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Six o'clock this morning, in bed. LISA and ERIK stir and begin to WAKE UP. LISA: I dreamed I was roasting chicken and BBQ brisket, and eating little bits of the meat. ERIK: I dreamed I was making waffles. LISA: Really? ERIK: Mm hmm. LISA: Were they good waffles? ERIK: I don't think I got to taste them. LISA: We must have gone to bed hungry. There's not a single muscle group on my body that's not sore, except for my face. This is what comes of doing nearly five hours of yoga and dance the day before! One of my yoga studios, Precious Life Wellness Village, had an open house: $15 for up to five forty-five-minute classes, all in one afternoon, with nine to choose from. I may have been the only person who did all five: Auberon (pronounced like in Shakespeare), one of the yoga teachers, told me I was "a rockstar." I began with two vigorous yoga classes, Lorien's vinyasa flow class (I know of no stretches more intense than her psoas stretches!) and something called Power Dub Step. You'd think two forty-five-minute yoga classes would be easier than one ninety-minute (my usual), but actually they're harder, because you have to do the standing poses twice. Both classes did Suryanamaskar (sun salutations) with lots of chaturanga, and both did vasisthasana, which is one of the most strength-intensive basic poses. By the end of the second class, my face towel was soaked and I was ready to take a break, but when I heard Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" coming from Atreau's class, I had to go in. He was going to teach us MJ-style footwork, but since none of us had brought real shoes, he changed the program (damn! damn!!) -- but we had so much fun, I'm *almost* not sorry. The members of the class were two dance teachers, a yoga teacher, another student and me... doing Jamaican dancehall dances: Willie Bounce, Tek Weh Yuself, and something else that I think (but the internet apparently doesn't) was called Summer House. We faced a mirror the entire time but I still don't really know what I looked like -- I challenge you to watch those videos and try to imagine me doing the dances -- but it was amazingly cool. We were all a little giggly and happy by the end, even the two dance teachers, who -- of course -- were fabulous. After Atreau's class I thought, what the heck, and just stayed till the end. I went to Qigong Dance, an interesting class taught alternately by a dancer and a qigong teacher. The calming tai-chi exercises were sooooo welcome at this point, and the dance prepared me for the next class, Silvestre Technique. Silvestre is a Brazilian dance technique based on ballet, modern, and Orixa mythology. The class made me feel like I was back in Graham classes because there were all these contractions! We did some exercises -- lots of hand and arm gestures and some pliés -- and then a bit of choreography, which I was surprised to find I could follow. I may try this class again sometime. Being around lots of dancers again made me feel fat for the first time in months. We were standing in the Silvestre class facing the mirror and the tiny tiny teacher, and I could see that I was the biggest person there -- biggest and roundest, since everyone else seemed to be stick-shaped with no boobs. These days, thankfully, I don't usually feel like a huge person anymore, but in that classroom I really did. I gazed at my reflection and thought, "Is that me? Am I really that bulgy, is my waist really so shapelessly enormous, are my thighs truly so vast?" It's hard to feel ashamed when one is having a good time and moving and keeping up better than some of the really skinny girls, but I did have a niggling anxious feeling which persisted till I got home. Then, as I showered and gently lotioned my tired muscles, I suddenly thought: "How dare I disparage this body when it has worked so hard and done so much for me all day!" So that's where I am now: uncomfortably aware that there are still people and situations that can make me feel like a giant lump, but proudly determined to love and uphold respect for my body regardless of these. And hey, even if I looked like this when everyone else was like this, we both got statues! After my shower, I was so exhausted that in spite of being ravenous I only ate one bowl of dinner. Then I spoke some words that have never before left my lips in this order: "I'm too tired to eat." We went to bed at 8:30, and that's how I come to be up this morning at 6! Tags: what i did today
I'm Feeling: so sore, but happy
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I dreamed we began to receive three CSA boxes instead of our usual one. One was the produce box we always get, another was a produce box we would donate to a needy family, and the third was a mishmash of organic or sustainably-raised groceries that we would also keep for ourselves. Whereas when we open our produce box it's full of vegetables and fruits kept loose or in bags, the mishmash box had an insert in it to divide it into compartments that lined up in a neat grid. Inside we found a hunk of crusty French bread, whole-grain crackers and hazelnut-chocolate praliné spread, a giant rectangular bratwurst with a texture like good meatloaf, the most lusciously tender cavolo nero (which I guess is a treat in my mind, and not mere produce!), and I can't remember what else. It was the most sensory dream I've had in a while; I could feel the leaves of kale, the crisp break of the crackers when I bit into them, and I could *almost* just taste the sweet richness of the chocolate-hazelnut spread. Tags: dreams
