Rainy Mornings, Smoked Salmon and a Girl Named Turtle

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The Bean Trees

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I didn’t know this until today, but I love rainy June mornings.

Typically I tend to resent Saturday mornings.  I want to be like normal people.  I want the option of lounging about.  But my constitution won’t allow it. My body clock wakes me at six and I’m immediately consumed by the need to open my laptop and write.  What usually happens, of course, is that I leap out of bed, open my laptop and check emails.  This morning, with the rain tapping at my window, a miracle occurred.  I was convinced to keep my eyes closed for an extra ninety minutes.

When I did finally pull myself together, I was off to see my 90-year-old West Point graduate client for an hour of stretching and movement.  A widower, he’s typically quiet and reserved – except when I crack one of my notoriously bad jokes.  Although I really shouldn’t be encouraged, he’ll reward me with his hoot of a laugh.  Let’s just say there was a bit of hooting going on today.

After that I had brunch with a friend.  Ok, I’ll admit it.  It was with Mr. On Line.  What can I say?  I know this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be done – I think you’re supposed to treat online dating a more like a job.  I’m just not the type of person to set up coffee dates every free second.

To be honest, at this point I’m inclined to put an end to all the OKCupid stuff and consider myself lucky that I’ve made a friend and didn’t meet an ax murderer in the process.  Sort of file it under been there, done that.  Besides, I met Mr. On Line’s amazing cats today.  Any day that involves a cat NOT showing instant disdain for the strange, dripping wet  human standing in the living room is a good day.  It probably helped that I had the lingering odor of smoked salmon on my fingertips but all’s fair in love and meows.

Is this becoming one of those loathsome, tedious, drawn out blog posts that become mind achingly dull in their monotony?  Is it?  IS IT??  Great. Because guess what I did after I bonded with the cats?

I took myself to the Cantor Museum on the Stanford Campus and spent two hours there.  To see this.  Which was amazing.  If you’re in the area and appreciate books, typesetting, paper and etching – don’t miss it.

And then I went home to read.  For pleasure.  From 4:30 to 8:30 PM.  Just me, Barbara Kingsolver’s The Bean Trees (loved it) and several cups of pu-erh tea.

In other words, with the exception of my morning client, I managed to experience the day without an agenda.  Without the need to cross things off a list. (Ok…I confess… there was a little of that.)  But still it was an extraordinary day for Mimm Patterson.

Ps…by the way, this whole reading for pleasure business is fantastic!  I don’t know why I never considered it before.  Now there are a slew of books in my queue – my next Kingsolver will be The Poisonwood Bible.  After that Steven Harrigan’s Remember Ben Clayton.  Tomorrow it’s Velva Jean Learns to Drive by Jennifer Niven.  And then I’m on to all the books I said I’ve always wanted to read but never have…

Inner Space

The body is a holy and wondrous thing. Broken or healthy, it is a miracle. I know this to be true – but my belief is something I’ve cobbled together from books and good teachers – not from first hand experience.

In a few hours I’m boarding a train for San Francisco and will spend the week with fifteen or so other somanauts exploring the body’s inner space with Gil Hedley of the popular Fuzz Speech.  Tomorrow we’ll begin with the dermis and superficial fascia.

I will confess to being apprehensive.  Even this morning I ran through excuses that would keep me home. For a moment I convinced myself to head for the City, hide in the apartment I’m borrowing from clients, skip the workshop and treat myself to a week of isolation and stillness.  A silent retreat.  No one would know.

And then I came to my senses.  I would know.

Earlier today I wrote this to a friend:

Taking train to City today for cadaver week…to be able at last to see it all in front of me – to cut into it (which still seems to me such a violation)…I may be making too big a deal of this but I feel as though I’m stepping though a portal and will emerge in six days a different woman.

People ask me why I want to do this.  Some are incredulous.  Those who have worked with the cadaver are excited for me.  To answer their question “why?” I tell them about being a kid and flipping through the volume of Encyclopedia Britannia that had the transparencies of the human body.  Remember those?  You could flip from the circulatory system to the nervous system; you could see all the muscles and count all the bones.  I got lost for entire afternoons just looking, looking, looking. I was so curious.  I’m still curious.

And curiosity trumps apprehension any day.  I’ll see you in a week.

Lists, Love and Epiphanies

An list from a few years ago...I'm exhausted looking at it.

