Swim, Fishy...Swim!

What is the difference between effort and surrender?

This week I heard it described like this:

Imagine a fish swimming in a river. When the fish is in the current, she is surrendered.  She is letting the flow of water carry her.  And if and when she ever loses that current, then (and only then) she uses her effort, to find her way back.

Her effort, her will, is what she calls upon when she's fallen out of the stream.  When life starts to get hard, get rocky, when it feels like nothing is moving and certainly nothing is moving her...that is when effort is required.

And then, lucky fish, once she's reunited with the river's current, then she is carried.

And on and on it goes.

I love this description so much (lifted from an interview with Mark Nepo) because we hear so much about surrender.  Surrender is the thing we're all told we're looking for--or at least that's what our yoga teachers tell us and our books tell us and our wise friends tell us (they tell us other things, too)--and often they're right.  Often letting go is what's needed.  Often it's needed because we live in a world where nearly every other influence in our lives is urging us toward the opposite.  Towards more, towards faster, towards harder, towards sweat, towards effort.  Towards multi-tasking our effort.  And so, the encouragement towards, sheesh, softening some of that, is good.

But, what about the times when surrender is not the answer?  Are we really just meant to go from splashing wildly, or worse, swimming in panicked circles, certain the current is there somewhere...to just being lazy fishies, letting the water take us where it will?

That doesn't seem right.

That would imply that the human system is flawed.  If surrender were the only solution, if the only thing which existed other than surrender was a kind of aggravated repetitive belly flop...that would imply that there is nothing to be done.  We either give up, or we suffer.  And I just think that the human mind and heart are too complex and too gorgeous (sorry), to write them off simply as the agents of our own destruction.

But if you think of a wise fish...of a little guy who finds himself suddenly out of the flow of water...what is he going to do?  I don't think he's going to freak out.  I don't think he's going to start slamming his fish body against the rocks along the bottom of the river because he's just so upset that this has happened to him, yet again, and all his other little fishy friends seem to be doing just fine thank you very much and why the heck can't he ever catch a break?!  No, he's going to quiet his little fishy mind (remember, he's a wise fish), he's going to stick his little fish nose and little fish ears (do fish have ears?) into the water, and he's going to use his will to start his little tail and fins a flippin', and he's going to swim himself back to that current.

And when he's there, he'll know he's there, whether or not his eyes are open (whether or not he even HAS eyes), because things will suddenly get...easier.

Ahhh.  Exhale. 

He'll know he's in the current, because he'll be able to fold his little fins against his fat little rainbow-scale sides, and coast.  He'll know he's there because he'll be moving with the river.  He'll know he's there because he'll suddenly be able just to enjoy the ride.

And if ever the time comes when he falls, one more time, out of the grace of the river, he'll know he has his effort, his will, and his good sense...to guide him back.

A Problem of Thinking...

Have you ever considered, that perhaps this is not a thinking problem?

Have you ever considered, that perhaps problems get solved in your life in spite of, and not because of, your thinking?

Have you ever considered (I rarely do) that perhaps all the moments of all the days don’t need to be filled with thinking?  That maybe one doesn’t need to think from the bedroom to the bathroom, from the bathroom to the kitchen, in the kitchen while the tea is bubbling, in the car while the wheels are turning, on the walk while the door is looming, over the sink while the dishes are doing, above the stove where the food is cooking, in the place where the work is happening, at the end when the lights are turning, back in the car as the eve is dawning, back up the steps to where the door is waiting, and on and on and on?

Have you ever considered that the mind is not meant for such stuff?

Have you ever considered that the mind is meant for mind-matter:  for chair building and computer programming and book-reading and play-writing and lightbulb choosing and car driving and philosophy grasping and fire starting and gadget inventing and all the other hundreds and thousands of things that the mind is perfectly suited to?

Have you considered that love, is not the domain of the mind? That feeling, is not the domain of the mind?  That instinct, is not the domain of the mind, art-making is not the domain of the mind, sex and fucking and love-making...all not the domain of the mind?

Perhaps you have.  Perhaps you have considered all of this, because these are so obviously products of the heart, and the senses, and the pumping of the blood.

But what about decision making?  Have you ever considered that decision making is not the domain of the mind?

What?  You may be saying.  Of course decision-making is for my mind.  That's what my mind done does.  That's what it always done did and always will would.

But what if it's not?

What if...if when faced with a decision...you were to get soft and quiet, instead of tight and loud? Not letting the many voices of reason that occupy all your many spaces pipe in immediately with their suggestions.  What then?  What if you were to close your eyes and drink in the smells around you and just rub your face against the wind that is rubbing against it?  What if you were to unclench your jaw and unclench your eyes and unclench that poor little mind, that just wants to help, that always wants to help, but maybe, possibly...can not serve you here?  What would come rushing in?  What would establish itself in clarity?

