Back to Back

Last night in Adaptive Yoga we were volunteer heavy. Adaptive yoga is a class specifically designed for students with significant mobility issues. Volunteers assist in helping the students to move their bodies into poses and act as props or supports to facilitate certain postures.

Since there were a lot of volunteers, I opted to just observe. It had been a few weeks since I was at class and I wanted to get back in the groove. About halfway into the class, an additional student, Carl, came and we were suddenly in need of my volunteer support.

Carl arrived just as the class was getting ready to transition from chairs to the floor. This process takes a bit of time because volunteers have to transfer each student from their wheelchair to the floor mats. Once Carl was transferred, Joan, another volunteer, and I worked with Carl. Carl is maybe 30 years old, about 6'2" with a strong, athletic build. Carl is paralyzed almost entirely from his neck down with some very specific and limited movement in his arms.

The first exercise on the floor was to go back to back and work on forward and back bends and then side to side flexion. Because Carl and I are both tall, I volunteered to be back to back with him for this exercise. The teacher Kelly and volunteer Joan helped support Carl while I shimmied in behind him and found a comfortable place where we could both balance. Kelly and Joan helped us to hook our arms with each other  and we began moving forward and back and side to side with Nicole's (another teacher) cues.

"I don't have much control", Carl said,  as I folded forward supporting the length of his torso on my back. Then I pushed him back up and laid my upper body weight onto the length of his back. Back and forth we went.

I've done this posture before. About a year ago, I taught a room of couples for a Valentine's Day Yin workshop and was surprised by how challenging it was, even for couples, to let go of control and give in to the posture. I noticed right away how comfortable and relaxed I was doing this posture with Carl. Was it me knowing of his inability to control his body that gave me permission to let go of my grip on the posture?  Was it the vulnerability he modeled when he said, "I don't have much control?"

I think it was both, and I consider the experience a moment of grace, one of those magical moments where I both learn something profound and feel an overwhelming surge of gratitude. In Yin today, I shared this story with my students."Try releasing some of your own control in these postures," I said. I wanted them to feel what I felt, to energetically receive the release that came from really letting go.

I don't know if it worked. I really hope it did.

Eclipse

On Sunday Lucia and Nan and I took Amtrak down to Salem to stay with my aunt Gretchen and see the total eclipse. Nan had reserved train tickets months before in preparation, but at the last minute I resisted going because I was two days away from finishing The SweatBox upgrades and I felt stressed about managing the final stages remotely. I rationalized that the eclipse in Seattle would be at 92% of totality and that seemed good enough.

But Lucia and Nan convinced me that seeing a total solar eclipse was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I could manage The SweatBox from afar. We'd avoid traffic because we'd be on the train. We had a place to sleep, a place to watch the eclipse, and my favorite aunt waiting for us with eclipse glasses. Nancy even looked up a couple of eclipse rituals: One, to put water in jars and expose it to the two minutes of totality, and save it for times when we might need some extra energy or support.  A second idea we all did was to treat the eclipse like a time of renewal. The idea was to set intentions for what we wanted to let go of or release from our lives as well as things we hoped to manifest. For me, one of the things I struggle to release is control, especially while traveling. I included this in my eclipse renewal list.

Our trip down on the train was uneventful. We played four hours of gin rummy, hearts, and solitaire in the club car and ate a steady stream of alternating salty and sweet snacks.

The next morning we filled our eclipse water bottles and set up to watch the eclipse in a huge open field behind Auntie Gretchen's house. It was just us and one other family in a vast stretch of prairie. We started seeing the moon cross over the sun at a little after 9am and the events that followed were nothing short of miraculous.  Perhaps more than seeing the moon pass in front of the sun, what affected me most were the shifts in our immediate environment. When we started watching the sun through our eclipse glasses, the air was hot and the sky was bright. As soon as the moon covered about 70 percent of the sun, we noticed the light around us starting to change. It got chilly and, as the eclipse reached totality, it got REALLY cold and the light turned eerie, like we were on a movie set with no natural light. And the animals started to react. Lucia said she heard owls. We saw three bats racing overhead. Birds of all kinds chirped maniacially. Dogs barked at random. And then, just was quickly, the world came back to normal. The temperature started rising, the light got warmer. We shifted back to regular life, but I felt kind of funny--tired, weak, borderline nauseous.

I told Nancy that I felt like I'd had a physiological shift from the eclipse. I'm inclined towards high woo woo and Nancy is a die hard pragmatist. "Laura," she said, "you had a lot of coffee and there was a lot of build up to the eclipse. Maybe that's what you're feeling."  But I felt like it was something more. I'm not a physicist and I don't understand much about the earth's magnetic pull, but if felt related to that, like my own equilibrium was off, something had shifted.

