Day 58 Night Shift
- At April 12, 2011
- By Roxanne Snopek
- In Life, Roxanne Writes On
- 0
Another sleepless night.
My youngest daughter is fighting a virus and I think she’s given it to me, thanks darling. I don’t know what it is about colds, but don’t you feel that whenever you’ve got one, it’s the worst thing ever?? The pain in your chest is like, probably, a heart attack. Your sinuses feel, you imagine, how they might feel if someone poured Drano down your nose. You wonder if people going through chemo ache like this in their bones.
You know it’s just a cold. But still. A tiny bit of your brain wonders if this time, you might die of it.
The first thing to go for me is the ability to sleep. Partly a menopause thing, partly my own personal cross to bear. If I’m excited, I can’t sleep. If I’m depressed, I can’t sleep. If I’m hungry, angry, worried, I can’t sleep. Those mornings that I get up, aware that I did not see the clock at 2 am or 3:30 am or 5 am, I feel like doing cartwheels on the lawn. I SLEPT last night, people! I can do ANYTHING!
But then there are the other nights. I’m like Goldilocks, trapped on a dark, Escher-like treadmill. Too cold. More blankets. Too hot. Blankets off. I’m hungry, so I get a snack. Full stomach turns into Restless Legs Syndrome. Stretching my legs turns into yoga. Yoga becomes meditation. Meditation becomes an idea for a story. Which ends up with me huddled beneath a dim light with my notebook.
At least I’m getting something done.
But if I don’t get some sleep soon, the Sneaky Hate Spiral will kick in, and someone’s gonna get hurt.
Day 57 Kicking Down the Door
Another strong day. Hm. I’m beginning to wonder if there’s really something in Bikram’s multiples-of-thirty concept. I’ve hung in there for nearly 60 days now, and it seems I’m suddenly reaching a new level.
I’m not the only one noticing, either.
“Your practice is really changing,” commented Randee as I made my way to the door after class today. I didn’t want to interrupt an instructors’ pow-wow, but then Angela and Anthea added a few words of encouragement to me as well.
I responded that I’d had several strong days in a row now, and that I seem to be pushing through into new areas with some of my postures.
For instance, in Camel pose, I can look back now far enough to see the floor. When I inhale, I can feel my chest rising into the backbend, and instead of just leaning back, I feel myself doing an inversion, like an upside-down U. Something inside my back is unlocking.
“It’s like I’m breaking through some kind of barrier,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound like a total rube.
“Breaking through?” Randee answered. “You’re kicking down the door.”
I don’t know about that – but I do know that there’s nothing like a kind word from those farther ahead of me on any path, to help me keep going forward.
Actually, it made my day!
Day 55 Monkey-Mind Chatter
Most of the usual crowd had other things to do on a sunny Saturday, so there was only eight of us in the hot room this afternoon. I’d worked in the yard, gone grocery shopping, took my daughter out, and ended up being very nearly late for class. Which wouldn’t be good, because then I’d have to make it up somewhere in a double, and I’m NOT going to do that again.
But despite my rushed start, I found myself having another strong day. That’s, like, several days this week. Whoo-hoo! And although I haven’t been doing it deliberately, it seems that as my physical abilities improve, my practice is becoming more… meditative, maybe.
Although I still want to execute a perfect Standing-Head-to-Knee one day, I wonder if quieting the monkey-mind chatter, moving inward and focusing on the breath isn’t an even more important exercise.
And at least as difficult.