-in squares. There is something important about knowing that the person next to me on the mat is struggling to show up every day, too. There is something satisfying about going over and writing on the dry erase board after the class is over, even though most of these people are strangers and I never see them outside of class.

8.  Practice makes . . . permanent. Not perfect, permanent. In yoga, as in life, there is no such thing as perfection. There is, instead, always an opportunity to grow, to tweak, to change, to play your edge, to keep doing something over and over (breathe, write, sing, love, cook) until the skill becomes a habit on which you can build. And I think, eight days in, that taking the time to practice breathing and moving intentionally a little bit every day might just affect my life permanently.

On Teaching and Parenting

I had a conversation this morning with a friend about teaching (our school district is trying to come up with the funds to continue having paraprofessionals in the kindergarten and first grade classrooms, which I think is essential) and then I went to yoga at noon, where two different teachers shared teaching the class. So while I was lying on my back at the end of class, I was thinking about the way that good teaching is both an art and a science, and about how I continue to be surprised that I am not a better parent, because I was a very good teacher. And isn't parenting just teaching on a much smaller, much more continuous scale?

Don't get me wrong, I had a few extra-specially difficult kids in classrooms over the years, but even then I never became completely unwound by the difficulties. I put in my very best effort and knew, somehow, that my very best effort would have to be enough, that there was nothing more I could do. Maybe in parenting, we're too close to the source, too constantly surrounded by the "pupils," and too attached to the outcome to be as level-headed. In any case, I never yelled. I never lost my temper. I never went into another room to cry or lay awake at night going over where it had all gone so wrong.

This is not to say that parenting the girls lately has been completely joyless. In every day there are moments of satisfaction and goodness, and I try to focus on those. I try to take the long view, to have some perspective that things will not always be this way. (Swistle, again, putting my thoughts into words.)
When that fails, there is always commiserating with girlfriends, running, drinking, getting out of the house, or going to sleep and pinning my hopes on the fact that the morning will bring a clean slate and a fresh start. But it hasn't really been a party for me lately, and I'm wishing I could channel a bit of Wise Teacher Stephanie to tell Frazzled Parent Stephanie what to do.

Back to lying on my back after yoga: I'm thinking about teaching. I'm thinking that I used to love teaching the same units and skills and information to new students every year, the way I did at Cranbrook, because the fresh crop of students every year ensures that the experience is different. I'm thinking, too, that there's probably satisfaction in teaching new skills and information to the same students, the way my instructor does at the yoga studio, because the continuity of learners lets you see people progress in their practice.

So:

same information + new students = fun, satisfying teaching experience

and

new information + same students = fun, satisfying teaching experience

but you know what sucks?

same information + same students = unsatisfying, frustrating teaching experience

And what situation most closely mirrors that?

Parenting. Especially the kind of parenting I'm largely doing these days, the kind where you keep saying the words, modeling the behavior, providing the information, encouraging the skills, and yet it's a Groundhog's Day situation of the same frustrations happening again and again.

Maybe I need to switch up my material. It's either that or switch up the kids, I guess.

Thirty Days (Hold Me)

With a few quick keystrokes this afternoon - before I could think too much about what I was doing - I committed myself to a thirty-day challenge at my yoga studio. For the month of May, I'll try to practice every single day. If I miss a day, I'll have to double up on another day (I have never, ever done this before) to catch up. I truly have no idea if I'm going to love this, hate this, succeed or fail at this, but I do know that I'm in need of a little challenge in my life and that I never leave yoga wishing I had spent the last hour any other way.

When the studio first announced the challenge, I wasn't interested: not the right stage of my life, weather finally getting nicer, right shoulder feeling a little wonky for the last couple of weeks, and, to be honest, a little bit of fear. I thought I'd just keep practicing a couple times a week and probably take a few months off during the summer. Darn that Gretchen Rubin, though, with her Happiness Project blog, because here was part of Friday's entry:

"If I try to do something four days a week, I spend a lot of time arguing with myself about whether today is the day, or tomorrow, or the next day; did the week start on Sunday or Monday; etc. And that’s exhausting.

