Down the highway to 64, east way to newport news

I've just made it home from Villa Victoria (BCC ages 6-9) where I wrestled them through a damn good RAP session that I'd prepared for this afternoon for two solid hours! I was starving so had a huuuge bowl of matzah ball soup that I'd made earlier today, an apple, and a few cookies while watching the E! True Hollywood Story on the tragic and gruesome demise of Britney Spears' career. Fascinating.

Yoga 12-1:30 today. Twas lovely. It's rare that I can manage to stay focused and present in every breath of the practice, especially in the poses that are for flexibility as opposed to those that are aerobic. It's stupid, but I get really frustrated with "hip opener" poses like half-pigeon or frog where one is supposed to just lay there and hurt while one's hip...opens...? I end up reprimanding myself that I could be doing some kind of cardio that burns calories 100% of the time or strength training that's at least toning my body, and why on earth am I bothering with my own flexibility when it won't really nudge my ego in any direction, won't affect the scale and won't be noticeable to anyone else and that's about the time that the other side of my brain (need I say, the healthier side) steps up and reminds me that it isn't about my body and yadda yadda yadda, and adds finally that these "hip openers" are the difference between my lower back hurting and not. So. That voice is a hero. And is why I stayed begrudgingly in half-pigeon for the full thirty breaths. And left glowing. It's really empowering to feel your body that tired, that accomplished. As they like to point out at the resting point in the middle of class, after the standing poses and main vinyassas, it's rare that we work hard enough to earn the rest we take. And it's so true. For me, at least. I'm not an over-achiever, I'm not an insanely hard worker. And yet I was surrounded by them growing up, at every school I attended (except Skidmore), everyone there were pedal to the metal focused and hard-working and committed. I wasn't, really, I skated most of the time, but I happily it took to heart when authority announced to my generation that we should learn how to take some time for ourselves and relax, renew, take it easy, take a personal day. And I did, despite not really understanding (or caring) that I hadn't done the excruciatingly hard work to earn the rest, I'd only merely completed the task. To this day I hear myself making excuses all the time as though I were a grade-grinder, as though I were stretched thin and over-extended and giving my all to everything I did. All the way back into elementary school I can remember rationalize skipping classes more often than I should, skipping work-outs, allowing myself food that my body didn't really need all in the name of self-care, but rarely had I earned it. Rarely was the care that I needed in the form of rest. What I could have used was some personal discipline. I'm so grateful to have cultivated some of that since. It's not been across the board (*coughMATHcough*) but in the conducting, in the Music theory courses, in my analysis of Bruckner's Mass in E minor, in making up the quiz for my BCC kids today, I found it - it was there for me. It's there for me in the yoga, too, when I rest with my face down on my mat (there something so fabulously kindergarten about all of us laying around on our mats) after the first half of. It's delicious when I remember that I don't have to feel guilty about resting my body because it's actually earned it. I really enjoy watching E! True Hollywood Story tear into Britney Spears after I've taught a really good RAP session and rehearsal at BCC because I don't have to reprimand myself for kicking back (that's my favorite Michael word). I'm sure it's a no-brainer to the rest of the world that the reward feels so much better when it's earned, but I've only been figuring it out for the past couple of years, and even then it's spotty.

One nice thing about today: after yoga I came home and I went to the kitchen and ate some lunch, and after that I made myself matzah ball soup to have for dinner. It's the Manaschewitz brand from the box that I've loved since I was little and I always had when dad's friend Robin Schaerf invited us for Roshashana and Hanukkah and I ate like five bowls. Now, this may sound dorky that I felt so good about this (and it likely is), but the process of making myself soup for a future meal felt like a really simple act of self love. Even self-respect. This is not something I'm used to like this. I have no problem indulging myself- a massage, a dessert, etc. But the basics- making my bed, showering, laundry, preparing an unfrozen meal for myself (who cares if it's from a box, this required carrot peeling and boiling and setting aside), these basic necessities are usually beyond me. I usually don't do them for myself. So it was lovely, really really lovely to spend my afternoon making myself soup for later.

When I think about it, this kind of thing translates into my relationships, my life. I'm very comfortable with the grand gestures, the expressions of love in excess, ornate poetry and unmistakable promises, but the day-to-day expressions of love, daily phone calls, little gestures, putting other people first, these are not my strengths. Likewise, I find them difficult to translate. I know I am loved if someone write me a sonnet, swears their undying love and puts it up on a billboard on Sunset blvd, but I'm less likely to come to that same conclusion if they, for example, make my bed, fill up my tank, make me an english muffin every sunday morning (for thirteen years), fold some of my laundry, or always have kozy shack rice pudding or non-fat yoplait and extra roasty peanuts when I come over.
I even tend to overlook things like being sent to college(s)...well maybe most kids overlook that, but I forget what a huge gesture of love that is, that all these things are.

Luckyfish.