Take Up Some Space

Tuesday, July 5, 2016 Fitness No tags Permalink

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As women, most of us are raised to not take up space. To be demure and submissive. As a woman who’s had to fend for herself most of my adult life, I quickly realized I had to toss all those ideas if I wanted to survive. Most guys at my gym are polite and respectful. But once in a while I run across a guy who wants to try to push me around. Ha! Good luck with that! 😉 Respect is a two-way street and I’m not going to take any crap. Any man that belittles women has a serious self-confidence issue with himself .

I’ve been adding more unilateral work and mobility drills to my workouts lately.  I love single-leg Romanian deadlifts, but I struggle with balance.  I’ve tried holding onto a bench or wall for assistance, but the problem there is that I tend to lean too heavily on the bench and use way too much assistance, so the bench becomes a crutch as opposed to a teaching tool.  I’ve recently discovered using a foam roller instead of a bench or wall.

The foam roller works great because it provides some assistance for your balance, but you can’t put too much of your weight on it like you can with a bench or a wall because it will just tip over. It forces you to keep your weight centered over your hips as opposed to moving forward, so it ensures that you’re doing the exercise correctly and hinging at the hips as opposed to shifting your weight forward to doing more of a single leg squat type movement. Lower the weight in line with the foam roller; this helps prevent against reaching forward.

My feet/ankles are a weak link, so I’ve been doing some single leg swaps.

Dr. Joel Seedman has some great stuff on foot/ankle biomechanics, so I highly recommend you check him out.

The Lotus Flower {Poetry}

Tuesday, June 28, 2016 Learning, Life, Photography, Poetry, Poetry Tuesday, Thinking No tags Permalink

you can either
keep yourself up at night
wondering
“why me?”
you can hide under your covers
and tell everyone
you’re wrong and you’ll
never be right

or you can see all this
heartbreak
pain
conflict
imperfection
as an opportunity
to emerge from the concealed depths
to the gleaming luminescence
and become stronger

it is your choice to decide
whether to drown in your troubles
or to courageously survive

because the harder the struggle
the more spirited you become in the end
“the deeper the mud
the more beautiful the lotus blooms”

-Madisen Kuhn

 

“The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of them all.” –Mulan

The lotus flower in the murkiest, darkest of waters, appearing elegantly with a beauty that cannot be denied. These flowers are considered to be sacred in the Buddhist religion; associated with creation, enlightenment, and purity.

A lotus emerges out of muddy, dirty water found in ponds, in a slow manner, over a few days. Once it appears above water, it will only open its petals in the morning and then later closing them in the late afternoon. Regardless of the fact that this flower surfaces out of such dark and muddy water, it is clean and devoid of dirt when it presents itself to the world.

The mud a lotus grows out of can be considered a symbol of the dark, painful suffering that this world inflicts upon the people who inhabit it. We are all born into a world filled with this mud, mud that we must overcome because it is meant to test us. We, as humans, go through many of the same trials and tribulations in life (i.e., illness, death of a loved one, sadness and depression, etc.) But, it is upon us to rise above these hardships and grow from them rather than let them destroy us. By developing compassion, empathy, wisdom, kindness, and resilience, we have the ability to grow just as the lotus does, taking it one step at a time (i.e., opening one petal at a time).

When you are going through a hard time, it may seem easier to just stay within that bud, the cocoon, of the lotus flower, safe from all the suffering. But, in reality, you aren’t really safe from it, you are ignoring it and will never reach the point in which you can truly “bloom.” It’s risky and scary to face life’s toughest obstacles, but we must do so. you may have heard the quote: “A certain darkness is needed to see the stars,” (Osho- The Book of Secrets). The same idea applies in this context–without the mud, there is no lotus. Without suffering and dark times, there would be no chance for us as human beings to rise above hardship; to learn from it, change from it, and grow from it.

The mud will always be there, but we do have the ability to not let the mud ruin us. Rather, we have the ability to flourish and blossom. And, in this, we can find peace, find ourselves, find contentment, and find ways to continuously re-bloom when life throws another obstacle at us. The most beautiful, elegant, and radiantly positive people are those that have learned to live their lives by going through a similar cycle of that of the lotus. These individuals reach new beginnings, reach enlightenment, and have the ability to change and diminish the negativity within themselves.

