Infinite Change And How We Deal With It

This is what I have been memorizing for the past few months and maybe why I haven't written in my blog for forever!  Just trying to get my mind around these few simple concepts for how I could control my own mind, how I react to everything that happens to me and around me, as it all changes.

And how others could relate and benefit from this learning.  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga_Sutras_of_Patanjali

It's all in our mind - beautiful and ugly and out of control and always accessible for change:
Yoga Sutra # 2 - The restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff is Yoga.
Yoga Sutra #12 - These mental modifications are restrained by practice and non-attachment.
Yoga Sutra #13 - Of these two, effort toward steadiness of mind is practice.
Yoga Sutra #14 - Practice becomes firmly grounded when well-attended to for a long time, without break and in all earnestness.

The Practice, Practice, Practice of the Yoga Sutras is a daily exercise but not without its joy, and not without its moments of relief and breath and giving in.  Just try this in a yoga pose and you will know what I mean!

Everything changes.  Everything can change in an instant.

It's not how it changes, exactly, but how we deal with it.

Independence Day

I kept spelling out the word
Q-U-I-E-T
on the scrabble board
as we sat by the pool and

I won game after
game

We slurped frozen
tropical drinks
got ice-cream
headaches
and tried to
wait out the rain

He says he feels invisible
like nothing has changed
there's no room for him
in this relationship
I take up all the space

So whatever he kept
spelling out on the
scrabble board, I
can't remember

because I guess he's 

right, after all
I guess it's all the same

he must be right

never mind he's been my
home for 18 years

and I don't know anything
at all, about independence

I Remember College...and California

It was a wonderful 20 year college reunion.  I loved seeing so many people I care about, and haven't seen in person for so long!  It was all a bit overwhelming, seeing them and the campus, that place I lived for 4 formative years, so different now - all those new beautiful buildings!  Campus so much the same as 20 years ago but so different, at the same time. :)

I felt very grateful to be there.  But I also felt that David and I both baked in that very different heat, it was HOT last weekend (god was it just last weekend?!), and it felt like an oven compared to the sauna that we are used to in Florida...just a very different heat.  I have to say, that I don't think I could ever live in California now, but I do remember living there, and how I loved it.  At the edge of the continent...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8H0xopW3wk

"I Remember California"

I remember redwood trees, bumper cars and wolverines
The ocean's Trident submarines
Lemons, limes and tangerines
I remember this

I remember traffic jams
Motor boys and girls with tans
Nearly was and almost rans
I remember this

History is made
History is made to seem unfair

I recall that you were there
Golden smile and shining hair
I recall it wasn't fair
Recollect it wasn't fair
Remembering it wasn't fair outside

Low ebb, high tide
The lowest ebb and highest tide
A symbol wave I must confide
I guess we took us for a ride
I guess it's just a gesture

I remember this defense
Progress fails pacific sense
All those sweet conspiracies
I remember all these things

I remember traffic jams
Motor boys and girls with tans
Nearly was and almost rans
I remember this, this

Low ebb, high tide
The lowest ebb and highest tide
I guess we took us for a ride
I guess its just a gesture.

At the end of the continent
At the edge of the continent

Anywhere, I would've followed you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmErRm-vApI

 

Say something, I'm giving up on you
I'll be the one, if you want me to
Anywhere, I would've followed you
Say something, I'm giving up on you

And I am feeling so small
It was over my head
I know nothing at all

And I will stumble and fall
I'm still learning to love
Just starting to crawl

Say something, I'm giving up on you
I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you
Anywhere, I would've followed you
Say something, I'm giving up on you

And I will swallow my pride
You're the one that I love
And I'm saying goodbye

Say something, I'm giving up on you
And I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you
And anywhere, I would have followed you
Oh-oh-oh-oh say something, I'm giving up on you

Say something, I'm giving up on you
Say something 

So Much Depends Upon....Yoga Pants

As I approach my 20 year college reunion, I think about this...

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

by William Carlos Williams

I think that

so much depends
upon

yoga pants...
I didn't have them 20 years
ago, only grey drudgery
and sweat pants

and it seems to me now
that yoga pants
have made all the difference

how they allow you to feel
somehow trim & fit even
while still happy & fat
even while still technically
(BMI Range) imperfect

with that lower leg flare
turning out just so, and
how the soft material
hugs your lovely
thighs and ass

all imperfect, and yet
just perfect, somehow, just
for this one moment

when it doesn't matter
because nothing matters
but this breath
this yoga-pants-moment
of complete
Acceptance

~Namaste~ 

Providing

Old poem, just now resurrected for no particular reason, maybe just the rage...:)

Providing                                                                        
January 24, 1998
                                                                     
