Life Bird

My friend's mom is a bona fide birder. She taught us that when you see a bird for the first time in your life, it is called a "life bird." Today I saw a Broad-winged Hawk. In the middle of Dupont Circle! Just hanging with the pigeons and then it flew up into the trees to take in the scene and potential food offerings.



http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Broad-winged_Hawk/id

I wasn't gonna have a resolution, but then I thought of a really good one.

Some say it is silly to go to sleep on new years eve and think anything will be different when you wake up on new years day.

That’s what I was thinking when I fell asleep last night watching a movie, knowing that there were dishes from 2010 in the sink and a suitcase from holidays 2010 that still needed to be unpacked.

And yet, I woke up this morning feeling peace within. Peace within! Outta nowhere. I like 2011 so far. Peace within is not new to me, although it has been so long since I’ve felt it. I welcome it back, but I know it can be fleeting. Although peace within sounds so passive, it takes so much vigilance to maintain it. After feeling it come and go many many times, I know that it is not something that comes with age, or with x number of yoga classes. Once you attain it, it is not necessarily there forever. It requires practice and attention and vigilance because there are too many forces out there that can so quickly whisk it away from you and too many forces within one’s own mind that can push it out.

My resolution for 2011 is to remember that contentment, gratitude, and hope are just as accessible and available to me as self-criticism and cynicism. It really is a matter of choice. For some reason, negativity is the default for me, but if I choose and practice peace within, perhaps that will become the default and maybe one day it will all be so much less work. Maybe not. Either way, it’s worth the effort.

To my gentle reader who recently told me about her newfound peace within: You attributed it to reaching a certain age or turning a certain page, but I beg you to guard that shit vigilantly for it can easily slip away.

You dropped your confidence.

“Excuse me, you look good.” he said with the same urgency and lack of self-interest that one would use to tell someone they dropped a mitten. I had just attempted a run but was walking home because of back pain. I was fretting over the weight that I am sure that I have gained recently and wondering whether my blocked chakras are manifesting themselves in physical deformities yet.

I said thank you with the same kind of gratitude I would have if he had just pointed out a dropped mitten on the sidewalk. When someone shows you your mitten, you don’t tell them that it doesn’t actually fit or that you don’t really like the mitten. You certainly don’t act like you don’t need the mitten. You simply thank them. And so I thanked him without asking if he noticed how big my legs are or how terrible my haircut is. I did not ask him if he says this to all the American women in workout clothes and serious faces. I didn’t ask him if someone once told him about how American women have no idea how beautiful they are and so all that you have to do is tell them they look good. I did not act like I don’t need the approval of others, especially not male others. Nope, I just said thank you and continued walking home, reminded of my beauty. And he walked on with his friends, probably feeling like he did a good deed. Or maybe he walked on thinking something indecent and then quickly forgetting it all. Doesn’t matter.

The office white elephant gift exchange: Who perpetuates these things!

The only things that I have thought of so far to take to the office white elephant are illegal (burnt cds), not mine to give but theft of them could be rationalized as a favor to the proper owner (ie, helping my landlady de-clutter), or too revealing of my inner hippie (homemade granola or homemade chai). What to do! Suggestions welcome.

The invitation to the holiday party included the following information: "We use a Yankee Gift Swap scheme. Google it if you need more details."

Contemplating facebooklessness

Facebook in general and the new profile specifically conflict with my ongoing (although newly embarked upon) quest for egolessness. I have only a rudimentary understanding of the concept of egolessness, but hope to learn more as most of my suffering (and yours too) stems from the ego.

Through egolessness, we realize that we are not our things, we are not our jobs, we are not the schools we went to, we are not the cars that we drive or the bikes that we ride. In fact, we come to realize that the struggle to define ourselves, to figure out who we are, to find ourselves is so goofy and unnecessary. If we let go of the ego, there goes the struggle. Poof. It’s gone, and now we are free to attend to the present moment.

Facebook’s new profile asks us to define ourselves in a snapshot that places undue emphasis on jobs, schools, spouses, siblings, and physical location. Although it is quite possible that I would feel differently about the new profile if I loved my job and wanted to tell everyone what I am doing or if the mere mention of me having gone to law school didn’t make me nauseous, I prefer to offer egolessness as the reason for my opposition to the new profile.

Although I am studying for the bar exam and have no business being on facebook, let alone blogging about its shortcomings, I keep my account active because I like it when people post pictures of me doing interesting things with attractive people. Egolesssness has its limits.

Least favorite things about yoga

-smelling other people's farts
-seeing other people's g-strings

I'll admit the first one goes with the territory, but not the second one.

Blast in my pants

Cantaloupe Mylk



Watermelon Smoothie


Last night I dreamt about eating those pink iced animal crackers and the pumpkin shaped candy corn like candy. In real life, I woke up at 3:40 am and pooped. The reason that these things are worth noting is that I am doing a cleanse this week. Yesterday was the first day. For breakfast, I ate cantaloupe mylk (blended cantaloupe...so frothy and yummy). For lunch, I ate a salad and exotic fruit cereal (blended banana poured over seeds from 1-2 pomegranates with some berries thrown on top). For dinner, I ate vegetable paella (a cauliflower and olive mixture eaten over red and green peppers marinated in tomato celery lemon cayenne sauce). Day one was delicious and fun. I am doing the Make it Real Make It Raw Detox Blast, led by Thomas from my old yoga studio in Lincoln and his friend Rachelle.

A dear friend is also doing it so it is fun to compare notes, body temperatures, farts, and bowel movements with her. It is too bad we don’t live in the same city to eat our delicious food together.

I imagine doing something like this wouldn’t be so fun doing it alone. It’s nice to know there are nearly 400 people all over the world (okay, probably just Europe and North America) who are doing the cleanse.

Why am I doing it? Because it is happening. Because it is free. Because I miss doing yoga with Thomas in the mornings and he has created little yoga videos for us to do first thing in the morning. Because, as I’ve confided in some of you, some sort of shift occurred recently and a cleanse feels like a good capstone to this shift. I think it is either (1) Saturn has come home (unlikely, I think I have a ways to go yet) or (2) I am settling into life and it is good. Something happened with this shifting and I let go of all of these goofy things that I was holding onto with white knuckles. I didn’t even decide to let go...I just did and things became so much easier.

Another reason why I decided to do the cleanse is that I have largely given up (for now) alcohol, coffee, and cigarettes due to the previously blogged about affliction. Also due to the affliction, I stopped running about two months ago so I have none of the reluctance that I might normally have to do something like this because of its impact on my running.

Thomas and Rachelle have provided us with a list of responses to the cleanse, but they didn’t address my greatest concern. What if I become obnoxiously self-righteous? Even more so than I already am?