Thought for the week...

At a Native American gathering in Arizona for the 1999 summer solstice, a Hopi Elder said: "There is a river flowing now, very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. they will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel that they are being torn apart, and suffer greatly. Know that the river has its destination. The elders say we must push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open and our heads above the water. See who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves, for the moment we do that, our spiritual growth comes to a halt... Gather yourselves; banish the word 'struggle' from your attitude and vocabulary... we are the ones we've been waiting for."

~ from Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga by Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison

This week, or if you feel like you are under too much pressure and don't know where to turn, just remember to relax and go where life takes you - we are already who we want to be.

Photo credit: "Canoe on Sepick River" by Chris Rainier, found at the Orange County Register Arts Blog

Why I Love Riding the Bus

One thing I DID actually look forward to when I was getting ready to go back to school this year was my early morning bus ride. Driving to work is fun and all, but there's something very soothing about sliding into a seat near the back of the bus, warm coffee thermos in my hand and good music on my ipod, just relaxing and looking out the window and not worrying about traffic. Plus, there's a wonderful consistency to the daily bus routine. I rush out of my building (always a couple of minutes later than I actually want to), and briskly walk the 3 blocks to the bus stop. If the school bus crosses Girard before I do, I know I'm a little behind. If the three dark-haired girls with glasses are still waiting there, I know I'm good. Similarly, if that one girl with short hair who always rides my bus is still there when I arrive, I know I'm good.

At the risk of sounding creepy, I love watching people as they get on the bus. I always wonder what their story is - are they a student too, or are they going off to work? Does that guy like his job, or is he dreading walking in to work? What class is that guy with the medical textbook cramming for from that book and why didn't he study before he got on the bus?

Earlier this week, my marketing professor from last year got on my bus and sat two rows in front of me. He was actually one of my favorite professors, but in class he comes off as a total elitist and chauvanist which ticked a lot of people off to the point where they picked fights with him which was NOT a good choice. Late last year, a couple of friends and I had dinner with him and his wife Theresa. We were all pretty surprised to find out that she is pretty sassy, can obviously hold her own against anyone, and that they met when she busted him for trying to sneak into the college caf using someone else's ID because he was broke and sleeping in the hallway of his dorm.

So when I saw him getting on the 16 just ouside of campus, wearing jeans and a baseball cap over his anchorman-coiffed white head of hair I just grinned and thought, of course you ride the bus. You have a red corvette facade with a public transit soul.

The bus brings out all kinds - distinguished professors, people who are totally crazy, and everything in between such as the good looking, put together dude in hospital scrubs who didn't stop singing along to Lil' Wayne on his ipod (uncensored) the entire way down Lyndale. It's a fun mixture of comforting routine and totally unpredictable. Kind of like life.

"It's good to have an end to journey towards, but it's the journey that matters, in the end." - Ursula K. LeGuin

The beginning of the end

Today was my first day back at school. I'd done basically nothing to prepare for this, so at 10:30 last night I was scrambling around trying to get everything together... and wondering where the F is my bus pass, do I need notebooks, crap I don't have any pencils etc. It was only as I was running out the door this morning that I realized, this is my last "first day of school" ever. .. and I got some mixed feelings.

Even if I go back to take more classes, or for a PhD program (NOT likely...), it won't be the same feeling of returning to a close-knit group of people, many of whom you haven't seen since May, laughing and sharing stories and... yeah I geek out over new school supplies. I also have a cubby. And all my meals today were free because of student club meetings, and I got to go home at 3.

I should just say that grad school for me has not been all sunshine and flowers... last year, I was actually pretty miserable. I suddenly felt like everyone around me had it together, and I had no idea who I was or what I wanted. I felt like a complete failure in a multitude of ways, and, by late spring semester, no matter how optimistic I forced myself to be when I walked out the door in the morning, I was totally freaking out by about 1pm.

Yoga was honestly pretty much the only thing that kept me sane last year. It gave me an excuse to spend an hour, a few times a week, to shut my mind off from everything that was weighing me down. Pada 1, 1.2 of Pantjali's Yoga Sturas is: Yogas chitta vritti nirodha, or roughly translated, "Yoga is the restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff". This basically means that when our misperceptions of what is going on around us create a false understanding of ourselves and drive us bananas, yoga can help us focus and redirect our thoughts, freeing us from the patterns of perception that obscure the true nature of life and self.

It's easy, when a thousand different pressures are pulling you in all directions, to lose sight of who you are and what you really want out of life. We forget what is truly important to us, because of what others tell us should be important... but sometimes you have to just say, screw it. Do I want to study another hour for my managerial accounting final, or do I want to spend this time drinking wine and cooking with Ben? In 10 years, which one will I actually remember?

