Category: Life Lessons

Flying Apart

I try to be even tempered about flying commercial airlines these days. What choice do I have? But it is not an experience I ever look forward to.

In the old days (twenty+ years ago), I used to love flying. Airplanes took me to some pretty cool places around the world: Argentina, South Korea, India, Egypt, Europe, Costa Rica, Hong Kong and all over Canada, to name a few destinations.

I was also accustomed to some rough road travel outside the Western world. I’m thinking of being part of a mule train for three days in the Himalayas. The ten days I spent riding across the Andes on horseback with an adventurous group of fellow travelers.

And fighting for breathing room on some of the oldest and ricketiest so-called buses in India. Vast numbers of locals sat on the roof and hung off the sides. Talk about held together by duct tape and chewing gum.

I loved that kind of traveling. Not only were the experiences cool, but they made for interesting memories. Now airline travel is just about as rough and memories of the experiences are not so great.

I loved flying and air travel so much I applied to become a flight attendant when I was 17. Too young, I learned. “Write back to us when you turn 19,” they wrote encouragingly in my rejection letter.

By then, I’d been accepted at university and my life went in an entirely different direction. I always wonder how life would have turned out had I reapplied to the airline instead of university when I was 19. Life is all about choices and I’d made mine.

In short flights between my home province of New Brunswick to see my Dad in Newfoundland, we almost anticipated being blocked out of St. John’s by fog. That meant rerouting us to Gander in the days when airlines paid for the hotel and supplied meal vouchers. It was the very epitome of excitement when we were teenagers.

Fast forward several decades later. Free meals for flight delays? Ha. Helpful airline personnel? If they are civil, I feel I have scored major. Forget efficiency. I just paid $200 to transport an empty box on this flight with me as baggage. (Yes. Really. It was less expensive than shipping the goods I will put in it another way, but seriously?)

My husband was a pilot with Pan American World Airways back in the day. They served prime rib roast beef prepared in an on board oven in first class with cloth napkins, free wine and real silver cutlery. The linen napkins had a small buttonhole so gentlemen could attach them to their shirt. Bygone era.

So when this Youtube video by Robert Reich popped up, it made sense of a lot going on in the aviation industry these days. As intelligent, funny and charming as economist Robert Reich is, his message is most discouraging.

Even my husband – a bona fide world traveler and former commercial airline pilot who had flown too many hours in his career to even count – is a most reluctant airline passenger these days. We have settled for embellishing our everyday meals with the linen napkins he kept as souvenirs from aviation’s Golden Age.

Airline travel is never going to be again what airline travel once was. Robert Reich explains why. It’s about 6 minutes long.

The Egocentricity of Bad Luck

I don’t know about you, but I find it hard not to take bad luck personally.

I have this belief in karma. So when bad luck happens, I don’t just blame happenstance.

I mentally review my list of recent behaviors as if to find the source of the bad luck. As if I somehow “created” it. Sometimes I believe I do.

That actually seems a bit silly. It reads as if I believe there is some kind of “tit for tat” accounting system in the Universe that rewards people (okay, me) for my good behavior and punishes for my bad behavior.

If the Universe IS trying to punish and teach me a lesson, it is a little bit of overkill. I beat myself up thoroughly enough over real or imagined harm I have done to others.

I can be spleeny and petty, I grant you. I am trying to come to grips with that. But I also have deep spiritual faith. So I actually do believe on some level that bad actions are punished and good behavior is rewarded. Eventually. Granted, it may be on our deathbed.

I know that seems a little silly. It is hard to imagine “god” (whoever or whatever we conceive him/her to be), sitting up on a big white cloud doing accounting all day.

I mean, given the size of the world population, god’s accounting firm in charge of “good” and “bad” behavior must be vast. And I can think of no greater irony for someone who has lived a life worthy enough to land them in heaven to spend an eternity doing accounting in god’s firm. Of any kind.

So my spleeniness challenges me. It is embarrassing to disclose what a kick I get out of my revenge fantasies. “I will do this bad thing to this abuser” and “that bad thing to that other abuser.” The fantasies get so convoluted and ornate that I can be very well pleased with myself for their sheer creativity.

