DHARMA - Tough Days

You know what they look like. They start like any other day, but quickly morph into something heavy; cumbersome. You feel like every step is a fight to keep moving forward. Maybe it's a meaningful day; a sad anniversary, or maybe it's just Tuesday. No matter what, it's a hard day.

I had a tough day last week. It started out with me dreading the plans I had made; knowing that I had to go and ended with me just wishing I could curl up in my bed and forget the world. It was a day about fighting: me fighting the feeling of a tough day, someone fighting with me, two ninjas fighting behind a closed door....

A wise cousin told me before I left for D.C. that "every new beginning is hard." Oh, man, is this true. But the companion to change is discovery. And I have already learned so much about myself from the hard stuff. I can tell you for certain that I value my friendships, a comfy couch and decent cookware. I have also discovered that I have no use for cruelty that stems from insecurity or for half of my purses.

And I have managed to stop and actually appreciate some new stuff. Stuff that has taken my breath away or stopped me in my tracks: the sun rising over the Potomac, a deer running next to me in Rock Creek Park, a single, continuous 200 foot escalator at my metro stop. The stuff that fills us with joy or contributes to a realistic fear of getting injured.

Tomorrow is a new day. It is not a sad anniversary or a hard moment. It is a day of new beginnings where I get to start over and be me again for 24 hours. How lucky I am.

(Thanks to my favorite woman soldier for the "it's just Tuesday" reference.)

MOKSHA - Falling flat on my face

When I was in college, my good friend and I always set two New Year's resolutions at the start of each year. The first was concrete. This was the public resolution, the one you could easily share with others when asked. This year, my concrete resolution was starting this blog. There was always a second resolution, however. One that was more private, and not openly discussed. This is the one I want to share with you.

At the beginning of this year, I resolved that this would be the year I would fall flat on my face. I know. It sounds strange. Let me explain...

In a now famous commencement speech to the graduates at Harvard, J.K. Rowling surprisingly discussed the importance of failure. She said that one cannot go through life without failing at something unless one lives so cautiously that it is almost like not living at all.

This struck a chord with me. I recognized myself in that description of one who can live too cautiously. I am uncomfortable with the idea of failure, but risk is an important byproduct of living fully. So at the beginning of this year, I resolved that I would risk failure in all aspects of life and make this a year of really living.

And, Lord, what a year it has been! I have fallen flat on my face in relationships, in self-discipline, in my work life, and in making smart decisions. I have risked and failed. Tried and quit. Started and left unfinished. I have been reckless and allowed my heart to take me to dangerous places. I have cried, felt confused, woken up and kept going. But there have been successes as well. Wonderful treasures that sprung from great risk. This experiment in living has helped me shake off the extraneous parts of my life and allowed me to rethink what I am capable of.

We all have ideas about what our limitations are: I could never run a marathon, I am doomed to be a clerk forever, I could never go back to school. But what a magical moment it is when we shirk off the labels we set for ourselves and step forward to try something scary.

And so here I am, in Washington DC, miles away from the life I had planned out in my head, saying yes to new adventures. Yes to not knowing how it will work out, but just trusting that it will. Heading towards new risks and new loss and new ways to get my heart broken. Hallelujah!

DHARMA - Growing up

After college, I lived in a tiny studio apartment in Baltimore. My apartment was furnished mostly with college furniture. I mean that literally, as my friends and I had actually stolen some of the furniture from our dorm rooms at the end of our senior year. While I managed to accumulate a lot of stuff, I had very few “nice” things at that time in my life.

At the end of my second year of teaching, one of my student’s mothers gave me a beautiful glass pitcher with two margarita glasses. It was that heavy glass with a cobalt blue pattern woven throughout. It reminded me of summer and entertaining and sitting on a deck grilling and enjoying good conversation. Nevermind that I had no deck, grill or actual space to entertain. For me, it represented the hope of having these things.

When I got home, I carefully unwrapped the entire set from its mounds of packaging material and cleared a space for it. But when I tried to put it in my kitchen cabinet, I realized that the pitcher was too tall to fit. I can still remember the disappointment of that moment: all I wanted was to have one beautiful item among my hand-my-down IKEA dishes. Instead, back into the packaging material it went to be stored away for another time. I made a promise to myself, though, as I sat in that dorm room chair that I would start to make an effort to transition away from college into adulthood. And that I would do this by getting some nice things; just a few special items to make me feel like more of an adult.

