Tuesday, January 24, 2006

this morning's lesson

woke up early as planned, but so did duckie. not part of the plan. ok, work with it. juice and her favorite seat in the mama chair, cozy down comforter to keep her warm, yoga dvd in the player for mama, mat down on the floor.

not bad to start out. routine needs focus, needs a lot of energy. not a sequence to do while you’re distracted by anything else.

works ok, breathing and moving, working with the flow. until duckie starts to wake up and get interested in what mama’s doing.

well, ok then. work with that, be light with the humor of the situation. how funny is it to watch a two-year-old do downward dog? pretty funny.

then she starts to jump on me while i’m pigeon-legged in a deep, intense stretch. ok i can use the extra weight to go a little deeper. but then she won’t let me do the sequence on the other side without trying to topple me. balance and focus are really important here.

well, ok then. i’ll do some other stuff where balance isn’t such a big deal.

er… except in yoga, balance is the big deal, right? try to do a wheel pose backbend when your mind is preoccupied with whether your daughter’s going to climb under you. try to do a shoulderstand when your daughter’s trying to push you into plow whether your body wants to go or not.

a recipe for disaster. i fell and caught her little ankle underneath me before i could roll out to the side. not falling with intent and mindfulness at all. falling with resentment and keen sensation of failure.

then to see her crying because of my screwed-up priorities. kest says, “don’t hurt yourself, because you won’t get back down on the mat, and there’s nothing more important than this.” dude, i’m terribly sorry, man, but there is something more important than this, and that’s my role as a mother.

so tomorrow or the next day, i’ll pick up a yoga mat just for her (probably pink) and we’ll do some light stretches together. nothing major, just involving her in the morning practice, if she’s awake.

duckie, i’m so sorry for my misguided focus this morning. my intent was not where it should have been. lesson learned. *many many many kisses*

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i’m planning a trip to charlotte this weekend to see my friend coz. i’ve not been out to visit since july, which means i haven’t had much of a mommy retreat in a while. i’m looking forward to it. i’ve been looking forward to yoga a lot, too, over the last few days. so it was kinda creepy to come into work to the following message from beliefnet buddhist teachings:

“How much of your life do you spend looking forward to being somewhere else?”

-Matthew Flickstein, Journey to the Center


ok, ok, i get it. mindfulness is about being where you are as fully as possible, even if where you are is in a fishbowl office with colorless firebrick walls and chemical-stinky air. *sigh* at least most of the people are nice to work with.

5 comments:

SB Gypsy said...

...And being blessed with nice co-workers is a great blessing indeed!!!

(veteran listener to many many effed up co-worker stories out of the corporate stronghold)

andi said...

absolutely true, SB. i've spent enough time in work environments where the negativity and neurosis completely overwhelmed me. ick. they leave me alone here for the most part (with some singular exceptions), so mostly the negativity and neurosis is my very own. ;)

Handsome B. Wonderful said...

I think it's great that you are getting Duckie a yoga mat!!

I received that message today from the Buddhist wisdom and found it right on target as well.

Have a great time in Charlotte!

andi said...

thank you, james! i certainly will - apparently my friend has a new membership to the Y there, so i'll even get a couple hours of exercise. not to mention two nights of (hopefully) unbroken sleep - what a blessing that will be!

andi said...

YAY K!!!! I was thinking who the hell is Kiki?

SO glad to hear you're blogging again - will bookmark you for sure.