She Was An American Girl

American Girl ~
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5ccVWbteps

When I was about to graduate
from college, I had no idea
what was
happening.

I didn't plan for it to end,
I was always good at school
but outside, in "the real world"
any bravery I had was a total act.

When I was young
I always thought
I'd grow up
to be a dancer,
an actress,
a singer, or a writer.

It was all so easy in the abstract.

I climbed trees and hunted treasure in garbage dumpsters.
I wanted to be a horse so I could run forever.
I never wanted to be a princess.

I had a romance with my cat (he was my first boyfriend).
I made up stories and songs that I never wrote down.

And some I did, while discovering
a new language
better than this old
one I had inherited.

When I was young
my father used to say I was ten
going on twenty-one - I was never
young enough for him
I guess.

When I was young
(I was never young)
I never thought I'd grow up
to be this:  older
and sure of less.

I know you will, I know you will, I know that you will

Young and Beautiful
by Lana Del Rey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBJY3Extw1I

I've seen the world

Done it all

Had my cake now

Diamonds, brilliant and Bel-Air now.

Hot summer nights, mid July

When you and I were forever wild

The crazy days, city lights

The way you'd play with me like a child

Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful?

Will you still love me when I've got nothing but my aching soul?

I know you will, I know you will

I know that you will

Will you still love me when I'm no longer beautiful?

I've seen the world

Lit it up

As my stage now

Chanelling angels in

The new age now

Hot summer days, rock and roll

The way you'd play for me at your show

And all the ways I got to know

Your pretty face and electric soul

Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful?

Will you still love me when I've got nothing but my aching soul?

I know you will, I know you will

I know that you will

Will you still love me when I'm no longer beautiful?

Dear Lord, when I get to heaven

Please let me bring my man

When he comes tell me that you'll let him

Father tell me if you can

Oh that grace, oh that body

Oh that face makes me wanna party

He's my sun, he makes me shine like diamonds

Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful?

Will you still love me when I got nothing but my aching soul?

I know you will, I know you will

I know that you will

Will you still love me when I'm no longer beautiful

Will you still love me when I'm no longer beautiful

Will you still love me when I'm not young and beautiful


Complete lyrics: http://www.directlyrics.com/lana-del-rey-will-you-still-love-me-lyrics.html

I'm Breaking Through

I think I really am...I could be wrong but I feel like
I'm bending spoons/I'm keeping flowers in full bloom...or something :)


"The Great Beyond"
by REM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKbMKgaPHCI
I've watched the stars fall silent from your eyes
All the sights that I have seen
I can't believe that I believed I wished
That you could see
There's a new planet in the solar system
There is nothing up my sleeve

I'm pushing an elephant up the stairs
I'm tossing up punch lines that were never there
Over my shoulder a piano falls
Crashing to the ground

In all this talk of time
Talk is fine
But I don't want to stay around
Why can't we pantomime, just close our eyes
And sleep sweet dreams
Me and you with wings on our feet

I'm pushing an elephant up the stairs
I'm tossing up punch lines that were never there
Over my shoulder a piano falls
Crashing to the ground

I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great beyond

I want the hummingbirds, the dancing bears
Sweetest dreams of you
I Look into the stars
I Look into the moon

I'm pushing an elephant up the stairs
I'm tossing up punch lines that were never there
Over my shoulder a piano falls
Crashing to the ground

I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great beyond

I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great
Answers from the great, answers

I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great beyond

I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great
Answers from the great, answers

I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great beyond

Fearless

A 1993 movie by that name once meant a lot to me ~
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fearless_%281993_film%29
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm5jBa4LzxQ

I watched it when it first came out and loved it...loved especially the music, discovering something new.  To a person practically foreign to all classical music or opera or anything truly cultured (yes, I blame my parents), it was AMAZING.

It captivated me, I was overwhelmed, and completely taken - emotionally - by the music of Gorecki ~
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._3_%28G%C3%B3recki%29
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDNfQ4ok8EY

I had this music in my head, sang or hummed it under my breath, and in my heart I was holding onto it while I was barely hanging on to myself - so deathly afraid of the future - but carried on as if I wasn't.  This was my wonderful & awful final college semester (Spring, 1994).   

Dramatic time that it was, this melody felt right to me.  Or perhaps I was just drunk a lot during that time, and over thinking everything. :)

Either way, I still remember that time with this music and the wonderful movie that embodied it for me.

