Day 39 I’ll Take It
My practice today was strong. Even Standing Western union fees Head-to-Knee! My right hip is still stiffer than my left, but I can tell I’m making progress. One millimeter at a time, perhaps, but I’ll take it.
I’ve been told that in the first 30 days, you notice changes in your body, but they’re subtle. Deep, even cellular-level adjustments that might not be obvious to anyone else. You’re doin’ the work, you’re smokin’ Bikram’s Torture Chamber, but is there anything to show for it? Not really. Your ass is still your ass, even if you’re now aware that there are muscles in it.
In the second 30 days, the changes continue, becoming more evident as muscles grow accustomed to being longer, stronger. In the second 30 days, as the changes turn from temporary to permanent, others might start noticing. Your ass becomes ever-so-slightly unrecognizable. In a good way.
But we’re talking 40, 50, 60 days.
That’s a lot of days, is what I think. But then, on my way out this morning, my daughter told me today that my legs were looking good.
You bet I’ll take that! 40 days, here I come!
Day 38 Recovery Cocktail
There comes a point in each Bikram yoga class when, in the words of my favourite blogger-commedienne Allie, of Hyperbole-and-a-Half, I’m so thirsty I’d “shank an infant for juice.” I’ve read her post on her experience running a marathon in Texas several times, and each time it makes me laugh more. I love the way this woman’s mind works.
But anyway. Yoga. I always make sure I’m well-hydrated before the class, and I usually drink a full bottle during, but still. By the time we’ve finished the balancing series and move on to the floor exercises, I’m feeling the heat, like a living thing, pressing down on me. My clothing feels like those warmed blankets they put on you in the hospital after surgery. Except hotter, really, really hot. And all I want is a breeze. Cool water. Ice. A meat-locker.
This past January, about a half-hour after my husband and arrived in Maui, I came down with a virus. I’d been fighting it valiantly in the weeks leading up to the trip, pounding down Vitamin C, guzzling water and green tea, doing yoga like mad. But I still spent the first few days in paradise alternately sleeping, resting, napping, dozing or, if I was feeling particularly energetic, reading. All the while coughing like a walrus.
And thirsty, so thirsty.
The first night, Ray trotted on down to the resort store, in search of something that might, if not cure me, at least cut down on the whinging. He came back armed with juice of several varieties, an array of Vitamin water flavours, various exorbitantly over-priced over-the-counter remedies, and ice. Then he started mixing and matching. My special vacation cocktail: OJ and Vit C water on the rocks, mmm, better than mai tais.
I kind of got hooked on the combo. Now I throw in some coconut water, which is said to be loaded with potassium — and has the flavour of dirty socks. Mixed with the others, however, it’s palatable enough.
Is my special recovery cocktail any more nutritious than plain old OJ? Don’t know.
Don’t really care, either. Honestly, sometimes the only thing that gets me through the last couple of postures is the knowledge that it’s waiting for me in my car.
Maybe it’s the association. Ray served me like my own personal cabana boy, while I languished on the couch, upset that I was sick on our vacation. And he reassured me that it didn’t matter if we did nothing the whole time, the main thing is that we were together. So I guzzled my recovery cocktails, rested, and a couple of days later, was back to normal.
Our Visa bill was a little higher on incidentals. But that feeling of being cared for? Priceless.
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.