Day 44: joy and Day 45: I [heart] humidity. Also: Greater Challenge)

After teaching in the morning, I went Saturday to the 4:00 class at the Sweatbox. Thank you, Sweatbox, the only Saturday afternoon class in my area! More than once, you've saved my yoga butt. It was a good class. I liked the teacher, a petite woman named Kim with glossy black hair. I did pretty well and didn't rest out poses, but it was not quite hot enough for me. My right hamstring was sore afterward and I think I'm subject to an affliction that must be common in intermediate/advanced students: pushing oneself too hard on a day when one isn't naturally getting as deeply into the poses. I like the feeling of extension and accomplishment, for example, when I'm deeply into Standing Bow Pulling, and when it's not just happening, I think I may have been pushing it to try to get that "cookie." Obviously, that ain't good yoga! Need to remember what my teachers always say: Your body is different from one day to the next and one set of a pose to the next. Just be with where you are today and breathe into it.

Sunday I went to teachings at my dharma center. I had stayed up late the night before reading an excellent novel (The myth of you and me, by Leah Stewart, best I've read in some time) and so was somewhat sleepy, I'm ashamed to say! But the teachings were excellent and at the break between sessions, my friend Cheryl and I walked down to the park with Yangsi Rinpoche, our teacher. It was a gorgeous sunny day (I got a wee sunburn!) and we admired the view of Elliott Bay and Mt. Rainier. Rinpoche told us about the wild elephants where he grew up in India. At the end of the afternoon teaching session, Cheryl took refuge with Yangsi Rinpoche. After taking down the altar and a few other details, I high-tailed it for my yoga studio, just in the nick for the 5:00 class. Krista taught and was anxious to hear how I'd done. She said Camille said I did great and "got it all out." This and a little distance has me feeling even more positive about the class Saturday. Once the class got started, I kept listening to guidance Krista gave and thinking "I didn't say that, I didn't remember to say that..." Krista has so much energy, caring, and aspiration in her voice at various times. She is just a wonderful, wonderful teacher. I wish everyone could take from her once. Like, if I could give the world a smile? I would give the world a yoga class with Krista. :) It's a bit intimidating because I think, how can I remember it all and do it with as much compassion and energy as Krista does? But I hope I will someday. She told me herself I'm just going to suck the first year and boy, I know more and more surely that it is true. Krista said "beautiful alignment, Colette," in Standing Bow Pulling. That feels good. It was nice to be back in the higher humidity of my home studio--Sweatbox has excellent air exchange but it keeps the air pretty dry. However, in Sunday's class the sweat was really running into my eyes more than normal. And I did rest out two poses. My balance in Toe Stand continues to improve.

This morning I got to work and checked my uncle's blog to find that my aunt passed away in the night. (My aunt was diagnosed with a rare, virulent brain cancer four years ago, and fought the disease better than almost any "victim" ever.) I went out back and cried by myself for a while, but then I decided I wanted a hug so I went up and told my boss, and a couple of coworkers hugged me, too. It felt so good to tell just one person and receive sympathy. MSH came and picked me up at work and we're home now. Even being "ready" for such news, it's so so hard. My aunt was one of the strongest, toughest, vibrant, most dynamic and powerful women I've ever known. "Can't" never crossed her mind, and she believed in those she loved as much as she believed in herself. Whether it was white-water rafting, walking across France, or passing a school levy for a new high school in a town full of rednecks, tax conservatives, and Californian transplants who did NOT want to raise their property taxes thankyouverymuch, she just DID it. She was a full-time mom, served on the school board, and taught English at the community college. It was very hard when surgery to relieve swelling in her brain took away her ability to speak, or move anything on the left side of her body. Every family gathering used to ring with her laughter and her confident voice. After she got sick, for a long time every time I saw her, afterward I would just weep, with my mother if she was there. Growing up, I mostly spent time with her, my uncle, and cousins when I spent summertime vacations in Grants Pass, about five hours from where I grew up in suburban Portland. She was old-school in that she mothered my sister and I, and her kids' friends, when we were around, just as firmly and kindly as she did her own kids. My favorite photo of her used to hang above her desk at their old house. It was taken just as she and her fellow school board members learned the levy to build the new school had passed. She's in 3/4 profile, her fists raised in celebration, her hair shaking so fast it's a blur, joy across her face. That's how I always want to remember her.

It's early going, but it looks like there will be a small service for family this week. I am going to yoga class today--I know she would want me to. World traveler that she was, my uncle and cousins have insisted my grandma and my sister leave tomorrow on a long-planned trip to Quebec. There will be a larger service at the end of the month or maybe the first part of June. There is a hot yoga studio in Ashland, forty miles from Grants Pass, so I will do my best to keep my sixty days' practice going.

I'm grateful she was given the amazing four years of life after diagnosis. She and my uncle traveled more than most retirees do in four years--up to the Canadian Rockies, out to Boston and to Florida, to Death Valley and many times to California and the Oregon Coast. She and my uncle's lives were full of wonderful friends and strong family. Not everyone has the chance to be with their kids and their husband, knowing they won't live long, and tell them the important things, taking each day as a gift despite the pain and discomfort. And she died at home, with my uncle at her side, having just visited the day before with her kids and her brother and sister.

One April when she was sick (must have been a year after diagnosis) and mostly using a wheelchair, but could still speak, I found out from my grandpa that she and my uncle were up in Washington for a few days, to see the tulips in Skagit Valley. I called my uncle's cell phone and met up with them for the afternoon. It was wonderful. My aunt asked me all about what I was doing, my new job, my boyfriend, were we going to get married, just rejoicing in me. She was frustrated that sometimes she would start a sentence and forget what she was going to say. Her mind had always been incredibly sharp. Jimmy was patient with her and encouraged her to be patient with herself. I am so glad I got to spend that time with them. My uncle's patience is endless. He is so loving and calm and practical. I talked to him last week. I'd just made plans to fly down to Bend and drive with my mom to Grants Pass to visit, May 30-June 2. He told me Jeannie was coming home from the hospital after one more downturn, that she was feeling much more like herself. That they were planning another course of chemo with a drug on the cusp of approval by the FDA for her type of cancer. (Their pharmacy had insurance so they could start right away.) I talked to him about training to be a yoga teacher, he hadn't heard. Now my aunt's free and she's not in pain. I am grateful for that. But my uncle and my cousins. (My cousins are 22 and 28.) My uncle said, as he told me Jeannie was coming home from the hospital and was on the upswing, "I'm so glad she's coming home. It was no fun coming home to an empty house."