Exiting the Vortex

D's belly, N's toes

Hello world. How nice to see you again. Wow. How did so many months go by so quickly? Well, the toes and belly above have something to do with it. Funny thing about having babies: everybody says you have no idea how hard it is until you do it. And (stupidly) you don't believe what you hear. You think: well, yeah, having twins is going to be tough, but I'm a tough lady. I can handle it. And then you have two real, live, squirming, fidgeting, hungry, poopy, wonderful packages of consciousness to tend to. I could have written any number of posts about much of what I've been through in the last months: the complication that brought D and N into the world sooner than I was ready to meet them; the fact that nursing is much harder than you'd think it should be, and with twins even more so; the miracle of the first smiles we got from the babies; the funny way they laugh; their bizarre choices of favorite toy; the difficulty we have with getting them to nap sometimes; the list goes on and on. But if you want to know that stuff, you'll just have to ask me in person. Or wait for me to feel like writing about it here.

The first few months are all a blur now, anyway. They all say that, too. But it's true. Time, sleep deprivation, and an endless cycle of feedings and diapers have a way of erasing the neat borders of the days and blending them all together. It's for the best, really. No one would have children if those things were clearer in one's memory.  And I hear it just keeps getting better.

I'm writing today to remember myself--not the new, mama bear self, but the self I used to know. I'm testing out the waters out there, slowly sticking a toe into the world beyond the vortex of early motherhood. It's scary, and good.

On mother's day, I went to my regular yoga class. I spent a lot of time reconnecting with other folks in the kula, hugging my teacher, etc. I knew I missed the community, but what surprised me most was how deeply I missed the practice itself. For an hour and a half, I wasn't keeping an ear out for a baby. I wasn't using my body to carry or feed a baby, or sneaking a shower, or checking Facebook. I was just living in my bones and muscles. I felt like I'd been dipped in bliss. I dropped out of down dog into child's pose more times than I can count, and I modified the arm balances plenty. And I know it may well be another six months, or a year (or two!) before I get back to going to that class regularly. But every moment on the mat that day was precious: missing out on something so crucial to your identity makes seizing every chance so much more important. I know that my practice over the next couple years will not often involve rolling out my mat and smiling at my teacher. Yet I am grateful both for my teacher and for the years of mat-practice I've already put in. On the days when I'm doing pick-up-one-crying-baby-while-holding-the-other-asana over and over again, I can (if I'm mindful) remember that these repetitions too will bear their own fruit in time. And I can savor far better the times when I get to focus on savasana.

There's more to savor: I spent an hour last week doing yard work. That's an hour more than I've done in nearly a year. The yard is slowly reverting to a state of nature. All I did today was prune shrubs and pull a few clumps of invasive grass. An hour of sunshine, the smells of the plants (salvia and lavender, a lemon tree in bloom, and a honeysuckle), and I felt a sense of rightness in the world. Ah, I am in fact something other than a source of food and comfort! In time, I'll be able to share the world of the garden with my boys. They'll "help" me, just as my brother and I helped my mother in her garden. Yeah, insert your metaphor of choice about the cycles of life, etc. I'm too tired to come up with those words.

And then: a brief visit to Urban with babies in tow felt less like I was being drenched in bliss, and more like being on the edge of a fire--so much to start thinking about again, and so many questions of how to be fully present both there and at home. The students were excited to see the boys, and I was happy to see my students. (But they're so big! So loud!) And I'll be excited to use parts of my brain that have been lying dormant the last few months. But as I ponder the details of going back to work (how can a teacher possibly find time to pump milk during the day? What's better, to take transit so I can grade on BART, or to drive, so I can have more time with the boo boos?), I wonder how I'll be able to find balance in this new life equation: how will mom, teacher, gardener, and yogi live on in the same body? Stay tuned...

Details

Iris, garden, April 2010

My yoga teacher posed this question at the end of class the other day: Where or when in your life have you allowed the details to become more important than the thing they were serving, AND when have you not paid enough attention to the details sacrificing that bigger picture?

My short answer: Um, all the time. For both options. Let's start with the first question.

Where or when in your life have you allowed the details to become more important than the thing they were serving? When I'm grading papers. All those comma splices and run-on sentences and misused words drive me nuts. And I sometimes lose track of my students' ideas (the big picture) when I focus on those details. But then again, if I don't focus on those details, my students won't become coherent writers. Right? Don't they need me to circle and point out their errors? When my teacher points out that I'm not pressing with the base of my index finger, she's not telling me I'm a bad yogi. She's asking me to be mindful of a detail that is essential to a strong foundation in all poses that require my hands to be on the mat. When I ask my students to pay attention to their syntax, I'm helping them build strong foundations for all the writing they'll do in their future lives. The details matter. But maybe they don't matter as much as I think they do—when a student's grammar is so atrocious that it takes me 30 minutes to get through a page, am I really serving that student by noting every single error? Probably not. A practice I'll try this year is to note repeated errors and have 5 minute conferences about those specific errors. Then I'll check the next paper for those same errors and see if there's improvement.

