Riding over I5 at night
It was a great night for riding home after the first meeting of my yoga teacher training. Not a lot of traffic at all, not too cool or hot. It was nice riding through the neighborhood to the pedestrian bridge on Bryant. It struck me how much changed in the last 10 years. Here I was, 39, riding home at night from yoga teacher training, 150 pounds less. At 29 I'd pretty much given up on riding a bicycle a few years prior, had not notion of taking yoga (although I was still swimming then), and spent a lot of my time distracting myself from all the messy emotions I had inside, which is what I had been trained, forced to learn to do as a child.
I was quiet, just my breath and the appreciation of change, the late summer night. I enjoyed the noise over the freeway. Even at 9:45 or so the traffic was still rushing both north and south so there was a constant hum. The loud, present roar that is the buzzing hum in the background of my bedroom. I peddled up over the rise of the bridge then coasted down the other side, mindful of the changes, the feel of the night air on my face and the drone of I5 in my ears.
After that it is an easy, pleasant coast to my house. I quickly rode across Albina then turned to coast down the hill on Commercial. Standing up on my peddles, leaning up into that feeling of flying, and coasting along until I braked at the house.
There were frogs singing as I stopped. I stood on the lawn for a moment just listening to them; so beautiful.
AM had pumpkin curry waiting for me when I got inside. Spicy and sweet, it is warming after the ride home (my legs get cold quickly). I'm tired, but feel more grounded in this commitment than I did earlier today.
Recognizing Anxiety
Woke up with a bit of a start when CK's alarm went off. Not being used to her setting one, much less one that made intermittent buzzing noise, I was disoriented at first. Then fell back asleep for a while longer. Yes, of course I know I should have leaped from the bed and gotten on with my day, but I felt so tired.
Mornings are like that. I really like the idea of getting up an hour earlier to do zazen and yoga practice before showing and heading into the office. It is rare that I have enough resources to get up some mornings, much less earlier. This is where my therapist would point out that I need to, once again, cut myself some slack since most people don't do all the things I do and manage chronic pain as well.
I have to admit that I am nervous about the teacher training starting tomorrow. I'm also feeling the hard work I've been putting in around my own intimacy issues, which is just draining and at times leaves me feeling emotionally raw and exposed. I can tell I've been anxious these past few weeks, my hands look a little bit up here and here. My dentist was also reminding me yesterday that that unless I'm chewing or talking my teeth shouldn't be touching.
On the positive side I made some progress at work today. Got MySQL up and running in my dev/test environment. Tomorrow I may even get to play at setting up a database and tables. I'll have a quick Denver trip next month -- they're getting together a team I was part of to celebrate our completing a project. Dinner out, the whole things. I feel a little small saying this, but I kind of wish we'd get recognized without a trip to Denver needed!
Dentist Day
Wow, what a day. I was feeling OK about the dentist appointment until about an hour before it happened and then the tension surrounded me like a cape, pulling on the front of my chest. I didn't feel panicked as much, but I was just taut and cold. Finally I took some Xanax before we left and it settled in by the time the dentist was working on my teeth. Although I think it would have been good to have had it a little earlier so the cleaning and flossing would have been a little less intense (I particularly dislike someone flossing my teeth).
CK saves the evening
CK and I rode over to Prananda for asana practice and somewhere after we went over the freeway I hit a nail. It sounded like a rock but at a light we saw what looked like a tack. I made it to the studio but after class we came out and discovered the tire was flat. When CK pulled the metal out we saw it was a good sized nail!
CK jumped in and said we'd eat outside, just have out take out front. In the end they made us noodles and ended up serving us, on plates, bringing us water, and everything. Mostly they just wanted to keep the indoors clean! Thankfully the dinner was tasty, quick and helped some of the sensation of defeat. The rest of the ride home was mostly flat or downhill, so that helped improve the evening hugely.
September Starts Slowly
Still feeling a bit slow today. Seemed like many people today were still moving slow after the holiday weekend. At work today and in my class "tired" was a common word. It was such a long weekend for me but still pretty busy in many ways and getting back to the routine seemed a bit of a challenge.
I got through the day, making myself get up and go for a short walk around 2:30. Picked up a nectarine, some rice cakes, and other fruit for the week at Whole Foods. Tried to make sure I had a snack soon before leaving. When I got to the house I also had a banana before going to the community center to teach yoga.
Did some sun salutations in class with a focus on lunges and a series around adho mukha svanasana. Then did some work on the core muscles in the abdomen -- I'm thinking I may feel those tomorrow! Afterward I walked over to CK's flat to pick up my bicycle -- neither of us had felt like biking over in the chill of the weekend and had left mine there.