There’s nothing like a Wednesday morning epiphany to get my juices flowing.  I’m still obsessed with the advantage and disadvantages of keeping detailed lists and goals and objectives.  The merits of having a game plan.  (I’m also wondering how we determine what is instinct and what is illusion but that’s for another post).

Yesterday I walked Rose the Labradoodle without my ever-present iPod and discovered that not having my brain bombarded with Green Day, downloads of Michael Krasny (I have a huge crush on his voice) and the occasional Miles Davis opened my brain up to the possibility of – yeegads – random, spontaneous, creative thought.  Who knew?  Unplugging the external cacophony gives us a chance to listen to what’s going on deep inside.

And here’s what I came up with on Rose’s walk yesterday:  Most writers create a story arc – an outline of who their characters are, where they’re going and how they’re going to get there.  A beginning, middle and an end.  The story arc is roughly hewn list that chronicles the events that move the plot forward, the set backs the protagonist may endure, and the big payoff – why the heroine began the journey in the first place.

But a story arc is simply a road map.  It’s malleable.  It’s possible to turn left and venture down an unmarked avenue.

Cue big flash of insight.

When I think of my life as a series of lists, goals and objectives I set myself up for failure and disappointment.  The list is too long, the goals are too high. All I can see in my mind’s eye is that white piece of paper and one bulleted 10-point Helvetica command after another. My self-esteem is fragile enough already.  Why would I do that to myself?

But – if I create a story arc for my life then I acknowledge that there has to be room for uncertainty, moments when I decide to turn left instead of right, unexpected opportunity.  It doesn’t eliminate a game plan – I still want everything I want with all my heart and I know that I have to work for it.  But in my mind’s eye I can see my arc play out like a stunningly framed Ang Lee movie.

So, good-bye dry, boring lists.  Hello, The Story of Mimm.

Take a moment.  If you’re a chronic list maker like me, how does it feel to release those rote set of goals for a moment and instead see your life as an amazing story?

Lists, Love and Equilibrium

At last, the dust seems to be settling.  How do I know?  I made a list.  This seems like a silly indicator that equilibrium is coming home to roost.  But I am the self-proclaimed Mother of All List Makers. My last impressive list was created in the middle of January from the Embarcadero Hyatt when, disillusioned by the Yoga Journal Conference, I hid out in my hotel room for the weekend and pretended I was on a writer’s retreat. Before that I had my list of New Year’s Resolutions.  And before that it was Fifty Things to Accomplish in My Fiftieth Year (that one began three years ago – I’m still working on it).

Lists are about control.  They make me feel safe.  If I have my list I know where I am supposed to be.  I know where I am going.  Nothing can hurt me or distract me or pull me from my path.  I have my list.  Here’s my list for today:

Monday 11 April

  • 6:00 Rise: Shower, eat, feed Rose & Bella, walk Rose, meditate, post blog
  • 9:00:  Tom in Sunnyvale; d/o new clothes and stuff at home
  • Leave car at Sarah’s (walk)
  • Credit Union
  • 11:00:  FMG
  • Lunch
  • 1:00:  Avenidas
  • Sarah’s:  Rest, write, walk Rose; flowers for Bobbie & Harkins
  • 7:30:  Yin
  • TO DO:  contact Ann re. workshop; follow through on lost paycheck, poop scoop,  look at Abby’s letters from week 4, check submissions, think about query letter for cadaver workshop, drop off envelopes at CYC

It’s very routine.  Nothing exciting.  And it continues to Sunday, when I leave for San Francisco and my weeklong cadaver intensive with Gil Hedley.  The most exciting moment is when I break from my Wednesday evening tradition (staying at home) in order to leave the house for a home cooked dinner with Bettie, Richard and Dena.

This week’s list reminds me of an incident that happened about eight years ago.  I was going though another difficult time and decided I needed to talk with someone.  At my first meeting with a therapist, I brought The Ultimate List. I was so proud.  It proved I really wasn’t troubled.  It proved I had my act together.  The list was eight pages of 10-point single-spaced Helvetica and covered the next five years of my life.  I can still see the astonishment behind the therapist’s attempt to remain neutral. She looked at me and asked,

“Why do you feel you need a list?”

Wasn’t it obvious?

I didn’t remain in therapy for very long – eight years ago there were too many doors I was unwilling to open and the ability to bore cyberspace with musings on some wacky thing called a ‘blog’ was merely a twinkle in some geek’s eye.