I'm Feeling: sleepy but determined to go to yoga
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I haven't been updating very frequently or at much length recently, but I have been busily writing and thinking and working on my own. Partly inspired by LM Montgomery's (of Anne of Green Gables fame) delightful Emily of New Moon trilogy, and partly I guess as a natural outgrowth of my creative development in the past few months, I've started logging more time in my private art blog and less time here where the world can see. It's funny that after so many years of putting myself out the public eye so very openly -- and I've definitely became more and more comfortable with that -- I've suddenly decided that I need some more space that's just my own. But I think it's a good thing. These days I find myself more secure and more ready in my acknowledgment of myself as an artist, so in that sense my creative identity becomes more public. At the same time, by keeping more of my private thoughts to myself, I'm able to hold on to more artistic integrity by protecting and honing my ideas until they're ready for a larger audience. I guess it's a bit like theater: the show wouldn't be half so compelling if you also had to watch all the rehearsals and everything that goes on behind the scenes! Those are privileges reserved for the participants, and that's rightly so. For the past couple of weeks I've been writing extensive Morning Pages every day, and not solely on the weekdays as was my habit before. I've also been logging writing time nearly every evening -- both on my private art blog and in my actual paper journal -- and to my surprise and pleasure, this has made my days so much richer and more contemplative. In the Emily books, Emily records in her diary her thoughts on pretty much everything, and I've been inspired to do the same. I used to do this in my middle-school and high-school days in a more OCD way, taking note of things like what we ate for dinner and exactly where we went shopping and things like that. Emily's journal is much more thoughtful and curious; she writes about things she doesn't understand, things that bother her, things that strike her that she wants to remember: just exactly what's on her mind. This is what Morning Pages are for, but I think actually seeing such a journal in print -- even if it's a fictional one -- has been a huge help. For years I've tended not to write about these food-for-thought things that fill the pages of Emily's fictional journal, because I've felt like these things aren't important. I hadn't figured them out yet, or they didn't lead to any particular finished idea, so they weren't worth jotting down. But now I'm setting them to paper, and I can just feel my creative brain expanding hugely to encompass all these thoughts and ideas and wonderings. It's because of this very nature of these new jottings -- that they are the things I haven't figured out, or the things that seem at the moment like non sequiturs -- that I don't feel right sharing them with everyone else just yet. I'm not really comfortable with the entire world seeing me in a state of inchoate meditation -- and I don't think I should have to be -- and so, by devoting more of my writing time to a journal that is totally private, I open up more of these previously-unrecorded realms of thought to my own mind. It feels good and right. Tags: "news", deep thoughts
I'm Feeling: thoughtful and ready for bed, I think
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I was at a pool party with high school friends, and we were all laughing and splashing and singing Alicia Keys. Then the scene changed, and we were at an abortion clinic: Erik and me, high school girl friends, and high school guy friends with their girlfriends. We were all sitting there waiting and waiting. There was one girl already in there who had some kind of complication, and we all saw her come out limping and screwing up her face in agony. The clinic was cold and sterile and metallic. I don't think I've ever felt such terror in a dream, even when I had bad guys chasing me (as often happens). I went into the bathroom with Jackie and we were both shaking and crying and freaking out. They took me to the back for my abortion, and put me under, but when I woke up I had a baby boy. I was shocked but the baby was so sweet, and I was so relieved not to have to go through the abortion, I couldn't complain as I knew I ought to because they'd made that decision while I was asleep. Erik and I took our baby to a hotel room so we could all rest. I knew the baby was a newborn so he couldn't sit up or anything, but he was able to open his eyes and talk to me and think grown-up thoughts... which was not creepy in the dream, but adorable and comforting. He was wearing a striped shirt and had the cutest face. Then tiny flies started pouring into the room, and I knew they were Dr Seuss's minions come to get my child (I know... WTH?!). I cast a protective shield over the baby and tried to conjure frogs to eat the flies, but they couldn't stave them off for long. By the end I was forced to pick up one of my decoupage magazines and use it to smash the flies against the furniture. I banged and smashed and smacked, and dead flies stuck to my hands and fell off the tables and coated the magazine all over. But the baby was okay. **edit 7/3** What's even more bizarre now about this dream is that Jackie also had a dream about having a pool party with our high school friends. In her dream we started out at a wedding and then had this pool party, so I guess my dream just picked up where hers left off. Tags: dreams