A few hours later it was time to get back on the train and make our way north to Seattle. As predicted, the train depot was mobbed and our northbound train was late. True to my anxious nature, I was managing an imminent panic response. There were so many people. I was sure if we got seats at all,  they'd be crappy seats; surely we wouldn't be able to sit together.  We waited in the massive line to board the train and got assigned three seats, two together and one directly across the aisle that looked occupied. I circled back to talk to the conductor, a petite raspy-voiced woman in her late fifties (I soon learned her name was Maureen). "My seat looks occupied by an employee," I told her. "Aw, don't worry about that, just push my stuff over" she croaked.

So Nancy and Lu sat on one side and I sat next to Maureen's pig pen.  Somehow I became Maureen's assistant. As the train pulled out of the Salem station, Maureen handed me a dirty piece of paper with wrinkled tape with the wifi password. "Anyone who needs help with the wifi, just talk to Laura here in seat # 37", Maureen yelled to the whole car and then heavily patted me on my head three times before marching towards the dining car.

Throughout the five hour ride, Maureen would stop by and ask me to get her something from her pile of papers, "Go in my purse," she'd say, "and hand me some more of those cafe vouchers" or "Find me my cherries. I need some cherries." Nancy and Lucia laughed from the other side of the aisle every time Maureen came by with a request.  But all I could think about was, "Why did I land in this seat?"

Surprisingly, I wasn't bothered by Maureen. When she woke me up from a little snooze to have me grab something, I was happy to see her, thrilled for the distraction from the monotony of a long train ride. Maybe the shift in my equilibrium from the eclipse drew Maureen to me or me to her. Maybe my intention to relinquish a little bit of control actually worked.

I'm still riding high from seeing the eclipse in totality. I didn't think it would affect me like it did. I didn't think seeing a natural phenomenon would mean this much to me. But it did. It changed my perspective. I got a gift, a beautiful two-minute lifetime within a lifetime that gave me a different lens. At the end of the trip Maureen actually made me leave my seat and find another so she could get her stuff together.  When we disembarked Maureen stepped off the train to ask a passenger walking by for for a puff off of her vape!!! The train ride being Maureen's assistant could have been bad, real bad, but it wasn't. It was hilarious, and fun, and light, even great. The total eclipse of the sun rocked my world. So far, the aftermath has been pretty great too.

4 planes, 3 airports, 28 hours, a flood warning, a bunch of squished frogs, and one really good friend

Tomorrow my good friend Vanessa officially turns 50 years old. She's about a year and a half ahead of me and about a year and a half behind my partner Nancy. Last summer when we were in New York, Vanessa told us to save the date for her 50th- August 2017.

A few months ago when Vanessa finally let us know that the official date of her party would be August 12th, I had to tell her that I couldn't come. Because of existing summer travel, I couldn't leave until Friday and The SweatBox was starting a big renovation the following Monday so I had to be back by Sunday. Vanessa lives in Manhattan and her party would be at her weekend house in upstate New York. It was just too far and convoluted to figure out a way to get there and go to the party leaving Friday and returning Sunday.

Since I don't really feel inclined to have a big party for my 50th, I felt okay telling Vanessa that I couldn't go, but it quickly became apparent that this was not a big party and she really only wanted a handful of good, old friends to come. So, at the last minute we decided that I would surprise Vanessa and go. Nancy used her ridiculously good travel planning skills and got me a ticket. We'd fly via Detroit into Newburgh and rent a car to Vanessa's, only about 45 minutes from Newburgh. I thought it was perfect. We'd avoid New York City traffic and airports and be in and out for the party with no trouble.

Our flight on Friday left at 6am and we planned that I'd park my car at the airport so I could go straight to the studio on Sunday night when I landed (Nancy would stay an extra day). On Friday, we got up at 3:45am and made it through parking and security with no problems. Our flight from Seattle to Detroit took off without a hitch. So far so good.

Once we got to Detroit, we learned that our flight to Newburgh would be an hour late (that's after the planned 2 hour layover). That delay went from one to two to three hours, leaving us in the Detroit airport for 5 1/2 hours. We made the best of it. We wandered, ate snacks, drank Prosecco, people watched. Nancy spoke to Vanessa multiple times, pretending she was traveling alone, stranded solo in Detroit.

