who am i?

who’s face is peering at me in the mirror?

when did all those lines form?  Splotches appear?

when did the rosiness in my cheeks drain away?

why do I look so drawn?

god, maybe it’s the lack of sleep.  I don’t sleep anymore.  even when I do, I really don’t.  it’s not good, solid, I’m lost in the netherworld sleep.  it’s quick-paced, jittery, uneven and surface.  I often wake up wondering when maddie’s going to walk into our room and say, “HI!!!!”, whether at 12:32am, 1:40am, 3:20am or 5:45am. It’s always the same refrain:  really upbeat, really excited.  It exhausts me.

who am I?

I’m serious.  I’m having a mid-life crisis at 40.  It’s so cliché.  I only thought men went through this crap (apologies to my male readers out there – you’re NOT alone!)

I knew who I was.  Not in my early 20′s.  But, just about at 29 years of age.  I knew.  I liked myself (most of the time).  I liked how I looked.  I really liked my friends.  I was psyched about my job.  The dating game still sucked but I was upbeat and ready to conquer that aspect of my life.  I was intent on finding the “right” guy.  I had committed myself to working on meeting the right guy.  It gives me a chuckle thinking about it.  It was the right thing to do.  I found that GREAT GUY but I still have to chuckle at my fortitude and seriousness with it all.

I had a few moments of not liking who I was in my early 30′s.  Mainly because I had a bitch of a boss.  And when I say BITCH, I really mean a fucked up, messed-in-the-head, self-loathing, hate projecting, eye of Sauron, kind of BITCH of a boss.  She sucked!  I quit and then was like, “what do I do now?”  I decided to think upon what I really LOVED to do.  It took some time.  Nine months, exactly.  But man, that was a productive , and looking back now, great time in my life.  Everything congealed.  Came together.  Blocks stacked together nicely.  I didn’t think of that time as that way but again, looking back, it was.

I really knew who I was when I started my business.  I was purposeful.  Filled with passion.  Raw ambition.  Drive.  Ballsyness.  I love male-part adjectives.  I just wish I actually had balls.  I think they would be fun to grab every once in a while.  You know?  Come on…you know!!  I loved saying I was an entrepreneur.  I would go to parties or events and really didn’t care if people asked me what I did.  And believe me, I REALLY DIDN’T CARE what job title someone else had.  I was doing what I wanted to do. I was my own boss.  I didn’t have to report to anyone.  I was creating.  Making things happen.  I wasn’t part of the “rat race”.  I didn’t feel like I had to compete with where I was in the career world and size someone else up (or myself) by how much money he/she made.  God, what a terrible waste of time that all is.

Where I lost who I was – I’m being completely honest here – is when I had Maddie.  It’s been over two years and I still can’t reconcile who I am.

who am I?

Am I a mom?  Yes, I am a mom.  But not a stay-at-home mom.  No knock to stay-at-home mom’s but I think I would DIE if I stayed at home with Maddie.  Shrivel up into a big fat wrinkly ball of dry skin.  Really ugly stuff.  I’m a mom but I don’t’ want to be JUST a mom.  I ask myself why is it that I’m  not OK with just being a mom or said another way, why am I not ok with owning up to being a mom as a part of who I am?  There’s a feeling of relegation – a “I’m now put in a box”; a I’m that person who stands around a sandbox with baggy pants on and smiles wanly around the park at other mom’s.  For me – and believe me, this is my issue – I can’t stand it all.  I hate jungle gyms.  I hate hanging out in parks with little people.

Even before I had Maddie I would tell people that I’m not that mom that likes  to get down on the floor and play with her child.  I do but it’s not my primary instinct.  I tell people I’ll like to cook and go to museums with Maddie,  as she gets older and is into that stuff.

I have a nanny four days a week- sometimes five – that takes great care and concern for my little lady.  Often, when it’s time for me to “take over”, I have a kind of panic attack; a little – oh no, what am I going to do with Maddie moment; a I don’t want to do this again feeling.  It’s hard to ‘fess up to these emotions.  It’s easier when I’m writing it on a piece of paper and don’t think anyone is going to read my blog.  No one’s reading, right?