I'm Feeling: weirded out
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Seeking out papers for decoupaging has led me into some interesting byroads of the magazine industry. You'd think I would know something about magazines, having subscribed to them all my life, from Your Big Backyard as a preschooler to my current dozen ( Gastronomica, Saveur, Vegetarian Times, Yoga Journal, Smithsonian, The Sun, Condé Nast Traveler, Sunset, Via, Dwell, Martha Stewart Living, and Food & Wine).* But I've discovered now that I'd only scratched the surface. Perhaps the most mainstream of my new acquisitions is W magazine, which I'd never looked at before. I bought an issue at a used-magazine sale and upon opening it, got very excited by the oversized pages full of fashion shoots. These are very, very nice for my purposes... and apparently Ginnifer Goodwin's costars think she's very intelligent, how about that? Margene! At a yard sale, I pounced with glee on a big box full of magazines, only to find that they were all horse magazines: The Horse, Horse Illustrated, Organic Equine, Horse and Rider... I picked up a selection, figuring that at the very least, I could use them for drawing practice (I am more terrible at drawing horses than you might imagine, having never liked them much). Boy, horse magazines are kind of weird. I guess all specialized magazines are weird to outsiders, but as I say, I've never liked horses. Organic Equine reminded me disturbingly of my vegetarian and yoga magazines, being full of ads for nutritional supplements and acupuncture and that sort of thing. All the horse magazines were full of info and photos of medicines and treatments, but The Horse in particular had disgusting close-up photos of diseased tissues and infections -- and a large ad for something called Equine Semen Transporter. I think I may have cut up the last issue of my horse magazines today... and am I thankful! Besides yard sales, libraries are another excellent source for cheap used magazines. The El Cerrito branch even has a "free" box, which I assume is full of things the library didn't think would sell (even for the measly 25¢ they charge). Out of that box I've picked up countless golf magazines, which provide beautiful images of verdant landscaping (often on really flimsy paper, unfortunately), and one memorably perplexing issue of Coatings Pro. I confess I still don't understand what that magazine is about, in spite of leafing through the whole thing with interest. It had a picture of a bridge on the cover. I'm not sure what that has to do with steel substrates (or, honestly, what steel substrates even are), but mine not to reason why. There were some interesting pictures in there of metal sheeting and uneven concrete surfaces. Another recent library-sale find was Country Life, a bizarre British weekly that has somehow found its way to the Larkspur public library. I purchased all the available issues, mainly because of the large size of the magazine (at 9" x 12" it's only slightly smaller than the 10" x 13" W) and its good-quality paper. Today I was going through my first issue and I have to tell you, I am just floored by this magazine. I'm not sure who its target audience is but I suspect it might be these people. The first half of the magazine overflows with full-page ads for country estates of a size and grandeur I had not believed truly existed in real life: "perfect for Oxford schools," "immaculate old rectory", "fine Georgian country house in parkland setting," "stunning Tudor style early Victorian set in grounds approaching 58 acres..." This is aside from the villas in Tuscany and the French and Portuguese properties, of course. This part of the magazine reads like a baronet's version of those free real estate magazines you can pick up at any American supermarket. But then partway through, we begin to discover components of a normal-type magazine: events, letters to editor, feature articles, performing arts reviews, a crossword... and a horse-racing column, a bridge (as in the card game) column, and something called "Mrs Danvers" which contains such utter gems as the following: Dear Mrs Danvers, I would like to commission a special large vase for my husband because he has recently been knighted and now has his own coat of arms. Can you tell me of anyone who does such work?** My jaw drops, and I am simultaneously aghast, delighted, and just plain shocked that such a magazine and such people exist. And really, why is this magazine in a little town library in Marin? So that's where I am with decoupaging these days. I've got several huge stacks of magazines (and a few books) yet to go through, though I'm still kind of on the hunt for more. I will keep you posted, you can be sure, if I find anything more along the lines of the aforementioned priceless jewels!! *In my defense, several of these are freebies I picked up especially for decoupage purposes. But even so, yes, I do have trouble finding time to read them all. That's why I canceled Body + Soul, Real Simple, and the late Domino last year... not that this really helps. Those three have great pictures and I'd appreciate them now for decoupage! **Should you be pondering a similar situation in your own life, Mrs Danvers suggests you contact Muffet Monro for her beautiful work and long experience. Tags: non sequiturs, what i did today
I'm Feeling: hungry, but Erik's cooking, bless him
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