Albert Einstein would have all his greatest ideas in the shower.  So he said. Or while shaving.

Isaac Newton talks about problem solving like one would talk about watching a flower open, "I keep the subject of my inquiry constantly before me, and wait till the first dawning opens gradually, by little and little, into a full and clear light".

"It is curious," said Mark Twain, "-- the space-annihilating power of thought."


All great men.  All great doers.  All, somehow, in agreement about this--spaciousness.  Be it spaciousness of shower, or spaciousness of dawning realization.

And for myself...every real stroke of insight or clarity or brilliance I have ever had, has bubbled out of silence, and not out of the morass of thought. Never ever ever has it bubbled out of the morass of thought.  Sometimes I have driven myself near to insanity with thought and then finally, because I just could not take it anymore, or because I had cried tears and the tears had broken some kind of dam...finally I relented.  And in the relenting came a ready solution.  And so, sometimes I have equated these two things:  the exhaustive death-match with thought and the miraculous solution at the end.

But perhaps you could have the latter without the former?

The great guess of spiritual practice, the grand hypothesis of yoga and all the others, is that the world, at it's essence, is born from space and from silence.  And, in that silence is the power of creation.  And our small piece of eternity, our sippy-cup of heaven, as humans, is that if we can get ourselves as quiet as that space...then we can taste a bit of what it has to offer.  We can actually step into the power that makes worlds.  That is the experiment.  It's the experiment of meditation and the experiment of yoga and the experiment of writing and the experiment of song and the experiment of love and the experiment of play...what can we do to step in?  How many things can we find that can quiet us well enough and for long enough that we might just get a little eternity juice on our hands and our face?

I am still in the trial phases, myself.  I will report findings when they are available.

In the meantime...if you are struggling with something, if you are turning it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over in your mind.  Just consider, that perhaps your mind is not meant for such things.  Perhaps it is the silence, right down there in the center of you, that is best suited to hurl that particular boulder, to that particular moon.

Structure and the Creative Urge…

Several weeks ago in a class, one of my favorite teachers, Maria Cristina Jimenez, had us rig up a little strap-sling for our upper arms, and in several poses she had us press out into the strap with our biceps as we folded forward.  Our charge was to find (and revel in), from that pressing out, the magical extra opening of the heart that quickly followed.

And for weeks I have been using and adjusting and playing with this same trick (thanks, MC!) and variations on it in my own practice, and in classes.

Right away, while testing this out in classes, I realized that there are two types of people.  There is the type of person who is all loosey-goosey flexi-pants, who really needs to draw in instead of pressing out.  This person has got enough out.  This person needs some holding to their center, and so for them the strap is actually about restraining, about holding them to the middle.  And then there is the other type of person (I fall into this category), who errs toward the muscular, rather than the loose, and who needs a little less holding it all together, and a little more expanding to their limits.  For them, the strap is really about something to expand against, to relieve all that constant contraction.

We all need structure.  Boundaries.  We all need something to push up against—whether that is a literal pushing out, or an invisible drawing in (a pushing up against one’s own center)—whoever, however…there has to be some kind of structure in place or else…chaos.

We know this about children.  You hear it all the time, that if kids don’t have boundaries, they are going to go crazy in the looking for them.  If you have ever made theatre or made a painting or made just about anything, you’ve probably heard a variation on this theme—that the rules have to be in place before anything really creatively free can take place.  You need to know who is doing what, where things are happening, what the beginning and what the end is or else…the whole creative work would just devolve into nonsense.

When I first started writing in a more serious way, several years ago, I used to ask P. to give me a list of random elements to make a script from.  He would come up with five or six things, sometimes practical like, “only use one location”, sometimes plot-based, “there has to be an explosion”, sometimes more moody, “it should feel dark all the time,” and off I’d go.  Immediately, list in hand, I felt free.  Because, though I didn’t know much of anything else, I at least knew that there would be an explosion, there would be darkness, and we would stay put. 

And the body, perfect metaphor that it is, is no different.  As soon as the boundary lines are established, as soon as the feet and the head and the ribs and the arms all know what they’re doing and where they’re heading—that is when a real opening can begin to happen.  You take a shape, and then you spend some time in that shape, and you explore its dimensions.  You push out, you draw in, you soften, you engage…the pose is a playground within which you experiment.  You play.

But the challenge is, that for most of us as adults, we are left to our own devices when it comes to creating structure.  I remember when I first moved to New York after college, at 22 years old, it was such a shock to my system to have no rhythm to my days.  I didn’t understand how people made it work, this whole life thing—where exactly was I supposed to go?  How was I supposed to spend my time?  Who was handing out the grades, here, anyhow?  It took years for me to realize (and I think I’m still figuring this out, day by day) that I had to be the arbiter of my own structure.  If there was something I wanted to do or make or be…I had to be it.  And without anyone nodding their approval I had to set aside the time and the means to make things happen.