I told Patraic last night that I started a blog that I could spend HOURS writing.  No absence of things to write about on this topic.  So, this one’s going to span a couple of weeks.  You’ll have to wait with baited breathe (or a good deal of patience) to see this blog entry to the end.  Apologies at the get-go.

Who am I?

Well, I am actually a mom now.  For sure.  It’s called into question the idea of who I thought I was before having  Maddie:  a Kate, who was married, an entrepreneur, independent, a good partner to Patraic, a great cook, healthy and fit, and a well-rounded individual.  After Maddie, some  of those “ideas of who I am” flew out the window, like -independence, great cook, healthy and fit, well-rounded and frankly, in the early days, a good partner to Patraic.  Mommydom completely ruled my life.  I didn’t bestow the power to it myself but it grabbed control and went screaming and running in the other direction.

What’s helped me come to grips with the mommy-side of who Kate is?  Frankly, a lot of bitching and complaining.  Thank god I didn’t do so much of that in my past, otherwise I would have worn out my friends before I really needed them.  Also, the passing of time.  You grow into the new you.  You change.   You diverge from what you want to what is.  I’m sure hitting 40 also helped.  As one of my amazing friends, Valarie Samulski, just said, “Align, flow and then let go.”

I’m getting back to taking regular yoga classes at one of my all-time favorite yoga studios in Manhattan, the Jivamukti Yoga Center.  I took a class last Saturday and again on Monday.  I physically felt AWFUL in the classes but it felt SO GOOD to be moving and breathing and huffing and puffing and zenning out, man!  I can’t tell you.  I slept so well after both classes.  In Saturday’s class, I cried.  Only yoga has been able to reach me so spontaneously like that.  Something was said or I moved into a pose and hit some deep emotions – in my kidney region, perhaps, and I started to weep.  It’s always shocking but I know it’s a good, good thing.  When it happened to me the very first time, I was afraid and ashamed. I didn’t know why I couldn’t control my emotions. I didn’t know why, or what, made me cry.  But now I know.  And in this time of my  life, during my Kate mid-life crisis, at 40 and now a mom, I need the release.

You know one of the very best things about yoga – taking a yoga class?  It’s dedicated time to completely focus on yourself physically & emotionally and simultaneously, if the studio, practice and instructor are genuine, to dedicate that entire time, to someone else or to the universe, as a whole.  Its’ SO brilliant!

And so the journey continues…and this blog, on Who Am I?  To be continued.

Expectations

I often find myself getting frustrated and ultimately, being disappointed.  It’s my own damn fault, when I ‘fess up to it yet I keep setting myself up for the big letdown.
Have you ever gone to a yoga class – doesn’t matter the type or level – and you walk into the studio room and have this moment of elation – this time you planned ahead, decided not to rush, arrived with 15-20 minutes to unwind, quiet the mind, lay on your mat, prep your “accessories” – those necessary things you bring to class, rely on almost, to get you through the class.  You know – the kleenex, bottle of water, towel, perhaps a yoga block or eye pillow or your watch, off your wrist.

So you’ve lined up these items – just so, to the left of you, and just before you close your eyes to rest & relax before the class begins, you think, “man, awesome!  Looks like not so many people are going to be taking the class today.  Class is going to be intimate.  I’ll maybe get some added adjustments from the instructor.  I won’t have to worry about ‘touching’ anyone while doing my yoga poses.”  Then you close your eyes and zone out.  You “come to” to the increased noise decibel in the room.  You feel shuffling close to your mat, very close to your mat.  You open your eyes and slowly sit up to the realization that the class is going to be PACKED!  Just then, some one – a stranger, another fellow yogi – asks you if you could move your mat over to make room  for him.

Now, your mind’s gone from relaxed and calm to annoyed and feeling confined and oppressed, even?  Maybe you find yourself getting pissed at the person  to the left and right of you – maybe the person in front of you .  Why  do they have to put there “things” so close to me, you might think?

Or maybe you’ve had the experience of rushing to class – really making an effort to get there.  You’ve blocked the time in your calendar.  You’ve timed the metro stops to get there.  You’ve packed your yoga clothes earlier that morning before heading to work and your are committed!!  You are taking that yoga class!  Once you get there, you hurry into the studio room – the prior class is just emptying out and as you step over the door threshold, you get hit by a wall of heat.  Body heat.  Human energy expended.  It bowls you over.    And your yoga studio has a general policy of not opening the windows.