I was glad she was home. Since she'd been over hanging out on Monday and had slept in a bit today we decided not to have our usual Tuesday lunch. It made sense but I had to admit that I missed that part of the "normal" routine. Instead I had some leftover chili and kept working on simple, but necessary tasks on my list. As I walked up the block I first saw her truck, then reminded myself she might be on her bicycle. Then I saw the open windows and Atari sitting looking out at the world going by. CK was what I saw next, waving at me. I realized how much I had wanted to see her at feeling the smile spread across my face.
I summoned up what energy I'd gathered teaching class and got set to ride home. I gave AM a quick call to let him know I was on the way and he asked that we go to Dalo's for dinner. I had an easy ride over and the usual, yummy vegetarian platter. AM offered to come up with a way to bring my bike home in the Outback, but I pointed out that the best part of the ride home was what was left. Sufficiently fueled by injeera, lentils, cabbage, spinach, peas, and beer I easily got up the hill and coasted home.
"Whoosh" goes August
The usual routine gets going again tomorrow morning after a weekend of my being hugely indulged and spoiled for my birthday. Amazing good food, drinks and much movie watching. It was a very nice laid back weekend. CK went home a little while ago, laundry is nearly all done, just some more fabric left to finish and put away. I've even repacked a few things in my room to get ready to store behind the closet -- fabric, sewing notions.
Today we all slept in and napped a lot. It was a lazy day. Feel a little bad about that, seems like maybe we should have done something. I reminded myself we've all been so tired and worn out that maybe a day of napping has been what we all needed. AM took pity on our sleepiness and ran to the store for some ingredients. He made us breakfast for dinner this evening -- pumpkin waffles, Gardenburger breakfast sausage, and a tofu scramble. None of us had really had any real off all day, most snacks, so it was nice having a warm dinner. The waffles were particularly nice to have, a real "holiday" type meal since we don't often have them.
Birthday Weekend Indulgence
Suddenly it is 9:45PM on September 1, 2008. My long birthday/holiday weekend is at an end -- here's a quick re-cap.
My evening Saturday with CK was really marvelous. We biked back to her place, which seemed really hard still on my legs, and hung out a little. I got dressed while she hopped in the shower and sat on the sofa feeling the strange nervousness. I wore a very simple black skirt and shirt with my Teva sandals on so I'd be able to walk around comfortably. I added the necklace she'd given me along with the coconut ear jewelry I'd bought at Last Thursday. She woke a black shirt & blazer with some gray trousers. I realized I've never seen her that dressed up and she looked fantastic.
Drinks at the Heathman were fantastic, as good as I recalled from years ago. We also popped into Southpark and each enjoyed a half glass of wine with some spiced nuts, she a German Riesling, I picked a French muscadet. Both wines were very good and it was great having the half glass option. The nuts were very tasty and we didn't bother to find out about butter or not. We were having such a good evening and conversation that CK suddenly noted that we had to go.
Dinner at Higgins was excellent. We had a roasted summer vegetable & spinach salad with a balsamic dressing and a smoky, blended gaspascho that was rich with olive oil. CK's entree was a tomato, zucchini & chick pea flour cakes with basmati rice and a lovely sauce that included capers. I ordered the roasted eggplant risotto that came with a red pepper sauce. We also had a bottle of Evolution, which still is a favorite white.
It was great fun, although chilly for my birthday. We enjoyed walking around from spot to spot. It is an easy walk to her flat and the MAX stop on 7th Avenue, so it made the whole evening a piece of cake. Which we didn't have, instead we had a luscious peach, plum & ginger sorbet with a cup of coffee. CK even had a little of the coffee with me, they even had soy milk for us!
Sunday we got up and CK came up with the idea of hopping out of bed and over to Sweet Pea for brunch. This is something that is a regular with friends of ours but I rarely get to go since most Sundays I teach yoga at 11:15AM. However, this was a long holiday weekend and my summer series finished last weekend. We quickly pulled ourselves together and made our way over. It was crowded, of course, and we sat for part of our meal on the stairs leading up the the photographer's office (closed on Sundays). Tofu scramble, spicy seitan sausage (which I liked), steamed kale, diced red potatoes, a suitably savory gravy, pancakes, AND biscuits. Midway through we split a table with some other folks and each indulged in a second biscuit (I covered my with some agave on top of the Earth Balance).
