yoga

On Spamming My Facebook Feed While I Wait for Writing Inspiration


kosmic blogging in samsara

Image by ~C4Chaos via Flickr

I should be writing today. I told someone – okay, my editor – that I would. But I am not. I am dorking around while I have three stories waiting on me for the paid gig, but inspiration and desire to write eludes me.

So what do I do when I should be writing but I find it task-like and unappealing?

I spam my own Facebook feed with nonsense.

This is not productive and only serves to remind me that other people are more clever than I am … and have more work ethic. And are more mentally disturbed.

What happened to my work ethic?

Oh, right, I never really had any personally. It was just pragmatism disguised as productiveness.The curse of those born in the shadow of the Valley of the Boomers. We work hard when necessary but we prefer coasting. Just look at President Obama if you don’t believe me.

I was talking about my contribution to the household finances the other day with Jade, the owner of the yoga studio where I teach, I mentioned that Rob smiles fondly at me when I talk about my paycheck. That smile reserved for cute children and pets.

“Awwww … she’s so sweet when she thinks she’s contributing.”

Because monetarily, I am not so much.

My heavy lifting is kind of just that as I make the trains run like the house’s wife should – efficiently and looking quite fetching as I do so.

And it’s not as if my husband doesn’t give due credit or is anything other than appreciative. He just thinks my fixation on my money-making endeavors – the blog stuff in particular – is not worth my worry.

If I write and get paid – awesome, and if I slack, well, then I do. It’s not like the compensation is commensurate with the effort. And that’s the problem. I put in time for a token and though I am not creating a Huffpo empire for someone exactly, I am not creating much for myself either. I am an Internet content serf.

So, I vacillate. One month, I pour it on and the next? Meh.

I was asked recently when I was going to open my own yoga studio.

“No plans for that,” I said. I’d just spent a week holding down the fort for Jade while she was on her yoga cruise, and there is no glamour in running a studio – though the studio itself is glamorous  and I always get a little thrill when I open and close up. It has, frankly, a feeling of purpose that regurgitating news sans personal commentary doesn’t.

But I am not sure I am up to run a business on my own though it would be sort of awesome.

Or I could just go back to fiction writing and pretend that people read my blog.

Poised. I am in a constant state of poised. Where is the tipping point? Poised seems frozen and first runner-up.

If only patience was one of my virtues but then I would probably be a famous blogger if that were the case.

Slow Burn


Log consumed by fire

Image by quinn.anya via Flickr

My most recent horoscope gibbered something about me slowly burning off the residual matter of the old me and finding a sleek and shiny new me underneath. The gist basically being that I have been in a state of transformation for some time and that I was down to the wire in terms of emerging from chrysalis and flapping my colors for all to see.

Except apparently, I don’t care about the “all” of anyone. This new improved version of me is above “it” and “all”, and though perhaps not quite enlightened in any Buddhist sense, certainly not mired in the way of the new world order.

I was informed also that this burn can be scary and disorienting, but not to worry because it was more than worth the any residual scarring.

Okay.

The idea that I am morphing isn’t one that hasn’t occurred to me. In the past year there have been more than a few instances of feeling out-of-body or even trapped in country. And it’s as physical a thing as it is not.

“My legs are totally different,” I remarked to my yoga teacher, Jade, before class one day.

“Yep,” she agreed. “You have changed quite a bit.”

Again that could be just physical and not be wrong but I have a feeling it goes beyond.

Not being quite through this yet, and not being entirely sure of what comes next, makes the whole “thing” hard to explain.

Rob likes to take some of the credit.

“I’ve changed you,”

“No, you allowed me to be,” I said. “Not the same thing.”

At all.

Too often we go into relationships with the odd notion of “perfecting” or “re-teaching” someone. It’s not possible. People will be who they are if they are allowed though mostly who we are is not who we are expected to be.

Yoga is about being and coming back into a being who’s been forgotten or misaligned by a lifetime of others’ coercive attempts to bend us to their will.

