Day 81 Thanks, Mom
A couple of years ago, in a moment of complete and utter self-delusion, I bought my parents a gift pass at a local Iyengar yoga studio. Now, Iyengar yoga is not like Bikram, lest you think it was an assassination attempt. Iyengar’s all about recovery, regaining normal function, and uses a lot of props. Belts, blocks, bolsters, blankets, folding chairs, anything to help you get into the posture safely, without hurting yourself.
My parents are at the age where mobility is getting to be an issue, and the instructor promised me it would be a beginner-and-senior-friendly class. I warned her that my parents would be… reluctant learners.
She told me she was looking forward to meeting them.
As it turns out, they went to one class, the instructor mentioned something about a Buddhist monk and that was it.
“I liked the exercise part,” Mom said. “I just ignored the rest.”
“I didn’t want to hear about some monk,” Dad said with what I thought was unnecessary malice.
They never went back. Oh well. They get points for going at all, in my book.
Actually, if I think back, I have my mother to thank for my interest in yoga. Yes, my Mennonite mother introduced me to yoga, via the television show, Kareen’s Yoga. Apparently I’m not the only one who remembers this BC celebrity. From an article by Pamela Post, in Today’s Vancouver Woman:
For a decade, from 1970 to 1980, Kareen hosted a national daytime show, Kareen’s Yoga, on CTV. She was like a lithe, spiritual Elke Sommer with her blonde hair, German accent, and awesome ability to bend into the full pantheon of yoga poses. She brought yoga, meditation, and whole food nutrition into the living rooms of ordinary Canadians. Folks with a penchant for Kraft Dinner and Hockey Night in Canada began doing headstands and eating whole grains. Depressed Canadian housewives got off their meds and started meditating.
I remember a ridiculously small black-and-white TV set with rabbit ears balanced on the top, and my mom on the floor, following along. I remember Kareen’s black cat, Mouffie, who practiced with her on the show, except that in my memory, Mouffie is a Siamese. (It was probably the cat that got my attention; I was always angling for a house-cat in those days. In my family, cats lived in the barn and ate mice, and the farmer squirted milk into their mouths directly from the teats of the cow.)
My mother, it seems to me now, must have been something of a rebel amongst her brethren and sistern. Kareen’s Yoga, after all, showed a bare-limbed woman moving her body with joy – even smiling – with no husband in sight anywhere. It certainly warranted suspicion right up there with further education, Roman Catholicism, liqueur-filled chocolates and The Naked Heathen. Plus, Kareen was meditating. That was a lot like praying. Except it wasn’t!
But what do I know? Maybe Mom only had the TV on because she was waiting for Hymn Sing or Tommy Hunter.
There’s more to most mothers than meets the eye of their offspring, though. Mom as a 1970’s-yogini? Why not? That what I choose to believe.
Day 77 Sing It, Sarah!
Brian, our marriage counselor, once told us very firmly that we were to make sure we had a date night once every week, and an overnight or weekend trip every couple of months. “There’s no reason you can’t do this!” he emphasized.
No reason, maybe, but lots of excuses, especially in the last few years.
Nevermind all that, though; tonight, it’s Date Night! Dear Husband bought us tickets for the Sarah McLachlan concert tonight, third row seats. And I don’t know about men and dates (well I do actually… hm, nevermind that, too) but in my world, a date always has to involve one thing: food. So we’re going out for dinner first.
In Western union money transfer honour of the event I have donned clothing other than yoga wear and – wait for it – applied cosmetics. True story.
Brian would be so proud.
Moving a Mountain
- At March 19, 2010
- By Roxanne Snopek
- In Roxanne Writes On
- 0
Moving a Mountain
Do you want to see what I’ve been working on this past year? Actually, it’s been more like seven years, which is how long we’ve been in this house, but I only got serious about it a year ago. We have a large yard, but it’s built into a rocky slope, covered with loose fill that is the perfect medium for thistle and blackberry brambles. After I discovered that the coyotes had actually made themselves a blind amongst the weeds, from which to stalk our pets, I said THAT’S IT. Time to landscape.
See? Even the snow can’t cover the weeds. It’s very private, and jam-packed with potential… mostly unrealized. My husband estimated that it would cost somewhere between 30 and 60 K to do what we want. (It used to be that any project I wanted to do would cost $700. He just pulls numbers out of his, um, hat, mostly to shut me up.) So I kept imagining how awesome it could look… and quit talking about it.
Until last fall, when I lost it and attacked it myself. With a pick-ax.
Hubby had been largely AWOL, finishing his MBA, and I needed to destroy something. Can’t spend the money to landscape the yard? Fine. I’ll do it myself. Stand back, MBA guy. I’ve got tools and I’m not afraid to use ’em.
I started digging, just far enough to a) realize what a herculean task I’d undertaken and b) make it look actually worse than before, forcing me to finish the job.
Frank, the gentleman who’s helping me reach the finish line, is a Rock Star. See all those large, nicely cut hunks of stone? He hauled them all up there by hand. He cut the beautiful stone steps into the slope and he built the rock wall just below the first evergreen. So now I’m into the incredibly fun part – arranging the plants. Well, I’ve got a lot of grunt-work left; rocks to arrange, landscape fabric to cover, bark mulch to haul and spread… but it’ll be worth it.
What does moving a mountain have to do with writing? Besides the obvious benefit of creative procrastination?
Anyone who’s ever tried to write a book will understand the metaphor immediately. It’s so hard, and once you get to a certain point, you simply have to do the grunt-work to get it done. You can’t believe you started something that is so obviously past your ability to complete. You’re embarrassed because so many people keep asking how it’s going and you have to lie and say you’re almost done, just a few more revisions now, just a tweak here and there and it’ll be ready for submission. Or you start into a hideous, self-deprecating explanation of how your self-esteem has been in the toilet and you doubt the idea was any good in the first place, and your shoulders are seized up so you can’t type, and your publishing house went bankrupt, and your editor is a mean, mean man who doesn’t understand you and THAT’S why the book isn’t done yet.
Or you keep all that stuff for your journal, write the damn book, then go outside and work on your dirt farm.
I’ll let you know when the book comes out. I’m almost done, just the final scene to write, some character layering, a few plot points to fix…
Until then, doesn’t my yard look GREAT??