If I do something every day, I tend to fall into a routine, and routine has a bad reputation. It’s true that novelty and challenge bring happiness, and that people who break their routines, try new things, and go new places are happier, but I think that some routine activities also bring happiness. The pleasure of doing the same thing, in the same way, every day, shouldn’t be overlooked. By re-framing, you can find happiness in activities like doing dishes or sweeping the floor, as well as your beloved morning coffee-and-newspaper.

The things you do every day take on a certain beauty, and provide a kind of invisible architecture to daily life."

Unsurprisingly, I think Gretchen is right on here. I remember when the girls were smaller, I found it was easier to give them baths every single night, no matter what. It wasn't that I really thought they needed baths every single night, but it was more that I knew it would be easier and happier for everyone if baths were just part of the nightly bedtime routine. No arguing, no trying to figure out when the last bath had been, no negotiating over it. And I suspect the same will be true here: no figuring out when (or whether) to exercise, no meaning to get to yoga but getting sidetracked by errands or a book, no wishing I had gone when I had the chance and resolving to go the next day. I've always wanted to do more yoga, and here is my chance. Just thirty days of yoga, one day at a time. 

Confessions, Unrelated

Sometimes when I'm at yoga and the instructor seems to be paying the tiniest bit more attention to me than average - standing in front of me a few times, adjusting me just a little bit, maybe smiling at me - I play out an elaborate fantasy in my mind whereby the instructor, after class, stops me as I'm rolling up my mat and says something like, "How long have you been practicing? You are really above average at this. Have you ever considered teaching?" This, in spite of the fact that I am, truly, approximately exactly average at this series of poses, and also in spite of the fact that yoga attempts to cultivate a mindset of non-comparison, non-competitiveness, and non-judgement. I know this, and yet the fantasy? It continues.

*****

One of the things I am (sadly) most looking forward to about our potential house renovation is that we hope to create a new back entry/mudroom with main floor laundry. (This is what you get excited about in your mid-thirties?) This is the third house Jason and I have lived in where the laundry situation has been less-than-ideal (read: oldest models of appliances known to man plunked down in the middle of a creepy, unfinished cement basement), and I envision the laundry positively doing itself with me just popping into my Pinterest-inspired space to press a button or two here and there. If nothing else, it will at least change the fact that the girls somehow KNOW when I am downstairs changing the laundry, and they always need to talk to me or ask me something while I'm down there. Always, as in every single time. So not only am I probably getting wet socks from having to walk on the melted snow on the back steps and hanging out with the cobwebs in the freezing basement, but I am also having to carry on an increasingly difficult conversation with my children, who are definitely sticking their whole heads into the laundry chute and yelling down at me. At least in the future, we'll all be on the same floor, though probably still yelling.

*****

Annie's recent assessment of her favorite show, Wild Kratts, went as follows: "Mom, Wild Kratts is a great show for two reasons. One, it teaches kids some really cool things about animals that they didn't know before. And two, it keeps kids from pestering their mom when she's trying to cook diner and do other things." (She actually used the word "pestering.") I heartily agreed with her, and then I felt guilty.

*****

Connie and I met at Anthropologie on Saturday morning. We had been on the phone, simultaneously realized that neither of us were responsible for solo kid duty, and promptly ditched our husbands for shopping and met up at the mothership. The sale rack did not disappoint, much to Jason's dismay.

*****

I took the girls to their well-child annual appointments today, and the pediatrician asked them each what their favorite vegetables were. "Pickles!" Annie said. "Oh, I love pickles, too," said our great doctor, "but what other vegetables do you like to eat with dinner?" Annie looked sad. "Just pickles," she said, and it was then that I confessed that Jemma eats no vegetables at all. Not even pickles. (And yet . . . in spite of their non-eating and general runtiness, they are, at 32 and 40 pounds, respectively, both solidly in the 20th percentile for weight for their ages! It's the highest percentile they've ever been!)

Six Days 'Til Christmas

We're on Day Four of sick Annie over here (so our jolly up-north Express Christmas weekend was not quite as jolly as we had hoped it would be, though it was still jolly nonetheless) and Day One of eleventy billion days off school.  The first time-out happened at 9:29 a.m.

