I got a chance to experience different breathing techniques over the weekend. Some by choice, some by force. The first was an IntroEducation to Pranayama. This was the by-choice inhale/exhale portion of the weekend. Sponsored and led by Ruth of Now & Zen Yoga I was introduced to the four different breathing techniques of Pranayama. The thing that stuck in my head (after it hit my heart) was the thought process behind Pranayama. I will paraphrase what was said to me – breathing is life and Pranayama is the control of this life force. Your first action after birth is a deep inhale. Your last action of life is a slow exhale. Life breathing from beginning to end. Ruth said it much more gracefully but you get the point. I learned that breath can be controlled after years of taking it for granted. Different from the box breathing (something I learned about in a different class), we were introduced to four different techniques of inhale/exhale but Ujjayi had to be my favorite – noisy and satisfying, it made me come alive.
Later, I felt like I was dying. By choice. Sunday beautiful sunny afternoon I decided to take Miss You for a run. I’m not used to running in sunshine, running in shorts. By mere mile one I was gasping for air. I had forgotten to pace myself, forgotten to find the steady breath. Funny thing about breathing – you don’t think about it until you are short of it. I remembered the imaginary eggs I should be cradling in my palms. I remembered the angels on my shoulders to keep my back straight. I remembered the pacing of footfalls…but not the pacing of breath. 1.8 miles later I ran across kisa (almost literally) and I called it quits. I wanted my inhale and exhale to quiet to talking and walking. The run was not what I wanted it to be, but the company was. I’ll do it again tomorrow.
PS
Forget to mention:
To get your own Miss You cd (or two or three):
www.myspace.com/rebeccacorreia
okay…I just wanted to these pics to have their own blog! 🙂
Miss You Finally Revealed
I love it when the answering machine blinks good news. Kisa & I came home last night to the message “Miss You is done and I wanted you to have a copy as soon as possible. I’m in town…” A little while later I had five copies of the long awaited album in my hands. I can’t even begin to explain how excited I am about Miss You. We were given demos no – teases back in 2004 and it’s been nothing but anticipation since. I don’t think I can explain how excited I was to not only get a signed copy of Miss You, but another copy of Live at Turks. But, more on Turks another time. This is all about Rebecca Correia’s newest album, Miss you!
Set list (with comments and favorite lines):
- Miami (I love that the first word on the entire album is ‘Kyle’) “It felt damn good to be hit on.” Kisa likes the part about taking off her top…typical.
- Miss You – (I’m used to this one because of the demo but I miss Kyle singing backup from the live shows.) “Tracing circles again looking for a good time and a good friend.”
- Under – (is there a little laugh at the end? I love the references to the ocean. It reminds me of home.) “Morning comes and I’m further away from myself it seems.”
- Yours – (sounds like a choir of backup singers. Love the seduction of the bass.) “I keep running over all the reasons why I miss you.”
- Screaming One – (one of my favorite songs – sultry guitar solo – wicked lyrics) “It’s like the things you forget when you forget to be yourself for a while.”
- Better Day – (The song I want to call ‘Rain’. Love the mandolin!) “No sleep for the weary, no dreams for the restless.”
- Walking Backwards – (with Matt Cusson. Funky keyboards) The song is too short for a favorite line. I would have to quote the entire thing!
- Quiet Hands – (what can I say? Rebecca’s voice is really rich and all I can think about is September 18th. This version is just Rebecca and her guitar. It’s perfect.) “Colors fade but I am not afraid this time when love is made between your heart and mine.”
- Elizabeth – (My heart breaks whenever I hear this song. Love, love, love the bass but the lyrics get me more.) “In the dark I cry pondering the reasons why. Mother it’s your ghost I live with all the time.”
- Nothing Left to Take – (Mozus’s guitar is haunting in this.”Behind these eyes of complacency, decency I give up this skin.”
- No Apologies – (Drums! This is my favorite drum song. I couldn’t tell you why. I just hear the drums in perfection.) “You are my legs when I’m running faster towards the edge and I’m falling out.” “Heaven is aware and looks away.”