Sunday afternoon CK and I watched Primer. I enjoyed it although the whole story starts to unravel and you start going back and forth in your mind as to when things really started to come apart. Subtle and lots of small things to catch. CK was going to watch and listen to the director's commentary which should be rather interesting.
Today we tried to watch Across the Universe, but it wasn't really catching us. I was enjoying it alright, just curious to see what music they'd use where, but not so much that I wasn't willing to turn it off.
Dress Up Night
Trying to write a little earlier today. Going to meet CK at my office in about an hour and we'll ride back to her flat. We have dinner reservations at Higgins at 8:30 and plan to have drinks at the Heathman beforehand. Fancy dinner date night for my birthday.
I feel oddly nervous! I just tried on two different skirts, in itself a bit unusual for me, and three different tops. Finally settled on something that is very "Portland" dressy and won't look ridiculous with the shoes I'll be wearing (which are actually very important). CK has seen me dressed more nicely for work but something feels different in dressing up to look good. Not a bad nervous, just I'm aware of that energy.
I finally really slept in! Woke up just past 8AM with both Zonker and Phoebe in the bed. Had some coffee and an English muffin with peanut butter and jam. Then we put up the paper, hanging light in the "shala" (really our meditation and yoga room, but AM immediately took to referring to it as the shala and it is easier to say). We also hung up the beautiful Kalamkari hanging of Buddha teaching that was a gift from a co-worker from India.
This room has gone back to feeling like a refuge. It had gotten filled up with boxes while we sorted out stuff from the garage. The futon that had been in there got moved downstairs so someone could still sleep down there after we gave the old futon to the Burmese family. I felt sad whenever I went in there go grab my yoga gear. This week I sorted out everything to go to Goodwill and AM has taken a carload of things away today. I recycled piles of papers and pitched out other stuff not in good enough shape to donate. We got a new sofa bed for the basement and moved the futon back up. Next weekend or so we'll pick up a couple of shelves, one for that room and one for mine. Once those are in place and I've put some fabric into storage things will look quite put together. AM commented that the room leaves him wanting to do zazen, which is exactly what I wanted it to feel like again!
I've done laundry all morning, when I've not been moving stuff around the house or out to the car. Most of the fabric has all been washed up, I've plastic storage bins to put it in so it stays clean. It felt good to get things done around here today that have been languishing. With the teacher training starting Friday I've wanted to feel like I'd addressed some things that had bothered me.
Of course by now my back aches! Hoping the ride will loosen things up as will walking around this evening. I'm finding myself hugely relieved that things have settled down after those long weeks of distance. When CK would talk about doing this dinner a few weeks ago I felt uneasy, not sure that a romantic birthday dinner would be nearly as fun if we were still anxious with each other. After these weeks and the ups & downs I still feel myself getting a little giddy-anxious at getting all dressed up. Yes, for myself, but for her too.
Mom’s Day
I didn't sleep in as much as I'd thought about this morning. By 7:30 I was up and recalling that I'd not set my out-of-office message on my work email. I got up, answered a few emails and set the notification up. AM suggested that we have coffee and hang out for a little bit so we pulled on some clothes and headed over to Seven Virtues for bagels, hummus and coffee. We chatted while we each looked at email, message boards, etc., I set up a Twitter account.
Then back to the house and I drove out the Gresham and met Mom at the Cost Plus. We shopped around there a little, I picked up a white cord kit for the paper lamp in our meditation room and a rather keen hat. We first attempted to go to the Truffle Hunter, a place she liked a lot and said had a very good veggie sandwich.
Once the cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and provolone cheese was taken off there was lettuce, tomato, sprouts and avocado. The place specializes in bread made on site, however, all types use buttermilk. They offered to come up with a salad (all of the ones on the menu included some type of meat). Mom and I finished our strawberry lemonades, I took my vitamin, and we went to a Chinese place she and her friends like to go to. They made sesame tofu for me special, I suspect that the bean threads & tofu were deep fried in the same oil as shrimp. It was good, a bit salty which may account for the indigestion I felt later.
I took Mom to the Dollar Tree so she could do some shopping there. We then went on to the new Goodwill. Mom found some Halloween things and a couple of shirts, I found several good things, including jeans that fit well. We then went on to the Salvation Army shop, which was on the way to take Mom home.
We were walking around the bric-a-brac and as I came around a corner I saw Mom standing there with a wooden paddle. She smacked her hand with it and laughed while saying to me, "Brings back memories doesn't it?"
I froze a little and slowly blinked my eyes. Mom seemed to sense she'd crossed some line and gave me a worried look, "Well maybe not good memories for you..."