But also, one of the major things this song/movie brings up for me is my father - how he died so young, and so suddenly (http://www.yousurecantalkbaby.blogspot.com/2009/07/day-music-died-part-one.html), how I showed this movie to David (boyfriend at the time, husband now), and cried and cried, and how he understood, didn't think there was anything strange about my behavior or wrong with me. 

That is probably when I *knew* (I knew like you know about a good melon ~ quote from another great movie - "When Harry Met Sally").  

So I could tell anyone if they should ask "how do you know when to trust someone with your heart?"  How do you know when to be "Fearless" in that way? 

I would say, when you can watch a movie about a guy who almost dies in a plane crash but he lives and you're crying about your dad who died, and it makes no sense but that person you're with holds you and doesn't talk or question but just witnesses your grief, smoothing hair off your face, while you maybe hiccup a bit and are a snotty mess.

Yes, true love does look something like that. :)

The Still Voice Inside Me, Sings This Song

The Stills - Of Montreal
The falling free on, it's turning me on
It drips on the street, the sun cries from the heat
I love feeling beat, I'll kiss the lipstick on your teeth

Friends getting old, we all dig for gold
The crumbs and pieces, the dead mess in the sink
Turning me on, Turning me on

The night's so happy, the base drum heavy
The photo glossy, the people pretty
Turning me on... [4x]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAA_yyeuPKM
Lyrics ~ http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/stills/ofmontreal.html

Pretty Feet

I have pretty feet.
It's not my fault
nor my achievement.
I may have been born
with them.

I have a husband
who likes my pretty feet
and various other
parts of my body.

It's my body
but it's not my fault
nor my achievement.
I was born with it.

I have a husband
who likes my mind
and various other
parts of my personality.

It's my mind, my choices
and it's my fault
and my achievement.
I made it what it is.

I have a husband
who has a son
and various other
kinds of baggage.

I have a bank account
it's my money
and my choices
and it's my fault.

I should never have
taken on a man
with a child.

I should have never
let it go this far.

I have a life
a body
pretty feet
and all these
choices.

Song that helped inspire the poem, at least in part ~
Put Your Pretty Dress On
by Rosie Thomas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XMxwyBBywc
Blog post with full lyrics: http://www.yousurecantalkbaby.blogspot.com/2012_05_01_archive.html

Atlas Shrugged - for you

I wrote the friend from whom I copied
the equality symbol, on FaceBook

she and I used to be diametrically opposed
in our political views.

She Republican and Conservative/me Democratic and Liberal

once upon a time, in college

such a long time ago....

I found myself writing her/waxing eloquent
about the equality symbol:

"I love you for this! 
My old Republican nemesis

how we argued in the WU (Women's Union)

do you remember?

I will always think Atlas Shrugged for you."

this references the conservative tome

by Ayn Rand she made me read

Atlas Shrugged and I made her read

The Women's Room

by Marilyn French

equally polemic

it was our agreement

to read each others' books

and we talked

about it afterwards

do you remember?

it only takes a moment

but it takes forever

slight connection with the
Yoga Anatomy I am learning

loving, that small circle you
can make with your head

mindfully....slowly

it only takes a moment

but it takes forever


to exercise the Atlas - the topmost vertebra

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_%28anatomy%29
"In anatomy, the atlas (C1) is the most superior (first) cervical vertebra of the spine.


It is named for the Atlas of Greek mythology, because it supports the globe of the head.


The atlas is the topmost vertebra, and – along with the Axis – forms the joint connecting the skull and spine. The atlas and axis are specialized to allow a greater range of motion than normal vertebrae. They are responsible for the nodding and rotation movements of the head.


The atlanto-occipital joint allows the head to nod up and down on the vertebral column.

The dens acts as a pivot that allows the atlas and attached head to rotate on the axis, side to side.


The Atlas' chief peculiarity is that it has no body, it is ring-like, and consists of an anterior and a posterior arch and two lateral masses.


The Atlas and Axis are important neurologically because the brain stem extends down to the Axis."

do you remember?

it only takes a moment

but it takes forever

MYM (My Yoga Month)

April - My Yoga Month (MYM)…as I started calling it, a couple weeks before it actually began - almost as a joke - is not turning out quite as expected or as I had wanted it to.  (But, therein probably lies the lesson.)

It started with me teaching Chair Yoga at my work, which has been going beautifully!  It's only 15 minutes at a pop, but I think people are getting a lot from it, most noticeably some much-needed relaxation.