We all experience periods of difficulty (even yoga teachers).  The goal, I suppose, is to remain functional while processing the events in our lives that have knocked us off-center.  Lists keep me functional.

The danger is that they can shut us down.  Put us in a box. Lists can create a life so ordered and precise that there is no room for an open heart.  For love and joy.  For connection.

I want love and connection.  But for now, what I need is the safety of my list.

My yoga practice this week will nurture the equilibrium I’m returning to.  There will be plenty of balance poses – including my favorite, Garudasana – and strong standing sequences.  I feel I need the grounding precision of an alignment-based practice this week.  I also need to comfort my heart, and for that I’ll turn to the organic fluidity of Yin.

When you step on your mat this week, take a moment to check in with your emotional state.  If you’re leaning too far to one side, how can your practice help bring you back to center?

Learning from the Past to Connect with the Present

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My parents divorced when I was two years old.  That is not unique.  Plenty of parents divorce.  But this was 1960.  My mom and her new husband JD put my sister and I in the back of the family Buick and headed north, away from Texas toward my mother’s parent’s home in Pennsylvania.

I never saw my biological father again.  It was as if he never existed, and I was too young to know any different.  In fact, until I was twelve years old I believed JD was my real dad.  I overheard a private conversation between my Mom and JD and discovered the truth.  To avoid punishment, because I shouldn’t have been listening, I kept the discovery to myself.  I didn’t ask questions, I didn’t confront or throw a tantrum.

But I did what I think most twelve-year-old girls would do – I fantasized about meeting the man whom I was part of one day and calling him ‘Dad’. I didn’t know the circumstances of his divorce from my mother. I didn’t know he was prone to violence.  And I didn’t know I was too late and that a woman he had pushed too far had picked up a gun and shot him three times in the back.

When I was sitting at my mother’s kitchen table this past September I asked to see a photo of my dad.  She looked at me, sighed then walked back to the end of her double-wide trailer and retrieved three thick scrapbooks.  Over the next four hours I looked at images burnished by time of people I never met but somehow felt connected to.  I searched faces hoping to find someone who looked like me.  Maybe I had Annie Barber’s nose; or maybe my blue eyes came from a cousin in Colorado. Mom told me about their talents “he was a musician”  “she loved to paint”  “your Great Aunt Mimm was a real cut up” and then, when we reached the third photo album, “here’s your father.”

She handed me a black and white photo about the size of a matchbox.  A man wearing flannel pajamas holds a tiny baby to his chest.  The baby is me.  There’s a small Christmas tree standing on a table behind him, and evidence of torn wrapping paper.  I was born in November.  I am one month old.

My reaction caught my mother and I by surprise.  I did not inherit my mother’s talent for stoic rationalization.  I began to sob.

“What are you crying about?” she asked.

I could not stop looking at the photograph.

“I’m trying to figure out where I fit in.”  I took a breath and sucked back my tears.  “I don’t know where I fit.”

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

Of course she didn’t.  This was something I had to discover for myself.

I continued to examine the image.  I searched his dark eyes for any sign of anger.  I examined the angle of his head – did he seem annoyed?  And then I looked at his hands.  His huge hands cradled me carefully.  In that moment, as the click of the shutter captured darkness and light, my father loved me.

So often in our Yoga practice we are asked to ‘stay present’.  We’re told to not venture into a past we can do nothing about and cautioned against veering into a future we can’t predict.  But if we don’t understand how our past has shaped us it becomes more difficult to understand the choices we make in the present.

In order to be fully grounded and engaged with our authentic self, we must keep a connection with our past.

How has your past shaped your present?  How does your past influence how you feel about your future?

Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

Ouch.  OUCH.  May I please say it one more time?  Ouch.

You may have noticed that my posts have been all over the emotional map for the past ten weeks.  I tried to stay on topic.  But I couldn’t. I was too preoccupied by wildly fluctuating hope, joy and despair.  Manic would be an appropriate description.  And what else other than out-of-control peri-menopausal hormones would bring on such mood swings?  Well, you know what?  I don’t really want to go into it.  Let’s just say it’s time to dust myself off and resume regularly scheduled programming.

As the weeks progressed and it became clear that I was not going to have the happy ending I wanted, I found myself seeking solace in the things I love:  teaching yoga and writing.

My mind would not settle long enough to write anything more than a few short essays.

But the yoga?  The yoga was a blessing.