A few years later when I was living in a tiny one-bedroom apartment in Evanston (upgrade from the studio), my margarita set finally found a comfortable home in the cabinet above the kitchen sink. I still had no deck, or grill, or actual space to entertain, nor do I recall actually ever using the set. But whenever I opened that cabinet, I would remember the quiet promise I made to my 23 year old self. The cobalt margarita set served as a reminder that growing up did have a place in my life and that I needed to make a small space for it.

Then, one day, as these things tend to happen, my boyfriend was getting something out of the cabinet when one of the margarita glasses fell and shattered all over the floor. Now, please let me preface this by saying that I am not someone who freaks out about breaking glasses. Which is why my boyfriend looked so shocked when I began yelling about “destroying my dreams” before running into my bedroom and slamming the door.

I know. It’s just a thing. And it was a thing, I’ll remind you, that had never actually been used. But for me, this was a symbol of my first cognizant desire to be an adult; this item had bridged the gap between youth and growing up and now it lay shattered on the floor. It was kind of heartbreaking to me.

Here’s the tricky thing about becoming an adult, though. As you grow up, you begin to realize that tiny losses are a part of life: things break and fall apart and get shattered. You can choose to dwell on what you’ve lost, or you can look at your life, shift things around a bit and then continue on. You can mourn the loss of not being able to entertain two people with your nice things, or you can serve one person a very large pitcher of margaritas.

Since that day, I have used the pitcher countless times. Most recently making strong drinks for a group of women gathered at my house for an intellectual discussion that ended in a drunken bullfight and lots of pictures involving an eye patch. So, maybe I haven’t quite made the full transition into adulthood yet, but I like to think that for the moment, I have arrived at a nice balance.

MOKSHA - Evil thoughts

A friend recently confessed having thoughts she alternatively describes as “evil”, “bad”, and “cruel.” When she shared her secret, I was fully prepared to hear her describe a scene from a horror movie. But her confession merely revealed that she had been dealing with feelings of confusion influenced by hormones and rash decision-making: a pretty typical day in your early 20’s.

Although I have tried to assuage her guilt, she is afraid that confronting her feelings will only create pain for others. She has decided it is better to avoid them all together.

Problem is – avoidance doesn’t get rid of the feelings. They are still there, lurking under the surface like tiny landmines. I know from personal experience as well as countless romantic comedies that you can pretend all you want that you aren’t really interested in that CEO of a Barnes and Noble-type corporation or that guy who designs masculine furniture pieces, owns a dog and has a country cabin, but eventually you’re going to end up getting drunk and yelling “I love you!” outside his apartment or running into him at the park when his adorable golden retriever brings you together again.

Bottom line: every emotion you have is a valid emotion. Period. There is no such thing as a feeling that is good or bad, right or wrong. Feelings just are. Feelings strain against the cages of shame and guilt; they want to be allowed to roam around for a while, they want to cozy up to you on the couch and relax, they want to notify you of their presence and have you pay attention to them. That’s all. They just need to be given air and brought to light in order to fulfill their duty. When we start to deny them their birthright, we also tend to pick up unhealthy habits to help us continue the cycle of repression. Self-loathing and self-punishing behaviors that allow us to turn against ourselves because we feel undeserving.

So, how do you cross the gulf from self-punishment to self-acceptance? Face those feelings. Let them give voice to what they must say. They are mini-kamikaze fighters who must crash their planes into the ground and be done. Let them. And when the dust settles and you can open your eyes again, you can come out to deal with any destruction they have left in their wake. The important part is that you will be able to come out. You will be there to face the damage in front of you, instead of constantly waiting for it to come crashing down. You can begin to breathe again and rebuild.

“Sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness.” Allow yourself to feel the range of your emotions and you will see your true self, complete with all your flaws and mistakes and hurts and disappointments. Lovely the way you are.

MOKSHA - Home practice

Starting one’s own yoga practice is a bit like starting one’s own blog: you begin with all these thoughts, but halfway through you have no idea where you are going.

Cultivating a self-taught yoga practice has been a pretend goal of mine since I started doing yoga. I say pretend goal because it should be a goal – it’s cheaper, you can do it from the comfort of your own home and you don’t have to worry about people seeing your boobs if your shirt flies up when you’re upside down.

Despite these obvious benefits, I have never really been moved to practice by myself. At first, I thought it was because I was kind of a slacker – that’s why I wouldn’t do all the poses, wouldn’t hold them for as long, would always opt to skip the vinyasa and just move into the next asana. But that’s only part of the reason.

It really has to do with energy and space.

