of writers and bees

It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way. - Ernest Hemmingway

I've been at the UWM Spring Writers Conference this week, and now all I want to do is go somewhere remote with only pens, paper, computer, and enough food to last me for several weeks. Today I was telling someone about how writing was always my outlet when I was a child, a teenager, and a 20-something. At some point I stopped writing for myself, and now I wonder how I made it through those years. I started writing again a few years ago, and it remains difficult to find the time. When I was younger, I spent a great deal more time in cafes with copious cups of coffee and cigarettes. It must be possible to write without coffee and cigarettes, for I certainly didn't have those "writing aids" when I was a child and teenager.

I'm still processing what I learned at the conference, but here are some of the highlights:
Keynote speakers were Ayad Akhtar, writer of "American Dervish", Ben Ryder Howe, author of "My Korean Deli", Cy Tymony, writer of the "Sneaky Uses" series; and Margot Peters, author of numerous biographies. All were inspiring in different ways, and although I told myself I wouldn't buy any books, I came home with several to add to my teetering pile of neglected books patiently waiting to capture my time and attention. There was an intriguing panel of literary agents and book editors, and I learned more about the book publishing industry (both in NY and outside of it). I attended workshops on platforms, the qualities of a writer, how to approach a literary agent, layers of writing non-fiction (where we got to read inspiring passages from Gretel Ehrlich, Aldo Leopold, Barbara Kingsolver, Barry Lopez, and Abraham Lincoln), and poetry (my favorite of all of the workshops because we did a number of writing exercises). I met a number of interesting people who felt like lost members of my tribe.

Last week on the day that I realized I had to find more time to write in order to keep breathing, the same day I started writing this blog again, and the same day I signed up for the writers conference, I found out that one my former professors, James Hazard had died. He was a huge influence on me when I was a freshman in college, and I dug up an interview I did with him that first year. I'm not sure what compelled me to be bold enough to approach a writer and professor of his stature when I wasn't yet a student of his, but it may well have been this bit from his collection, A Hive of Souls:

"I recalled a tale my grandfather used to tell, that when you fall asleep your soul crawls up in your throat and out your mouth in the form of a bee... There were a dozen or so bees in the sunshine. Were each souls from different people, or do some of us have more than one? Were some of those bees me? Are we different each day, depending on which bees are on the wing and which ones stay home? If I believe Grandpa's story at all, I believe most of the bees I saw today were me. I am a honeycomb of souls."

"The Snow Crazy Copybook" is a collection of thoughts within A Hive of Souls about a man who escapes the city during the Great Depression to be alone in a shack in a snow-enveloped area and record daily observations of his chosen exile. It would seem that Hazard was writing about his own experience, yet the date of the poem is Winter 1934, the year before he was born. He revealed to me that while he wasn't writing about himself, he was in his mother's poem during the Winter of 1934. This is a poem of rebirth.

Any day can be a poem of rebirth if we are willing to walk through a different doorway not knowing what awaits us on the other side.

back to the blog

I was in a marketing workshop this past week, and they were talking about blogging. I started having guilty thoughts about how long it had been since I had blogged. When I think about all the things I have managed to make a habit: daily yoga, 3-4 runs a week, meditation, my writing doesn't make the list. I am the kind of writer who can write 20 poems in one day or no poems in 10 years. I used to write in my journal for hours out of time, spinning stories out of the mundane bits of my day. But now when I write, it seems like I only have time for a facebook status or an email to a friend. I have one friend who gets me to write articles, but it seems like it takes me a month to get going on a piece. There are the occasional articles or writings of friends and acquaintances that tickle that old itch, and I find myself wishing, "if only I had time to write." (I know what I would do if I had time to write; a master of procrastination, I would sort all my writing utensils and my old writings and my books!)