You find yourself internally screaming “open the windows!  It’s hot!  I can’t breathe!  I’m not going to be able to practice in here!  I can’t do it!”

Or maybe you’ve felt that on THIS day, this particular day that you make it to yoga class, you’re feeling kinda zen and you’re looking forward to a meditative class – moving, yes, flow, ok, but you’re mentally excited to just keepin’ it easy today.  You know the instructor, who teaches this particular yoga class.  You like him.  You know him.  It’s going to be a really good, dare I say, easy class and you’re looking forward to feeling good and calm after it.   You walk in.  Set up.  Wait for the class to start.  Two minutes before the class begins another teacher walks in and announces that she’s substituting for the regular teacher.  OK, you think. Cool.  No worries, right?  And the yoga practice begins.  In ernest.  You are immediately struck that THIS teacher is not at all like YOUR teacher and the class is going to be heated, vigorous and challenging.

You feel a let down inside.  Almost like a giving-up.  I don’t want to do THIS class.  I wanted the other class.

I’ve been in these situations.  Often.  I’ve had those thoughts above.  Many times.  So, what’s up?

Expectations.  What I want versus want is served me.  What I desire versus what is to be.  Man, expectations can be such a buzz kill.  It’s those times when I want something to happen…and well, it often doesn’t…that I feel out of control and frustrated that I didn’t get what I want.  That I didn’t get what I want.  Man, how often is life about that?

It happens in every part of my life.  I used to say that if someone raved about a movie to me, then I shouldn’t go see it. Not because the movie did not have merits but BECAUSE the movie had been “talked up”, my seeing it would not live up to how good everyone else thought it was.  I’d probably end up thinking that it was good, but not great.

What about that phenomenon – that supposed 1-to-1 ratio – of say, my daughter catching a great night sleep.  11 hours straight through.  She waltzes into our room and asks for her usual morning milk.  I get up and think, “this is going to be a great day!  She’s going to be in SUCH a good mood.”  I soon realize that she’s cranky and needy and I am thoroughly annoyed, all at the impossible hour of 6 am.  And so, the day in my mind, becomes a difficult one in every aspect.

Expectations.  I’m  not saying it’s easy and I am definitely saying I have my seriously lapsed moments  – but if I can go through the day with intention (what I would like to accomplish that day – my “to do’s”) but without expectation on the outcome of those intentions (what I think should happen when I take action) – then I can literally roll with the punches of life.  Each day is typically a series of little ups and little downs or bigger variations on that wave.  It’s the nature of life.  But my goal is to smooth out that wave.  I used to think that I didn’t want to ‘smooth’ out my experiences.  I’m excitable.  I’m passionate.  I have strong opinions.  I like that stuff about me.  But I can get really down in the dumps too!  Don’t like that so much.  Smoothing the wave, for me, is not about decreasing my excitement, enthusiasm or passion, but is about riding the experiences as they come without an expectation on outcome.  When I’ve been there – in that place – the heaviness of life seems lifted; less burdensome, more easy and relaxed.  I like easy and relaxed.

the funny thing about life.

I used to have this idea in my head when I was in my mid 20′s.  I was having fun.  I was meeting friends at bars, early after work;  staying out late; going to dance clubs to dance (and to see who I could dance with).  I had friends over for parties – dinner parties – super fun, chaotic, late nights with too much wine drunk, too much food ate but always with a feeling of contentment and a giddy camaraderie.  In my mid-20′s, most of my friends were single, some were dating and just the very few were in serious relationships.  We all seemed to want to find the “right one” but there was no real sense of urgency or desperation in finding that right guy or gal.

So back to my thought back then – when I was young.  I used to think that my friends, once they hit their mid-30′s (yes, mid-30′s, I know), we would be having the BEST time together.  We’d all meet and marry (or partner with) just great individuals – men and women that we all really enjoyed and loved hanging out with. The kind of person , I’d say, that if I called up my friend and their “mate” answered, I’d be just as happy having a conversation with them.  This hitting the mid-30′s thing:  we’d all hang out together; have even more extravagant and gourmet dinner meals and see each other every weekend, if not more frequently, catching a drink at a local bar now and again.