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I took this photo several years ago. Perhaps I need to print a copy to remind me that I am like the lotus flower, too.

More {Poetry}

Tuesday, June 21, 2016 Life, Poetry Tuesday No tags Permalink

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I actually do have brittle bones. That’s one of the reasons I first took up weight training- to help maintain bone density. I had my first DEXA (bone density) scan done in my early 30s. I had fractured my clavicle by just carrying a kayak. I hurt myself carrying the kayak to the water, but I still went kayaking. It was a holiday weekend, so I wait d another two days to have it x-rayed. When I told my doctor how and when I’d broken it, she told me that I was crazy. I spent the next six weeks in a sling. Having a high pain tolerance is both a good thing and a bad thing. I’ve learned to listen to my body better because as I get older, I’ve learned that I don’t bounce back as quickly as I used to. But, I’m still made of magic things and the left over fire of silently exploded stars. 😀

Under the Trees

Sunday, June 19, 2016 Life, Poetry, Uncategorized No tags Permalink

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I’d like to be there right about now. It looks so peaceful. I can just about smell the pine trees and hear the water in the distance. Kayaking and swimming in the sunshine.  Naps.  Long hikes through the quiet woods. Stacks of good books. Fresh-picked berries. Evening campfires.  Fireflies in the dark. Nights just cool enough for a light blanket and cuddling.

Sometimes lying under trees and walking barefoot on the Earth is the most spiritual you could do in your life.

On Meditating, Sort Of

Meditation, so I’ve heard, is best accomplished
if you entertain a certain strict posture.
Frankly, I prefer just to lounge under a tree.
So why should I think I could ever be successful?

Some days I fall asleep, or land in that
even better place — half asleep — where the world,
spring, summer, autumn, winter —
flies through my mind in its
hardy ascent and its uncompromising descent.

So I just lie like that, while distance and time
reveal their true attitudes: they never
heard of me, and never will, or ever need to.

Of course I wake up finally
thinking, how wonderful to be who I am,
made out of earth and water,
my own thoughts, my own fingerprints —
all that glorious, temporary stuff.

-Mary Oliver

Ode to Wine {Poetry}

Tuesday, June 14, 2016 Poetry, Poetry Tuesday, Recipe No tags Permalink

Wine in bed
Day-colored wine,
night-colored wine,
wine with purple feet
or wine with topaz blood,
wine,
starry child
of earth,
wine, smooth
as a golden sword,
soft
as lascivious velvet,
wine, spiral-seashelled
and full of wonder,
amorous,
marine;
never has one goblet contained you,
one song, one man,
you are choral, gregarious,
at the least, you must be shared.
At times
you feed on mortal
memories;
your wave carries us
from tomb to tomb,
stonecutter of icy sepulchers,
and we weep
transitory tears;
your
glorious
spring dress
is different,
blood rises through the shoots,
wind incites the day,
nothing is left
of your immutable soul.
Wine
stirs the spring, happiness
bursts through the earth like a plant,
walls crumble,
and rocky cliffs,
chasms close,
as song is born.
A jug of wine, and thou beside me
in the wilderness,
sang the ancient poet.
Let the wine pitcher
add to the kiss of love its own.

My darling, suddenly
the line of your hip
becomes the brimming curve
of the wine goblet,
your breast is the grape cluster,
your nipples are the grapes,
the gleam of spirits lights your hair,
and your navel is a chaste seal
stamped on the vessel of your belly,
your love an inexhaustible
cascade of wine,
light that illuminates my senses,
the earthly splendor of life.

But you are more than love,
the fiery kiss,
the heat of fire,
more than the wine of life;
you are
the community of man,
translucency,
chorus of discipline,
abundance of flowers.
I like on the table,
when we’re speaking,
the light of a bottle
of intelligent wine.
Drink it,
and remember in every
drop of gold,
in every topaz glass,
in every purple ladle,
that autumn labored
to fill the vessel with wine;
and in the ritual of his office,
let the simple man remember
to think of the soil and of his duty,
to propagate the canticle of the wine.