Last week I took a big leap of faith and signed up for the UWM Spring Writers Conference this coming weekend. I'm not sure what possessed me except for this feeling that I cannot go on like this without finding time to write. The picture I chose for this piece is from the entrance to the Dublin Writers' Museum, a visit that I saved for our last day in Ireland this past November. After a few days of finding things to do that might interest my mother and my son, this was the one thing that I simply had to do for myself before we left Dublin. To my delight my son was intrigued too, and I rather think it was exciting to us both when we realized the connections to the Aran Islands that we had just visited, as well as the Easter Uprising, which reminded us of our visit to Kilmainham Gaol.

Also last week I was watching some rock climbers jump onto a slackline at the gym where I teach a yoga class. I was amazed to watch these guys take running starts and jump onto a line, mostly not making it, but once they did, they took shaky steps before falling again with good humor. This is how I feel at the moment, as I take a running start and jump back into my blog. Perhaps I won't keep it a secret this time.

What story do you tell?

In my yoga classes this past week I have been working with the theme of "changing your story". How often do we start the day with a story about the weather or how we feel in the morning, or we fret about an upcoming situation, so we start to tell a story about it before it even happens. When we do this, I believe we miss out on the surprises and the transformative moments.

Fear is a big motivating factor because when we are starting something new, we fear that we won't be good at it. So we say things like: I am not good at foreign languages. I am not good at music. I am not athletic. The teacher won't like me. I don't do handstands.

I like to teach a breathing exercise that includes different counts for inhales, exhales and pauses. I think it's the pause that's significant, as well as the setting of an intention before meditation. I recently saw the movie "Happy" during the Milwaukee Film Festival (loved it!), and apparently 50% of our predisposition to happiness is based on genetics, and 10% is based on life choices. 40% is based on intention! I am working/playing with the moment where we start to tell the story of how the yoga class (or any other situation) is going to be, for if we pause, we can become more aware when we are deciding what the experience will be like before it has actually happened. Of course there are those stories we tell ourselves after an event too. Mine tend to be about what other people are thinking about me, and although I have good instincts about people, I am usually wrong when I am one of the characters in the story I am telling!

We are these 2-legged stories walking around this earth - bearing stories of what was and what is yet to come - and yet we all share the same story. The story of what is. But we forget that story, so we meditate to remember and allow it to unfold. And yet it continues to unfold whether we are paying attention or not...

Once upon the time there was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.

“Maybe,” the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.

“Maybe,” replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.

“Maybe,” answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.

“Maybe,” said the farmer.

(After I told this story in a yoga class, one of the students came up to me afterwards to suggest that I tell the story with a different ending. He thought it would be funny to end it with the farmer in bed with his wife, and she says she has a headache. He finally says "That's bad!" instead of "Maybe." I told the student I thought it was funny, but then I also found myself remarking that there is always something that triggers the labels of "good" and "bad". There are certain scenarios that we are conditioned to think of as being good or bad. So it takes practice to unlearn that reaction...)

Compared to what?

(My son found a "smile" in a tree trunk when we were on vacation in Door County recently.)

So I have been thinking about how I will sometimes reject people before they have a chance to reject me. When I was on the running retreat, I considered the marathoners to be the fast group, like they were better somehow. When I saw a marathoner running near me, I thought there was something wrong with the picture at hand. The story in my head was: I just started to run 2 months ago; I have only done a 5K; the most I ever ran was 5 miles and that was when I was in my 20's and I got shin splints; and I don't hang out with marathoners. Why would a marathoner be interested in anything I might have to say about running...or anything else? Due to the nature of the retreat, I had to get over it and somehow just keep running no matter who was running near me.

How often have I had people tell me that I am intimidating because of how good I am at something or how easy I make something look or even how I look? I've had people tell me that they thought I was stuck up because I can be quiet and it takes me time to warm up to people. I would wonder how I could possibly seem confident to the point of being arrogant. Since coming home I have been thinking about how the message in my family was that while it is important to be "good" at what you set out to do, as well as to look good, you should not call attention to yourself and you should not feel good about yourself.

