Day 37 Reduce, Reuse, Recycle… Reinvent?
When I was a kid, we lived by many rules, one of which was “use it up, wear it out, make do or do without.” Yes, we were environmentalists before it was cool. My people can stretch a dime, an onion, a teabag, a pair of jeans, like you wouldn’t believe. My mother sewed our clothes, patched holes, let down hems, and when the garments were truly unwearable, cut them into squares for quilts. And despite their deep distrust of all things artistic, Mennonites make quilts of breath-taking beauty.
Long-time tillers of the earth, we also take pride in growing and/or creating our own food. (Which leads to an aspect of stretching-the-jeans that isn’t so admirable.) I love to garden, but I’m married to a pave-paradise-put-up-a-tennis-court kind of guy with a deep distrust of things without UPC codes, so I mostly keep this to myself.
Crunchy-granola type things just excite me, though. I can’t help it. It’s in my genes.
I’ve been reading Katrina Kenison‘s memoir, The Gift of An Ordinary Day, recently, in which the author transplants her family from their comfortable urban home to a tumble-down rural saltbox, to live a “simpler” life. Their house is quickly deemed unliveable, however, and the project takes on a raze-and-rebuild complication, which she describes with guilt and mourning, as if it’s a kind of euthanasia. At the last second, however, they are able to salvage some of the 200-year old bones to incorporate into the new structure.
Perhaps because I spent a few formative years in a rehabbed school-house, I can understand this desire to “rescue” a building. (I’m a sucker for lost causes. Always have been. I once tried to save an abandoned, epileptic Pomeranian puppy, who turned out to be a nasty little land-shark. Sweetest, most adorable ball of fluff you’ve ever seen in your life – when he wasn’t convulsing or trying to take your hand off.)
So I was intrigued this morning to read in the Vancouver Sun about Barry Joneson. A self-described skid-row addict who dissolved after the death of his little boy, he now combines “social reconstruction” with his “deconstruction” project, in which houses slated for landfill are instead salvaged, and kids heading down a rough road are given a crowbar and a second chance. Talk about your reusing and recycling – and social justice too! This guy could be Mennonite!
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By the way, for those of you joining me recently, this day marks 37 consecutive days of Bikram yoga, my personal foray into fitness, personal growth, self-awareness and mid-life inner peace. 90 minutes every day in a room kept at a minimum temperature of 104 degrees, and 40% humidity. It’s hell on hamstrings, but that’s kind of the point.
I’ve reached a stage in my life where I need to change things up, body and mind. A rescue-and-reconstruction project on myself, you might say, and this is where I’m documenting the journey. Thanks for joining me.
Day 35 Dead by 9:30 am
I’m sitting in my car in the Surrey Guildford parking lot, enjoying an Americano misto and some sushi, re-reading Rhoda Janzen’s Mennonite in a Little Black Dress. I promised to take my youngest daughter and her friend shopping, the capper to a girls’ weekend, and their stamina is about two hours longer than mine, and the Starbucks seats are darned uncomfortable.
Besides, it’s kind of fun watching cars come and go in the spots beside me. People jump, startled and a bit embarrassed when they notice me sitting motionless next to them, staring behind my sunglasses. Apparently not a lot of people sit in their cars in parking lots.
Anyway, due to the shopping trip, I did an early class today. Normally, I’m militant about not getting up early on Sundays, having spent, like Rhoda Janzen, much of my childhood in church. Enough that I figure I’ve earned lazy Sunday mornings for the rest of my life.
But today, I got up early. And the universe punished me for it.
Perhaps I was cocky yesterday. Maybe I got overly confident, flexing my yogic karma too much, so that it had to spring back, like a rubber band. Whatever it was, there was nothing rubber-like about my hamstrings; more like cold saltwater taffy, ready to shatter instead of pull.
The girls were chomping at the bit to go as soon as I staggered into the house, so I hustled in and out of the shower, knowing I’d have time to relax once they were set loose on the mall. My second-born daughter, with whom I suffered in the hot room this morning, asked me with sympathy, “Won’t it be great when you don’t have to drive kids around anymore?”
The truth is, I don’t really mind. My kids are so appreciative, I enjoy doing things for them. This is part of my problem these days – there’s less and less for me to do for them, and with them. And I miss it. (Not always, mind you, but we’re talking trends.) I enjoy their company and they seem comfortable in mine. They listen to my stories, they laugh at my jokes, they tell me about their lives, they ask me questions. And it’s not like they’re looking at their watches or texting someone while they’re doing it. They’re with me entirely, and I am cognizant of the rare treasure that this is.
I know how lucky I am.
And I’m so dreading the days when this easy camaraderie is over. I miss my oldest daughter so much some days, yet I wouldn’t hold her back from all her experiences in the past years at UBC for anything. I’m so happy for how she’s grown and changed, how much fun she’s having. But I still miss her.
I hope I’m not holding on too tightly, but I probably am. I know my girls worry about me, their crazy mother who feels everything so deeply, who’s compelled to obsess and analyze everything to death. It’s my job to worry about them, not the other way around. And I’m not that crazy.
So no, I don’t mind sitting in a mall parking lot. It’s perfectly comfortable – at least with the windows cracked to diffuse the faint but persistent yoga fug.
And after that, there’s spearmint and eucalyptus epsom salts for me at home, and an evening of Chuck with my youngest, who’s stuck here with me for at least another year, ha-ha!
And I’m going to enjoy it all thoroughly. While I can.
Day 28 A Good Mennonite Girl Breaks the Silence
Posture number 14, of the 26 in the Bikram series, is called Wind-Removing Pose (or Pavanamuktasana. I can’t say it, but I can spell it. Even if I couldn’t, who’d know??) It looks like this:
And if there’s any little effervescence hanging around your colon, let me tell you it’d take a bionic sphincter to keep it in. Hence the name.
But, fortunately this is not the silence I broke.
I shushed Ken and Barbie. Yes, I did.
It was the beginning of class, the initial savasana, and they were lying side by side, whispering and canoodling and giggling, all of which is strictly verboten.
Well, alright, there’s a bit of lee-way with the whole silence rule; sometimes newcomers aren’t sure where to put the mat (you might recall me mentioning this issue earlier) or they start to ask questions in a somewhat panicked sotto voce: “Is the fan broken? It’s not supposed to be this hot, is it? I think I’m going to throw up.” Etc.
So you quietly comfort and reassure them that yes, the heat is deliberate and no, they won’t puke if they shut up, lie still and breathe. But mostly, shut up.
But this was not the sort of twittering Ken and Barbie were doing. I tolerated it, breathing deeply, until suddenly, something inside me broke.
“SSSSSHHHHHH!!!!!”
I shocked myself. You see, I was not brought up to make waves. My biggest goal in childhod was to be invisible, to avoid the spotlight, to always run with my back against the wall, like a mouse in daylight. I did not run out in the open, with the popular crowd, and I certainly did not shush them.
It’s kind of a cultural thing; Mennonites may not have invented martyrdom, but we’ve certainly perfected it (we’ll claim mediocrity if you ask, however.) We may frown in silent judgement, but we don’t talk about people. Or even to people, unless they’re fellow Mennos. We endure. We suck it up. We huddle together and eat pie. And even though I haven’t been a good Mennonite girl for decades now, the lessons of early childhood are hard-wired in me.
So, while Ken and Barbie will never know who shushed them, I still felt like I’d broken through some psychological barrier in my little brain. Hey, it might be small but it’s my victory.
Erin Brockovich, kickin’ ass and takin’ names, that’s me.