I filled classes with gentle heart openers and soothing forward bends.  When I needed grounding I took classes through strong Warrior sequences.  When the friendship was going well I celebrated with Flying Dragons.  And when it wasn’t we did Flying Dragons anyway.  In my Yin classes I challenged myself to teach poses that wouldn’t be my favorite.

At home, I began the meditation practice I’ve been talking about since August.

But the last two and half months have left me in this strange place of being grateful for the experience of love and connection – no matter how brief the time was – yet mourning for the tremendous loss.  I’ll admit it.  I’m sad.

It seems sometimes that because we practice yoga, because we are teachers, we somehow have the means to rise above heartache.  It’s not true.  I teach yoga. And I’m human.

Constellations

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About a year ago a friend gave me one ridiculously comfortable green leather chair, a set of cobalt blue dishes, the 1971 set of Encyclopedia Britannia including the Year in Review and a box of maps.

Early last month I was digging through the maps looking for inspiring collage material when I found a Hammond Traditional Map of the United States. I decided to tape it to my kitchen wall.

When I was Miss Kuntz’s fourth grade class at Northwestern Elementary in New Tripoli, Pennsylvania I sat next to my friend Debbie.  For two nine-year-old girls, Debbie and I had big dreams.  If we weren’t going to be President of the United States, then we at least wanted to be the first women astronauts.  Failing that, I wanted to draw maps.

It was a short-lived phase. By the time I was twelve I dreamed of folk singing stardom and by high school I was going to be a history teacher or maybe even a doctor.

At eighteen I married Bob instead. I studied art and secondary education, which seemed more suitable choices for a mid-western housewife.  But the marriage lasted less than a moment.  On my twentieth birthday I boarded a bus in McCook, Nebraska and headed four hours east. Alone.

Maps still fascinate me. I love looking at the names of towns and wondering about the people who live there.  I love tracing my finger over the places I’ve been and wondering if I’ll ever return.

Last week I stood back and began to connect the dots.  From Fairbanks, Alaska to Killeen, Texas to Lynnport, Pennsylvania.  My eyes followed a trail to all the places I’ve lived.

I couldn’t stop.  I found string and used it to create a geographic cats cradle – my very own constellation.  An energetic imprint of over half a century of experience.

What does your constellation look like?

Adventures in Seeing

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For the optically challenged: plastic orbs that I'll use on the 3-D collages I'm working on. Whoo-hoo!

I’M BACK!!!

The one thing we can count on – the one thing we can be certain of – is that things change.

Yes, I spent a good chunk of rainy March wallowing in the mire.  But I knew that somehow, someway, it would cycle through and I’d come home to me again.

I felt the first inkling of an attitude adjustment on Tuesday.  On Wednesday I began to believe it was more than my imagination and this morning – this wonderful, beautiful, sun draped Thursday morning – I jumped out of bed with a smile on my face and charged into the day.

While I can’t put my finger on what triggered it, I can narrow it down to three things:

1.   Six weeks are my limit when it comes to moping around.  I simply can’t stand it any longer.

2.   Something resonated inside when I said to my friend over the weekend “I’m stronger than you.” Perhaps the idea of strength reminded my psyche of the other qualities I have and hold dear – my resilience and my loving nature, the ease with which I forgive, my cheerfulness (it wouldn’t be prudent to begin listing the qualities I possess yet don’t hold as dear…like my predisposition toward envy and my lack of cooking skills…)

3.   And the gift of a coffee mug from a friend and yoga student:

I’m riding the crest of a creative surge.  My kitchen has become an art studio.  I’m juggling three essays, a magazine article and homework for an online course I’m enrolled in.  Tonight I spent a couple of hours doing voice over work for a friend’s website.  She and her husband have an incredible home recording studio and it didn’t take long before we were thinking about creating a new yoga CD.

Tomorrow I’m tackling ‘The Dish’ with a friend.

It feels weird, because it was actually me who opened the laptop and emailed ‘hey, do you want to take a walk?’ I guess I didn’t actually expect him to say ‘yes’.  And yet, he did.  Go figure.

Life can be good.

But things change.  I know they do.  So I’m going to grab this high and hang on for the ride and enjoy it for as long as I can.

Dear Diary…oh, never mind.

My Biological Clock Mixed Media, 24x24 inches

Yes, I know I said I was taking a break.  I am.  I’ve decided to consign the post I left here last night to the dustbin.

My only intention last night was to share this painting that I’ve been working on. Here it is.  In detail.

