Reframing

I’m at the point in the semester when I can figure out my real schedule, the one I can actually manage, not the hopeful one I plotted before the shit hit the fan.

It appears that six years ago, I was able to use a long afternoon between morning and night classes to get some writing done, which explains why I thought I could do that again this term. The difference is that this year, the night class addresses a whole batch of texts I haven’t read before, so that particular afternoon often goes to class prep, or administrivia (I get to be on an extra committee this year). Usually by this point, I’ve readjusted my sleep schedule from wherever it wound up over the summer, and am managing to get to bed at a sensible hour before the 5:30 a.m. alarm; so far, I’m not doing well at all with that, so I’m not getting enough sleep, and that’s not good.

In trying to work out what I can actually do, it’s clear that I need to make good use of mornings, the time when I am most likely to be awake and alert, the time when I feel as good as I’m going to. (I don’t know why I always hope I will feel better later. It rarely happens. Once in awhile, which is I suppose why I keep hoping, but I should not count on it.) Thus there are some things I need to do to clear space in my at-home mornings: stop waking up slowly over blogs or the crossword, and put that waking-up time to languages, instead, then move on to writing once the tea kicks in. I’ll discontinue the morning yoga classes, both with the chatty teacher and with the nice teacher the morning after my night class (when I tend to sleep late and not want to rush out of the house to go do something).

I’m quitting the third one as well, though it’s in the afternoon. The difficulty there w/r/t timing is fitting in the gym plus a full work-from-home day, and along with front-loading days, I also need to front-load my week. The other difficulty is the teacher’s love of incense. When I talked to her about it, she said brightly, “It’s not incense, it’s wood! Let’s try opening the windows, how about that?” It’s scented smoke that makes me cough for hours. Do whatever you like with the windows; I’m going home rather than expose myself to any more of that. So, yeah, now I’ve spoken about it; but who knows what else is going to crop up? I’ve remained cross about yoga-woo stuff, when I just want to get stretched out.

So back to my own routine at home, preferably in the morning, because it is important, because I feel better after it, because I want to make sure it gets done. Twenty minutes is adequate. Thirty is great if I feel like it. Ten is better than nothing, and what I will aim for on teaching/leave the house early days, with another 10-20 minutes before bed. And I’m going to think of it as my own personalized exercise plan. It has yoga elements, and also stretches I’ve picked up from physical therapists and massage therapists over the years, and some strengthening exercises. Some exercises I hold; for some, I bounce. I know; most people will say you shouldn’t do that, but it’s what works for me. I think calling it a personalized or individualized program will appeal to me.

On into the middle section of the semester. Maybe it will slow down a bit, now; so far, the time has gone super-fast.

The final frontier

I’ve started ripping out the oregano that infests my front garden. While the Battle of the Bellflower was in full swing, I really didn’t have the energy to work on oregano, which smells nice and appeals to bees and butterflies. But now its flowering season is over, and it really has spread alarmingly in the past five years, so I’m going for it. Since it’s in the mint family, that’s its nature, and if this house doesn’t sell soon I’m sure I’ll still be ripping it out next year.

Why can’t I ever just sit back and enjoy the garden instead of always doing things to it?

No, I know the answer to that: because the last owners made bad choices.

Adieu, Marceline

Marceline Loridan-Ivens, 19 mars 1928-18 septembre 2018.

Que sa mémoire soit un bénison.

Cross again

Does yoga rot people’s brains? Or is it just my park district? At the yoga class I like(d) this afternoon, during shivasana the teacher lit a stick of incense without asking first whether anyone had allergies, asthma, other lung issues or just a dislike of scents.

I resurrected out of corpse pose so fast my head spun, rolled my mat and slithered out of the room while trying not to inhale. I was still coughing an hour later. In fact, even now I’m getting intermittent coughing fits, though they’ve calmed down considerably.

Who does this sort of thing? There are people way more sensitive than I am out there. (Hi, Fie! I really hope you’re out of that moldy building this year.) This teacher is fifty-something, plenty old enough to have run into people with respiratory problems. I’d go back to the overly-athletic yoga classes at my gym and just spend a lot of time in child’s pose, but they’re all at times that are either impossible for me (while I’m teaching) or completely unlikely (no, I’m not going to get up in time for a 6:00 a.m. class after teaching a night class the night before). Overly Chatty Lady is starting to look a bit better to me, though who knows, maybe she also has a thing for incense and it just didn’t manifest last weekend.

Jesus H. on a raft. Just . . . at least warn people if you’re going to do things that could aggravate medical conditions.

Cross Purposes

I’m consciously trying to live my life, rather than putting it on hold because I think/expect/hope that we might be moving house. So I signed up for yoga classes that meet near my house, three times a week (non-teaching days). It’s a pleasant short walk over there, and the yoga studio looks out into the trees. All three classes are taught by different women. Tuesday, great. Thursday, fine. Saturday . . . wow.

I spent the whole time thinking “Shut up, shut up, shut up, could we get some quiet over here? I’m going to have to go home and do yoga to get over this experience. Should I just leave now? It would be so much easier to get calm and centered if you would shut up. I don’t care that you fixed your husband and kid their breakfast before you left because it was someone’s birthday.”

Let me be clear: this was all the teacher. I’ve been in some generally chatty classes, where people want to catch up with their friends, but that is not what was going on. The (few) other class members today were quiet and apparently focused on their practice. But from the teacher we got a constant flow of “feel the energy” type comments mixed with snippets about her family life and recent experiences, and, occasionally, some actual useful information about what we should be doing with a pose.

I left feeling certain I would not be back, and rather cross about this because the combination of time and place are really good for me. Since I got home, however, I’ve been quite productive. I did more yoga. I did some baking, prepped preserved lemons, paid bills, ordered some things I need online, sent a message to a family member about shipping more Stuff from FamilyLand. I’ve done a little bit of tidying up, though I still need to do much more. When I write it out, it doesn’t seem like that much, but my weekend mornings often start with several hours of drinking tea, reading blogs, and staring into space feeling that I really ought to do something. Anything. Any time now . . .

So maybe I should keep gritting my teeth through this class. Maybe it really does energize me. Or motivate me to be quiet and focused, in order to counter the unwelcome chatter.

It also made me think about the unintended consequences of both good intentions that don’t produce the desired results, and of negative experiences that get one’s attention or inspire a desire to be different/better. Maybe (to pick up TLQ’s gardening metaphor) I need to be hardened, left outside in the cold a bit; or to have some growth pinched back to make me grow bushier; or forced to grow up a trellis.

Remember, remember

Seventeen years ago, the weather was just like this.

I taught on Tuesdays, that term.

I usually listened to the news in the car, not before leaving my third-floor walkup.

My neighbor caught me in the hallway to tell me, as I was leaving. I didn’t understand. I thought, small plane.

When I tuned in to the news, the second tower had already come down.

Noah Adams’s voice broke. (Was it Noah? One of the NPR reporters.)

I called to find out if LRU was carrying on as normal. They were.

I carried on. I taught. Everyone was so shocked that all we could do was continue to do the things we always did, like shattered glass hanging together for a few seconds before it starts to fall out of a window.

I remember the morning. I don’t remember the end of the day.

For this fall’s freshmen, the world has always been this way. This is not their before and after.