THANKFUL FRIDAY

I’ve been battling a head cold all week, pretending that there’s nothing wrong with me. Each day has been a progression from sore throat to nasal congestion to barking cough. I refuse to give into the idea that I am actually sick because there’s been no fever or aches. I’ve tested negative for COVID three times now. On Wednesday morning I didn’t nudge Michael to get up. Instead he came to me and when he placed his hand on my shoulder, I opened my eyes and croaked “I’m getting up!” Then we sort of argued because he said “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well.” and I replied “I feel just fine…cough cough…..I’m not sick.” This week is a short week leading into a fairly long break for the whole institute. Our microscope calendar is full and I have several projects I’m helping with. I may have the available sick time, but I didn’t feel like I had the luxury to use it. Besides, the cough hit by Wednesday and that’s always the last symptom in the head cold progression.

So, I am not sick.

Though, if I was sick (and I’m not saying that I am, just if I was), now is a pretty good time for it. I have been relieved of all chores and duties until Saturday morning when we go get haircuts. My job today is rest and an eventual shower because the Cabbage wants to have dinner at the ramen place down the street tonight. I will shower for soup. The following days will be quiet ones. Our Christmas with the Cabbage is on Christmas Adam/Eve. Our Christmas day will be spent with friends for a low-key dinner with puzzles and games. We will spend two days with my family in Oklahoma and then an evening with Michael’s mom’s. Then our plans are to stay still and ring in the new year quietly at home.

During my Wednesday chair yoga class, I gave my student a little bit of extra time in final relaxation. As I helped each student gather and arrange cushions and blankets to be comfortable for a long savasana, I told them to let this time be their gift to themselves. Sometimes we need to bribe ourselves in order to allow for moments that may seem splurgy. Being still and resting for fifteen minutes feels like a splurge to many of us, me most of all. There’s something about ‘gifting’ those fifteen minutes to yourself that feels like permission. I told Michael I didn’t want anything for Christmas this year. I just couldn’t think of anything that I wanted that I would not buy for myself. I told him to save the money for when we go back to New Orleans. We are only doing stockings, but I think I will follow my own advice and gift myself a holiday of rest.

I hope that you are able to give yourself a similar gift this holiday season.

I am grateful to have the luxury of a long holiday that allows for rest. I think that this is my last Thankful Friday entry for the year. I think that having a holiday of rest includes taking a break from this space. Before we know it, we will be blinking in a brand new year, a year for new adventures. I am excited for the adventures awaiting me. Some of them are going to be big. So, with gratitude, I am taking this moment to rest and prepare my body for those adventures.

Many Happy Holidays to you.

IN THE QUIET

Savasana

In the days that followed J’s death, I could not even look at my yoga mat without having a full on melt down. It took months of getting my mat out of it’s bag and rolling it out onto the floor before I could even step onto it. It took baby steps and time to get my practice back. Even now, fifteen years later, I can sometimes still hear my Mom’s shattered voice when I am in pigeon pose. That’s where I was when she called me to tell me something had gone horribly wrong and that memory is imbedded deep into my right hip now and forever. Sometimes I wake with an ache in that hip. Clinically, that ache is probably a bit of arthritis, but I know it as trauma.

When we were still in the hospital trying to figure out a way to fix Chris, I had my yoga mat with me. Every day they wheeled him out of his room for some lengthy test or surgery and I would unroll my mat in the corner of our room. The methodical motion of flowing through poses gave me something to do while my brain whirled with all possible outcomes of Chris’s illness. I never laid down for savasana. My excuse was that there was no way I’d ever be comfortable on the cold, hard, tile floor of a hospital. Surprisingly enough, I still managed to get on my yoga mat every day after Chris died. My flowing routine was the balance to the exorbitant amount of time I spent laying on the couch, drinking. I still left savasana from my routing though. My excuse was that I didn’t need a final relaxation when I spent so much time merged with the couch. When I finally did lay down for a savasana, it was in a yoga class I was attending. The moment I was still, a bubble of panic filled up in my chest and then I exploded into sobs. This would happen every time I laid down for savasana, until one day it didn’t. Again, baby steps and time. I learned to relax with my grief.