I am a person who craves structure.  But, I am also a person who craves freedom and craves a creative life…often these two things do not go hand in hand.  There are days when all I want is for someone to tell me where to be, what time to be there, and what I should do once I’ve arrived, but what I often forget is that, that person…is me.  I am the one who gets to (has to) tell me where to be and when and what to do when there.  I am structure-maker and I am play-er within. 

Some days it’s harder than others.

But, on the days when the structure feels futile, when all I want to do is navel gaze and ruminate, I have learned to enlist my block-builder self, and set to work.  That is why the structure is there.  It’s there to hold the shape on the days when passion alone can’t suffice. 

These days, I just imagine a strap hugging against me, hugging my arms together, and I close my eyes and press out.  And then I wait for the opening that is sure to come…

How Not to Drown...

"Yoga practice is like an obstacle race; many obstructions are purposely put on the way for us to pass through. They are there to make us understand and express our own capacities.  We all have that strength, but we don't seem to know it." 

- Sri Swami Satchidananda

This morning, facing the blank page, I have to take it to the books.

This morning, in the words of John Patrick Shanley: "I have doubts.  I have such doubts."

Not about you, dear readers.  And not about the progressive march of Spring, and not about the tea in my cup and not about the breath in my body and not about my lovely husband and not about my sweet friends, so many of whom are walking these days into big life changes...but about other things.  Things relating to practice (of all kinds).  Things relating to future and money and art and the big P.: Purpose.

Upon opening this blank page this AM and staring, un-impassioned, into its depths, I could feel only the gnawing of doubt.  Knowing that something had to be done, if I wasn't going to waste the next two hours hemming and hawing and sewing and clawing...I typed "doubt" and "yoga" into the magic 8 ball of Google.

I have doubted my entire life.  When I was younger my doubt expressed itself in dozens of moves, dozens of half-fledged relationships, dozens of days spent agonizing about what I had done and should do and would, from now on, obviously have to do differently.  In my adulthood, my doubt is less destructive.  Nowadays you can find it in my dozens of half-read books, my dozens of half-finished scripts, and the dozens of days spent agonizing about what I have done and should do and will, from now on, obviously do differently.

(So, that part hasn't changed.)

I can now, after being the bedfellow of my own doubt for these many years, watch myself ride the roller coaster of it and it's aftermath with so much more (awful) clarity.  And it looks like this:  choose goal (big or small), progress down path toward goal, feel inspired, talk too much about how inspiring and how close said goal is, get nearly to goal...suddenly realize that goal maybe is not the goal I should be going after, after all...suddenly realize there is DIFFERENT goal which is much more important...kick myself for wasting all of this time on the wrong goal...throw progress toward former goal into the fire of a tearful meldown...and repeat.

There is, of course, a sutra about doubt.

(There is a sutra about everything.)  It is one I'm familiar with...a series of sutras, actually...about the obstacles to practice and their remedy.  These obstacles (of which doubt, samsaya, is one) are the universal distractions, the most common obstacles to the spiritual practice...but I'm going to venture a guess here and say that these are actually the most common obstacles to, um, everything.

"Disease, dullness, doubt, carelessness, laziness, sensuality, false perception, failure to reach firm ground and slipping from the ground gained--these distractions of the mind-stuff are the obstacles."

(Note:  I think "sensuality" in this case, is about the tendency to dive into the more sensory pursuits in the face of all these other distractions.  Sensory like television.  Sensory like another slice of red velvet cake.)

What I love so much about this is the mention of both, "failure to reach firm ground" and "slipping from the ground gained"...I mean, come on!  Seriously, Patanjali...I freaking love you.  Slipping from the ground gained.  Failure to reach that ground in the first place.  Our job, then, is not just to establish a ground underneath our feet, it is to stay there, and to not let all these other things...this doubt, this competition, this fear, this boredom...to not let any of it knock us from the ground once gained.

I came across a really lovely little story (my favorite kind--about a mischievous guru) while doing my internet-ing about doubt.  And it goes like this.  A student was practicing with a guru, studying with him, for many years.  But the student became frustrated and bored and doubtful of the whole experience...what was this thing he was working so hard at, anyhow?  And one day the (mischievous) guru snuck up on the student while he was taking his bath, grabbed the student from behind and held his head under the water until he was nearly drowning.  Just before the student was about to lose consciousness, the guru released his head and he came back to the surface sputtering, gasping for breath.

The guru just looked at the student and said, "you must be desperate for spiritual practice...like you are now desperate for air."

Um.  Yes.