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French “Sangria”

1 cup hulled quartered strawberries
1/2 cup blueberries
6 ounces golden raspberries (can substitute for red raspberries)
1 (750 ml) Lillet white

place all the berries into a large glass pitcher and pour Lillet over the berries. stir. cover and refrigerate to marinade, 6 hours to overnight.

fill 4 wine glasses with ice, divide and pour Lillet among the glasses. garnish with plenty of fruit.

 

 

Ask and It Shall Be Given

Sunday, June 12, 2016 Learning, Life, Love, Movies, Thinking, Uncategorized No tags Permalink

We can’t ask people to give us something that we do not believe we are worthy of receiving. And you will know you’re worthy of receiving it when you trust yourself above everyone else.” ~ Brene Brown

If you don’t ask for what you want, you’ll never get it. I struggle with this idea.  The most difficult thing that any of us can do is to simply ask for precisely what we want. It’s so much easier to take what we get—to remain silent about those things that we want or need—because by not speaking up, we aren’t taking the risk that we may be turned down.

My dear (and wise) friend Sheryl wrote this a few weeks ago, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since then:

“This week I somehow pulled myself up out of recent months of the burgeoning ennui-funk and fear of uncertainty and fear of loss. Waiting on others/powers-that-be/the universe so that I could react flexibly was an old survival mechanism that was making me feel deep dread and a deep lack of confidence.”

Continue Reading…

The Morning Is Full {Poetry}

Tuesday, June 7, 2016 Uncategorized No tags Permalink

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The morning is full of storm
in the heart of summer.

The clouds travel like whit handkerchiefs of goodbye,
the wind, travelling, waving them in its hands.

The numberless heart of the wind
beating above our loving silence.

Orchestral and dinive, resounding among the trees
like a language full of wars and songs.

Wind that bears off the dead leaves with a quick raid
and deflects the pulsing arrows of the birds.

Wind that topples her in a wave without spray
and substance without weight, and leaning fires.

Her mass of kisses breaks and sinks,
assailed in the door of the summer’s wind.

-Pablo Neruda

Cleaning

Thursday, June 2, 2016 Ha! No tags Permalink

So my has informed me that we are both freakishly nest and clean. I wouldn’t go that far, but I’d say I’m on the neater side of the spectrum. I don’t like clutter and I can’t abide un-fresh sheets or towels.  Now that I have a small home, fewer clothes and fewer possessions overall, it is very quick and easy to clean. I’m a do a little bit each day kind of person. I learned to be very efficient when I was a single mom with a full time job and a large house. In comparison, this is a breeze. Once a week I do a deep clean where I mop all my hardwood floors, etc. I pour myself a glass of wine and crank up the music. May as well have fun, right?

It’s kind of like that, except I don’t dance as well.  Okay, anywhere near as well. But I still have fun.  I mean, how can anyone not want to dance to this kind of thing:

 

Hello, June!

Wednesday, June 1, 2016 Books, Good Things, Life No tags Permalink

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I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June. – L.M. Montgomery

I’m so happy to welcome my favorite month! The sun is shining, the days are long, it’s warm, the peonies are in bloom. What’s not to love? ❤️

So far my June is off to a good start. My favorite lunch (tacos, of course) with my favorite guy. Then a nice walk on the Monon Trail and ice cream. I adore ice cream, but don’t eat it often anymore. As a child growing up, we had ice cream every night in the summertime as a bedtime snack.   And none of us we the least bit fat. Actually, my older sister and I were skinny as a rail.  We always had dinner (or as my parents call it, supper) very early. 5:00 p.m.  So by bedtime, I was ready for my nightly ice cream. Sometimes my best friend and I would pick some of the wild strawberries that grew in the woods by my house and we’d put that those on the ice cream. No store bought berries taste like those.

Now I like to go to the farmer’s market and find “real”‘berries. The first crop of this year is going into some homemade strawberry sorbet. I’m going to top it with a balsamic reduction. The tart and the sweet together is perfect.