What I am supposed to do for spiritual and emotional growth in the face of “bad luck” – I have read – is to let go. Release the offending incident and the offenders. Karma is supposed to have its way with them. Rotten fruit eventually falls from the tree and all that.

It is laudable when business success is attributed strictly to “good luck” and “talent” and “hard work.” It rarely is the whole picture.

Ruthlessness is an essential quality when your primary goals are to beat the competition and rise to the top of however you define success. Wealth. Power. Privilege. Access. Freedom.

Most of us want to get there or to some semblance of there. Not a great many do.

Those who do are not always eager to share the secrets of their success at the outset. Well, at least not until they are well-settled and satisfied with the level of success they have personally achieved.

Or they get old and start stock-taking. It is usually only then they can turn around to face the masses and imbue them with the “wisdom” they gained to get where they got.

When the superrich encounter bad luck, I am sure they just mow their competition down. They don’t give a fiddler’s fig about the impact steamrollering the opposition will have if less than ethical strategies work in their best interest.

So when bad luck descends, where do you go with it in your mind? Do you use “stock excuses”? “If I hadn’t done this, then that wouldn’t have happened.” “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.” “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.” And so on.

The truth is we don’t always necessarily know why bad luck happens. We just know it is part of life. The losses and insults we have to process are on a very wide continuum indeed. There is a planet of difference between losing an expensive pair of glasses and losing a limb in combat.

But processing bad luck goes through some predictable stages. And ultimately, the response always comes back to what we can and cannot control about the bad luck that has befallen us.

We can go to an optician to replace a pair of glasses. We can undertake the difficult process of rehabilitation in the face of a lost limb. Though the losses vary in scope, whatever issue you are facing must ultimately be addressed in the same way.

So use whatever justification is necessary in the face of bad luck to process and make sense of it for yourself. Maybe it is your karma. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe you should have been more careful with those glasses. Maybe you should have never signed up with the military.

Every action we take has inherent risks. Heck, every day on the planet is a risk. Some people who got up this morning won’t see tomorrow.

I do find it helpful to try to put my bad luck in perspective. There is that old Chinese proverb about the farmer whose horse runs away. Everyone sees it as bad luck until the escaped horse returns with a herd of mares, thus adding to his wealth.

The caution is inherent in Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem, If: “If you can meet triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same.”

Maybe my recent bad luck has nothing whatsoever to do with me or karma or the wrong place at the wrong time. But as I said initially, it is sometimes hard to recognize that in the first blush of searing disappointment or loss.

I need to keep working on keeping myself emotionally and spiritually balanced in the face of “bad luck.” Thankfully, in this instance at least, nobody died.

For that, I feel grateful and profoundly lucky. Always.

Dylan’s Prayer

This morning, I was searching for a prayer.

I need to find one for my special someone.

I need one for my friends.

I need one for me.

Why hadn’t I realized until just now that this Bob Dylan song is basically a prayer in the form of a poem that is sung?

Artists are tricky that way.

I believe the trick to getting older is staying mentally young. It’s an inside job.

As our bodies and our lives evolve and change, we have the option to cave into these limitations. Or we can use corporal limitations to be free in our minds.

There is no value in an old jock endlessly reminiscing about bygone glory days on the football field.

There is no value in a beautiful woman tracking, tracing and bemoaning every new wrinkle and loss of fullness in her face.

You don’t need body strength to paint, read, write, listen to (or create) music.

What you need is a young heart, mind and spirit. How you do that is up to you. Spend time around children and watch them play. Bring food or flowers to friends or strangers. Dance. Laugh. Always, always laugh.

Because as tragic and heavy as life can be, hard things can be reframed with mirth and light. Comedians make a living off this.

The journey of life is short though it may seem long. Don’t waste more minutes than necessary stuck in the mud of dark feelings on the side of life’s road.

Those immutable elements of reframing are always available as they are an inherent part of you.

May you stay forever young.

“May God bless and keep you always

May your wishes all come true

May you always do for others

And let others do for you

May you build a ladder to the stars

And climb on every rung

May you stay forever young

May you grow up to be righteous

May you grow up to be true

May you always know the truth

And see the lights surrounding you

May you always be courageous

Stand upright and be strong

And may you stay forever young

May your hands always be busy

May your feet always be swift

May you have a strong foundation

When the winds of changes shift

May your heart always be joyful

May your song always be sung

And may you stay forever young.”