Doubt is like...doubt is like a reality star sunbathing on an air mattress while a swim race is taking place.  Doubt is like wearing sunglasses indoors.  Doubt is a whiny teenager.  Can you imagine being underwater, close to running short of breath and just shrugging your shoulders...taking a few moments to decide whether or not you reeeeeeeeally want to be above the surface?  No.  In the absence of doubt, you do.  You act.  You get yourself to the surface of that water and you suck in some air, dang it.

So, why then, is it so easy to fall off the path?  Why is it so easy to lose that ever loving ground and find yourself, breathless, once again under the waves.

Satchidananda's commentary on this is as awesome as always...he speaks about how we can take comfort in the fact that we are not alone in these distractions, that they are actually a part of the process of growth.  "We seem to need to be challenged and tested," he says, "in order to understand our own capacities.  In fact, that is the natural law.  If a river just flows easily, the water in the river does not express its power.  But once you put an obstacle to the flow by constructing a dam, then you can see its strength in the form of tremendous electrical power.

So, if you are doubting today, or just feel that you have lost sight of the ground, know this:  you are not alone, AND, you do not have to let doubt drag you under.  Fight your way back to the surface, take a big breath, and carry on.  And, yes, I will do that too.

Have You Showered Today?

I’m sorry…before I even begin, can I just say GRRRRRRR to my local coffee shop?  What is with this trend in local haunts of covering over all their electric outlets so no one can plug in their computer?  I know, I know, you don’t want people to hog your tables for hours for the measly price of a cup of tea, but I tell you what, as someone who looooooves going to coffee shops to write—if you can provide me with a reasonably warm environment and access to a power supply, I am yours. 

I mean, come on!  Aren’t you interested in winning the love and devotion of Los Angeles’ army of underemployed writers?  Don’t you know that your generosity with electricity will be paid back in full by the not just one maybe two maybe even three coffees or teas that I and my fellow key pluckers will purchase not just today…but every day?  My god, little neighborhood coffee shop, your tables are always half empty…wouldn’t you rather I stayed and drank my fill than that I have to give up and pack up after an hour or two because I’m out of juice?  Well, I know where I’m not wanted, little down-the-road café…don’t think I don’t.

Okay, wait, I’m sorry…what am I supposed to be talking about?  Is it…how cute Jay-Z and Beyonce’snewborn baby is??!  Squeeeeee! 

Hmmm.  No, that’s not it.

Is it that lately my practice (such that it is) has consisted of a lot of lay-on-the-floor asana, some hang-over-my-legs asana, a little what-was-that-one-with-the-bolster-again asana?  And that, for shame…I don’t mind a bit?  Is it that? 

I remember once, years ago, having a conversation with a friend of mine about repeated patterns.  “Why,” I asked her, “do I keep making the same mistake, over and over again?”  And she thought for a minute and then said something that I still think of, to this day, all. The. Time.

“Well,” she said, “it’s like taking a shower, I guess.  You don’t take a shower and say okay, that’s it, now I’m clean.  I’m done.  I never have to do that again.  You have to shower every day.  Because dirt builds up.”

This is one of the first things you learn in a yoga practice…in any spiritual practice, really.  And you learn this as an artist.  (As an actor often this is the only thing keeping you going, when nothing I mean nothing else will.)  And that is: just keep coming back.  No matter how many times you screw up in the same old way, get aggravated in the same old way, stop paying attention in the same old way, overreact in the same old way, get disappointed in the same old way…you just have to come back. 

Fwoop!  Swap!  Unroll your mat.

And start again.  Not because you’ve done something wrong—no one feels that their daily need to shower (again) is a sign of their broken-ness.   You just know that you’re living your life.  And the more you live your life the more you sweat and get dirty and so the more necessary it is to get naked, turn on the water, and clean it up.

And what does this have to do with my floor-bound practice?  I think it’s this:  I think that I no longer feel that my yoga practice is something which I have to master in an allotted time frame.  (My god, the number of THINGS in my life that I feel I have to master in an allotted time frame!  Yeesh.)  I know that I will be practicing yoga for the rest of my life. Whether or not I’m teaching.  Whether or not I’m writing about it.  I will be doing this practice until my body stops working and even then, I’ll probably practice with whatever I’ve got left…I’ll do eye-blink yoga like the guy from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. 

There is no fury and no flurry and no rush. 

If I’m having a day (or a week) where I feel heavy and slow (but sweet) as I do this week…then my practice will come with me.  If all I want to do is master press-up handstand (someday, you will be mine!)…then my practice will come with me.  If I’m feeling good and just wanting to breathe deep…my practice will come with me.  And I don’t have to play catch-up.  Because this practice is not something I just layer on top of my life or jam squarely into the round crevices of my life…it is part and parcel, hand in hand, ankle-to-knee…with me. 