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It’s time to get out my annual June read, Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

“Don’t wish me happiness
I don’t expect to be happy all the time…
It’s gotton beyond that somehow.
Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor.
I will need them all.”
― Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

Gift from the sea

You Are So, So Brave {Poetry}

Tuesday, May 31, 2016 Poetry, Poetry Tuesday No tags Permalink

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“She was not the moon, or the sun, or a planet.
She was your whole goddamn universe, 
and I know what it’s like
to hang up stretches of stars on another person’s arms.

I know what it’s like to sing about the galaxies in their eyes.
I know what it’s like to love someone and feel like they deserve no less than all the light they can carry with their two hands,
and I know what it’s like to feel dim.

If you could, 
you would have taken the rings off of Saturn and 
wrapped it around her finger.

And I know that most days it can seem like your 
two steps forward dragged you ten steps back.
I hope you know that this is okay.
I hope you know that you will be okay.

But honey,
We must not forget about the girl who never gave up.
We must not forget about the girl who continued to swear honesty in her poems like a promise to God himself.
We must not forget about how that girl was brave enough to let go,
even if that meant that some nights consisted only of under-the-blankets, constant repetitions of “I still love you, I still love you, I still love you, please come back”

We must not forget this girl, 
because this girl is the fighter.
This girl is the reminder.
This girl is the answer.
This girl is the only person you need to love, love, love, love, love.
This girl is stronger.
This is the girl who wakes up in the morning after a long night of battling loneliness,
the girl who drinks too much red wine,
the girl who loves like she is dancing on a tight rope,
the girl who is recklessly unapologetic,
and this is the girl who is important.
And this girl is you.”

This is How

Saturday, May 28, 2016 Books No tags Permalink

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I read This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diáz today. I laughed, I sighed, and most of the time I wanted to knock some sense into the main character, Yunior.  But I loved this quote.

Little Crazy Love Song { Poetry}

Tuesday, May 24, 2016 Poetry, Poetry Tuesday No tags Permalink

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I don’t want eventual,

I want soon.

It’s 5 a.m. It’s noon.

It’s dusk falling to dark.

I listen to music.

I eat up a few wild poems

while time creeps away

as though it’s got all day.

This is what I have,

the dull hangover of waiting,

the blush of my heart on the damp grass,

the flower-faced moon.

A gull broods on the shore

where a moment ago there were two.

Softly my right hand fondles my left hand

as though it were you.

-Mary Oliver

For Him {Poetry}

Tuesday, May 17, 2016 Poetry, Poetry Tuesday No tags Permalink

rupi

I did not marry the type of man I wanted my son to be like, but my son grew up to be a fine young man despite that fact.

 

I recently discovered the poet Rupi Kaur and I love her writing.  Some of it is beautiful, like the one above.  And some of it hits (no pun intended) so close to home that it evokes a visceral reaction.

rupik

Continuation

Sunday, May 8, 2016 Family, Good Things, Wise Words No tags Permalink

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I love how the author Cheryl Strayed summed up Mother’s Day: I know Mother’s Day is a joy to many of you. I know it’s a giant suckbag of sorrow for others of you. I know some of you are indifferent to it. I know some of you have wonderful mothers and you get to pick out the perfect card for her and take her to brunch and give her a bouquet of flowers and others of you are alone and weeping while watching your monstrously sad faces in the bathroom mirror, wondering why your mom had to die or be a drug addict or be mentally ill or be such an inexplicable evil shit to you. I know some of you desperately want to become mothers and can’t and aren’t and will never be and some of you have zero interest in becoming mothers and you feel sickeningly suffocated by a world that equates womanhood with motherhood and some of you ARE mothers and you love it and you treasure this day because finally someone picked out a card for you and took you to brunch and gave you a bouquet of flowers. And some of you are mothers but your children are dead. Or lost to you in another way. I know, for most of us, it’s a holiday that will change in meaning to us over time. Whatever it is, I want to say I know it’s there and it’s real and it’s true because it’s YOURS. I’m with you, wherever it is you are, in heart.❤️

I’m so blessed to have a good, loving mother who is still living and a son with whom I have a close and wonderful relationship. I do my best every day to appreciate that fact.