Ben's friend Neeraj told him you should plan your life by thinking about where you want to be in your last days, and what you want to remember when you look back. I want to remember taking advantage of new possibilities, and cherishing time with the people I love, and so I will invest time in those relationships and in myself and my own happiness - and if I didn't get the perfect MBA internship I thought I wanted, who cares? If I could give this year's first-year students one piece of advice, it would be this: figure out what YOU want...and don't freak out. Don't spend all of your time, effort and mental energy going after something that isn't really you, just because you feel like you SHOULD want that... if you are true to yourself, everything will work out for the best.

On another note, tonight I have a 5:30 yoga class followed by my homemade meal of the day: salad with avocado, pineapple, and my favorite homemade dressing... it's delicious.

Salad dressing recipe (provided by my cousin Alisha):

1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup red or white wine vinegar
2 tbs poppyseeds
1-2 tsp dry mustard (sorry... i can't remember if it's 1 or 2! Just do it to taste...)
1 cup olive oil

Put them all together in a bowl and whisk until combined. The original salad recipe called for avocado, olives and strawberries as toppings for the greens, but I just use whatever I have on hand. Enjoy :)

To Creepy Dudes Everywhere

Dear creepy dudes,
From women everywhere - please stop being creepy. I know you think you are paying us a compliment when you yell from the window of you old child-molester-looking car in the parking lot at Rainbow and say "Hey, thank you! Thanks for bringing those legs with you to the store today!" ... but really you are just making us feel violated and like we never want to leave the house in gym shorts again ever.

I'm sure you think that when you see us reading a textbook on the beach, it would be a nice gesture to call out "Wow - beauty AND brains...that's VERY attractive," thinking that we will feel more beautiful and also think that you truly appreciate us as human beings... but you are wrong. Let me outline very clearly for you the huge gaping hole that exists between your expectations and reality:

EXPECTATION: (what we will say) "Oh wow! I am reading a book so I am probably a nerd and also insecure, and therefore am now a melting puddle of goo at your feet because you paid me a compliment. Not only do you think I am beautiful (who me??) but you also appreciate my intelligence and so you obviously have a deep and meaningful understanding of me as a person. You also ride a bike so you must be very cool and athletic. Let's do it under a tree RIGHT NOW."

REALITY: (what we are thinking) "Ummm...seriously? You honestly think anyone with have a shred of self-respect will buy this? Just walk away, stop staring at me and waiting for this conversation to continue (because it isn't going to) and leave me to my gazillion pages of reading I have to do for Monday. The bike and spandex shorts indicate that you want the ladies such as myself to think that you are athletic and outdoorsy, and why would such a specimen compliment a nerd such as myself?? But, you're not fooling anyone. Run along now. And stop being a creeper."

So creepy dudes, with your biker ponytails and cutoff t-shirts - please just do us all a favor and don't talk ever. Thanks!

Love, the women of the world

Dumbledore was right

I guess I should talk a little more about my trip - aside from the hiking, drinking and eating far too much red meat and simple carbs, we also got to see my mom's side of the family. My mom was born and raised in Montana, living the first few years of her life in Red Lodge before moving to Billings. My grandmother and my uncle Bill still live there, along with my great uncle Will and two of my mom's cousins, Tom and Nancy. Tom and his wife Pam have two kids (Caroline and Alison), and Nancy and her husband Theirry have three (Max, Sophie and Jesse).

I really like seeing this part of the family - since our family is pretty small (my parents have one brother each, and my sister and I have only one first cousin), it's fun to see all the cousins and have big dinners and brunches together.... but, as bad as I feel saying this, I really dread seeing my grandmother.

When I say "I'm going to visit my grandma in Montana," most people picture a warm, smiling woman who bakes pies and welcomes her relatives with open arms... not so much my grandmother. Growing up, she was always pretty mean to me and my sister, and even my mom. My most prevelant memory of her growing up involves repeatedly calling me a spoiled brat in the middle of a restaurant and then turning to the table next to us to share her opinion of me and ask if they agreed with her. I (and obviously mom) was totally mortified, and to the best of my knowledge I had done nothing to provoke this. She's also completely racist (when I was 11 she told me to never marry a black man... I think my reaction was something like "Grandma, I'm 11"), and manages to find the cloud in every silver lining.

My sister, my dad and my mom flew out to MT about 4 days ahead of me, and Grandma's first words to my sister when she got off the plane were "I'm so glad fashions have changed these days - they're much more modest, no more belly buttons showing and all that cleavage hanging out. Julianna, what are you gonna do with all your old clothes now? Throw them out?" (Just for reference my sister had never, to my knowledge, dressed that way at ALL... but G-ma thinks that everyone in our generation dresses provocatively and runs around being whorish at crazy parties, even if our actual behavior indicates otherwise. She once made reference to my apparent cleavage-baring ways when I was, at the time, wearing a turtleneck).