We’d be happy and settled into our careers.  We’d all be living in our own homes.  Kids were a bit vague in my mind but I knew that kids would be “in the mix” for a few of us and that they be just as easy to handle as unloading groceries from the back seat of a car.

Back to the career.  I seriously thought that with us all being mid-career, we’d spend less time at the office and have a manageable workday – nothing too taxing.  The key to this dreamy idea was that we’d all still be hanging out together and loving each other’s partners.

Now that was a fantasy land!

The stone cold reality of life is that everything becomes a priority.  A day with 24 hours is not enough time.  Responsibilities increase over time and often, exponentially.  Having a partner, a child, a house, a car, a high-powered job constrains time versus expanding it.  And of course, perceptions change.  I know this sounds obvious.  Going to bars.  Drinking a lot.  Staying out late.  Hanging out with your buds’.  They all become work.

I don’t miss the drinking out, late at night.  I don’t miss wanting to find a partner.  I miss the “free” time I seemed to have when I was younger.  The commitments with friends that are so different than job/career/corporate commitments.  What I miss most are my friends.  Seeing them.  Talking with them.  Having them close at hand.  Talking to them…really, whenever I wanted.  I particular miss my GIRL friends.

Life is precious.  So quick and subtle, unless when it’s brutally obvious. So consumed.  So wanting to be planned.  These days I have to work to see my friends; to speak to my friends on the phone.; to email my friends; to actually see my friends in real time.  The work is worth it but it is no less than work.

Everyone’s heard about the rock and sand analogy.  The rocks in a container are your priorities.  Those are one’s absolutes – what is important and critical and definite in one’s life.  The sand fills the space in between.  Sand is everything else in life.  All the mundane tasks, the necessaries, the “to do’s”.  We have to be clear about what we want to focus on in life (rocks) and make them a priority before we pour the sand into the container, otherwise, the everyday becomes our whole existence.  Is there any way we can re-look at this rock/sand trade-off?

Here’s my quick take for the day.  I love, adore and admire my husband.  I couldn’t think of life without my baby girl.  I cherish my sister, my best friend to best all other best friends.  I really enjoy cooking great meals.  Working out brings me mental sanity.  Reading a good book makes me feel content…and a multidimensional person.  Sleeping is sacred and yet, an allusive lover these days.  These things, these aspects of my life – they are my every day.  I would not be the person I am if not for these aspects.  Yet, as I reflect in my 40th year on this planet, what becomes  a clear priority for me is to have the companionship of my girlfriends.  Why can’t I make them the rocks in MY jar?  Why not?  Why can’t I make a priority my incredibly accomplished girlfriend, who’s going through a divorce; the brilliant one who is struggling to find what her career path is after so many particularly high-point career moments; the independent one, who’s transitioning her mental state to life as a single, career woman when all she’s ever wanted to be is married with family; or the one who’s battling a life-altering degenerative illness in the prime of her life.  I want to make these women my rocks right now.

I can shake out the jar when I feel it’s time to do so.  Re-jigger the rocks.  Re-classify the priorities.  Re-settle the sand into all the open spaces.  But for now, my sense of urgency is to be there for my women friends, my kindred spirits, as we walk this journey called life.

Ties that Bind

I’m thinking about my older brother here; my cousin; my father and my daughter.  All related to me but the ties that bind them to me are so very different – complicated, mixed-up, clear in some sense yet of different weights and intensities.

Take my brother, Teddy.  I love him.  That’s a fact; a certainty.  And yet, in the last several years, perhaps over the past decade, even, I find myself, often, at a loss about what I love or even like about him.  What does that mean, I think, out loud.  What do I mean?  He’s my brother.  He was my stalwart when things were ugly at home; when it felt dangerous even, growing up with my father.  He was my protector in high school.  He was the guy I looked up to in college.  He introduced me to Ska, Reggae, Latin Jazz to intellectual books and innovative thinkers.  He was daring and handsome and so charismatic.  That was then.  When?  A long time ago, it seems.

