Be Aware of the Arterial Spread

i read tyler's blog today (after looking through my facebook "entourage" and being attracted to the pool he was in his picture and then wondering what he's writing lately). sometimes i think the power of writing is to hear our own voice and then to awaken others to what their voice wants to say next. it's a pretty simple thing. it is art in many ways. for me it's also spirituality because words have that much power for me. but it's also good to be reminded of the power that exists beyond words.

my yoga teacher. i could write a book about her. she is in her late 70's (as is my dad), so i know enough about the potential of that age to not be so shocked by her but still bowled over in ways that are positive. every move that woman makes strikes me as exactly what i needed, and that sentiment brings tears to my eyes. i've had that feeling about four times in the last four days, which is lately unusual. liz has the age in her voice when i need the wisdom and reassurance and lightness when i need the compliment of connection. her nimble body is enough to inspire me to age. she danced in hollywood in her early 20's, and danced in movies with elvis presley, marilyn monroe, and frank sinatra. it almost seems like anyone who's anyone in lincoln knows who she is, but that's the silly stuff. i have the opportunity to work with her 5 days a week, when i can make it, and she says things that grow new roots in my body.

our body, mind, and spirit should be equally strong. this is a new concept after surrendering so much of my energy to my brain in college that i almost wanted to find against the notion of a body and spirit and their needs. every day we use 12 of our body's muscles. in yoga we use all of them (which is about 200). in one week, our cells completely regenerate our intestines. liz says things about the power of our mind and our thinking, and forming knowledge of the body. each time we practice a posture we are sending signals not of "i can't, i can't," but i can. today i was doing tree pose and struggling with my ego looking at others, accepting their presence around me, and liz always seems to be aware of what i'm experiencing. she made some suggestions, and eventually i got to a place of balance where i thought i could hold the pose forever. she came up to me and said "looks like you've found your balance. you could stay like that for a very long time." then i wanted to stay there forever, but we moved on. in the relaxation, she reminds us to let the earth hold us, give the floor the weight of our head, back, check in with all these parts to make sure we surrender their weight to the earth.

i hope some day i can others even a fraction of the reassurance that she gives me. today i opened a package from a new friend linda in san diego. she met my mom in a bathroom in the 70's, and my mom thought she would be perfect for her ex-husband. linda and jeff did marry and moved to whittier, where some of my best future friends would soon be born and toddle.

linda and i met about a month ago in a mexican restaurant. my brother kyle had forwarded me a forward from her, and i emailed her, having always wanted to get in touch with this woman who knew my mom someday. i was nervous for our meeting, and soon a little jealous that my brother had had this sort of step-mom all these years, and i'd never been a part of that. she was/is amazing, and i almost felt like kyle and i were competing or mutually yearning for a woman's attention of the age that our mom would be. it was weird; when she went back to the buffet (though she's a really small woman), i asked him if this is what it would have been like if we would have had a mom. after our meeting she emailed me that if she would have had a daughter, she would have liked her to be like me.

linda sent me a package with a home-made apron and i put it on and wore it for like an hour while i checked my email. it sort of felt like a legitimization as a mothered person.

then today i also saw my friend alison's blog of her pregnancy and now of her daughter hannah. alison is a mom now, and that's pretty much almost natural. it amazes me that one can go from having sex as a single body united for that bit, and from that bit can come this huge expansion of the body, and from that comes a natural but volcanic birth and from that a new human who can need up to eight hours a day of breastfeeding to grow. i heard a girl in the lincoln high bathroom yesterday say she thought she was pregnant, and her friends said cool, and i felt such disdain for their lack of knowledge of good timing, and yet her body is ripe for this. we're supposed to love the new generation, and a latina student of mine has a high-school sister that just had a baby, and i want to think "yeah, now are you sure about this, look what's happened, etc." and yet it's a baby who they love, and a new person, just like my brother was a new person born when my mom was 17, and yet i want to say, there's so much of yourself you don't understand or know or even to know can possibly emerge (i want to say in the best sitatuation, with more education), and yet a mother will emerge, and how can a mother not be a fulfilled state?

it is the scariest thing i can face, now that i'm facing teaching. i face/d marriage and now allow myself to love and be frustrated with so many students, and it seems like yeah, this should be easy. how can something be that scary? and yet it seems like a new conception of myself when maybe i wouldn't want it to be, or maybe i would want to have choice about which parts of me would be reconceived but somehow maybe that power would be taken away. but maybe it wouldn't. it doesn't matter that others don't see me or do see me as a particular type? yes, you'd make a great mother; you don't seem like the type who would marry, and i have to let it roll off me and keep going and not define or redefine anything.

arterial spread though . . . that was said on npr about sweeney todd... what kind of arterial spread is this life i'm leading with dozens of kids i have to let flow through me... and so it is good that i can let the earth hold my head and my body and let liz lead me into leading me into leading others into better leading themselves and be led.