Seems like everyone in the U.S. (if not the world), is a stress-case these days (including me), even though for most of us folks working at Jackson Hewitt, the busiest time of year is now over (Tax Season).  Thank God!

Tax Season was actually.really.really.awful.  Worse than I would have thought, which is to say, in fact - BRUTAL.

That first Chair Yoga session was Tuesday April 2nd so I started MYM off well…I was reading The Science of Yoga every night, which is a great book.  http://www.amazon.com/Science-Yoga-Risks-Rewards/dp/1451641435/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366162989&sr=1-1&keywords=the+science+of+yoga

In fact, it’s so informative and insightful I felt like it was making me become a better teacher with every paragraph and page I read.  I normally turn down a lot of pages as I read (even, regretfully do this on library books), to mark certain passages I want to return to, and this book - which I own so can beat up as much as I want, with no guilt - is massively dog-eared by now.

But I couldn’t get myself started on my own reinvigorated home-practice via the other yoga book I recently purchased, called Moving Toward Balance: 8 Weeks of Yoga With Rodney Yee - http://www.amazon.com/Moving-Toward-Balance-Weeks-Rodney/dp/0875969216/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1366159650&sr=8-1&keywords=moving+toward+balance+8+weeks+of+yoga+with+rodney+yee

My excuse was I didn’t have all the props I needed at home.  But really it was/is my own laziness, and how all the rest of life intervened, and that's ALSO no excuse but there it is.  More on that below.

MYM continued with a wonderful "Twist into Spring" workshop the first weekend of April, at MTS ("Moving Toward Stillness") yoga studio ~ http://www.movingtowardstillness.net/index.html

This is the studio where I started teaching last Fall, and shortly after I finished the 200 hours Yoga Teacher Training (YTT).  My wonderful *boss* and mentor Elaine led the workshop and I was able to just be a student, and enjoy all she had to teach, for a blissful 3 hours...I think I snored in svasana. :)

The following weekend - interspersed by more chair yoga sessions, I think they like the calming music & aromatherapy + 3 mins meditation at the end - it was a full one and 1/2 days of teacher training, down in Naples, FL at Bala Vinyasa Yoga Studio.

"The Mastery of Teaching Gentle and Basic Yoga."
http://www.bvyoga.com/Default.aspx

I had NO idea what I was getting into, having not been to this studio before, but took a chance based on the workshop description.  And it also turned out beautifully.  I had the Best.YogaWeekend.Ever. 

I learned SO much that I want to turn toward my classes, and take further....all of which will probably be side-lined for at least a little while, due to the impending change - reason why I've been so stressed out lately, and feel life has intervened with my plan to do more daily yoga - which is that...I've taken a new full-time job! 

Up in Tampa so involves an hour commute but pays A LOT better and no more crazy tax-season to endure.  Will probably have to endure lots of other crazy, but at least not that! :)  Cue the song by Meat Loaf ~ I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GNhdQRbXhc

New job starts 4/29 and here's hoping it's the right move...it FEELS right so far...

MYM will continue this coming weekend, with the first all-YTT social event since we all got together at Thanksgiving.  Hosted by yours truly, at my apartment complex pool for a cookout/pool party.  I am so looking forward to seeing all my fellow yogis, hearing about how life for them has also been great or hard, maybe wonderful, but maybe stressful or even awful, as much as or more than me.

How life has intervened with their daily yoga practice also (or not), and their future yoga plans.  And I look forward to telling them all about my upcoming job change.  Because some of them saw me miserable about job-stuff at Thanksgiving and challenged me to fix, change or accept it.  I feel I did all three.  I feel, in fact, triumphant!

MYM will conclude with an Ashtanga Yoga workshop the last weekend in April, which I am - purely - dreading.  It's at ReFlex Arts, where I got all Yoga-Teacher-Trained so that helps me be more comfortable, but we didn't do Ashtanga in our training and I've never done it before. 

This type of yoga is as strenuous as Bikram (which I have done), but maybe more so (see video hyperlink below).  Yikes!  How the HELL do they DO those crazy poses?!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUgtMaAZzW0

God help me but I'm trying it, and the day after is first day at my new job, Monday April 29th, the official end of MYM (even though the calendar DOES contain a day beyond that, obvs). :)

So, if I hobble into my new place of employment all sore & aching from Ashtanga - and I present badly because of it - at least I'll have a good excuse!  And I'll blame it all on Yoga - and MYM.