I haven’t spoken to my brother, Teddy, in at least two years.  That’s crazy, right?  Ridiculous, even.  Does it help that he lives in Tokyo; I in NYC?  It shouldn’t.  Not in this day with easy technology to assist in global communication.  I got busy.  That’s what I say.  I got busy.  I’m sorry.  Life, work, business, baby, family, sleep, eat and relaxation.  These are all important.  More important?  But if I think about it even just a tiny scratch below the surface, I realize that nearly everyone can claim the same busy life I have and they seem to get around to keeping in touch with their family members.

Well, if I think about it, I have felt betrayed by my brother in several instances – a betrayal of confidences of camaraderie of sibling loyalty.  I felt hurt and untrusting of his actions.  So too, I continue to look-up to my brother to this day – at 40 years of age – and yet I feel there’s a lack of reciprocity from his side, of caring/not-caring whether I make an effort to spend a weekend, a day or an afternoon with him.  We sit in silence, or near so, while I wait for him to engage.  But he’s always so distracted.

I suspect the biggest wedge between us, if I can come right down to it, is that Ted’s not been able to look within.  He’s a runner.  He’s been running all his life.  He ran to Tokyo and created a mess of a life and he’s trying to run from that mess now too.  Ted’s a thinker, that’s what so amazes me about his behavior.  He can expound in great detail into the depth of politics, religious persecution, historical narratives that relate to societal paradigms and even delve philosophically deep into the meaning of other’s personal inclinations.  He just can’t seem to do that for himself.  And so I find him lacking foundation.  He’s moving, moving, moving.  He’s kinetic but with no direction.

Here comes my cousin.  Well, my cousin-in-law.  Is that a word?  I’m talking about my cousin’s wife, who I’ll leave nameless.  She’s been ‘in the family’ for about a decade.  I see her three or four times a year, always when I go visiting VA/D.C.  I’ve always thought she was nice enough.  Fine.  No real connection, though.  And just for the record, I’ll take the blame for that.  I’m not the easiest person to get to know.  Believe me, I know!

I always just thought  of her as V____.  We’d had polite conversation at family events.  Nothing serious.  Nothing deep. We kept it easy.  Breezy.  Light.  And easy.  And then, the other day I called her.  It was in response to an email she had sent my sister.  I decided to pick-up the phone instead of sending another email back to her explaining my situation.  She answered the phone and I heard… her surprise to find it was me. Pleasantly, though.  We talked.  And talked.  And she started asking questions about Patraic, Maddie, schools, trips, you name it; personal stuff.  Things you ask about when you have a relationship.  At first it struck me as odd.  Not the asking part.  Not the answering part.  I guess what struck me funny was that the asking felt good.  She wanted to connect.  She wanted to know more.  She wanted to understand.  I thought to myself, I don’t know her.  I’ve really not ever taken the time to get to know her.

That’s a perfect lead-in to my father.  Dad.  Dr. G.  Here’s a guy that loves and loves enormously but in such a flawed, flawed, often destructive and manipulative way that his love gets lost in clouds of pain, hurt, anger, fear and anxiety.  I’ve often told people my dad has two feelings:  anger and resentment.  Everything is masked behind those two impatient and overwhelming feelings.

I have legacy issues with my father.  That’s a kind way of saying we haven’t (or rarely or never?) always gotten along, or talked, or seen each other, or corresponded or communicated or…felt a part of each other’s lives.  It’s a two way street.  I often blame him for all our woes (so adult of me, eh?) and I’m sure he thinks I kinda suck as a daughter.  It’s easy to blame the other.  It’s much more work to figure out how our legacy actions and old hurts affect the working relationship of today.  Patraic never lets me get away with blaming my dad.  He gently tells me to make an effort, call, write, invite, say you’ll visit, tell him  you’ll stay at his house…and so on.  And you know what? I’m starting to enjoy the interactions.  Well, enjoy seems like a more intense word than I feel.  There’s contentment in interacting with my father, even though most of the past issues and idiosyncrasies are still there.  We both haven’t changed.  We’ve become just more of who we are…that’s the dirty little secret to getting  older (and wiser, I hope).  But there’s more of a dance that we play with each other.  And it’s a dance we are both enjoying figuring out the next steps.  After having my daughter, Maddie, spending time with my father isn’t about me and him; it’s everything about he and Maddie.  It’s about Maddie knowing and experiencing the generations of a family.