Jemma is jack-rabbiting around the house like a jumping bean all day long, constantly asking and re-asking how many days until Christmas, until her birthday. She loves her new purple footie pajamas but they make her feet too hot so she wears them right up until bedtime, at which point she switches to her snowflake jammies, which do not make her feet too hot. When she sings Rudolph, she says, "had a berry shiny nose," and I wish she would always sing it that way.

Annie gingerly eats one bite of yogurt, one bite of toast, takes one sip of tea before lying back down in her bed. Her hair is a pile of mangled golden knots but I pet it anyway. She wishes aloud fervently that there would never be any more germs in the world, worries aloud hysterically that she will still be sick on Christmas, circles back time and again to why oh why it had to be her, sick, not able to play in the snow with her cousins.

There is a giant new box of Legos spilled across the bedroom floor, a pan of caramel cooling on the kitchen counter, an American Girl doll sitting in the chair across from me, fully dressed in riding clothes. There is a cookie exchange and a piano lesson and things to schedule into the new year.

I go to yoga tonight after dinner, kiss the girls good-night as Jason is reading to them in our bed, breathe my way through seventy-four minutes of movement. During the seventy-fifth minute, as we lie on our backs with our eyes closed in the warm room in the dark with Christmas lights twinkling at the ceiling, she says, "There is nothing for you to do right now. There is nowhere to go. There is no list. There is no phone. There is just you, and this mat, and this breath, and this room."

Tomorrow will be five days 'til Christmas.

Read Elsewhere: On the Appeal of Yoga to the Suburban Housewife

From Poser by Claire Dederer:

"It felt good to be moving.  I didn't think of it as an escape; I just felt the relief of moving and not thinking.  There was also this relief:  It was a room I didn't have to clean.  It was like an hour-and-a-quarter visit to a hotel.  It had that same visceral thrill:  I will never vacuum this floor.  I will never dust these baseboards.  Never."

Yes.  YES.

Fridays

"Trapped mainly by wanting things to be exactly as they are, only better." - Brian Andreas

By Thursday evenings, my tank is on empty. Jason walks in the door and the week's injustices pile up to meet him: a playdate gone wrong, Jemma throwing her shoes, Annie's post-school meltdown, the noise, the laundry, always the laundry. He props me up the best he can and we get the kids to bed, then cook a late dinner together and fall on the couch, exhausted, to split a bottle of wine and eat slender asparagus.

But Fridays are sort of my day - at least they are supposed to be, when there are no staff meetings or houseguests or weekend trips or doctor's appointments or special school events. We bundle Annie off to school in the morning, and then I say a breezy good-bye to Jason and Jemma, who are usually playing a good game of Memory or packing up to run errands.

I go to yoga, unroll my mat, take one hour to pay attention to my breath and my muscles. My yoga teacher says things like "sparkle upwards!" during cobra pose and I actually love it. She talks about the pace of life, the value of breath, the strength of self. I run errands alone, the car quiet. I schedule interviews, banish e-mails to the trash, write in coffee shops, make phone calls. The crazy of the week falls away and I feel myself coming to center again, welcoming back a mental sharpness and emotional calm that gets chipped away Monday through Thursday in the noise and the rushing and the chasing of children.

I always plan to be away for most of the day; I always find myself back at home sooner than I had planned. Because once I've reclaimed that space in my brain - in my life - I am ready to plunge back in, so much more grateful for the ordinaryness that I am blessed with, ready to take little girls to the pool, make them pizza, and read Corduroy in my bed while their damp, round heads and big, round eyes follow my every move. For that moment, I am present again, able to appreciate things exactly as they are.

Annie drew a picture of me yesterday. In it, I am lying in a bed, sleeping, and little bubbles lead from my head off to the side, where a larger bubble encloses pictures of flowers and food. "It's you, Mama, wearing your flower shirt and your striped pink jammie pants, dreaming of growing things and cooking." My sweet Annie, my little artist, yes. I am dreaming of Fridays, too, of time and space away from you, and of coming back.

"The point of a life, any life, is to figure out what you are good at, and what makes you happy, and, if you are very fortunate, spend your life doing those things." - Ayelet Waldman