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Cindy Maddera
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I did not leave the house on Saturday. Michael, in anticipation for a predicted ice/snow storm, went grocery shopping after work on Friday so that I wouldn’t have to dig out my car to go the next morning. It was a very knight in shining armor thing to do considering that grocery stores on the eve of snow storms are the worst places ever. Grocery stores on the eve of snow storms followed with a NFL Divisional game for the home team are worse than the worst places ever. Yet Michael donned his shield and sword and charged into Trader Joe’s and even refrained from opening the bottle of Bourbon he was purchasing until after he got home. He told me all about his adventures when I made it home that evening. I laughed and told him that it probably wouldn’t snow. Pellets of ice could be heard hitting the house sometime around 7:00 that evening. So we got a nice layer of ice before the five inches of snow that came down Saturday morning.
Sometimes having your very own knight isn’t so bad.
We had a snow day. I did yoga and meditation. I cleaned the bathroom and did the laundry. I even took a shower, but I did not put on a bra. I had a nice warm cup of chai with half of a special marshmallow floating in it and I finished a book and started another one. At some point during the day, Michael asked me “when’s the last time you didn’t leave the house on a Saturday?” I thought about this for a long time and could not come up with an answer. Maybe that one time in 1993 when I didn’t have a band contest, choir contest or a 4-H thing. The moon was in the seventh house and Mercury was aligned with Mars, because there had to be only one Saturday out of the year when I did not have one of the above things to do. Or all of the things. Saturdays are for leaving the house. Sundays are for CBS Sunday Morning and no bras. Definitely not on a Saturday. This whole not having to leave the house for anything on a Saturday thing was very weird and slightly disorienting. You would think that I would have used my time a little more productively. Like working on a writing project or painting the kitchen. Maybe I should have spent the day scrubbing the baseboards with a toothbrush or rearranging the living room. I am one hundred percent positive that there are chores that I have been putting off that I could have done, but I didn’t. I did the bare minimum of chores and the most creative I got was deciding what yoga poses I was going to do in my practice that morning. I have zero regrets about this and those of you who really know me know that for me to have zero regrets on basically being lazy is a pretty big milestone.
My yoga teacher who I did my teacher training with was/is a big fan of doing less. We’d have many a discussion on the subject. Doing less did not mean that you didn’t challenge yourself in a practice; you just moved a little bit slower, did a few less poses, spent twenty minutes in final relaxation. She warned us about those students who had personal lives of go, go, go. Those people tended to gravitate to a vigorous vinyasa flow kind of practice and usually skipped final relaxation. They did this because it felt normal to them. It was what they were used to even if it wasn’t necessarily what they needed. Making some one like that slow down was actually the best medicine a yoga teacher could offer them. In the years since I have been teaching, I have had those people in my classes. It takes them a bit to give into the pace of the practice, but once they do, those people become final relaxation junkies. I have never considered myself to be one of the go, go, go kind. In fact, I always lump myself into a sloth like category. If we were talking doshas, I’d put myself firmly on team Kapha. I’m solidly built and lean towards lethargy. I have been telling myself lies, giving myself a label so I’d have an excuse for being the chunky kid. I may be solidly built, but those of you have stayed with me in my house have witnessed my constant movement away from lethargy. Ask Michael about my so called naps where I close my eyes for ten minutes.
What ‘leans towards lethargy’ really means is ‘leans towards not wanting to exercise’. I don’t want to spend time on the treadmill or jumping up and down while lifting weights over my head. I do it so I am no longer the chunky kid (debatably still chunky) but stay solidly built. Spending a day lounging on the couch with a good book and doing less stuff is a need from time to time. At the very least it gives me fodder for a lengthy blog entry about nothing.