There is a certain level of camaraderie with fellow yoga practitioners. Don’t get me wrong – yoga peeps are not a warm and friendly bunch. People will smile at you, say “hello” but ain’t no friends being made in yoga class. Even so, the presence of other people moving through the poses and focusing on their breath gives off an energy in the room. Everyone present can take from that energy and use it in their practice. When you first begin to do yoga, you may be too self-conscious to be aware of this, but once you are there for a while and can settle into the flow of class, you will begin to perceive a hint of gratitude flowing through each person. Gratitude for the space, the quiet time, the marvel that is your own body creating these movements.

There is also something special about the space itself. Entering a yoga studio is a bit like entering a church or a temple; there is a sacred feel to the space. You can put a treadmill in your second bedroom and run while your girlfriend is on the computer, but yoga cannot be practiced this way. It is important to not only have a quiet space, but one that takes you away from your world for a bit.

This week I attempted to replicate the energy and sacredness of a yoga class at home. While in supta baddha konasana, my dog came over and began licking my face, my brother’s alarm starting blaring and my dad yelled “hey, you want more coffee?”

You know, for now, I think I’m just gonna keep going to yoga class.

DHARMA - Brothers

I had just walked in the house from a defeating day. All I wanted to do was get into my pjs, curl up in my bed and fall asleep. I took off my coat, threw my purse down and started up to my room. Then my brother walked over, put his arm around me and said, “Do you know what you need?” “What?” I replied. “A beat down.”

Then suddenly, he had his arms around my shoulders and in one move, lifted me onto his back, then pretended to slam me onto the floor, and repeated this motion, yelling “Beat down!” while the dog barked furiously and my parents scolded him, pretending that this was inappropriate behavior in our house. By the time he put me down, I was smiling again. I gave him a big hug, told him I felt better, then with my sweetest face looked at him and said, “Cobra Strike!” and launched my hand, which was bent to resemble the head of a cobra, straight into his chest. “Damn,” he said, “you got me.”

Brothers, unlike any other man in the life of a woman, can tackle you, grapple with you, pick you up and spin you around, and fight with you, all without incurring a phone call to the police or a restraining order. They may be the first ones to physically assault you, but brothers are also the first ones to rush to your defense, give you the rest of their fries, or just let you talk, even when it’s boring or they don’t feel like listening. They are treasures.

For you women who don’t have brothers or for you men who don’t have sisters, you may find this all a little horrifying. But I assure you; both kindness and physical violence are important parts of how brothers show their sisters they love and care about them.

And I strive to be a good older sister, too. I discourage him from making bad choices, but can’t stop laughing when he tells me the stories that ensue when he does. I talk to him about his job, friends, life, but don’t push him when I get one-word responses. I adore, yes, really adore his girlfriend. And once in a while, I sneak up behind him and punch him really hard in the back, just to remind him how much I love him.

MOKSHA - Timing

I have always liked the phrase “timing is everything.” I like it because it implies that encounters with others are outside of your control. In fact, the times that I have tried to manipulate timing so that I magically appeared at the bus stop when he was getting home from work, or just happened to run into him at the post office, have blown up in my face, been palpably awkward, or just plain didn’t work.

My new favorite guilty pleasure is reading the “missed encounters” section on craigslist. These are tiny gems of timing failures:

“I was getting on the elevator in the lobby, and you held the door for me, around 3:30pm or so on Thursday. I had long brown hair and a dark gray coat. You had a dark suit on, and smelled so, so good. I know we only crossed paths for a second, but would love to chat sometime if you're interested.......”

These encounters leave you reeling, and you can’t often articulate why. You know only that you felt the brief spark of a real connection. And for days afterwards, you ask yourself over and over again why you didn’t say something in the moment. Maybe you were surprised, you were distracted, you were in a rush. There are a million reasons to explain why two strangers can’t form the words to address each other.

Or maybe it’s because that simply wasn’t your moment. We have a hard time recognizing that you can have a chance encounter with an intriguing person that will never develop into more than that. But instead of chalking it up to “it wasn’t meant to be,” there is a part of us that wants to force it into being. The moment seemed so perfect; the guy seemed like the right kind of guy. Everything had so much potential.

So to all the “missed encounter” people who are going to keep pursuing the lost moment: Forge ahead if you must! Post your personal information on the internet in the hopes that the other person is trolling for it. But to the rest of you: be gentle with yourselves, absorb the moment, and then let it pass you by.

And to Meredith with the ripped-up nikes, there is a man on the blue line thinking about you. And to sad, scruffy Hyde Park produce guy, you have a secret admirer in the milk aisle.