By the time we landed in Newburgh there was a full on rainstorm and our phones were sending out emergency warnings for a flash flood. We'd planned to be at Vanessa's by 6pm but by now it was already after 9pm. We followed the Google Maps voice until we were a mile away, at which point I climbed in the back seat to hide for our arrival and we lost service all together. Nancy kept screaming because she was running over errant frogs hopping across the wet country roads. I, prone to motion sickness, was lying on the suitcase with my windows rolled down, offering very little help to poor Nancy. Exhausted, hungry, driving in unfamiliar territory without street lights or cell service, we basically guessed the last one thousand yards to Vanessa's driveway. But we finally made it. Nancy got out first and went into the house and I stumbled in five minutes after, a rumpled, wet, nauseated surprise.

We stayed up late that first night catching up, grateful and excited to be together. We woke up early the next day to set up for the party. It was so great to be there, and Vanessa was so happy! The party was an all day affair around the pool, then the dining room table on the deck, then the pool again, then the fire pit and back inside for second dinner at 1am. It was an epic party.

The next morning, fully sated from the day of fun and eager to get to the studio to set up,  I took our rental car back to Newburgh for a 2pm flight. Mechanical problems turned the 2pm flight turned into 5pm. I missed my connection in Detroit and my 7pm arrival to Seattle turned into midnight. This morning when I went to the studio at 5am with 4 hours of sleep and airplane hair, I calculated my time traveling to Vanessa's party-- 28 hours- 14 there, 14 back. The time I was actually at Vanessa's house was about 38 hours and I slept 12 of those. I can't believe I'm saying this, but it was totally worth it.

Happy Birthday Vanessa!

Crashing waves

My two sisters and I are less than two years apart. Katherine and I are twins and Amy is twenty-one months younger. When we were kids we rotated in different duos within our trio. Although we each had our own bedrooms, we often migrated for periods of time to one of our sister's rooms. Sometimes Katherine and I would share a bedroom, sometimes me and Amy, and sometimes Katherine and Amy. Though we fought like all siblings, I remember more good times than bad with my sisters. We grew up in the 1970s when grown ups, at least our grown ups, were sowing their wild oats, finding themselves, letting us kids figure out how to entertain ourselves with minimal adult supervision.

We ran in a neighborhood pack on the South side of Chicago. Our posse-- Christa, Regan, Joby, Frouwkje--with the periodic inclusion of other neighborhood kids, had a regular weekend garage sale on the corner of 57th and Harper in front of Powell's  Bookstore. We'd take the books out of the free box and label them with nickel, dime and quarter price tags and add that to old sheets, kitchen utensils and toys from our respective houses. The police once gave us a warning for selling pillow cases with block labeling "PROPERTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO" that we'd grabbed from our linen closet.

In many ways our childhood was fantastic. I have great sadness that my daughter doesn't have the freedom to be wild and unaccounted for in the ways I was. But those years were also chaotic and sometimes unsafe and my sisters and I developed a tight bond, one that has lasted into adulthood. But just like our room swapping as kids, we've gone through lots of different relational incarnations with each other.

There have been times when Katherine and I were really close and Amy wasn't deep in the mix. Katherine and Amy have had times of connection and I've been on the outside and Amy and I bond deeply one month and find more distance others. We all live in different states now, so there are very few times when the three of us are all together in one room. Our interactions are mostly via phone calls, email and text.

But every summer we all get together. The sisters, our parents, and the grandkids. Those are amazing times, uproariously funny times. And because we're not familiar with the intensity anymore, they almost always make us a little bit crazy. A few weeks ago we all gathered in Michigan for a reunion. Toward the end of the seven days, I was feeling the familiar frustration that comes from being together intensely. I think Katherine and Amy were feeling it too. Right before dinner when the Lake Michigan waves are high and strong, Katherine and Amy said they were going down to the lake. At the last minute I decided to join them.

Riding the energy of an intense day, we walked down to the lake in relative silence. I felt tense, a familiar upset feeling from finding myself back in that hijacked anxious state that I get when I see myself repeating old familial patterns. I felt like throwing a tantrum or beating the shit out of someone. As we crested the dunes to the lake, we could see that the waves were higher than they'd been all week. There were only two other people on the whole beach.

Within seconds we had all dropped our towels and were running into the waves. We've been diving into those waves our whole lives and the joy we felt as we plunged headfirst into them was visceral. We emerged, bathing suits askew from the force of the water, hair wildly placed in ridiculous sandy combovers, laughing hysterically at ourselves and each other. It was the laughter that I only have with my sisters. The waves beat the shit out of us. For twenty minutes we dove in and the lake spit us out. And then, as if in silent agreement, Katherine walked towards the shore and Amy and I followed. We gathered ourselves into our towels, slipped on our sandals and, bathing suit bottoms filled with sand, walked home for dinner.