- Wanting – (I love the conversation between cello and piano.) “Haunted by your ghost, your touch so cold…” and “I’ll be the quickest road to love you’ve ever known.”
Pandora’s Box
There are times in your life when you should leave well enough alone. Don’t open Pandora’s Box because it will only have you questioning the unanswerable, lamenting the unchangeable.
I read your diary today. The 1990 version to be exact. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry over your apparent insanity. Afraid to be alone, petrified to be yourself, terrified to speak your mind, pitiful to witness, even now. Even still. You actually wrote, and I quote, ” –‘s birthday. Please tell me we’re still together!” Couldn’t you try for a relationship where there would be no doubt, or was that too much to ask? Everyday was another fight, another break-up, another make-up bitch session. Hate, love, hate. No wonder you couldn’t keep your head on straight.
The subsequent years (1993-1998) weren’t that much better. Different “loves”, same old debate. Love. Hate. You still couldn’t open your mouth to save your life. You should have died.
I’m staring into Pandora’s Box remember too much of what I shouldn’t and thinking sleeping dogs don’t bite. Why wake, why remember? You should be dead to me, like all the rest. You should be just another number, another failed attempt of something called love. I shouldn’t call your name let alone remember it. I dream of your face and hope it’s nothing like memory. Fresh starts are made of this. Closing of the box.
Dare Do I?
What if I want to go onto Knitting Level II? What if I want to take a class called “My First Sweater”? Am I older than my years? Is it enough that I want to do more? I’ve always been suspicious of those people who take on too much. I call them the Promisers. They talk about all the things they have planned. Months later I’m asking what happened? What’s going on with…? Did you say you were going to…? I don’t want to be that person. I’ve been there before. So, when I say I want to pick something up I’m saying I WANT to. No promises.
Going Away Staying Here
I name my plants. Bella was given to me when I left the tri-state area in 1995. A going away present while I was running away from unending love affairs and unseen, unsolved problems. Getting away and going away seemed to be the answers for what ailed me. Didn’t matter what that ailment was. Let me pack and bag and run. At that very moment. I have always been good at packing it up, bagging the current state of affairs and running away, but Bella hated the flight. She would rather I stay and fight and fight some more. She didn’t travel well. She dropped leaves and wilted with every mile. She barely survived my indecision when I made the decision to move seven times in the subsequent three years. With each packing she protested by dropping leaves and refusing to grow. Like bribing a child I promised her sunlight and plant food, a bigger pot – her own space to grow. Anything to make the new window in the new room better.
Finally, after the eighth move we have stayed in one place long enough to find happiness. After five years in one place Bella is finally thriving. I think she has forgiven me with flowers – for the first time ever.
Ophelia Revisited
I go through phases. Musically obsessed, I will listen to one artist over and over again until something takes me off course. I am not exactly sure what dictates this audio gorging, but I’ve always been this way. Ask my mother and she’ll tell you about an ABBA cassette I wore out in the 7th grade. Get me hooked on something and I don’t give it up. Won’t give it up. Ever since kisa was able to get bootlegs of BubbleGum I have been in his audience for months now. Sometimes I’m the back, absently humming along. Other times I’m right up in the front row, screaming my heart out. Daily doses of BubbleGum. Two nights ago I watched Any Given Thursday back to back with a New York show from earlier this year, trying to reconcile 2002 with 2007. I still can’t believe it’s the same guy! Just last night kisa found a secret show, something recorded at 1am. Intriguing.
Recently though, thanks again to kisa, I’m back to my Natalie obsession. Almost like coming full circle. It started in 1998 and most recently came around again when my knight put a gigantic, humungous pair of headphones on my head and said something about Noise Blocking Technology. The latest. I couldn’t hear him. Not one word. “Your lips move but I can’t hear what you’re saying.” His mistake was pushing play and letting the cd spin. I couldn’t hear him, didn’t want to hear him… for Natalie had begun to sing.