All the best things in life are this way.  (Yes, husband...this means you.)

And it’s true, isn’t it?  All the best things are this way.  Sometimes I think that all we should be looking for in life are those things and those people and those places that we know, reward or no reward, accomplishable goal or not…we will keep coming back to. And then all we have to do is turn on the hot water, strip down, and step in.  Again, and again, and again.

Please Can I Have My Ruler Back?

Image by Locopelli

I have avoided, so far, commenting on the scandal-fire raging its way through the Anusara community these days.  I have avoided commenting because, a. I’m not a card-carrying member of the Anusara community, besides being a student of the style (as well as other styles), and a usurper of the alignment principles learned therein and b. because it involves real lives and real people and real vulnerable hearts.  

Some of my own teachers, who are themselves Anusara certified and have devoted their lives to the practice, have been left a bit broken by the whole thing.  And understandably.  When someone sets himself up as teacher, and beyond that, as leader of a spiritual community, it’s hard not to feel betrayed when you find out that said person has been…you know.  Diddling around.  In many senses of the word. And so, I want to be careful, because real people feel genuinely betrayed, and there is nothing simple or blog-digestable about betrayal.

This past Sunday I interviewed the inimitable SuzanneMorrison for the podcast (episode 7 is on its way!), she was in Los Angeles to do a reading from Yoga Bitch, and we spent a good deal of time while she was here, talking about the student/teacher relationship.

A major theme in YB is Suzanne’s hot-then-cold entanglement with her own then-teacher.  A woman she had set up as a paragon of wholeness, of yogic fix-ed-ness, who eventually (spoiler alert!) revealed herself to be…merely human.  And flawed and f’d up and messy, in the way that all humans are.  And it was a blow to 25 year old Suzanne.  Because f’d up and messy is what she thought SHE was supposed to be…not her beloved teacher.

And we talked about this—about how easy, how natural it is to project on to our teacher (or boss or partner or cooler-than-thou friend) whatever it is we want for ourselves.  How we need, sometimes, to have a person in our life who seems stain-free, so that from that person we can receive and imbibe unfettered guidance.  We need it because it is a great simplifier.  Find perfect person, do what perfect person says.  But, as soon as that person, that paragon—as soon as it’s revealed that maybe he or she is not making the best choices in his or her own life, that guidance…that treasured trail-marker, is going to get…sullied.

And we are left adrift.

It’s like what happens with parents.  As a child it seems like their advice, mom and dad’s advice, must be THE advice.  It must be THE way to go, because, come on…have you seen what they can do?  EVERYTHING, that’s what.  They are the whole big world—and the arbiter of its rules.  And then…as you get older…veils start to fall away.  You see one or the other of them act badly or choke in a big moment, or just reveal their own scared-ness, and it’s—it’s devastating.  Your measuring stick, the one you’ve been carrying around, the one given to you by them—you’ve just come to discover that the inches on it aren’t really inches at all.  They’re off.  The whole system, all the measurements you’ve been making—it’s all deeply, intrinsically, flawed.

And it’s a terrible moment, because for a while there you feel…stranded.  The ground has been taken out from underneath you and here you are, no way to figure how far you are from your destination.  But also, and we all know this now, because we’re all adults with lives and many of you with children of your own—also it’s the best moment of your life.  Because, it’s the beginning.  It’s the beginning of the process of developing a new and hopefully truer—north.  It’s the place from where we start that very first walk towards ourselves.  Because the mystery rises up.  Where do I go now?  What do I believe in?  What do I want for myself?  How will I get there?

At the reading Suzanne talked about how she no longer expects people not to be human.  That she no longer requires of her yoga teachers perfectly stain-free personal lives.  She has wised up.  Now, she says, she goes to class to be with herself.  It is less, she says, about the bright-eyed guru at the front of the room, and much more about the bright eyed guru that lives right there in her own chest.

None of the people involved in the Anusara controversy are children, and John Friend wasn’t anyone’s father.  Most of them will probably, if they feel unmoored at all, be only temporarily so.  But, for those who are struggling, who feel like they’ve been let down and let down hard, I would say, just remember…that this is the place where a new path opens up.  This is the moment where you get to throw down the ruler-markings of the old system, and find something new.  And those new measurements, you can be sure, are going to be truer and hold steadier, than any that came before.

So much love for my own teachers...and their teachers...and the teachers of those teachers.  May we all get better, breathe more, and forgive. 

Inspired by John O'Donohue (again)

"I think it makes a huge difference, when you wake in the morning and come out of your house, whether you believe you're walking into a dead geographical location, which is used to get to a destination, or whether you're emerging out into a landscape that is just as much, if not more, alive as you, but in a totally different form—and that it subsists primarily in silence, stillness, and solitude.  But that if you attend to it…and if you go towards it, with an open heart and a real watchful reverence…that you will be absolutely amazed at what it will reveal to you."