My Mom and one of my aunts are beautiful women who always doubted their looks because my grandfather had problems with strong women (and yet he raised four). I thought about the man I had lived with for 8 years. He told me that he wasn't jealous, and I believed him, even when he acted jealous. He told me I looked better in glasses...with my natural hair color...without make-up. Every time I would do something that made me feel good about myself, a fight would ensue. I would then hold my breath and take the verbal abuse. It took me years to understand that it wasn't about me; it had everything to do with how badly he felt about himself. How often do we have a hard time acknowledging the struggles and successes of others because we are comparing them to how we feel about ourselves?

This past weekend I was in the last part of a children's yoga teacher training, and I was struck by how often my fellow students would compare themselves to each other and to me as an excuse to criticize and second guess themselves. Women grow up comparing themselves to magazines and each other from early on, so we size each other up as soon as we meet one another. It's a hard habit to break, especially the internal comparing process. I was able to challenge my fellow students, who amazed me with their incredible gifts, in much the same way I was challenged on the running retreat. Funny how once we are confronted with a challenge, the challenge becomes ongoing, affording many opportunities for practice.

Running with the Mind of Meditation

Over Labor Day weekend I went to the Shambala Mountain Center in Colorado. A friend of mine had just been to SMC this summer, and I was actually looking at yoga retreats when the retreat title "Running with the Mind of Meditation" caught my eye. I had just started running again the month before. After 10 months of intensive yoga teacher training where all of my spare time was spent doing yoga, thinking about yoga and studying yoga, I was happy to add a different but familiar practice to my life. I have always loved to run, but because I don't think of myself as an "athlete", I limited myself as far as what I thought I could do. At the same time, I tended to overdo things, so then I would get frustrated and stop running.

My main goal for the retreat was to find out how I could make my yoga practice and my running practice overlap more (and thus save time - ha), but more importantly, I wanted to make sitting meditation part of my daily routine. I haven't had time of late to go to one of the meditation centers in the area, so I started going to a couple of yoga classes that start with 20 minutes of meditation. Lately, I haven't been able to make it to those classes, and my sense of feeling burnt out from a year that has been all about training has increased. During the retreat I found myself sharing that I started my yoga practice over 10 years ago by setting aside 5 minutes a day for practice. It struck me that I could start to develop a meditation habit in much the same way. It also helped that in a yoga teacher forum, someone recommended the "Insight Timer" phone app, something so simple that would never have occurred to me. The timer takes away the need to look at a clock, and the chimes are less jarring than an alarm clock. I think that the key to developing a regular practice of anything is to find what works for you and your daily life. It simply won't work if you think you should do something that works for someone else. I used to be "too busy" to meditate, and now funnily enough, I find that meditation gives me more time.

A couple of the themes of the retreat were being gentle with oneself and bringing the mind of meditation into any activity. Sakyong Mipham, the leader of the Shambala lineage, started the Running with the Mind of Meditation retreats, and he talks about how nothing can replace a sitting practice, and yet the more we practice, the more we can bring the mind of meditation into anything we do. We started the day with breakfast in a big tent (one morning it was actually 32 degrees!), and then by 9 we would meet in the meditation room. After some sitting meditation, we would do a walking meditation, and perhaps a breathing exercise, with some discussion and/or a lecture. In the afternoons we had some free time - I spent mine at the Great Stupa each day - and then we would meet up in the mid-afternoon for yoga, walking meditation and discussion groups. We even had a form clinic where we did drills. Running incorrectly was especially fun. At one point someone pushed me to the front of our line, saying: You are going to be first, K. Accept what is. She cracked me up, and yet I still hear her voice. For so long I have resisted going to the front, for I have too long believed that calling attention to myself might make someone else feel bad.

The teachers were wise and charismatic in individual ways, and they made sure to connect with us as real people, thus not allowing us the time and space to put them on pedestals. After giving us form tips, one teacher said that if we are running in a way that works for us, to stick with that, for none of us are running "wrong". So often we label our experiences good and bad, rather than sitting with our experiences, and we teach our children to do this by labeling their behavior.