I admit it. I have missed this voice. I have missed the anger, the passion that always bubbles up from somewhere secret when her lyrics hit me. Tonight I relived Live in Concert (1999). Natalie has always conquered the tough subjects in her songs. I could sense the rage simmering as Natalie sang, “there’s a world outside this room and when you meet it promise me you won’t meet it with your gun taking aim” (Gun Shy, 1987). She was talking to her baby brother about joining the military but all I could think about was Cho Seung-Hui. What made him meet his world with a gun taking aim – just days before the anniversary of Columbine? Would this tragedy get to Natalie as much as 4/20/1999 did? Would she write about Seung-Hui as she had about Harris and Klebold? Tell me. What makes someone’s hatred so untouchable, his alienation so absolute? When does taking aim become the only answer to desperation? I’m hoping Natalie explores the unexplicable because it’s time to hear her voice again, to hear her ask the tough questions.
PLAN
They call it ‘Plan’ but it’s a charity all about sponsoring impoverished children (my first thought was something like Planned Parenthood). Founded in 1937 Plan is the oldest and largest organization dedicated to caring for children in poorer countries (not limited to third world as one might assume). They techinically are a “private, not for profit, nonsectarian organization”, meaning you can view annual reports they publish openly.
The thing that caught my attention about Plan is their advocation of the movie About Schmidt. Played by Jack Nicholson, Schmidt is a miserable man who only pretends to be happy for the good of everyone around him. He goes through life taking himself for granted. Only through the sponsorship of a Plan child does Schmidt learn what an impact he can have on another human being. The movie is at once depressing and thought provoking and I wouldn’t have seen it without the endorsement of Plan.
For more information about sponsoring an impoverished child, go here.
American Diabetes Association…again
The American Diabetes Association sent me yet another mailing. The third since January 1, 2007. That means three nickels, three “dear friend” letters, three sheets of address labels. Speaking of the address labels, my real friends could take one look at them and know they aren’t my style. These labels don’t prompt me to donate. Colorful pumps and mules, flowery hats, pink and plump purses. Bright colors and cartoonish, I don’t feel compelled to donate based on getting them.
Yet, I feel bad. My mother was just warning my sister and me about limiting our sugar intake because of our family history. Diabetes is in the jeans and not just the back pocket. Still, I feel pressured because of the multiple mailings. Maybe that was their plan all along. Tricky.
They say every nickel counts yet they keep sending them to me.
1959
Davis, Thulani. 1959. New York: Grove Weidenfeld. 1992.
Part novel, part historical rampage 1959 is 100% rich in descriptive imagery. 1959 is the story of Katherine “Willie” Tarrant, a coming of age girl growing up in racially divided Turner, Virginia. She has all the typical angst of any twelve year old – boys, makeup, popularity, daydreams driven by movies and celebrity fanfare. Woven into Willie’s world is the climate of the times. Segregation and integration push-pull of a racially divided era. While some of Davis’s story is told in first person from Willie’s point of view, much of the political, historical meat of the story is third person – conversations Willie overhears, meetings she eavesdrops on and situations she couldn’t have possibly been in. (Like during a sex scene and towards the end of the novel when Cole gets shot on a desolate road outside Turner.) There were times when I couldn’t believe a twelve year old was my guide, “With each grind your thighs would become sex weapons blowing away his cool” (p56). What kid speaks like that? “Death brought out banquets as if the mourners were starved by their loss, and yet the grievers never ate” (p 195).
What made this book such a page turner for me (I read it in less than a week) was the tension of the times. It builds slowly with the talk of school integration and builds after eight black college boys sit at a white only Woolworth’s counter, quietly demanding service. Davis masterfully weaves fictional characters with the undeniable historical truth of what really happened. I could hear the dogs bark, feel the sting of hate, see the bravery in the protester’s faces. Even though school integration didn’t happen for another six years, 1959 proved to be the catalyst for change and Davis captured it brilliantly.
BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Southern-Fried Fiction: Virginia” (p 209).
Knit Nut Week 1
Knitting was another one of those things I loved doing but could never claim to be any good at. In fact, if anything, I could only brag I was proficient at making one thing: four sided shapes. Squares and rectangles seemed to be my forte and I would create them all the time. If I was feeling ambitious I would take all my squares and rectangles and stitch them together to make something really spectacular, a blanket. I did that once. I made my mother a blanket shortly after dad passed away. It’s coming apart at the seams, but she still has it. My crowning achievement. My pride and joy. I had grand designs to do it again for my honeymoon.
After years of making four sided shapes I sensed hints of bigger and better things from my family. Gifts in the form of knitting books, gift certificates to yarn stores and skeins of same-weight yarn whispered the potential to make something more complicated. Either my family had faith in me to move onto something more complex or they were sick of seeing squares. I’m not sure. After all, the honeymoon blanket is still in pieces. When my mother-in-law presented me with two technique books and yet another gift certificate to a yarn store I caved and bought myself lessons. First time, beginner to knitting lessons. Never mind that I’ve built a blanket. Never mind that I know the difference between knit and purl, long tail cast on and garter stitch. Never mind all that. Truth be told, I wanted to learn how to knit with two hands. I wanted to learn how to avoid digging one needle into my hip for support. I wanted to learn how to knit standing up. If there was such a thing as proper knitting I wanted to learn it.
Today was the first class. As with anything involving social graces I was worried sick I would be the fool. With only five of us in the class I was worried I would be the sore thumb in a handful of graceful fingers. The palm was against me: two mother-daughter pairs and little ole me. I told kisa it would have been nice to have my mother there. I was envious of the heads bowed close together, counting each other stitches, admiring each others’ rows. Gentle murmurs of “that looks great honey” and “did you see how she picked up that stitch?” They whispered back and forth while I worded nothing to nobody.
Sometime later their conversations spilled like marbles out to me and I picked up a few. We talked cable television. We talked parenting. We talked Food Network. I found a kindred spirit in one of the daughters. Not wanting kids or commitment she was the coolest of the bunch. We talked Alton Brown and agreed that cable packages should be pick and choose show specific. We’d only want the cooking shows.
At the end of the class I learned a few new things about knitting. I’ve been doing it right all along. Imagine that. The hip was a crutch I can now throw away.
Hell or High Hail
Me, myself & moi, we were the exact opposite of this as we went running in the rain, hail, snow. I had an on again, off again relationship with indecision. Should I run? Looking at the weather I thought not. Looking at my state of mind I thought yes. Finally, I settled on taking a chance with yes.
I took BG out with me and he told me stories about being the next “whatever.” His joking kept me going. Rain soaked me through and I needed something to put one foot in front of the other. Laughing always works. I look insane, but it works. By the time I hit the bike path the rain was going right through me. By the time I hit the first stop sign it was starting to bounce off me and it hurt. Hail. It looked like the tiny beads of styrofoam they fill beanbag chairs with. Small, round, white…and pelting.
I had a small conversation with my knee. Not happy about the run, not run attitude I have had of late, she protested a little. I moved to the dogs’ side of the path and immediately started watching my feet. Broken pen, neon green barrette, empty bottle, dirt crusted button, a scrap of torn paper, another pen, dog sh!t, rusted bottle cap, shards of bark, broken glass, the debris from lives carried on without thought. I thought about the neon green barrette and wondered if it was worn in the hair of a little girl too young to tell her mom it dropped from the stroller’s height. I pictured her staring back at it lying in the dirt, watching it get smaller and smaller as she is pushed away. I thought about the pens. Who would write on a bike path? Was this a shortcut for a business man? A source of inspiration for a budding poet with bigger aspirations than paycheck?
The hail started to mix with snow and it was time to head for home. I learned an inspiration trick from a running magazine – run a bath right before heading out. The faster you get through your run, the warmer the bath will be. As the hail pelted me and the snow chilled my skin to red I thought about the hot bath waiting for me. I couldn’t wait to climb inside. Come hell or high high I made it through.
