Category Archives: yoga

Your Wife is so Lucky

Posted on by Ann
A yoga class.

Image via Wikipedia

I teach yoga two evenings a week at the local community center. Class size varies from one session to the next but there is a small core who sign up every time. One of them is an older lady who lives down the street and for 76, having never done any yoga prior to starting classes with me a year ago, she is incredible spry and limber. It’s amazing to see her progress and to know how much she enjoys and values the instruction. Introducing people to yoga and watching them find themselves in the practice is even more joyful than teaching grammar was back in my public school teacher days of yore.

During the winter months, Rob usually walks me over to the hall where classes are held. It’s not even a two-minute jaunt. Just out the back door, down the drive, up the alley and across the street. But it’s dark, icy and made more precarious by the bags I schlep with me. He carries my equipment and I point the flashlight, and the process repeats in reverse an hour later when class in complete.

Last night, Rob ran into our sweet elderly neighbor as he was hustling up the alley to walk me home from class. Greetings were exchanged, but Rob stopped to chat because she had halted in her tracks and he had a feeling she wanted to tell him something.

“Your wife is so lucky,” she said.

He didn’t reply and she continued,

“You carry her things and walk her to class and then come back to help her get home. That’s just so nice.”

“Just doing my part,” he replied.

He told me the story later and I concurred,

“I am lucky and I know it,” I said. “I read so much about men who have no idea that it’s the little things day in and out that matter the most, and here I have you. I never have to ask you to pay attention, help out, or for much of anything really. You just do.”

Kind of reminds me of the lyrics to a song I shared not long ago,

There’s no way to describe what you do to me
You just do to me, what you do

Except it’s more than what’s done to me but what is done for me.

He would argue, correctly, that this is a mutual thing, which is as it should be.

But, I am very lucky. I don’t take that lightly or for granted.

It’s My New Year

Posted on by Ann
2007

Image via Wikipedia

Because I was a teacher, I’ve never really gone off the school calendar. My year begins when school resumes in late August. I have longer weekends nearly every month and life is regularly interrupted by early out days, oddly placed vacations and the occasional night duty.

So when everyone else (and by that I mean normal adults with real jobs) were heading back to work after January 1st, I was still in “off” mode because Dee had another week of Christmas vacation to go.

Today, however, she is back to school and Rob is back to work and I am officially beginning 2012 with a schedule of my own, which includes 3 nights of teaching yoga, one night of soccer, one late afternoon running of the child to her own yoga class and two yoga classes of my own to attend. Monday thru Friday is beyond packed and the margin for error or the unexpected is slim to none.

But you still have the weekends, I hear you thinking. A long one at that. This is true. Aside from soccer practice on Saturday mornings, the weekends are blissfully free of obligation. Happy Year of the Dragon to me.

The only thing I have not settled on is my writing focus, but that’s hardly new. I am leaning towards going back to fiction and the memoir. I like Abel’s idea for a theme for the latter and my e-copy of Game of Thrones has made me nostalgic for fantasy. Some of the first good fiction I wrote was fantasy because that’s primarily what I was reading at the time.

I will say that I have lost the fire for freelance. The class I took in the fall was a good experience. I learned a lot. I discovered, however, that I still dislike journalism. Essays and opinion pieces suit me much better. And, I am still burnt out on activist political posting. The world has become such a sad, dirty place in terms of politics and issues that I think it’s bad for my soul and not all that good for karma to immerse myself in that kind of writing at this time. I don’t need the extra negativity. I have family for that.

I have a couple more things to say about widowhood, dating and remarriage though but I am still running them around the track in my mind’s eye.

Last thing on the agenda is organization. It’s past time for the next great purge and there are a few legal things that need to be taken care of in addition to the fact that the house is screaming for all things to find a place and just stay there – no more musical chairs.

Did I just make resolutions? Good gods!

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The Yoga Kid Stumps Again

Posted on by Ann

I taught yoga one-footed today. An early morning renovation related accident rendered me lame with no time to find a sub for the noon drop-in class I had promised to sub.

Hatha Yoga Video Tree Pose - VrksasanaIt’s not difficult to teach an entire yoga class without leaving the floor, but as it was a strength class, I felt obligated to get them to their feet and few a string of standing postures. Ralph Macchio does a better crane than I do. Or at least he did. I have no idea what kind of shape the guy is in today though I seem to recall hearing he managed a decent showing on DWTS (Dancing with the Stars).

Between limping, a runny nose and hacking up the occasional piece of lung, the class was a great success. I am lucky in that I have my teaching instinct to fall back. Even if I am less than stellar, I have a way of pulling things off that has more to do with years in the classroom than my actual yogi skills and knowledge.

The week flew by, its usual crammed too full self. I’ve been enjoying NaBloPoMo and even my turtle slow approach to NaNoWritMo. Writing for myself is still fun and it is good to know this.

I’ve neglected my social media, which isn’t a bad thing. Twitter seems to function better when I don’t watch the pot too closely but Google+ is creeping me out because it feels like Match.com with all the questionable male followers my feed is attracting. I’ve blocked a lot of them, but still it would be nice if someone could design an app to screen and drop-kick based on a pre-set list of criteria:

  • not from a 3rd world country
  • at least a couple posts in English, so I see it’s not spam or porn
  • definitely no faceless people
  • and those looking for white Canadian women need not plus me

I am wearying of stumping for votes for the Top Canadian Mom blogs list, and I imagine you are too. Incredibly, there is another 13 days of voting to go. Sigh. Thanks to those who have voted, continue to vote and who have even convinced their family, friends and even their old high school friends on Facebook to vote as well. I cling to the top five, but there is a very determined Mommy reviewer nipping on my heels and periodically climbing up my back to sit on top of me. So, keep those votes coming because if every single one of you who reads this actually votes? I might gain enough of a lead to quit asking for votes. Just saying … along with my thanks.

Fall officially ended with an arctic blast today. The child wore a winter coat for the first time today. She’s thoroughly winterized, so it has to be winter if she is bundled. No snow as much as WeatherNet threatens us with it. With the chilled temps comes the one year anniversary of THE reno. Last year at this time, Rob began knocking down walls and gutting the front half of the main floor. Tonight he will nearly finish the kitchen as he lays the last of the tile in the new fabulous kitchen. He says we will have a more than just a functional living room by Christmas but I am sure we have some relatives who haven’t yet had a crisis they need us to drop everything to help them with – so I remain skeptical.

And that’s it. Aside from the lingering flu that I need about 11 hours of straight shut-eye to finish off and I won’t be getting it tonight. Soccer practice in the AM, you know. But next week is Fall Break. No alarms. No school buses being revved up beneath our bedroom window and no buses to catch. It’s the simple things.