Family Yoga

Last week I spent seven days with my family at a house in Michigan. It was my little family-- Nancy  and Lucia (12),  our 12-year old niece Kaye, my sister Amy, her husband Ben and their seven-year-old Sam, my sister Katherine and her two boys, Joe (15 1/2) and Sean (14), my mom (76) and stepfather (89).

All families are intense and dysfunctional in their own special ways. My family is no different. Depending on the year and the individual states of mind among all of the kids and parents, different combinations of people work well and others not so well on our family trips. There are always good times, lots of laughing, game playing, teasing, cooking and eating on our family trips, but there's also a collective tension that builds. By the end, even though we all love each other, we're ready to say goodbye.

This morning as we were cleaning up our rental house, I was washing the dishes and broke a vase. When I told my mom, she said, "Oh God, that's a fancy one. It's an Aalto!" I had no idea what an Aalto was, but I was quickly schooled. Yes, indeed it was a fancy one. "The Aalto Littala" to be specific, retailing for $175 at MOMA.

So the end of my trip was punctuated by bullshit-- texting the owner about replacing a vase that we used for 4 days for flowers that died. I spent fifteen minutes stewing in my room between attempts to find the Aalto Littala on sale, but eventually there was nothing I could do but let it go. A broken glass vase cannot be pieced back together, no matter how many ways you try.

As we left the vacation rental I was stewing. The broken vase compounded by the build up of tension from lots of family time made me feel manic and a little bit violent. As we started the two-hour drive from Michigan to Midway airport in Chicago, I tried to redirect my energy by thinking about all of the great moments we had together. One of my favorite was an impromptu poolside yoga class with my fourteen year old nephew Sean, his 15 year old brother Joe, Lucia and Kaye (12), Nancy, my mom and my two sisters.

We only had beach towels, no mats, and it was 8pm, the end of a full day of swimming, tennis and a huge dinner. But somehow it happened. Nancy and Lucia are used to family yoga; we do it often. But I was truly surprised that anyone else joined in. My nephew Sean was the biggest shocker. Sean is an extreme athlete. He's a trampolinist, a wild flipping scooterer, the kind of kid who jumps off roofs without batting an eye. A few months ago, while jumping off of a roof onto a trampoline doing a triple flip, Sean broke his neck and had surgery to fuse two of his cervical vertebrae. In addition to his recent injury, Sean is also a quintessential teen, spending most of his time on his phone and in his room.

So when I asked Sean to join he said, "Sure, I'll try," I was floored. I started the class quickly so that nothing would distract him away from doing yoga. The class lasted about 40 minutes and was very low key. Sean did every posture and stayed seemingly present the whole time (no phone, eyes closed, snickering undetectable).  I can still his face in final Savasana-- peaceful, quiet, beautiful. I can picture the faces of everyone in my family that evening. I have these moments often at the studio when I look around the room after a class and see my students recalibrating, integrating all of the information from the class. It's why I love my job. It's a gift to me to see the peace that comes to people when they slow down, take away the bullshit, and breathe new life into their bodies. I'm not sure when my family will get together again, but until we do,  I'll so grateful to have the image of their beautiful post-yoga faces to remember.

Betty.

A few weeks ago, I was paired with Betty at Adaptive Yoga.  Betty does not use a wheelchair; she has full use of her whole body, but she likes the class.  In adaptive yoga, volunteers like me facilitate movement for people who have limited mobility. Often we do hip openers by moving the legs from bent to straight to bent again. Or we rotate the leg right and left in circles to bring some lubrication to the hip joints.

I offered to help Betty move her legs because, even if you can move your legs on your own, it often feels really good to surrender and let someone else do it for you. Like many people, Betty had a hard time relinquishing control in this exercise.  In fact, she did the opposite of relaxing into the movement.

A few things to know about Betty. She is little, maybe 4 feet 10 inches. And she's old, a surprisingly young, and strong 92 years old. And, she always wears a royal blue sweatsuit.  As I tried to help Betty through the hip circles (and she resisted) I couldn't get over how strong her little 92-year-old legs were. Betty was married to her husband for 68 years and he died last year. She started yoga as a way to keep busy, and healthy. She also started wearing magnetic bracelets and anklets to help channel energy that would help her back pain. She got that idea from the suggestion of a vendor at the mall.