What has changed in our relationship is that my father’s feelings of anger and resentment are no longer directed at me.  I’m not really sure when that change happened and I don’t know why it happened.  What I do know is that I stopped actively trying to avoid him.  I took the ‘hurt little girl’ emotions out of the equation and let our relationship, just BE.  Please, don’t credit me for being the bigger adult.  Patraic should be given all the credit, the flowers and the kisses too!  In a way, I did what I was told, reluctantly at first; more naturally, later.  As a dear friend said to me so brilliantly recently, there’s power in authenticity.  Authenticity as a person; in one’s feelings and actions.

My lovely Madeline.  Maddie, my daughter.

She’s recently -  in the last couple of months – really started to warm to and interact with Patraic.  Patraic likes to play the mimic me game with her.  Whatever she is doing, he mirrors her with his hands and expressions.  Eyes covered.  Twirling hair.  Leaning to the left.  One leg up.  She loves this game.  I asked him recently why he likes to play this game with her so much.  In sweet Patraic brevity and clarity, he said, “it makes me feel she’s connecting with me on a very personal level.  We’re mano-y-mano.  I look at her.  She looks at me. We play.”

The ties that bind.  Yoga means union.  It means the cessation of the constant thoughts going through our heads.  It’s about breathing, being, being present, channeling our powerful energies and connecting on a deeper plain to ourselves, to others and to the world we have created around us.  In an Anusara class I was taking from the esteemed Elena Bower of Virayoga (virayoga.com), she was relaying her experience of walking the streets of New York City and catching herself in an internal dialogue about the goings-on and the various peoples she was encountering along that stroll.  What struck her was the quality of thoughts she was having.  They had a slant; an opinion; a quality of judging to them.  She said then, in a chant-like cadence, “Don’t judge, just perceive.”  I took that class over five years ago.  I still hear her words when I find myself making judgments about things and people, aimlessly in my head.

So what does my brother, cousin’s wife, dad and daughter have to with yoga?  There’s the concept in yoga of the “bind”.  It’s often performed in standing poses although it can be applied in sitting poses as well.  You can view it on several levels.  Most superficially, it allows the practitioner to move more deeply into a pose, usually requiring increased flexibility in one’s hips, shoulders and hamstrings to ‘bind’ one’s hands together while performing a twist or stretch of the torso, legs or both.  On a deeper level, the ‘bind’ can provide stability to and even, relaxation in a pose, allowing one to train one’s mind to breathing instead of stretching, holding and bending, while in the pose.  Most deeply, the ‘bind’ harnesses the prana energy flow in the body, directing it where you want it to be and in the direction upward.    To be bound, the “bind”, is to be connected.   To be connected is to have stability; to have a sense of firm grounding to your place in this world and to those around you.  Union with yourself and others, requires symmetry; to being able to mirror what you see and what comes to you and reflect that back in an unfiltered way.    And living in the moment, if truly done, allows for great joy and peace of mind.

I’m still a work in progress.  Tell me yours.

Always,

Kate

Moving

It’s been a long time in coming – the process of moving myself out of Manhattan and over to Brooklyn.  Four years just shy a couple of months.  Geez.  New York is New York, right?  Well, except for when you account for the differences = both blatant and subtle – in the various boroughs and then take it another level down to the specific city neighborhoods.  Brooklyn is a whole other world from Manhattan.  And that’s the point.  It’s different and new and moving just knocked all of my routines out of the park.

Patraic, my husband, and I bought a place in Brooklyn.  Exciting, right?  I should be and was except that it wasn’t exciting or thrilling every day leading up to the move.  In fact, there were quite a bit of stressful days and weeks.  And I’m purely talking about the contemplation of physically moving myself, my family and all my “stuff” to a location approximately three miles away.