 -John O'Donohue

(From his interview with Krista Tippet on On Being)

I believe I owe Los Angeles an apology.  It has been years now, since our move from New York to LA…a move which was supposed to be temporary. A move which was supposed to create a parenthetical in our lives and not, as it has, a full stop. New sentence.

The landscape of New York is undeniable. I remember once, on a trip from my apartment in Brooklyn to my then-job in Times Square, counting all of the different environments I passed through along the way. 

1. quiet and cold and cobblestoned on the streets of my beloved DUMBO. 

2. smelling faintly of urine and punctuated by the scrabbling of rats on the Brooklyn side of the subway. 

3. silent—all of us headphones on in the train car.

4. boisterous and gruff underground in Times Square, a thousand elbows all trying to get up and out first.

5. even more boisterous and even more gruff, up street-side.

6. And finally, the dull hum of fluorescents and air conditioning and smooth steel corporate elevators, whooshing from floor to floor, inside the sound-thick walls of my office building. 

This, I remember thinking, is why we all keep eyes pinned neatly down as we make our ways from home to work and back again—could the body, if it were left alone to osmose all of this—could it even survive it? It doesn't seem likely.

Los Angeles is not like this. Los Angeles is a place of roads and yards, of 1920's duplexes upon duplexes. Of lines of impossibly tall palm trees. Of cars and billboards and surprising succulents growing roadside. It's a place of buildings and order and doorways. It's a place of pods. Pods with wheels and pods with porches and pods within pods within pods. Sometimes, when you're driving down a familiar street, on a day when the layer of smog and marine gust has cleared, you'll suddenly realize, as the peaks of the Sierra Madres tower into view, that you are in a valley. In a desert. In the bowl of a hundred mountains. The landscape of Los Angeles, just like its mountains, comes in and out of view.

I have not been kind to the landscape of my new (gulp) home.  Hence, the apology.

I realized the other morning, while curling around Tracy Street, slowing for the dip in the concrete, and for the cop who is always parked outside of the nearby high school, (the same high school where the final scene from the original movie Grease was shot)—as I was taking the shortcut, left down the tiny alley where it seems impossible that two cars might fit, and yet, they always do—it occurred to me, as I was driving these roads, that I have spent nearly all of our almost 34 months here, stubbornly untouched by the body of Los Angeles. 

Maybe it was the NPR interview, humming along in the background, with a local artist who was talking about her favorite parts of the city. Street corners and museums and cemeteries I have never been to—talking about them as if they were the soft spots and creases of her own anatomy. Maybe it was the whisper of worry in the back of my head about my husband, about how much he misses our New York, and about how hard it can be on him—the hours in the car, the hours in front of screens, the feeling of isolation that is so common in la-la-land. I was, in my head at that moment, making lists of things we ought to do. Ways out. Ways in. When suddenly it landed on me, like a rock might come thudding onto hard-packed soil…that it is time to honor the landscape that IS.

When we are children, loving the minutia of butterflies and sidewalk cracks and the sticky tar of pine trees around us, is simple. Natural. Like breath. It requires no commitment, because it just is what we know and have known and will know, and we have no fear that loving one landscape precludes loving any other. We drink it in, because it is what is there.

But as adults, what is around us becomes so tied up in what we are and what we aspire to be and what we need in order both to be and to proceed to be better, that it can become, in the words of John O'Donohue, "a dead geographical location". This is what we have done to LA, my husband and I—not just because, as it seemed perhaps at first, it is not our kind of city, but more than that, out of some kind of stubborn insistence on the preference of one landscape over another. And with it, a denial of the life of the landscape around us. And with that denial, it's so clear now, comes a denial of some part of our own life. And livelihood. How, really, can you thrive in a place that you refuse to fully breathe in?

Last week, my husband and I rose early and drove to a part of town we'd never been to before. A little suburb just north of LA where there is an "old town" and a Sunday market praised for its quaintness.  It should also have been praised for the enormous heads of cauliflower and dozens of varieties of hummus and fresh-caught salmon and strawberries nearly ready to burst, all on offer there. We walked up and down the long aisle of vendors, holding hands and taking pictures of chickens spinning on a rotisserie. (The smell of coal-grilled chicken makes me feel like I'm nine years old again.) And we ate eggs and bought hummus and talked about things we wanted, and how we might get them. And as we headed, happy and full, back to our car, the mountains, which had been hidden earlier by morning fog, rose up to cradle us.

Goal Setting, Success, and More Aggravating Stuff Like That...

