Letter to My Body

Dear Body,

I just want to point out that you had six months of rest, relaxation, and downtime amid volitile weather conditions. Freezes and thaws and freezes and thaws. You worked with children, you traveled abroad, and yet through all this you remained strong. Why did you decide that the night before I started my new job was the ideal time to get sick? To tighten up the chest, clog up the sinuses, flood my eyes, and pound around in my head? Was that really necessary?

I made a wonderful impression on all my new coworkers--coughing, sneezing, blowing my nose-- "I'm Caitlyn! I'm so excited to be working here!" I'm sure it will pave the way for my success.

I appreciate the fact that after the initial onslaught you agreed to compromise and let me feel a little better each day. But that episode this morning with the little tickle in the back of my throat that gave me the uncontrollable urge to cough for hours in the middle of the packed, silent traincar was really uncalled for. I tried to suppress it by breathing slowly and calmly, but it only made the tears start streaming down my cheeks and my entire core start convulsing. I think that might have been more alarming to my fellow passengers than the incessant coughing.

Anytime you could start acting like a normal body instead of one that's out to get me, I would appreciate it.

Love,
Caitlyn

PS-Please stop craving potato chips all the time. Try to crave something like celery sticks.

Just Wondering.

Does it make me un-American if I don't care about or watch the SuperBowl?

Just wondering.

Yoga

Each yoga session I attend (which is unfortunately not very consistent), the participants are asked to mentally set an intention for the session--whatever it was that brought us to our yoga mats that day. Could be physical, mental, spiritual, anything. I was there for the works. Bring it on, thought I.

The quiet of the room and the intimacy with my own body almost always gives me some insight. Some of them more profound than others. One time I couldn't help but reflect on those few awkward moments as people wander into the room and settle in, but before the class has started. Do you say hello to your yoga mat neighbor?

This past week however, I got a flash of insight that discouragingly sounds like an old-person insight. Just because you CAN do something, doesn't necessarily mean that you SHOULD. Let's face it, I'm not as young as I used to be. I remember dance classes when I was 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 bounding up into backbends and sinking into the splits like it was my job. But when faced with the CAMEL POSE this week (pictured to the right) I either felt my age or my out-of-shapeness. I watched the teacher thinking, "yeah, right," but then as I leaned backward I thought, "hey, this isn't so bad!" And then I was there feeling the thrill of accomplishment radiating from my outstretched heart. And then the teacher said, "on your next breath, go ahead and roll back up." Oh crap. My head felt like a ton of bricks, and I wondered how I would even give a distress signal so the teacher could come and rescue me. I panicked for just a moment when I thought that the only way out was for someone to push me over, when finally I figure out how to move without losing my balance.

When I was finally upright again, the teacher was already guiding the class into a second camel pose. Luckily she added a little caveat that if we felt like one was enough, that was ok. THANK GOD. I went straight into the corpse pose to wait and let my blinding flash of insight sink in.

Darkness

I wanted to see if I could keep my poinsettia growing all year so it would bloom again next year. While reading about their care, I learned that starting in October, poinsettias need 14 straight hours of complete darkness per night in order to bloom. No indoor light, no street light, nothing. Interesting metaphor.. darkness before blooming.

More literally, I'm wondering since we are almost never in complete darkness--there's always a street light or a house light or building security lights--how have we changed the planet and the life it sustains? I wonder if there are species that have died out or don't exist here simply because we don't let them have darkness.

Sometimes I get far enough out of the city to look up into the night sky and see it full of stars. Every time it startles me. Not seeing the stars, per se, but the fact that I had forgotten their presence. They are always there, constant and beautiful, but I become accustomed to their invisibility. Glimpsing them turns into a miracle.

Dar Williams wrote a lyric that resonates with me:

"What kind of people make a city

where you can't see the sky and you can't feel the ground?"

What kind, indeed?

A World Transformed

I woke up this morning to a world transformed. Outside my window the branches were dark tangles lined with a thin layer of bright white. What a contrast! The magical night that goes from no snow to a sparkling blanket always makes me catch my breath in the morning. Despite the bitter cold air that bites at your cheeks and sends snowflakes swirling down any gap between your neck and scarf, there are some luscious things about winter. Somehow, the world looks new.