Bob Dylan, https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/forever-young/

This Way or That

I watched an encaenia address online by actor/comedian Jim Carrey in which he told the graduating class they would consistently have two choices moving forward in their lives: love or fear. It made me deeply uncomfortable.

Fear is my old buddy. My go-to companion when I face something new and scary. In the old days, it was before a date maybe. Or before starting a new job. Or traveling somewhere I’d never been before to do something I’d never tried.

I know fear intimately and had spent years building that relationship. It is comfortable like wearing a broken in pair of slippers is comfortable or slipping into a well-worn bathrobe.

Fear has not served me particularly well, however. It often scuppered new opportunities before they had a chance to develop. Bear in mind that younger me was pretty much an emotional basket case, somewhat beyond a normal young person’s insecurities.

I had a tiny, little suitcase full of tricks I pulled out regularly to get me through daily life. An innate intelligence. A strong survival instinct. A pleasing and mostly acquiescent personality.

What I tried to hide – unsuccessfully – was the trunk of insecurities that suitcase sat on top of. I could suss out negative perspectives and opinions people were going to have of me before I even met them. I was my own self-contained judge, jury and executioner in social and work situations before I even showed up.

For the most part, my little bag of tricks worked sufficiently to allow me to “get by” in life. My father explicitly expressed that as a reasonable expectation for me. For my Dad, “getting by” was sufficient. Happiness and success were unrealistic, and mostly unattainable, life goals.

I was one of those kids who was held in sway by parental neuroses and limitations for far longer than I am comfortable admitting. In retrospect, it is clear from their own failures that they had no authority to advise anyone on the ingredients for making a happy life.

At a point, I honestly believed taking advice from anyone other than them would have, in some weird way, meant disrespecting them. After all, they knew me best, I believed. Didn’t they? Over time, I came to realize that wasn’t true. How could they? I didn’t even know myself.

So choosing love as a starting point is something of a weird choice for me. My old buddy fear largely dictates the script. “They’ll hate me.” “They are out to get me.” “I won’t measure up.” And because I leaned into that mantra in the past, fear turned out to be most often correct.

What shook me out of it? Seeing my parents as they were and not as I conceived them to be was the starting point. Learning that love is an action and not just words was another. They loved me and said it often – in their own way and within their own limited view of what love was.

That turning point also came – a little later than I care to admit – when I realized my children did not need to hear me natter on or share my wisdom about avoiding life mistakes. All they needed from me was love and support.

Instead of absorbing my well-meaning but misplaced advice, they were and are completely capable of figuring out the rest for themselves. I’ve got two smart kids.

So the internal struggle between choosing love over fear is still at play within me. I have recently been choosing fear and revenge fantasies over acceptance and opening my heart to the consequences of a crushing disappointment.

All my spiritual readings tell me there is learning to be had here. To face disappointment as if you had actually chosen it. That the Universe is folding as it should.

Fear takes all together too much pleasure in the petty and picayune scenarios it is able to devise that are – I realize – completely and utterly within my own head. I am at a learning crossroads. And I hate it.

I appreciate the comfort and utility of my old bathrobe and slippers. Even though they embarrass me, I am loathe to cast them aside to see what better offerings might be out there for me.

I may be talking in circles because I am in the middle of one. Unsure of what to do next or what the best course of action is. The only comfort I take from this rumination is that at least I am still thinking about.

I have not acted on my petty revenge fantasies or anything similarly boneheaded. I believe I am being encouraged to let go, shed my fear, work through my disappointment and see what might be on the other side of this emotional mountain.

I will either sit at this dreary way station and fester in a misery I am electing to hang on to. Or I can put on my hiking boots and start walking. The choice is – I realize -entirely up to me.

Fear or love. What’s it going to be?

Better Than This

I habitually make broad unclear distinctions between “little me” and “mature me.” The distinctions are often blurry and hard for me to act on in the moment.

I want to be a paragon of peace and tranquillity. I really do. However my troublesome and messy human tendencies frequently get in the way and foul up my plans.

