50 hours down

Tonight was the last night of my Anusara teacher's training with Justicia Friese DeClue, who, if I haven't already said this, is brilliant, not just because she's a gifted yogi, not because her head holds a thousand tons of information—anatomy, philosophy, possibly every page of the Anusara teaching syllabus...but also because she knows how to disseminate her knowledge and provide the safe space for her students to feel deserving, welcome and full of potential to soar. Plus, although she's steadfast in her belief in Shiva-Shakti Tantra, she's not at all gooey, and that suits me.

I am gushing, it's true. Maybe I am gooey.

toast

My bedroom reeks of pot but I swear I haven't been smoking, even if you don't believe me. Seriously, you don't want to see me high. It isn't pretty. Did you know all the Main Line moms toke up after they put the kids to bed? It was the cover story in Philadelphia Magazine. I saw it in Whole Foods the other month. But I've always been a black sheep, despite my adolescent yearnings to fit in, so I do not partake. Is it even pot anymore? I think it would kill me.

super hero pose

This is the kids in supta virasana, a pose that escapes me in my current spinal state. It doesn't say in the manual to stick your tongue out while doing this pose. But. It's summer, and we forgot to sign the kids up for camp. We thought, hey our kids sleep late, which is true. Like until nine on some quiet reverent mornings. So why would we pay money to wake them up and schlep them somewhere when we don't have to? Of course now they wake up at the crack of ass, decline to say good morning in favor of: Do we have any plans today? And then groan as Daddy and Mommy blink and stutter. Next year my babies. Next year.

Meanwhile, will I ever be able to get supta virasana back? 

spur

This isn't what it looks like. Unless it looks like yoga. A pro-active friend invited me and a bunch of other yogi pals to join her and a thousand others on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art a couple weeks ago to practice for an hour to raise money and awareness for an organization called Yoga Unites for Living Beyond Breast Cancer. I had fun and made new friends. Well, obviously.

So what the hell is that up there? It's an assisted upavistha konasana of course. My partner helped me bend deeper. It's important to open your hips.

wolf-boy

I can’t believe it’s 2010, it’s such a futuristic date.

The revelation flower grown from the seed of this month’s despair is (drumroll please)... I belittle my suffering. You knew? Well I didn't realize. And, and if I can change just that one little thing, forget about trying to actually be happy, if I can just respect my pain instead of drop-kicking it to hell, then I can actually find some relief. And when I’m particularly depressed and thinking extra mean thoughts about myself, a little relief goes a long ass way.

the jew who stole christmas

So Hanukah is done.

heroine

Mary Karr. I didn't read her first two memoirs when they came out.

yes, actually I would like a medal

Hola from flu-la-palooza 2009. Hamish kicked off the festivities this year by getting a flu-mist vaccine, free of charge through his school. He fell ill the following evening, has missed three days of school and went to bed on his own this evening at six. He can currently be heard whining in his sleep through a tropical fog brought to you by his humidifier. Hamish's sister Stella has hacked and coughed her way through the week, as she loves to copy her big brother. She missed one day of school and awoke at four the other morning to yak her guts out all over her bed, and thank you CJ (Ceiling Jesus), she managed to hurl some chunks into the toilet as well.

elise in lumbar-land

My three-year odyssey of back pain has led me finally to a chiropractor's office, a place I never thought I'd enter after reading Dr. Sarno’s books which explained my pain to be psychosomatic and nothing that a firm self-talking-to couldn't fix. And it worked. For a while. But now the yoga has brought my pain into sharp relief. There are certain poses and transitions between poses that just hurt my back in a way that I can't abide any longer.

epilogue

I love that my last post got a few juicy fired-up comments so soon. My pain and rage got people talking. Thanks readers and commenters.

I have been told so many times if a pose ever hurts, back off. I did not back off. I hurt myself in that fated yin class all by myself because I thought I could stretch through the pain and come out on the other side, whole, healed and holy. I thought I could go into the pose as Elise and come out of it as someone else as that's been my not-so-secret longing borne of a lack of self-esteem for many many years.

gutted

My back, either despite or because of all this yoga, has grown tight and ornery and rebels against backbends, against releasing. I'm re-reading Dr. Sarno's book, because I believe it rocks and is worth reviewing, and reminiscing about the cupping, acupuncture and physical therapy I tried a couple years ago, all to no avail.

roar of the milf

The clock is ticking! I failed typing in high school or never took it I can't remember! I don't use my pinkies! I could really use them right now to blog faster, but OH WELL. Were you at Target this morning? Did I see you there? Yes that was me, I was the one in the baby wipes aisle who ate the crackers someone left open unwrapped on the shelf. I was hungry.

string

Hi there. It's me. Didn't think I'd get here today but here I am and it be good. The weather is crispy shiny goodness and my kids are with their grandparents, who can't get enough of them, and wouldn't you know it, my back is out again. I think the four hour drive to and from Boston this past weekend for our friend's wedding is to blame. It's certainly not my fault. Sitting here blogging doesn't help, but I promise I'm going to do my Rodney Yee core workout when I'm done blabbing my head off, I swear! Look at that. Another spider. Second one this morning. Hamish and I mercifully dumped the first one gently out the window.

a million little pin pricks (part two)

Tuesday I spend comtemplating not going back to the acupuncturist’s office. My back isn’t that much better. Maybe it’s all a crock. But 2,500 years can't be wrong. On Wednesday I wake up with a spasm a lesion something painful and lumpy nestled beside my right shoulder blade. By the afternoon I find myself bundling up and walking the Avenue again, towards the woman with the short dark hair and cardigan sweater.