I found the running during the retreat difficult, for we were at 7800 feet, and now that I am home, running has become easy and even joyful. While in the mountains, I kept my water bottle (thank goodness I remembered to get one at the airport!)on me at all times, often throwing in a packet of Emergen-C. There is something that always draws me to mountains, a theme that has always been in my life. I wonder if that is why I feel like such a nomad. Mountains were even my theme for my yoga teacher training practical, so it's really no wonder I found myself in the mountains a couple of months later. The mountain air actually cleared out my sinuses!

We did one 30 minute meditative run each day. There were a number of marathoners in the group, so a group would go running early in the morning to get in some extra running. For me the 30 minute run was enough. We would start with an incline that went up about 500 feet, and I would struggle for breath during the first mile. By the time we reached the Great Stupa, I had to walk up the steps. At first I regarded this as a failure, until I saw it as an opportunity to do a walking meditation. Someone had mentioned that walking around the Stupa 3 times can correspond to 3 principles, such as thought, speech, and action - a concept I often work with in my yoga practice. So I started walking around the Stupa 2 times, and the 3rd time represented action, so I would resume the run at that point. The last part of the run would then become effortless somehow, even on the final day when we ran farther. On the last day I had dish duty (guests can volunteer to help the staff), so I had to run fast if I was going to have any time to eat. I don't know if it was because I was with the faster group, but I found myself on an unfamiliar trail. Even though I don't run with a watch, I used to think it helped me to know how much longer and farther I had to run, especially in terms of how far I was from home. So there I was, quite far from home, and I couldn't see the main buildings. I could glimpse someone's red cap and decided to just keep running.

I was challenged to recognize the difference between competitiveness and comparativeness. Because I didn't think of myself as an athlete, I didn't think of myself as competitive. When I think about how I have been struggling with confidence as a yoga teacher, I realize that I have been comparing myself to my yoga teachers and finding myself to be unworthy of the privilege to teach yoga because I never had any intention of teaching where I also practice. I want to teach at risk kids. And yet I am beginning to understand that this is a lesson that I need to learn. Yoga teaches us that we are each doing our own practice on the mat, and it is not about what anyone else is or isn't able to do. One's practice is never perfect, for now matter how good the pose may look, a teacher can still come and give an adjustment to bring someone deeper into a pose. One day I found myself running near a couple of the "fast people", and it challenged my expectations in such a way that I had to let go and just keep going. Perhaps they were running slow, which we had been encouraged to do. It was a meditative run, after all.

Another concept from the retreat has stayed with me: unconditional confidence. We often base our confidence on external affirmations and achievements. One of the teachers shared about how his father never gave him any praise no matter how well he did because his father didn't want him to get a big head. How often do we expend our efforts to get the approval of others, while withholding approval from ourselves? Often, when you live in the presence of alcoholism as I have, you measure yourself against the damage. Unconditional confidence means that even as we strive to do our "best", we refrain from judging our experience to be good or bad. Growing a heart for the world involves self-love. Someone asked the Sakyong if it is selfish to run, and he said that it depends on your intention. Doing something good for yourself like running does benefit others.

Now I am working on running my best race - with myself - and I am learning to let go of my conditions for being confident. Recently I spoke to a friend of mine who is preparing for a half marathon. She said that she wants to do her personal best, and I asked her what that meant - if it meant in terms of time, pace, weather, feeling. She had been basing her assessment of each run on her time. And then she said that her recent personal best wasn't her fastest - it was how she felt that day. I am finally understanding that my best runs (as well as the work/family/friendship paths I travel each day) are when I run from the inside out and not the outside in.

Aparigraha

I was in my second 5K of the summer, and I decided to go for speed. And yet when I found myself trying to improve my time, I ended up overdoing it and getting carried away even though it wasn't what I had planned to do. I had started off at a slow and steady pace, but once I got past the halfway mark, I decided I was ready to increase my speed and try to pass people. I found myself looking at people with calculating eyes and thinking, "I should be able to pass that person! She looks slow! He is older than I am!" And so I started passing people fueled by less than flattering thoughts about their abilities. But my folly caught up with me, and the last mile felt longer than I expected. I started to get a stitch in my side and had to slow down, even having to stop, which probably cost me a whole minute.