Several years ago on NPR there was an interview with an author who had written a book on success.  I don't remember the author, and I don't remember the book.  But, that doesn't matter.  What I do remember is this:  the author (or authors...maybe there were two?) had looked at "successful" people in various fields--their trajectories, their habits, their mindsets, etc., etc., for the book, and in the course of this research they discovered that there are two types of doers out in the world:

There are Type 1 doers, who plan their course from the get-go.  They say, I'm going to do A, which will lead to B, which will lead to C, which will eventually lead to D...and then, voila! There I'll be.

And then, there are the Type 2 doers, who don't plan, not one whit.  The Type 2's say, I'm going to do A, because A seems interesting. I'm not sure where A will lead...but I'm intrigued.

By and large, said this author (or authors), the people in the world who are considered highly successful, at the top of their game, masters of their craft...are the Type 2 peoples.  They are the non-planners.  The doers because it seems interesting-ers. The I'm not sure where this ride will take me but I'm gonna get on it anyhow-ers.

I remember, when I heard this, I was...deeply relieved.  A relief at that point unearned, as I am definitely (or at least have been in the past) on the Type 1 end of the spectrum (first A, then B, then C, then D, usually annoyed with step A right from the get-go, because it's taking too long to get to D already!).  It was a relief because I thought, OH...that's why the way I'm going about things is so goddamned aggravating. That's why my head starts to hurt every time I "goal set".  That's why.

When I made the decision to take a breather from throwing my headshots into the grand black hole of casting directors for awhile, when I decided not to say yes to yet another role I didn't feel quite right for, and for less money than I knew I needed, when I decided that my poor skull could not stand any more banging into that same closed door--it was terrifying. All I knew was that the old way--the A then B then C then D, wasn't working for me.  And worse, I was exhausted.  All I knew was that if I was ever going to move forward as an actor or an artist, of any kind, I needed to do something differently. And I knew one other thing--I knew that I was in love with yoga.  And so, either like a genius or a fool (the verdict still isn't in), I decided for the first time in my life, to be a Type 2 doer.  I decided, for the first time ever, that I was going to make a life choice, a career choice, based on what was in front of me...and not what was down the end of an imaginary road.

I was going to do A, because A seemed interesting.  I wasn't sure where A would lead...but I was intrigued.

I read somewhere the other day that the act of doing yoga and the result of doing yoga are the same.  Meaning, if I'm doing yoga--if I'm aligning my body and my breath, my mind and my heart--then I am also achieving a state of yoga.  Which is the goal of the doing in the first place.  Voila!  Done.  The process and the product are the same.  What this means is that the part of one's mind that wants to A, then B, then C, then D...is short-circuited by the practice itself.  The equation of yoga is A then A.  I'll do A, which will lead me to A. Oh, wait...I'm already there!

Which, oh god, it makes so much SENSE!  Right?  Everything should be this way? Shouldn't it?!

The reason that A, to B, to C, to D thinking and doing is so exhausting, is so frustrating...is that steps A-C are somehow lesser in that set-up.  They are just stepping stones to this larger goal out in front and so, if they're hard, if they take a while, if they're complicated--then where is the motivation to stick with them?  If they're only poor step-children to the thing you REALLY want...then for the entire journey of A, B, C--as many steps as there are--you're going to be dissatisfied.  And a long trajectory of dissatisfaction does not, as far as I've seen, lead to anything all that triumphant.

The beauty of doing A because of A...of doing A, because A is what you want...because A is both the journey and the destination...the beauty is that you are engaged in the art of achievement from the outset.  You are doing something because it already IS fulfilling...not because one day hopefully down the road it will lead you to something fulfilling. Hopefully. Eventually.

I'm not saying anything new.  I know that.  I'm saying this thing that's been said so many times before in so many more eloquent ways--that life is now.  It's happening now.  And though it's important, of course, to have goals, to have dreams...I have found that if you sacrifice the now-ness of your life in service of those dreams, there is not going to be much YOU left to enjoy the fruits of your labor when (and if) they ultimately arrive.

A Little Saturday Swoon...

If this ain't yoga...I don't know what it is.

(thanks to Kate Bartolotta for her original post on EJ!)

Grace in the Space...

"While individuals vary, the natural pace of human beings is slow. In an atmosphere of slowness, kindness and thoughtfulness flourish....Hurry (pressure) makes one slightly insane.... You cannot be violent to yourself (rush) and expect your [practice] ultimately to meet your standards. Being slow is a teacher." 

- Gail Sher
  Writing the Fire

I inherited my father's hyper-punctuality.  I spent countless hours as a child, entertaining myself in movie theatre arcades, waiting for movies to begin to which we had arrived forty-five minutes early.  If there weren't any video games in the vicinity for my brother and I to while away the time (and often there wasn't) it would mean three quarters of an hour watching corn kernels spin in the popcorn popper.

I apologize, in advance, to my own future children, as I'm sure they are destined for a similar fate...

