this is just to say...

that last night in my new favorite yoga class, I did a headstand.



This picture is not of me, naturally. Thank you google images.

I ran home and did five more, two of which involved falling down into a hard-landing summersault. I can only hold it for about five seconds...but this is just to say that I did one!

motivation

Yesterday I opened my office door to inspiration.

Actually, I opened my office door to Ray's wife, an elderly woman with a Christmas sweater and knee trouble. She brought a bag of cheese-balls, three newspapers, and a sharp sense of humor with her into our tiny space and settled into the leather chair in the corner. She was waiting for her husband to finish his volunteer shift. Her knee kept her from working the floor. She sat quietly in the corner while Aaron, Allison and I dashed in and out, told stories, answered phones, laughed and vented.

Then I found myself talking. She and I were alone. She asked me the usual questions. Where did I go to school? Where does my family live? Do I like Baltimore...and then, what was my major.

What was my major? English Language and Literature, with a bit of Creative Writing dabbled in. Writing.

I always hesitate when asked around here what I studied. It seems to foreign from the rush of setting up and serving an 800-person meal daily. For four years I curled up with stacks of books, notebook paper and two or three (or four) cups of tea and churned out essays, reports, poetry, reviews and journal entries by the binderfull.

I love writing. I used to fill up a thick journal every year. Now I'm writing maybe a page a week.

But not for long!

As it turns out, our visitor is a writer. She has written four books and currently writes and edits children's text books. She told me to write. She told me to write for 15-20 minutes a day. Write anything, she said. Write about the volunteers, about the people you meet. Write essays and journal entries and poems. Write stories. The more you write, the better you will write.

I know these things.
I know that when I go to yoga four times a week I do better, am stronger, and feel better than when I go once or twice a week. I know that when I paint and draw every day the colors and form come out more true and rich than when my sketchbooks sit in the box by my bed, neglected for days.

There's something different between knowing that and knowing how, as Bethany would say.

This year I will know how. Is it too early to make resolutions? My resolution is to be strong. I will be a braver artist, a deeper writer and a stronger yogini. Daily. Thank you Mrs. Ray. You stepped in for a minute and reminded me that some days are about waking up at 6am to write, just so it is there. Some days are driven to last till midnight, surrounded by paints and charcoal on my bedroom floor. Without discipline, skill remains small and weak. Thank you for your motivation.

All This Beauty

All this beauty,
You might have to close your eyes
And slowly open wide.
All this beauty, we traveled all night.
We drank the ocean dry,
And watched the sun rise.

You can ask about it, but nobody knows the way.
No breadcrumb trail to follow through your days.
It takes an axe, sometimes a feather,
In the sunshine and bad weather.
It's a matter of getting deeper in, any way you can.

All this beauty,
You might have to close your eyes
And slowly open wide.
All this beauty, we traveled all night.
We drank the ocean dry,
And watched the sun rise.

I can see you're new awake.
Let me assure you friend:
Every day is ice cream and chocolate cake,
And what you make of it, let me say
You get what you take from it so be amazed,
And never stop, never stop, never stop
You gotta be brave.

'Cause all this beauty,
You might have to close your eyes
And slowly open wide,
And watch the sun rise.

i can't get no satisfaction

Yesterday I bought a new nail polish at Urban Outfitters. They were having a sale and my nails are finally long enough to show off. Yoga made me stop biting my nails. Enough time in Downward Facing Dog staring at my hands and I couldn't help but stop. I've been itching for a nice opaque nail color for about two weeks.

Still, it was pretty expensive polish.

I fluctuate. Some days I step off into freedom. I am unbound by material things. I wear my ratty jeans and my big brown sweater (again) and paint and take walks and poke around in my potted plants. I give away clothes. I make all of my Christmas gifts from scraps of this and that that I found at the Book Thing or collaged from free magazines. I curl up in bed and read Thomas Merton, and wander home at midnight from a communist dance. I turn off the faucet while I brush my teeth, and only buy Kiss My Face natural deodorant. I grow long leg hair. I walk barefoot on the sticky kitchen floor and don't care.

Other days I am bound. The binding is its own freedom. Soft faux-leather boots, wooden-heeled and stormy grey, arrive in the mail. The right nail colors and vintage pendants clutter my beureo. I feel released by knowing I am right. I know that this and that are perfect together. That my new dusty blue blouse and these black skinny pants are it. Maybe I should run an extra load of laundry just for these two pairs of paints to be the right kind of tight when I wear them again. I love my perfume. I drink. Red wine, margaritas, beer...I buy the wrong kind of mascara and wonder how much of a budget break it would be to spend another $7 on the right kind. I brush my hand along the row of shiny Venus razors at Rite Aid and drop 50 extra dollars on the artsy glasses frames.

Looking at my fingers now, I am glad I bought the polish. Is gladness (read: happiness) what I'm after?