Song

Friday, May 6, 2016 Good Things, Life, Love No tags Permalink

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I would add :they sing a song only your heart can hear. Because sometimes your heart hears something that your ears cannot. ❤️

It’s been a long, hard week.  The extent of my plans for the rest of the day include sitting in the sunshine on my patio and reading a book while sipping a glass of wine and running to the market to buy some fresh ingredients for dinner. I do love to cook, I find it to be a fun and creative outlet.  Plus, I really like to eat! 😉

It doesn’t take much to make me happy– fresh air, sunshine, good conversation, tight hugs, simple and fresh food, and a nice glass of wine. Happy Friday!

Search the Darkness {Poetry}

Tuesday, May 3, 2016 Poetry, Poetry Tuesday No tags Permalink

Rumi wrote a poem called Search the Darkness, It’s about how all the darkness of human beings is a shared thing from the beginning of time, and how understanding that opens up your heart and opens up your world. After reading it, I began to think bigger. Rather than depressing me, it made me feel part of the whole.

Sit with your friends, don’t go back to sleep.
Don’t sink like a fish to the bottom of the sea.
Surge like an ocean, don’t scatter yourself like a storm.
Life’s waters flow from darkness.
Search the darkness, don’t run from it.
Night travelers are full of light, and you are too:
don’t leave this companionship.
Be a wakeful candle in a golden dish,
don’t slip into the dirt like quicksilver.
The moon appears for night travelers,
be watchful when the moon is full.

-Rumi

The darkness represents our spiritual wealth.There’s so much fixation on the light, as if the darkness can be dispensed with, but of course it cannot. There is night, there is earth; so this is a wonderful acknowledgment of richness. Everybody is in that boat sooner or later, in one form or other. It’s good to feel that you’re not alone.

Rumi calls us “night-travelers”, usually lost, and unable to get our bearings; easily preoccupied, and always neglecting to see the source of beauty within the people and the things we love. rumi

No Looking Back

Monday, April 25, 2016 Learning, Life No tags Permalink

I usually give people more chances than they deserve (Okay, way more chances than they deserve) but once I’m done, I am done.  So done.

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There’s the saying that goes:
Never push a loyal person to the point they no longer care.  Why is that so hard for people to understand?

I think that when you are a kind, loyal, and patient person, people often take advantage of that fact.  Instead, they should value and appreciate those qualities.  I know I do.  I won’t stop being a kind, loyal, and patient person. However, I will remove those from my life who take advantage of those qualities.

 

“Fate controls who walks into your life, but you decide who you let walk out, who you let stay, and who you refuse to let go.” -Anonymous

Okay, end rant.  That felt good to get it off my chest.  🙂

Then Come Back

Tuesday, April 19, 2016 Books, Poetry, Poetry Tuesday No tags Permalink

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“Reading a poem in translation,” wrote Bialek, “is like kissing a woman through a veil”.  Translation is a kind of transubstantiation; one poem becomes another. You choose your philosophy of translation just as you choose how to live: the free adaptation that sacrifices detail to meaning, the strict crib that sacrifices meaning to exactitude. The poet moves from life to language, the translator moves from language to life; both like the immigrant, try to identify the invisible, what’s between the lines, the mysterious implications.”
― Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces

I read the novel Fugitive Pieces this weekend and it was full of such lovely, lovely words. it was an enook borrowed from the library, but I need to buy my own paper copy. So many beautifully written passages there.

In the passage above, the author speaks of something I often think about: what’s lost (and sometimes found) in translation.

Many of my favorite poems and novels weren’t originally written in English. It’s interesting to read different translations by different translators. Sometimes the outcome can vary so much.

Today on NPR there was a story about  a new book of Pablo Neruda’s “lost” poems.  Then Come Back: The Lost Neruda is presented with the Spanish text, full-color reproductions of handwritten poems, and dynamic English translations.

 

Crossing the sky I near
the red ray of your hair.
Of earth and wheat I am and as I close-in
your fire kindles itself
inside me and the rocks
and flour ignite.
That’s why my heart
expands and rises
into bread for your mouth to devour,
and my blood is wine poured for you.
You and I are the land with its fruit.
Bread, fire, blood and wine
make up the earthly love that sears.