Thy will be done. That’s what we were taught in Catholic school. But it doesn’t make sense. Create imperfection and order it perfect in its obedience only. A divine North Korea according to Christopher Hitchens, but that ‘s a bit of a digression.

I am. More than I have ever been and if I dare to continue, more than I could have imagined being. Fascinating.

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Quickly


Creepy Old Navy mannequins "in person"

Image by Daniel Greene via Flickr

Before I lose internet … again … a wee update.

The kitchen/great room renovation hums along. The entire front half of the downstairs is gutted and closed off with plastic sheeting that reminds me of those movies where virulent epidemics are sweeping à la apocalypse and everyone is wearing hazmat.

I spent over four hours yesterday pulling nails left behind after Rob and I yanked the old hardwood up by its 60-year-old roots. The dust was killer, and it occurred to me as it puffed up and settled again that the particles contain remnants of everyone who’s ever lived in this house. Skin flakes, hair follicles, disintegrated food and dirty debris from all over creation of people who had no idea that their imprints on the floor were more than just passing, easily mopped up or swept away.

Life to ashes and dust, man, remember that.

Dee bore up under the crushing boredom of a school vacation minus the vacation until Friday, so partly because Rob was worn to a nub and I was itchy to do something other than provide spotty physical labor and teach yoga, we went shopping Sunday afternoon.

Rob would rather hump plaster to the dump like Atlas than shop. Particularly at Old Navy, which is where we went. Because we had coupon and but also because I like it.

“Did you not see the level of clientele?” he asked.

“Low rent,” I agreed, “but that’s because the clothes are cheap.”

“And gaudy and meant to be replaced often due more to the poor, made-by-Chinese-school-children quality than anything else.”

And because I resemble that remark a bit, I paused, but I can’t justify spending tons of money on clothing anymore. Sturdy may mean it never wears out, but it doesn’t mean that I won’t tire of it and want something new or bright? In which case I am stuck with wearable clothing and though I do periodic closet sweeps, I don’t do garage sales more than once a year and there is a limit to my need to give my stuff away – even though that is a guilty pleasure of mine.

I also like their yoga-ish duds. As I am over Lululemon, I am in constant quest mode for the most comfy yoga pants – and no, sadly, I have yet to find them – but I did find these awesome walking capris at Old Navy for HALF-PRICE.

Suffice to say, with coupon we spent on four long sleeve shirts, two capris and a comfy fleece jammie bottom, the same amount of money that one pair of Lululemon pants would have cost. Added bonus is not contributing to a company that doesn’t have plus-wear (and by “+” I mean anything over a size 12 and I loathe companies that feed the sizism monster).

Then we went to the bookstore and BOUGHT BOOKS!!

Love browsing a bookseller on a Sunday afternoon. Heaven. And one consumer unnecessary that I sorely miss.

The awesome thing about shopping, when you rarely do anymore, is how awesome it really is.

Winter arrived today. It’s visited here and there since early October, but I think it will be staying now.

Oh, and Rob’s mother will be getting married in less than a month. No surprise – to me – but Rob is still incredibly ambivalent and the older girls have yet to publicly comment. A December wedding though does free up June again for Edie and Silver though when I mentioned that to her, she just stammered and blushed.

The wedding moving up is more to do with the groom being an American. Rob and I faced the same dilemma when Dee and I moved up here. We planned a September wedding to mollify Rob’s family a bit because a year would have passed since Shelley’s death. The year thing is a big fat hairy deal to a lot of people. However, being an émigré makes marriage a thing that can’t be put off to please one’s sense of timing. Governments get growly about foreigners taking up residence without cause – in their eyes – and paperwork. There are oodles of papers and stamps and approvals and other such nonsense.

So it is for my future father-in-law. He must be legal and the quickest path is to get the marriage thing taken care of upfront.

It’s not romantic. It’s hard on the extended family. But really? All that matters is that they are together and happy.

“I don’t know what to say, ” Rob confessed in the aftermath of a phone conversation with his mom.

“You can’t say anything, ” I said, “because you don’t have a leg to stand on.”

“Payback is a bitch,” he agreed.