Funny things happen when two people start packing up, and hopefully, discarding the accumulation of living life.  I worked at a bagel shop my senior year of college – some 20 years ago.  The place was called Bagel Basement.  No crazy play of words here – the shop sold bagels located in the basement of a building located just off Main Street.

I was given a 16 oz. mug aptly branded the company’s name – as a thank you for working there.  I still have it and no, if you’re thinking, it is not a forgotten relic hidden somewhere in the cup pantry.  I am and have always known that it holds great presence in my cupboard – that 1938 built cupboard that is so small and cramped, most of my plate- and glassware have been stored in our “Summer cottage” (a.k.a. Chelsea Mini Storage) for nearly a decade.  We only allowed ourselves four sets of every piece of plate ware and glassware to be kept in our Manhattan apartment.

I never use that Bagel Basement 16oz. travel mug.  Never.  Not once.  I’ve moved since college, nine time.  Every time I made the conscious decision to keep that one particular mug.  And even more, it’s stained brown and kinda dirty.  The kinda dirty that you can’t clean off.  I mean, technically, it’s clean.  But it isn’t.  Obviously, I’m attached to the mug or what the mug reminds me of the time when I was a senior in college.  If I look back clearly, that time wasn’t the happiest of times for me.  In fact, Senior year was pretty difficult and punctuated by uncertainty and high stress.  So, why am I attached at all to the mug?  Even during packing my apartment just a week ago, I shouted out to Patraic, “We’re keeping this mug!”, and he obliged silently, knowing that unstated importance of the mug in our household.

It was when we had arrived at our new Brooklyn abode, while I was frantically trying to open, clear out and stuff the kitchen contents into all the rapidly filling-up cabinets, did I see the Bagel Basement mug, reach for it, racked my brain as to where it would be placed in the new kitchen, that I made the seemingly spontaneous, wholly unselfish and somewhat fraught yet relieved decision that the mug would be pitched.  Thrown away.  In the trash.  No more.  Talk about attachments!

Attachments.  They are sinewy, strong and often invisible at first.  Some are so obvious – like the love one has for a newborn baby; your hot mug of coffee in the morning; NPR blaring on the car radio on your drive into work; or the slippers awaiting you upon entering home for the night.  Attachments can feel good, right?  They can, let’s be honest here.  It’s the accumulation of these things that can either get in the way  or become burdensome as time wears on.

Moving.  That’s the point here.

It’s early in 2011, and the New Year is about remembering last year and simultaneously, letting it go. It’s about looking forward and being hopeful and planning for a great year ahead. Creating goals.  Dreaming about w here your life is headed and then making an intention to realize that dream.  February, in particular, for me, has been about keeping movin’.  Through the bone-chilling arctic winds, the whipping rain, the mounds of snow and through the black lakes of sidewalk puddles.  Through the cold, cold days.  There’s got to be a reason February is the shortest month in the calendar year.  Make it easier for us to bear it and spit out the other side into March.  March just sounds better for getting around.

Moving.  Getting back to the mat.

So, I moved to Brooklyn February 3rd.  Mark my calendar.  After four days of heavy-lifting, unpacking boxes and breaking them down, assembling furniture, laying rugs, and taking one hot, stemming shower to soothe my aching body – I looked in the full-length bathroom mirror I now have (gotta love that) and sized myself up, badgered and pitied myself for a letting my body go – more specifically – for letting my yoga practice slide for months and months and then add them up, years. ..(did I say years?)  I looked myself in the mirror and realized that now, among all the unpacked boxes, wall hangings gracing the floor and an empty master bedroom for lack of a bed, nightstands and lamps, that perhaps now, I could start my way back to the mat, to yoga and to getting back to feeling and then finally, getting fit.  To moving.  It’s as easy as 10 Sun Salutations a day.  10 minutes.  Every morning.  What’s the hurt?

And today, after months and months and years – I took a hot shower, grabbed some  of my OMALA yoga clothes, laid out my yoga mat and gave the universe a personal offering – just before completing 10 Sun Salutations.  How wonderful it felt!

Attachments.  Sometimes clearing the way, even just a beloved mug, and shaking up one’s routine (which by the way, is just another attachment that is working or not working), allows us to do what needs to be done.  Moving.  Just keep moving.

Always,

Kate