It Keeps Me Warm (My Love - My Love - My Love)

"Same Love"
MACKLEMORE & RYAN LEWIS - feat. MARY LAMBERT 
When I was in the third grade I thought that I was gay
'Cause I could draw, my uncle was, and I kept my room straight
I told my mom tears rushing down my face
She's like "Ben you've loved girls since before pre-k tripping"
Yeah, I guess she had a point, didn't she?
Bunch of stereotypes all in my head.
I remember doing the math like, "Yeah, I'm good at little league"
A preconceived idea of what it all meant
For those that liked the same sex
Had the characteristics
The right wing conservatives think it's a decision
And you can be cured with some treatment and religion
Man-made rewiring of a predisposition
Playing God, aw nah here we go
America the brave still fears what we don't know
And God loves all his children, is somehow forgotten
But we paraphrase a book written thirty-five-hundred years ago
I don't know

And I can't change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
I can't change
Even if I try
Even if I wanted to
My love
My love
My love
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm

If I was gay, I would think hip-hop hates me
Have you read the YouTube comments lately?
"Man, that's gay" gets dropped on the daily
We become so numb to what we're saying
A culture founded from oppression
Yet we don't have acceptance for 'em
Call each other faggots behind the keys of a message board
A word rooted in hate, yet our genre still ignores it
Gay is synonymous with the lesser
It's the same hate that's caused wars from religion
Gender to skin color, the complexion of your pigment
The same fight that led people to walk outs and sit ins
It's human rights for everybody, there is no difference!
Live on and be yourself
When I was at church they taught me something else
If you preach hate at the service those words aren't anointed
That holy water that you soak in has been poisoned
When everyone else is more comfortable remaining voiceless
Rather than fighting for humans that have had their rights stolen
I might not be the same, but that's not important
No freedom till we're equal, damn right I support it

(I don't know)

And I can't change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
My love
My love
My love
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm

We press play, don't press pause
Progress, march on
With the veil over our eyes
We turn our back on the cause
Till the day that my uncles can be united by law
When kids are walking 'round the hallway plagued by pain in their heart
A world so hateful some would rather die than be who they are
And a certificate on paper isn't gonna solve it all
But it's a damn good place to start
No law is gonna change us
We have to change us
Whatever God you believe in
We come from the same one
Strip away the fear
Underneath it's all the same love
About time that we raised up

And I can't change
Even if I tried
Even if I wanted to
I can't change
Even if I try
Even if I wanted to
My love
My love
My love
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
She keeps me warm
Love is patient
Love is kind
Love is patient
Love is kind
(I'm not crying on Sundays)
Love is patient
(I'm not crying on Sundays)
Love is kind
(I'm not crying on Sundays)
Love is patient
(I'm not crying on Sundays)
Love is kind
(I'm not crying on Sundays)
Love is patient
(I'm not crying on Sundays)
Love is kind
(I'm not crying on Sundays)
Love is patient
Love is kind
Lyrics:
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/macklemore/samelove.html

Video & Song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlVBg7_08n0&feature=youtu.be

All You Need is (there can never be too much) I and Love and You

I and Love and You
by The Avett Brothers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrsgIEBwIZM

Load the car and write the note
Grab your bag and grab your coat
Tell the ones that need to know
We are headed north

One foot in and one foot back
But it don't pay, to live like that
So i cut the ties and i jumped the tracks
For never to return

Ah Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in
Are you aware the shape I'm in
My hands they shake my head it spins
Ah Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in

When at first I learned to speak
I used all my words to fight
With him and her and you and me
Oh but its just a waste of time
Yeah its such a waste of time

That woman shes got eyes that shine
Like a pair of stolen polished dimes
She asked to dance I said it's fine
I'll see you in the morning time

Ah Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in
Are you aware the shape im in
My hands they shake my head it spins
Ah Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in

Three words that became hard to say
I and love and you
What you were then, I am today
Look at the things I do

Ah Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in
Are you aware the shape I'm in
My hands they shake my head it spins
Ah Brooklyn Brooklyn take me in

Dumbed down and numbed by time and age
Your dreams to catch the world, the cage
The highway sets the travelers stage
All exits look the same

Three words that became hard to say
I and love and you
I and love and you
I and love and you

http://www.lyricsreg.com/lyrics/the+avett+brothers/I+and+Love+and+You/