I took a breath and quickly, quietly said to her, "No, not good memories at all and I hope you'll understand that I can't laugh with you."
I didn't say anything else I merely walked past her and started down the next aisle, not really looking at anything and feeling very still inside. I heard her say after me, "Sorry, S..."
That was it. I didn't mention it again and neither did she. I felt a little distant from her, which is a bit strange since I've already felt that way before. I wasn't motivated to say anything further about it. It felt as though I'd already said a tremendous amount.
We drove back to her house. Walking around the house I watched the two cows for a couple of minutes, feeling myself stiffen when she talked about sending them to market next year. They're practically like enormous dogs, following around to where the people are, I commented as much to Mom. Then we went out into the field to pick some corn and pull carrots. I washed up in the kitchen, pet her cats and then we walked out the car. I told her I loved her and I was glad we got to spend the day together.
Both of those are true. It felt like something changed in our relationship when I spoke to her in the store, refusing to laugh along. Who knows if that change will stay. She might obsess over it, but I suspect she will try to cram this down inside of her, distract herself, and refuse to really look at what it means.
I drove home carefully and gratefully. I felt tired. When I got home I showed AM my thrift store finds and we decided to make tempeh, lettuce, avocado and tomato sandwiches for dinner using a tomato from our garden. It involved going up to New Seasons for pretty much every ingredient except the tomato! It was nice to have AM drive after driving all day in Gresham and good to have the normalizing experience of getting groceries for dinner.
I still feel drained more than angry, more than sad even. There is still this stillness surrounding the whole thing. I don't feel any physical motivation to cry about it, not even when I told AM about it or writing about it here. I do feel a deep ache in my heart, across my collar bones, but I feel calm as well, able to observe the heavy load of emotions.
39
Well I'm 39 today. It seems absolutely surreal; the arbitrary nature of age. I mean clearly I'm different from 20 years ago, 10 years ago, one year ago. But it doesn't really feel much different. I'm still here, in Portland, in the present.
I woke up a little later and CK made me toast I ate while I checked in on a meeting. I opened another present from her, she had picked up Lavinia for me as a gift. She knew I didn't have it yet and had been looking at it when we were at Powell's last Saturday. I am really touched at the ways she pays attention -- large and small. I wore the necklace she also got me today, made of dyed tagua. I love the colors of it and the feel, it is made from a seed and it warms up against my skin.
She insisted I wear her jacket today, that I'd be too chilled in what I'd put on. I'm still figuring out what I need to wear, eat, do when including the bicycle rides in my day. When I was going down the hill to the bridge I was so grateful for it, and her. As I came up on to the bridge I could see a barge moving sand upriver and the morning sun gleamed on the water. I still may feel a little nervous, but I'm starting to enjoy the bridge a little.
I was glad I rode in. The changes this year, including riding my bicycle to work, have been pretty big. I wouldn't have guessed this time last year I'd be riding a bike to work. That I'd be chanting at the Dharma center. Wouldn't have thought I'd have the kind of relationship that CK & I have. That my relationship with AM would grow and change to support CK & I in our love.
I got some work done today. Had a lovely lunch at Habibi with TG, DG, KW, and AM. Great food as always and so nice to have friends around me. KW had found a necklace with a quote from Mary Jean Iron handwritten on it, "Let me be aware" (see below for whole quote). On a piece of parchment attached in resin to a piece of glass, very small. It is just lovely.
Picked up some treats from Sweet Pea after lunch and got some more work done at home. Then I dithered around for 10 minutes with clothing. I finally settled upon a Prana skirt and the shirt AM got me from Seven Virtues. AM helped me settle. The shirt shows a lot of skin with the very wide, v-neck, and I'm just not used to showing that much. I know I used to, 10 years ago I'd have thought nothing of being revealing, but I wasn't really being myself back then. I was writing to CK that maybe it is because I feel so exposed, being myself, that I am wary of criticism. Or at least the kind of criticism I grew up with and knew in my first marriage.
I'm trying to keep focused on the reality. When I have revealed myself, my life, to people they haven't criticized me. I still am trying to get my mind around this -- that my differences really can be celebrated and respected. Still trying to get a hold of the unintuitive concept that the stability I've created in my life has made it possible to really see the past for the trauma it was.
It has been a lovely birthday, all around. It has been wonderful to have this day to share with my friends and partners. In all that it felt the same, it felt special because it is a day we set aside to honor someone for who they are. That's what makes it different, not that you suddenly feel older.
"Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare & perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in my pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky & want, more than all of the world, your return."
-- Mary Jean Iron