I’m riding a crazy creative flow.  I’m full of excess energy that I am channeling into collage and yoga and poetry and personal essays. But not blog posts.

The post deposited here last night was yet another rant about that loathsome phrase “it is what it is.”

I say, “it is what you make it.”

We can’t control what life gives us or what it takes away from us – but we can choose our response.  We have, at least, that much power.

The other day I responded to a friend’s question by answering “Because I’m stronger than you.” I can’t even remember what the question was – only that the answer shocked me.  Through all the swinging highs and lows of the past two months I’d forgotten how powerful I am.  How resilient.  But five simple, uncensored words reminded me.

It’s easy to feel physically strong when you practice multiple Flying Dragons or an intense Warrior Sequence.  But feeling emotionally strong is more challenging – especially when it feels easier to believe you have no control.  Especially if you choose to believe ‘it is what it is.’

detail

Pu-erh, Genmaicha and the Hero’s Journey

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Beeng Cha teacake pu erh tea and Japanese teapot

Image by Scott MacLeod Liddle via Flickr

I’ve been thinking about tea. Real tea.  My favorite teas are black Pu-erh and green Genmaicha.

Pu-erh is an earthy tea. Its scent alone transports me to a dark woods.  One sip and I feel I’m walking on a soft forest floor inches thick with fallen, decaying leaves and pine needles.  Moss grows around tree trunks and drapes over the rocks that line my trail.

Genmaicha is light and clear by comparison.  It’s roasted with brown rice that softens bitterness and adds a warm, contented note. When I drink Genmaicha I think of standing in an open field with the sun on my back and a broad, cloudless sky above.

But to enjoy the complexity of these teas, they must be brewed correctly. Pu-erh can be brewed forever.  Manhandled.  Genmaicha requires more finesse, water just below the boil and a short brew time.

Thirty-six hours ago, when I posted Mani/Pedi Om, I didn’t know it would be my penultimate weekly (sometimes daily) post.  But as I moved through the day I couldn’t shake the feeling that while I was good at observing life, I wasn’t doing so well at living it.  My life had become as weak and diluted as a cup of tea brewed from a used, day old bag.  Sound familiar?

There’s something missing and I mean to find it.  There’s a gap between what my life is supposed to be and what it has become.

Every time I sit down to write a poem or work on a book proposal or even think about composing a query letter and instead become distracted by Facebook or Twitter or this blog, I’m throwing another bucket of sand on the fire I used to burn with.

I’ve lost track of who I am.  I’m not brave anymore.  I used to be brave.

If I remain glued to this chair, this desk and this laptop engaging in barely witty repartee with people I’ve never met; or if I struggle to be profound in one hundred forty characters or less, I’ll never see Norman Foster’s Millau Viaduct.  I’ll never walk through Tate Modern again, or cry when I see Prague’s St. Vitus’ Cathedral for the first time.  I’ll not drink a pint of the black stuff at a session in Donegal, toss back too much sake and belt out bad karaoke in New York, or play guitar with Mike in Reno.

I’ll never be published.

And I won’t find someone to read to me.  And that is my favorite thing in the world, when someone reads to me.

If I stay here, doing this, I’ll never find out what happens next.  I won’t ever really know how my story is supposed to end.  My only view of the world will come courtesy of Wikipedia.

I learned about Pu-erh and Genmaicha in the garden of the Santa Cruz Zen Center five spring times ago.  A man I knew and maybe loved read TS Elliot’s J Alfred Prufrock to me in the afternoon sun.  We brewed the Pu-erh and Genmaicha.  And then he served sliced oranges dressed in rose water and cinnamon.  I’ve not seen the man for years, but I’ll never forget that quiet, perfect afternoon.

So I’m taking a break for awhile.  It’s time for me to dig a little deeper instead of tossing off six hundred easy words because I can.

Last night I finished reading Karen Armstrong‘s The Spiral Staircase (for the second time).  Towards the end, she talks about the hero’s journey:

The hero has to set off by himself, leaving the old world and the old ways behind.  He must venture into the darkness of the unknown, where there is no map and no clear route.  He must fight his own monsters, not somebody else’s, explore is own labyrinth, and endure his own ordeal before he can find what is missing in his life.  Thus transfigured, he (or she) can bring something of value to the world that has been left behind.

I’m not going on a hero’s journey – at least I don’t think I am – but Armstrong’s words certainly inspire. So do these:

“Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.”

And I, for one, have no intention of leaving anything out.