Point being - my grandmother is not an easy person to love. She was mean to me, to my sister, and she was never anything resembling loving and nurturing towards my mom. She's been bitter for years, and I know she had a difficult time growing up and a bad marriage but it's difficult to justify turning that bitternes out towards everyone in your life.

I often think about her in comparison to my Grandma Stahl - my dad's mom, who passed away 4 years ago from ovarian cancer. After losing her first husband (my grandfather) to suicide and surviving a second husband who was an abusive alcoholic, she remained the strongest, most loving and graceful person I have ever known. Surely she was dealing with a lot of pain, but she always treated everyone around her with love and compassion. Her kindness extended outside of her family and friends, too - even into her 80's, she continued volunteering at the local hospital until she was physically unable to work any longer.

In "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," Albus Dumbledore wisely states "It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." It's easy for my Montana Grandma to blame her past and her difficult life for her bitterness and behavior towards others - but what excuse does she have when held up against someone like my grandma Stahl, or my friend Lindsey who somehow made it through college as the chipperest, friendliest person on campus while dealing with a zillion different medications for her epillepsy and having 10 siezures a day? These people chose to make the most of their lives, despite their circumstances - because ultimately, we cannot control our circumstances, but we can control our choice to be happy.

So, sometimes, when I think about my Montana Grandma and the way she approaches life, I get angry. Why couldn't she be more loving towards my mom, or towards me and my sister? She knows she is rude and bitter - why doesn't she try to change? I'm afraid of visiting her, mostly because I fear the anger and anxiety that she brings out in me.

The other day at the end of my vinyasa yoga class, my teacher Marta said "now that you have practiced yoga, you are physiologically different than when you walked in here. Different people can make different choices." I thought about my grandmother again, and realized that I can't change her - but I can change myself. I can choose to treat her with kindness and love, and be gracious to her no matter what she says. I can choose to be the person that does not become anxious and afraid, and then she will lose her power to make me uncomfortable.

What is that person or situation in your life that makes you think or act with fear and anger? Are you frustrated because you want them to change, or do you try to accept the way things are and turn inward to change yourself? How do you cope? I'm still learning, but I am getting there.

Blogging Fail

Sorry guys... I was having fun and enjoying the outdoors and totally forgot to write anything or basically use my brain at all for the last several days. I've been in Montana since last Tuesday...my mom's side of the family lives there, and my parents, my sister and I visit about once a year. It's usually several days of hiking, eating delicious baked goods at the Red Lodge City Bakery, and generally relaxing and enjoying life.

This year I could only make it out for about 4 days because of work, but we still had an excellent time. My sister and I took a 10 mile hike up to Lost Lake in the Beartooth mountains, and went to our favorite bar the Snow Creek Saloon. Last year, we met a woman named Molly ("with an H"...no explaination of where the H fits into that name) and her bestest bud, who was a girzzled old biker dude with one leg (he lost the other leg in a biking accident....). Not to mention Mark who had maybe the best 'stache I have ever seen in my life (Pictured right: my sister, Mohlly?...Mholly?...Molhly?, Mark, and myself)

As far as yoga... I learned something which is that it's really hard to plan 30-60 minutes for yourself every day when you're on a group schedule. Tuesday morning before I left, I was still pretty wiped out from the night before so I did a slow warmup, some sun salutations and seated twists and stretches. Wednesday was our hike, which took a good chunk of the day, and afterwards I went to dinner with my family and watched a movie, but I spent 30 minutes on hip openers before bed - my hips are my nemesis, they are REALLY tight...all the time...oh well. Thursday was more unscheduled so I practiced "with" Rodney Yee for an hour in the afternoon, outside by the creek...it was heaven :) Friday I did a restorative sequence before bed, and Saturday I did a gentle hatha sequence also before bed. This morning I went to class at One Yoga, which I'll write more about tomorrow.

Until then, I need to work on a presentation and get some sleep before ...Monday... :(

Instead of thinking about Monday, I will think about this pretty lake. You should go ahead and do the same:

Wowwwwwwwwwww.......

I cannot believe how thoroughly my ass has just been kicked.
I went to my normal Monday night class hot vinyasa class, taught by Patrick (another Olaf grad)... and now I feel like I am dying but in a good way. What has gotten into you tonight, crazy yoga teacher man? Why did you feel the need for us to flip from chatturanga to vasisthasana 85,000 times in a row? Or how about the repeated "floating" from half-pigeon into headstand (or at least it was supposed to be floating but in my case was more of an awkward hopping...which is what pigeons do anyways, right...? right? OK moving on...).

Long story short, I am pooped. I am going to sleep now.

G'night :)