When I realized how little time I had lost by having to stop, it made me laugh at how silly I was to think that stopping meant that I had lost significant time. I still was 7 minutes faster than my previous run. And I was faster than a friend of mine who runs more than I do, not that this means anything. (See, I'm better than my friend!) Good grief. Some of those people I thought I should beat probably ending up beating me. How easily I had gotten caught up in the spirit of competition without meaning to do so. I think I am not a competitive person, and yet in a competitive situation, I try to do my best. Making good time wasn't my original reason for signing up for the run; I believed in the cause, which was raising money for a state nature trail. And here I was racing with complete strangers and trying to be "better" when that's not why I run.

So I started thinking about the Sanskrit term "aparigraha" and how easy it is to get caught up in grasping for something that I am not actually ready to do. I find myself doing this in certain yoga classes because I want to show the teacher what I am capable of doing. Take pigeon pose for example. I want to show that I can sit with my shin parallel to the front of the mat, even if my hips aren't quite facing forward in the pose. Or I will find myself in Trikonasana avoiding the use of a block because I have long limbs that can easily reach the floor. Look what I can do! I don't need a wimpy block! And yet I know fully well that using block isn't actually a sign of weakness. The block helps me to get into better alignment and open my chest more. And yet I want to show everyone, but mainly myself, how well I can do it. I want extra credit.

In our achievement-based culture it is difficult to slow down and see the value in not running the fastest pace or doing the "best-looking" pose. And yet I still want to hear that I am doing a good job. I want that feeling that I am somehow going to get an "A" for effort. How many times have I heard that grasping for a pose when one isn't quite ready for it can lead to injury? Why do I always let my ego prevail? Yoga challenges me to find my edge over and over again, and at the same time my practice urges me to slow down. I can't think of anything else in my life that causes me to be continually challenged to work hard while also not working quite so hard.

For me the idea of not grasping involves letting go of the need to accomplish a defined goal. When my ego takes charge, I get in my own way and lose sight of my own timing.

kick start

Today I had to drag myself to yoga class. Actually, I have been dragging myself to yoga or out for a run all week. People are always telling me that they admire how much I seem to do, which kind of makes me feel like there is no room to admit to being tired or down at times. It's been a rough week work-wise, but showing up for yoga, plus a solar plexus meditation taught by Elena Brower on Yogaglo have helped me keep from sinking into the doldrums. A heat wave with high humidity tends to make me feel like there is a weight pushing the energy right out of me.

The solar plexus meditation, which I taught in my classes this week, was about observing the breath with the hands on the solar plexus and allowing thoughts and feelings to pass through like the weather. Elena Brower talks about how the solar plexus is a place of power in the sense of connecting with one's own truth and being present for oneself. I told my students that I didn't want them to connect with their
"inner Donald Trump"; I wanted them to feel the sense of empowerment and authenticity that comes from being able to be present within rather than being caught up in all the directions that our outer lives tend to pull us.

Today we were working up to the pose "pincha mayurasana", which is not one of my favorite poses. I told the girl next to me that I didn't want to do it, and she said: So don't do it. I said that the poses I tend not to want to do are usually the poses I need. Besides, our teacher is someone with a special gift for encouragement, so I usually let her talk me into poses. We were working with our forearms in a strap, and I found this difficult in the L at the wall position that we were told we could do if we couldn't kick up into the pose. For some reason I then decided to experiment with kicking up into the pose. It helped that my arms couldn't move, and to my surprise, I kicked up into the pose on my own for the first time!

I've written before that how I feel about inversions is rather like how I feel about relationships. Taking the risk to kick up into a pose is how I feel about taking a risk in a new relationship. Sometimes it feels like a big enough risk to be open and say hello. For years I would end up in relationships at the whim of the other person, and because that person "needed" me, I would stay out of loyalty. Later I would wonder if I even liked the guy. Upon taking the time to get to know a decent guy whom I actually like, the risk of opening up to anything more becomes panic about how my world will be turned on its axis. So I take my time to work in the pose, rather than running away and saying I can't do this, and hopefully this will teach me to stick around in a situation that scares me.