breathe in breathe out

My daughter in law and her twin sister do yoga.  My daughter and law and her twin sister combined have a smaller waistline than my upper left thigh.  My daughter in law and her twin sister unknowingly have inspired me to try my hand (and foot and core) at yoga.

Before I ventured into yoga I decided to try my hand at meditation.  I envisioned myself learning to relax and ultimately finding my third eye.  Having no yoga mat I grabbed my dog’s bed and positioned myself in a cross legged seated position which when I was a kid was called the Indian position.   I couldn’t do it then, I can’t do it now.  I sat with my legs as close as my inner thighs would allow.  My back protested and promised to punish me tomorrow, but I was determined to get this right.  My hands in a prayer like stance, I practiced the breathing technique, in out…ok nothing new here, I can do this!  Oh wait, it was in through the nose and out of the mouth.  As I tried to slip into that relaxed meditated state I was so desperate to obtain,  I kept nervously thinking I wasn’t breathing right.  I was focusing on opening my mouth at the right time, inhaling and exhaling with some kind of rhythm but eventually I just ended up holding my breath.  That euphoric feeling wasn’t my third eye surfacing, it was oxygen depravation and passing out.   Before I keeled over,  my dog realized I had his bed and came bounding over and sat on my kinda-crossed legs causing my left ankle to impale my right calf.  OK go ahead, I’ll wait….got the visual…hey I said they were kinda crossed!

I repositioned myself on the rug, got into a more comfortable position and began breathing again, this time getting the in and out right. I was clearing my mind, quieting the voices in my head and then I thought….what am I making for dinner? I shook it off and as instructed concentrated on the sounds of my breath and then I thought….is Mob Wives on tonight? Once again I re-grouped and then I thought….I really have to pee. So much for meditation…I will just move along to yoga. My daughter in law and her twin sister will never know I quit before my third eye or chakra showed up.

I was going to buy ‘how to’ yoga videos but that made no sense since I am sure this yoga thing would pass like every other physical activity I have endeavored to master in recent years. I found some fascinating videos on you tube and planted myself on the rug once again, this time equipped with a lap top of instructions. First… lay on your back….ok can’t see lap top anymore but I can still hear the instructions. Feel your abdomen…FEEL? Even laying down I can SEE my abdomen! Pull your right knee up towards your chin pressing your thigh into your abdomen. Ummmm…ok This stretches your lower back or in my case crushes the lungs and inhibits the ability to breathe. Did I mention the size of my thighs? Beginner yoga, as I soon learned, is nothing more than stretching parts of your body that normally don’t get stretched unless you inadvertently fall down a flight of stairs, which is how I felt after I completed my first video. I am pretty sure I haven’t moved my body parts even an iota of the amount the thin, tan, toned girl in the video has. Lesson two has the rabbit pose, the camel pose and the cobra pose none of which sounds like something a human body should be aspiring to achieve. I have learned there is advanced yoga, weight loss yoga, yoga for men and even chair yoga. There is yoga for runners, for couples and even for pregnant women…there doesn’t seem to one for an overweight indolent who has a daughter in law with a twin sister.

Lily the Christmas Eve

I stopped blogging over a year ago.   I would like to say it was because I was busy writing the next great American novel....promoting it on Leno before he decided to abandon late night TV,  cashing huge advances, fighting off paparazzi, potentially scuffling with one,  like Alec Baldwin.  I would like to say it was because I was relaxing at my villa on Lake Como in Northern Italy with my tanned hard body that took that whole year to achieve.  I would really like to say it was because I was the front runner in some political campaign that didn't involve hookers, texting, corruption or bridge closures.  Sadly the reason I have been gone so long is simple....Lily the Christmas Elf.  Well, let's not blame Lily, she is actually the product of my back burner mentality.  I excitedly start something and as soon as it is not as entertaining as it originally began I put it on hold, stick it in a bag, banish it to my hoarder room.

Lily is a crochet project I began some two years ago for my then 3 year old granddaughter.  She has a head,  her pointy little ears pinned on to where they will be sewn at a later date (Lily, not my granddaughter), she has a stuffed body although still naked and a striped leg with one green boot.  Lily has been bagged and banished through two holidays seasons.  I found her while looking for white wool to complete a Valentine project which is coming dangerously close to being dismissed as boring and repetitive.  Lily will probably ready for my granddaughter's Sweet 16....I hope her color scheme is red and green.

Crochet and knitting projects aren't the only things I do this with.  I have half-written novels, countless un-submitted and un-published short stories, a book of 10 poems only 7 of which I like, and two possibly three journals that started out as cathartic, liberating scripts only to end at the bottom of an end table awaiting a new entry.  I have sewing projects that are cut, pinned and ready to sew.  I have matched the thread color with irrationally eccentric accuracy, wound a bobbin with matching thread and then....nothing!

I am a frame freak.  I have collages that say FAMILY is fancy scroll letters, I have bohemian woodgrain 5x7's in every color that wood doesn't naturally come in, and dozens of modern-glass-no-border-break-every-time-they-fall-off-the-wall 8x10's.  Each frame has an array of smiling happy people in various situations enjoying life and each other....too bad they are not my family.  I have yet to get around to printing any of the thousands of pictures I have imprisoned on my cell phone.  There is even a picture of a completed Lily on there just in case I forget what the finished product should look like.

I am working on my inability to finish things.  I started a diet in November which I abandoned before the holidays.  I gained 3 pounds.  I restarted the diet and subsequently suspended it until after Super Bowl...same results.  The key to this dieting thing may just lie with Lily.  If I could complete what I start out so tenaciously robust for I could probably fill those frames by Spring, complete a novel by summer and have poor Lily's dismembered body resurrected.   And maybe then I could....I'll finish this later.