when she drives home from the grocery store
and is just beginning to live a life
she’s not sure of
on a saturday evening
and cut off from the party-going
around her
outside the car windows
she envisions her next few steps
up the stairs to their apartment
load after heavy load
carried calmly in her hands
car stopped for a moment
in an illegal but convenient
spot and lights continually blinking
“hazard!”       “hazard!”
*** **      *****     *****     *****     *****
putting the cheese and milk
away in the refridgerator
the produce in the “crisper”
the cereal on the shelves
she envisions what she’d like to do
next: stop and turn with perfect
clarity of movement
to throw the frozen orange juice can
out the closed unsuspecting window
shattering
new-found domestic
haven of her beautiful kitchen
angry at the on-sale orange juice
and the emptied paper-in-plastic
bags - good for garbage and
recycling - angry at that careful forethought
that never seems to be reciprocated
and the loving hands that do dishes
and fold laundry and take care
of their lives, the boring      daily
destruction
of peace and order
*****     *****     *****     *****     *****     *****
in the grocery store
the first time she took a large cart
instead of the usual small basket,
the kind with a small seat in front for a child
wanting Lucky Charms
and Twinkies and Coca-Cola,
the kind that screams “family!”
and big grocery budget
to feed all the expectant ones back home,
she felt dislocated,
off-balance, wheeling the squeaky cart
down aisles the loomed into her vision,
lost from who she was
or who she thought she wanted to be
would be someday
someday
feeling like her mother
inevitably
and like she was crossing
into some unspoken territory
of consumerism and womanhood
and the strange thing was: it feel so
very natural
*****     *****     *****     *****     *****
she remembers when her mother
would come home from grocery
shopping and would park the minivan in the alley
honking the horn for the kids
to come running to help carry
the bags in - she remembers how her mother
would get angry when they dawdled
over the TV watching, the reading or drawing
and resenting the interrruption
she wonders how her mother resisted
the temptation to take them and shake them
and yell “don’t you see that this is all for you?!”
spreading tired hands out to show
them the giving, the hours of coupon-clipping,
the organization of dozens of tiny
slips of paper in the small filebox
like the one for recipes
the time spent at stores
wheeling carts down aisle after aisle
after aisle
and thinking of others
who would never notice
any of this, as long as she was there
and simply providing

Acceptance Poem

As I start new journal
in the wide-ruled notebook
I bought today I am...

Accepting that I write sloppy and BIG
Accepting that I stay up WAY
too late, drinking and smoking
and am exhausted all the time
because of it

Accepting this body, its
boredom, and longings, and bliss
and that it always stays
AT LEAST 10 lbs above
where it's supposed to be
healthy BMI Range, all that shit

Accepting how the body
regularly fails
to be perfect

Accepting the lines
on my face are
permanent and
not going away
my forehead like
my father's - all
those deep furrows -
and so I kind of love it

Accepting and loving
the lines because I have
EARNED every little
last one of them

Accepting that all women
even those of us who
call ourselves Feminists
will always want to look

younger than their Age

Accepting RAGE

Accepting that my
father has died
for so long - in July
it will be 18 years now

He always wanted me
to be a Feminist and
rule the world but how
he left us so suddenly

I will always be
the "apple of his eye"
and he will always be
53 years young to me

I will always be
struggling to learn
how to live and to
Accept

Quite a Valentine - Still the One (and we're still having fun)

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbH_sDyWZqo#aid=P8n36fwxF_g

We've been together since way back when
Sometimes I never want to see you again
But I want you to know, after all these years
You're still the one I want whisperin' in my ear

You're still the one I want to talk to in bed
Still the one that turns my head
We're still having fun, and you're still the one

I looked at your face every day
But I never saw it 'til I went away
When winter came, I just wanted to go
Deep in the desert, I longed for the snow

You're still the one that makes me laugh
Still the one that's my better half
We're still having fun, and you're still the one

You're still the one that makes me strong
Still the one I want to take along
We're still having fun, and you're still the one

Changing, our love is going gold
Even though we grow old, it grows new

You're still the one that I love to touch
Still the one and I can't get enough
We're still having fun, and you're still the one

You're still the one who can scratch my itch
Still the one and I wouldn't switch
We're still having fun, and you're still the one

You are still the one that makes me shout
Still the one that I dream about
We're still having fun, and you're still the one...

No GPS Required: Report From Our Fourth Visit to Panama

(With indirect reference to last blog post on Panama -  http://yousurecantalkbaby.blogspot.com/2012/06/how-to-break-your-gps-and-other-stories.html.)

So, we had a short trip to Panama planned for May, including a much-anticipated visit to Contadora Island one of the famous Pearl Islands (Las Perlas) of Panama.  We had everything all set up and it was perfect.  Then in April, as a result of my ongoing and somewhat lazy job hunt, I suddenly got a job offer.  A really good job offer: full-time and 20k more than I was currently making at Jackson Hewitt, back to straight-BA work (no more being a manager to the world's most dysfunctional team of testers!) and in the health care insurance industry (no more boring tax software!).

But there were 2 problems.  The job was in Tampa - at least an hour from our lovely little city of Sarasota - and the offer was contingent on my NOT taking this already-scheduled & paid-for vacation.  I was livid.  And seriously considered turning it down.  If they don't want me badly enough to deal with me missing a total of four measly work days then FUCK them! was my thinking. 

Well, my wonderful husband David - who said he was willing to eventually move to Tampa (and would find a job there, he'd been wanting to leave his current company/position for a while) - talked me off the ledge (as he often has to do).

Reader, I took it.

And in rescheduling the trip we were able to coordinate our visit with my dear friend Andrea who (along with the Panamanian man she married about 6 years ago) has been our connection and inspiration in regards to that country.  We had to give up Contadora Island (too complicated to meet up there around Christmas given an unreliable ferry schedule) but it was worth it.

So we had 3 days/nights in the mountain town of Boquete just me & David and five blissful days in a rented beach house in Portobello, on the Caribbean side of the country, with Andrea, her husband, and a bunch of his family members.  The second half of the trip included Christmas Eve and Christmas, which was perfect.  A few photos below:

Especially ironic how well the trip worked out, given that my sparkly new job for which we rescheduled totally didn't...by the time December rolled around I was well-gone from that crazy place and thank heavens!

My favorite part of the trip (aside from the spontaneous and awesome snorkeling we did the day after Christmas), was when I described the route I took to get us to Portobello which necessarily didn't follow our directions because we were coming from the regional, not the international, airport (which are sort of strangely no where near each other).  Alfonso (Andrea's husband) said "you drive better than many Panamanians!" and I felt proud.  I was a proud Panamanian-wannabe, with no need for a GPS. :)