But what about the second question? Do I skip the details sometimes in search of the big picture (even at the expense of the big picture)? Maybe. I wonder if this isn't my major weakness as a teacher: I love to talk about the big, juicy stuff—the meaning of life stuff, the stuff that reading books is all about. I love to ponder the difficult questions with my students, and I love to see them drawing connections between themselves and the (often strange) folks in the texts we read. But, especially in upper level electives, do I err on this side too often? Would my upper level students benefit from the more direct explication that I ask for in lower level courses? Probably. Maybe I should start discussions more often with the plot, the themes, the characters, the setting, instead of asking students to extrapolate from what I assume they understand. In yoga, even the most basic poses can be incredibly challenging for an advanced practitioner, if you pay enough attention to the details. In fact, I've been through many excruciating adho mukha svanasanas (down dogs) and tadasanas (mountain poses)—thanks, Abby!

So, what do I do, now that I've acknowledged some of places where my teaching practice could be more refined?

1. Keep thinking about how I do assessment. (I've been poking around this guy's blog, wondering if there are insights I might glean—how can I adapt some of the methods he discusses to the kind of no-grades policy we have at Urban? Are there more efficient and more effective ways to give students feedback on their writing?)

2. Remember the details, particularly with older students. They may be faster at it, and they may need less coaching, but—especially considering the sheer length of the readings we often assign in electives—sometimes slowing down and going back to basics is a wise thing to do.

Changes

So, I just realized that it has been months since I last posted. Here are the things that have happened since November:

1. We bought a house.
2. The love of my life got a new job.
   
3. I started an Anusara yoga immersion, chock-full of insights into my practice.
   
4. I found a Dream Job, at an excellent school in San Francisco. I'm excited about the new school, but sad to be leaving the old one, particularly about leaving my advisees.
   
5. I went on a weekend-long retreat for teens as an adult helper.
   

I've been busy.



All this busy-ness has been good in some ways. The teen retreat in particular gave me time to reflect on the many changes that have recently taken place.

The house is great. The man's new job is OK, though it takes him away from home for 3 days every week right now, which leaves me feeling somewhat unmoored; on the other had, I do get to do things like spend an evening at Spirit Rock, like I did last night. That's a good thing. About the immersion: I'm psyched to be working on my yoga practice in a new, deeper way. In many ways, deepening my yoga and meditation practices couldn't have happened at a better moment.

A story from my practice: three weeks ago, the night before a day-long interview at the Dream School, my teacher asked me to demo a handstand assist. I have a long and painful history with adho mukha vrksasana -- despite my ecstatic moments with it last fall, I have deep mistrust of my body's ability to hold itself up. And fear of falling/failing, of course. I initially balked at demoing the pose. I've done a couple of demos in class before, but never a pose I've had such a hard time with. But some voice in me said to just get out there & do it. So I told her I'd give it a try. And I felt strong and supported and safe and all those good things that come from practicing in a warm, wonderful space, with a wonderful teacher. I took from that class a sense of confidence and awe that I then carried into my interview; I don't think I would have felt so confident and open during the interview if I hadn't had to push myself beyond my yogic edge that night.

I tell that story because my teacher told it to the class tonight (I was both honored and embarrassed), in the context of a lesson on stepping into life with your practice in your heart. Not necessarily written on your sleeve, though my yoga practice is known to anyone who speaks with me for more than 30 minutes. But living from the heart, and generating all of your actions from the heart, is living your yoga -- carrying the practice off the mat.

My feelings about having stepped into that pose in front of a room of people reminded me of what I think is most important about developing as a teacher and as a human being: there is never a perfect pose; there is only true, genuine, honest intention. Everything we do can be done better, but should be done with honesty. That's another post..

October is a such a busy month

I haven't blogged lately because I've been too busy with everything. Everything includes school, yoga and travel.

The yoga part has been the best part. Travel was good too, but tiring. I almost decided to dwell on the not-best-parts, but in the spirit of focusing only on the positive, I will write today about the yoga part.

Two weeks ago, I had the great honor of attending a workshop led by John Friend in San Francisco. I started studying Anusara yoga a couple of years ago, when I arrived in San Francisco from the East coast. I had previously practiced Ashtanga yoga, along with a bunch of other schools of asana. But Anusara (true to its fashion) spoke to my heart. And although I've taken some time away from an Anusara practice, in the last few months I've rekindled the connection. I am so glad I did.

I was thrilled to be accepted into John Friend's workshop: I was one of 250 "mixed-level" students who got in. I had no idea what to expect, and never would have predicted what did happen, for the effects of the weekend are still reverberating in my life. I met new "yoga friends" and no longer feel alone at the studio. I got to see who this amazing teacher was, whom my teachers had been raving about. I got to realize that I am still learning and growing as a practitioner. I still have so much to learn, but even more important, I want to learn so much.

The fourth thing that happened to me is less egoistic and more subtle: I felt my practice become lighter. And every time I have practiced since the workshop has been full of joy and full of presence. I'm not just struggling to move into a difficult pose. My whole being is involved in that pose, even the poses I feel least confident about (bakasana, I'm talking to you). And despite a struggle with handstand (one that has been going on for nigh on 10 years), I am beginning to see that pose with lightness and ease. I know that spending 8 hours of one weekend doing yoga has not made me a perfect yogini. I do feel a sense of greater comfort an ease in my body. Maybe my heart melted just the right way at the workshop; maybe I am just happier now that I have a core of new acquaintances. But I'm looking forward to my next day of practice. Maybe that will be the day I kick up into handstand and float there, strong and open.