Today the cardigan is red wool. Red is what’s that word what is it it’s killing me…auspicious.

a million little pin pricks (part one)

I’m walking down the avenue.
I’m in Pain.
My back.
My mind.
I try to accept the moment. Try to surrender to the pain. The only thing I have is the certainty of change, the certainty that my back will stop hurting one day. My mind will stop hurting one day. Life changes and that's for certain.
I’ve read the Books. I’ve done the time in Therapy. I know the answers intellectually. Why can’t I integrate what I’ve learned with how I want to be? Why can’t I be better? Why can’t I be Wise?
I’m scared.

I’m desperate.

I see a sign.

The sign says Acupuncture.

no strollers allowed

I FINALLY got Stella napping, hoorah! Jeez. She wouldn't eat. She wouldn't nurse. She wouldn't let me put her down to play with toys, which she usually does because she's a modern independent woman. She's gotten to this age where if I try to sit her on the floor she'll protest by stiffening her torso so we just stand there, me hunched in pain and her giggling like she's mistress of the universe. Of course she's mistress of my universe. And her hair is getting long enough over her eyes that I might just have to buy baby barrettes. Whoa.

urban spa day

A glass of red wine. An hour-long massage at the hands of a six-foot three Ukrainian guy from Brighton Beach. Driving home singing to "How Soon is Now" so loudly I sound deranged, with no one in the back kicking my seat and begging for "the ants song." An afternoon without kids. This is no Mastercard advert. This is real. Out on the town I realize in a panic, I've never felt older. Everyone working in the 'hood is suddenly at least three years younger than me. And I've never felt more invisible without a stroller attached to me like a giant prosthesis. My outdated look draws no stares from the studiedly jaded college students in their teal leather boots and jaunty herringbone caps. But you know what, youngsters? Not that you care, because a mom like me or anyone else except your own isn't even on your radar and why should we be? But you know, I've never felt more blessed for being able to live the strollerless life, if only for a couple hours. How fast I can go! How dizzyingly spontaneous I can be! I can stop in somewhere for a pressed sandwich and not have to mull over every possible disastrous outcome! I can fling my dorky woolen hat like Mary Tyler Moore! I can sing! I am a singular, tipsy, kneaded woman. Hallelujah.

scary blooms

Ahhhhh....The muscle spasm has relaxed, leaving me with garden variety stiffness, and I can smile despite the pain. Could life be better? Well...the Rockefeller Center area and Jersey City across the river smell like, as Bryan put it this morning after experiencing it firsthand, "like someone left the stove on." And yesterday we went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (The Ron Mueck and Annie Leibovitz exhibits at the Brooklyn Museum next door had lines snaking for miles so forget that) only to be spooked by the forsythia and cherry blossoms. Tourists and locals alike surrounded the flowering trees with cameras like the blooms were the tiny, glassed-in Mona Lisa at the Louvre. It was important to get the forsythia in the foreground with the leafless trees beyond to really drive the point home that the world feels like it's ending. If it is, I am not dressed for the occasion. If only I had that Botkier Trigger bag...I will take Hamish to the museum later this week if we're all still here. Stella too, I suppose. I wonder what Hamish'll think of the giant newborn. Hopefully it won't traumatize him too much. Maybe it'll be one of his first memories years from now. So...yeah. I should have taken a picture of the forsythia myself, to illustrate this post with, but I didn't, so here's our friend Gary, impersonating a flower blooming in the winter. Scary, right?

so easy with one

Stella naps. One of my guardian angels came this morning to take Hamish to daycare, so I wouldn't have to schlep the kids in the car with my back ailment. My other guardian angel will pick him up and take him for the afternoon. So that leaves me with Stella.

seven month itch

My back hurts. Like excruciating. Like, yearning for Vicodin, but popping ibuprofin instead because I don't want to pump and dump, or worse, fall asleep on the job if you know what I mean. Has anyone had acupuncture for this? Does every mother suffer from this? This is lower back pain, concentrated on my right side, from hoisting my weighty babe, let alone the car seat, oy vey! I got troubles. I'm thirty-seven going on ninety-eight. The morning of January first, 2007, I looked in the mirror and was greeted by a gray hair. My second. I know, you've got hundreds. But still. What timing! What is with this life of mine? I even called the doctor for my back.