Party
This picture has absolutely nothing to do with the blog other than it’s a party…and the fact someone in this picture is celebrating a birthday today. Happy Birthday, my friend! XOXO
Leftovers. The very word implies discarded, used up, tired, unwanted. This morning I made french toast with Easter old challah bread and bottom-of-the-quart strawberries. Food leftover from the family visit. The french toast was better than the original purpose of any of these ingredients. Oddly enough.
There are leftovers all over my apartment. Empty plastic eggs, a sad deflated rabbit, sticky Scooby stickers and an Easter cake fast drying out. I’m at a loss as to what to do with the remains of a visit gone by. We never touched half the food I bought in preparation. I don’t know what I thought I was preparing for but it never happened. The only thing worth keeping around is the blooming Easter lily that fills my kitchen with the heady scent of the spring that refuses to arrive.
This afternoon I’ll fold up the blankets, put away the books, clean out the fridge, dismantle the crib and throw out the rabbit head. The party is over. It’s like traveling across the country and stopping along the way to look at some amusement park or scenic landscape. The party is over so it’s time to get back on the road.
Chuck Lelas Memorial
It dawned on me in the middle of my lasagna that the Chuck Lelas Memorial 10k walk/run is next month almost to the day. I haven’t run an inch since March…early March. If you do the math, a 10k isn’t a stroll in the park. It’s over six freakin’ miles. That’s many, many, many inches.
The background (my background) on the CLM walk/run is this. My friend S asked me to walk it with her two years ago. I think we came in dead last. At least, after we crossed the finish line they shut the clock off…what does that tell you? No matter. We were having too good of a time gabbing to really worry about PRs and beating the clock (as if!). I skipped last year’s walk due to a little 13.1 miler I was running for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, but this year I’m back…and stressing about half that distance.
Briefly, the Chuck Lelas Memorial Walk/Run is dubbed the “You Gotta Have Heart” event and this marks the 4th year of it’s existence. The money goes for scholarships in Chuck’s name. My personal tie to this charity event? S and the fact that Chuck was a coach where I work.
For more information go here. In the meantime, I’m off the to the gym!
Can’t Love You Enough
My husband went to Denver for a week. For a week. That’s a long time when you never get sick of someone. It would be different if we needed head space or elbow room. Our body parts didn’t need distance. Always questioning what’s in it for me I discovered the only benefit of putting my kisa in Denver is Chipotle. I dare anyone to find me a better burrito. Definitely dare you. Chipotle has its own wiki page for Frank’s Sake!
I can’t love Chipotle enough. The affair started in 2000. I was introduced to a chicken, double salsa, cilantro-lime rice, black bean, cheddar cheese & sour cream cylinder of goodness within moments of arriving in Denver. Love at first bite. Heaven and Hell. Heaven because I had never tasted anything so good. Hell because it didn’t exist on the eastern seaboard. I was hooked. Caught up in the pleasure and pain of I-Have-To-Eat-The-Whole-Thing. So full I had to unzip my pants, but I finished it…satisfied.
I left Denver in ignorance and innocence having not yet learned of transcontinental burrito travel. Once home I wrote bigwig Joe Stupp of my adoration for his chicken burrito and my lament at leaving the land of yum. He wrote back with coupons, good for youknowwhats and the assurance that Chipotle would dominate the east coast very soon. (As of today, four have invaded New York City.)
How much do I love these bomblike burritos? At Christmas 2001 a friend was detained at the airport and nearly missed his flight. He was searched because he carried a suspicious silver cylinder. His crime? Bringing me a frozen burrito wrapped in aluminum. I joined the fan-club in 2000. I get their email newsletter despite the fact it would take me three hours to order from the nearest menu.
Today, I am enjoying a chicken, double salsa, cheese, bean and rice number courtesy of being separated from my husband. Courtesy of a long distance love affair. I can’t love you enough.
~*LunaSea*~ 