firsts

I did full camel pose for the first time ever, in yoga class today. Now it's NOT a big deal. Most people who have been doing Bikram's series for a few months can bust a full camel. Just not me. And I've been doing Bikram's on and off for five years. It's a big fear pose for me (and can be for a lot of people.) I know this will sound hippy dippy to those of you who don't practice yoga but I swear it's chemically true: certain yoga poses cause involuntary emotions. Most of these emotions are good and most of them are mild, but occasionally not. I did this one forward pose one time--can't remember which one, it was a freestyle yoga class, not the Bikram's series--and once in the pose, I felt utterly sad and panicky. I was about to start sobbing, so I backed out of the pose. Anyway, back bends involve a lot of, as they say, opening of the body, the fuller the back bend, the greater degree of openness (mental and physical) required, and that can be a challenge. Maybe more so for us inwardly directed perfectionist types. ("No, don't open me up there, thanks!") I guess I have been in the habit of regarding certain poses as "hard" or "not my favorites" and gritting my teeth through them, and I know that's not the yoga way. Each time I started into camel pose I felt FEAR FEAR FEAR NO NO NO!! Maybe the fact that this is only my second class after two months without helped, but as we went into this pose today, I thought to myself, no fear, be open, think about the color blue. (Granted, I've tried these thoughts before.) I always felt like it was this HUGE distance behind me from my hands to my ankles when I began the pose. An unbridgeable void. And today I just thought, well, the ankles have to be back there somewhere, and I REEEEACHED.

And there they were. Just my ankles. And I was OOOOPENING up. It felt awesome. Then we had to come back up. Interesting. Interesting. OK, I got into it, there must be a way out...I kind of flung myself out of it, luckily without hitting the woman next to me, and I must have freaked out the instructor, because I got some "personal instruction" on the second set of the pose--it felt even better! I'm elated. I fear no (Bikram's) yoga pose.

Next step is the Power Vinyasa class. I've done it twice and my ass was telling the tale for a week afterward each time. I have to conquer my fear of that next. I figure once I've been going to Bikram's twice a week for two months, I'll go to Vinyasa. It's a different series every time, too. We fear change.

Got the second estimate on the sinking corner of the house, and put all the stuff I cleaned out of my house in NOVEMBER into my car to take to Goodwill/other worthy cause. Tomorrow. Yee haw. MSH is going to be so proud of all my PRODUCTIVA activities!! So one of the things I was donating was a toaster oven, and since someone deserving is going to actually use it, I couldn't donate it as it was--full of crumbs and covered with gross kitchen spatter. So I took about ten minutes and scrubbed it up and it is now a toaster oven which would brighten any kitchen. Which begs the question, in all the time I have owned said toaster oven WHY IS THIS THE FIRST TIME I HAVE CLEANED IT?! See, this is why I need Cheryl Mendelson's brilliant housekeeping manual....

I have decided not emailing or phoning during work hours is pointless.

But at home, it is nice. I did have the contractor AND a freecycler over tonight so I really DID break the rules, but it was for good reasons. The freecycler was megachatty, though--you'd have thought I was her best friend!