As a yoga teacher, I am surrounded all the time by people who are pretty open-minded. But these people are in their 20s or 30s or 40s. When I was a kid, we used to visit my grandmother in the Drexel Home in South Chicago. Sometimes our school would go to do crafts and sing songs with the old people who lived there. I always loved the visits with my class and with my family. My grandmother and the other residents were always so appreciative. Old people have experienced so much more life and loss than the rest of us that they are simply wiser. What a gift it was to spend time, doing yoga no less, with this special nonagenarian!

As the class came to an end and everyone was getting comfortable in Savasana, the other teacher Nicole came over to Betty to ask her if she needed anything. Betty's eyes were already closed and her face emanated pure bliss. Her little blue sweatsuit-clad body was perfect as it was.  I looked down at her, watching her chest rise and fall with her breath, her anklets and bracelets slack on her ankles and wrists. "She's amazing," I thought to myself. Nicole and I shared a smile of appreciation for this beautiful soul before she moved on to check on the other students.

When I went home that night, I was, as I almost always am after teaching yoga, gleeful, excited, at peace, all at the same time. My heart was full of Betty, of all her goodness-- her open-mindedness, her faith in healing, her ability to be honest about managing the loss of her husband, her perseverance get herself to finally let go at the end of class. Gifts really do come in all sorts of packages.  Thank you Betty!

Seasick

Last week we went out on a motor boat on Lake Washington. The temperature peaked at 93 degrees and after hanging at the lake in the heat of the day, we were all excited to hop aboard our friend Andrea's motor boat and get some wind in our hair. Though it was very hot, it was also choppy on the lake and it seemed that every boat and jet ski registered in the greater Seattle area was out for a spin.

I'm prone to motion sickness. When we travel abroad, I alway pack a perscription anti-nausea, but I rarely take it when we're just on the lake. A few weeks ago we went out on the same boat and I was just fine. But last week, I found that I could barely hold on. A few times I jumped into the water to get off the rocking vessel. That provided a temporary solution but the seasickness came right back as soon as I got back on the boat.

Andrea offered to take us on a longer tour, all the way from south of Seward Park to the 520 bridge. Not wanting to be a pooper, I agreed but about halfway in I realized that I couldn't do it. Head between my knees, I told Nancy I was a goner. She told Andrea who graciously complied with this last minute change of plans. We made a B-Line for the west side of the lake so we could turn back and head to the moorage near our house.

I was okay when the boat was speeding, but as soon as we slowed down to pack up our stuff and get ready to dock, the seasickness came back in a furious wave. Andrea suggested she bring the boat a bit closer in so I could swim the 50 yards to shore. Desperate to escape the nausea, I jumped at the opportunity. I've actually followed this protocol before. Several years ago when Nancy and I were kayaking in Belize, I had to abort mission and swim the last leg of our trip because the rocking of the sea waves beneath the kayak was too much for me.

Still very queasy, I leapt from the nose of the boat into the lake. The waves were big, my stomach was inside out, and the lake bottom was nowhere near my toes. I panicked. Even though I was a competitive swimmer for over 15 years, I often forget my skills in open water and lose my calm. I turned over onto my back and treaded water. I tried to take little sips of air, but I couldn't catch a full breath.  I wasn't okay. "Laura, are you alright?!!!" Nancy yelled from the boat. Not wanting to scare Lucia who standing right behind Nancy, I made a face gesture indicating that no, I was not okay. I was literally over my head. I didn't know how to get control. I needed help.

Nancy threw me a life preserver. I managed to wrangle it onto my body and I dog paddled to shore. As I climbed out onto the wall, I could see people sitting up on their towels, on paddle boards, in boats looking at me, wondering if I was okay, trying to figure out what the spectacle of the woman jumping off the boat and needing a life preserver was all about. I didn't care.  I was simply relieved to be safely on land.

In my younger days, I would have died of embarrassment to demonstrate such weakness, such vulnerability. I might have tried to power through somehow, attempt to override my nausea or deny my panic, but these days I am older and wiser. I know that, try as I might, I am not invincible. I am a human being with frailties, fears, and limits. And life is not in my control. The conditions that day on the lake brought me to my knees and I needed help. The only way to take care of myself, on the boat and in the lake, was to admit my weaknesses, to ask for help.

I resist showing my vulnerabilities. I like to be in control. I often find myself in conflict because I can't just admit that I'm scared or hurt or overwhelmed. It's unlikely, but possible, that I could have drowned had I not asked for help that day on the lake. It's one of the great ironies of life, that admitting our weaknesses makes us stronger. It brings us closer to other people because we show up fully, vulnerabilities and all. The experience on the lake was a gift, a reminder that asking for help is a good thing, a necessary part of life.