I can't bear to be late.  Being late makes me feel like the earth is spinning in the wrong direction.  When I first moved to New York, I would give myself an hour to get anywhere.  Sometimes more.  I have, more often than I would like to recount, been the first one at a rehearsal, at a party, at an audition, at a class--for gods sake--even classes I didn't like.  I have, even as an adult--unfettered by parental time tables--found myself much too early for a movie and (sadly) too old for the arcade.  Pop, pop, pop goes the popcorn popper.

But, it's not the punctuality that I've come to find troubling...it's the hurry.  E.g., to be added to the above list: first one finished with her test, first one done eating, first one across the street, first one to the end of the book, first one to the end of the sentence, first one with her hand raised, first one to know what to say to you in this troubling situation, first one to the silverware drawer, first one in bed, first one out of bed, first one to the passenger seat, first one to finish her to do list, first one to start thinking thinking thinking upon waking waking waking, first one with the bright idea, first one with the funny, first one to the end of the inhale, first one to the end of the exhale, first one to the end of this paragraph...

(you get the idea.)

I checked out a book from the library the other day on yoga and anxiety (it's for research, okay, Mr. Librarian...it's for research), and I was reading a chapter all about the symptoms of anxiety and the traits of an anxious person, going along at my usual break-neck pace (I've always been a very fast little reader, able to take in entire chunks of text at a time), and as I sped to the end of the paragraph, I read the following:  "Did you hurry to the end of this sentence? Go back, and read it again.  Slowly."

Yikes.  You mean, this whole time I thought I was just a super special smarty-pants speed-reader, and you're telling me that I might just be...rushing? Anxiously?

(I can literally HEAR my husband smirking as he reads this.)

There are three things in my life that make me slow down:  my husband, my writing, and my yoga practice.   My husband, because just the feeling of his arms around me or hands on me or voice in the room actually changes my physiological make-up, I'm sure of it. It's happened ever since we first met...I can remember the way his voice on my voicemail, even at the very beginning, made me feel like I could just...breathe...easier.  Writing does it because, well, writing just does that to me--quiets me.  Similar to husband's arms around me as calming influence (though not nearly as sexy) is the feeling of my fingers on the keyboard.  It changes my chemical makeup.

And then there's the yoga...oh, the yoga.

My body seemed to know, when I began to practice seriously, that there was an untapped wellspring of grace somewhere in that clutzy form of mine.  And one day, it just let it out.  I remember being in a class, and moving between two poses and feeling, suddenly, that my body was no longer made of body...but of silk. Or water. Or thick smoke.  I remember feeling like I could move, not just the grosser elements--the big limbs and muscles--but everything in my body, all the way down to the ends of my hair.  I could move from my cells.  I could move from my skin.  And I felt the way that pose could slip into pose into pose into pose...and, oh my, oh my.

This, you have to understand, born from a girl used to feeling more scrappy than serpentine, more used to the sound of her body accidentally running into things than the sound of breath moving through it...the feeling of grace, I'm trying to say, was not one I was used to.

I remember thinking, "well geez, body, if this is was what you were made to do...why didn't you tell me sooner?"

And as I practiced more and I more, I realized that in order to feel all of this juicy stuff...in order to really move from my toe-tips to my hair-tips...I had to slow down. I had to allow some time.  Things don't melt all in a flash...it takes a slow steady application of heat, (if you don't want to end up with just a bubbling pot of burnt).  It's this way with food, and it's this way with muscles, and it's this way with pesky and particular thoughts.  There has to be room and time for things to transform.

But, until very recently, this slow-ness has been confined to the space of my mat...it has been my sole refuge of slowness.  Until recently.  When, for whatever reason, it has finally become apparent to me that if I want larger change in my larger life, I have to take what I am learning and make it...larger.  I have to begin to stretch out my little yoga-bliss-sweater so it covers the whole of my life. Which means, consciously bringing tools out of the classroom and into my living room/bedroom/kitchen/waking life.  Which, in this case, means slowing down.

Walking a little slower.  Talking a little slower.  Doing less all at once.  Breathing. More. Thinking. Less.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Our natural pace is slow.  When we are relaxed, when we are calm, when we are happy, things move slowly.  Our breath. Our thoughts.  Even the changes in the room around us.  Haven't you noticed--when you feel turned on or connected to your life, you suddenly have time to notice the way the breeze moves the curtains just so?  To notice the sounds of a chain cling-clanging against a far away fence somewhere? To notice the way the little hairs on your arms wiggle?  To notice the color of the sky outside the window?  Has, in those moments, has the speed of the world changed...or have you?

If you have some time today (heh heh)...try it.  Take something slow. Anything--a walk down your block, the next forkful of food you bring to your mouth, the speed at which you are reading to the...end....of...this...sentence.

Try it out.  See what happens.