The last few weeks, whenever I have gotten still in savasana, that bubble of panic shows up followed up with the tears. Final relaxation feels a lot like it did after Chris died. It came to me a few night’s ago why this might be. We were watching the first episode of the new HBO series ‘Lovecraft County’. The first half hour was calm and almost slow, but then the episode started to build in tension. The last ten minutes or so of the episode had me jumping in my seat and clutching the dog. I believed I even screamed at one point. This year has felt like watching a horror flick or walking through one of those Halloween houses. There have been jolts of terror followed with calm moments. You relax a little and then you get hit with another jolt of terror. Just when you think you’ve almost made it safely out of the haunted house, another ghoul jumps out at you from out of nowhere. The thing is, is that it’s nothing really life threatening, except for the few things that were potentially life threatening. It is just scary. Like the dumb meth-head who climbed into the spare bedroom window of my mom’s house early Saturday morning. He snuck passed my sleeping mom to the dining room where he took her purse and then stole her car. See? Terrifying, but meth-head let my mom sleep. So I don’t really care about the rest.

These little scares and jolts start to add up. That bubble of panic and the tears that follow that keep brewing up whenever I am finally still is my body reacting to all of those little traumas. I have come to terms with this and have made it a point to settle into this pose at the end of every practice. I prop myself up and make myself comfortable. Then I set a timer for twenty minutes and force myself to stay put until that timer chimes. The wave hits and there are a few moments of discomfort and tears. Then the wave moves on and I am still and quiet. Instead of learning to relax with this new trauma, now I am learning to allow my body to react to the trauma.

Baby steps and time.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Bud

"Bud"

I don't think I've done a full twenty minute savasana since before Chris died. Now that's a confession. During my yoga teacher training, I drank up the Kool-aid that savasana is the hardest, yet most important part of any yoga practice. Twenty minutes is just enough time for your body to relax and heal. I used to picture my cells relaxing and healing on the molecular level, mentally imagining telomeres pulling DNA apart as cells divided. Of course, because I am a scientist. Twenty minutes is just long enough to get to that place between awake and asleep and be present in that place for a moment. Ten minutes is just about all I can give these days to savasana and even then there are times I just give up and stop the timer before the chimes can go off. The irony is that most days, I would pay money to be able to just lay down for twenty minutes. 

Savasana, corpse pose, is the practice of dying. I've heard some people take it as far as to mentally say goodbye to people and places, even their bodies, while in savasana. I've done that. I've said my goodbyes and sure, it's good practice for having to say goodbyes in the real world. I'll admit that it has come in handy. Recently (?), the things that bubble up in my brain while trying to play dead has shoved the ritual of saying goodbye over to the wayside. I have conversations with people where I tell them exactly how they make me feel. I have whole dialogues where I stand up for myself and I don't let who ever it is talk to me or treat me a certain way. In these conversations, I am sharp and eloquent. I get my point across. I make that person realize that their words and or actions are hurtful with out invoking useless blanket words like "you're just an asshole". Instead, I make them understand why they are an asshole. When I should be dying, I am addressing grievances that have happened days ago, weeks ago, years ago. Some of those grievances get me so riled up that I can't lay still and I don't even try to. 

Many of you are thinking that this probably is not a good use of my yoga time.  I don't know. Maybe. But there's the occasion when I say my piece and I get it all out there and it doesn't matter that it wasn't heard by the one who caused the grievance. Truth be told, it wouldn't make a difference to that person anyway. It is just enough that I said the words. It is enough for me to just say "hey, this hurt my feelings and here's why." This is enough to allow me to let that grievance go, to say goodbye to that particular grievance. It has taken me some time to come to terms with this. I have grievances that I just need to let go of and when I die there will be grievances that I will have to say goodbye to whether I'm ready or not. I am thankful to recognize this as part of the practice. I am thankful to recognize that even though I seem to have a lot of grievances right now, I will let those go. I will get back to twenty minute savasanas. Some day.

I am thankful that our cat, Albus loves us so much. He left us a dead rat in the middle of the dinning room on Wednesday. He's so thoughtful to have killed it for us this time. I am thankful for the dozen eggs I have to take to my mother this weekend. I am thankful to able to getaway for a visit with my family even if it will be brief. Michael spent part of his Spring Break taking care of the vehicles. I am thankful that he went to the DMV for my tags and that he took my car to get an oil change. I am thankful for Greek yogurt and walnuts. I am thankful for the time spent on my yoga mat. I am always thankful for you.

Here's to a lovely weekend and truly Thankful Friday!