I would love to spend the holidays awash in feelings of unlimited love and kindness that the season promotes. I really would.

So when an offhand remark hits me right in the gut and tears well up in my eyes, I am not at all good at dismissing the insult. I will, of course. But it will take time.

I have learned to manage disappointments in this way. I prepare to receive what I am pretty sure is bad news. The bad news lands. I absorb it and try not to react right away. That gives me time to feel and work through my uncomfortable reactions.

Sometimes I play a game in my head of timing how long it will take to for the negative feelings to subside and go away completely. I think about how I am likely going to feel the next day and in the coming days and calculate whether the insult has had sufficient impact to last until then.

Maybe it was an “it will only resolve next week” kind of insult. I am never 100% sure in the moment.

Whatever the time frame, I am forced to move through uncomfortable feelings with the hope and knowledge that they will eventually go away.

Part of me wonders why I can be so thin-skinned. A trauma history likely. My emotional boundaries often seem to be as strong as cheesecloth. Easy to penetrate.

Or maybe it’s because I missed the crucial development stage of learning self-regulation in my childhood. I’m working on it but like many other things taken up for the first time in adulthood, it is harder to learn and stick to.

It is Boxing Day. (When I was younger, I imagined that it was a special day when some sort of big and public pugilistic contest was regularly held.)

Since my day started off a bit rocky with a bit of an emotional boxing match, that minor altercation will define the day for me. I am still in deep insult processing mode.

The holidays are a special time of year certainly. They also take place in the midst of our regular day-to-day lives. The New Year approaches with its annual opportunity to think about the year gone by, let go of the old that we are happy to bid farewell to and welcome in the new… whatever we think awaits us.

I look forward to the annual changeover as I do every year.

I should be well past processing “little Margot’s” hissy fit of today by then.

Merry Festivus

A holiday for the rest of us. At least, that’s how George Costanza explained it on Seinfeld.

Look it is the Lord Jesus Christ’s Birthday and all that (if you are a believer. Some heathens just aren’t.)

And I know Festivus is “officially” celebrated on December 23.

Whatever. My blog. My rules.

Seriously, this is too funny. Besides, it’s Christmas Day. For some of us. Have you got nothing better to do than read blog posts? (Even though this one is pretty funny and worthwhile.)

If you don’t well, forgive me for being an insensitive lout. The holidays are a pretty complicated time of year for a whole lot of folks I know. Maybe you are one of them? So have a chuckle on Seinfeld’s dime.

I prefer to celebrate sanctity and spirituality as and when Spirit moves me to.

Here’s the article cribbed from CNN about how to best “ring in” this – if not august – then alternate holiday celebration. It’s funny. Because I say so. (But hope you agree.) Enjoy!!

Happy holidays, ya’ll.

If you hate tinsel and love “Seinfeld,” Festivus is already the perfect holiday for you.

Popularized by the show in 1997, the anti-consumerism holiday is celebrated by “Seinfeld” fans every December 23.

And it doesn’t take much to get into the Festivus mood. Just follow these five steps.

1. Get a Festivus pole

Search your home for an aluminum pole. It has to be aluminum because you want it to have “very high strength-to-weight ratio” as Frank Costanza says. Decorations are distracting, so leave the pole in its plain and unadorned beauty.

Sure, you can buy your own Festivus pole, from places such as FestivusPoles.com, but it’s really better if you make your own. Non-commercial is the true spirit of Festivus.

festivus pole garden

Jason Kravarik

2. Prepare a Festivus dinner

Meatloaf is key to stay true to the “Seinfeld” episode. It should rest on top of a bed of lettuce to celebrate Festivus in the appropriate fashion.

3. Air your grievances

At the beginning of the Festivus dinner, force all your guests to listen to all the times they’ve disappointed you this year. It’s a really healthy ritual. Even Sen. Rand Paul has tried it.

4. Join in the Feats of Strength

As the host, you’ll want to test your strength and wrestle one of your guests. After all, the two of you did just enjoy a very protein-filled dinner. 

Festivus is not considered over until the host is pinned to the floor. A guest can only decline the challenge if he or she has something more important to do, such as working a double shift.

5. Call all slightly non-routine events ‘Festivus miracles’

You carried all your groceries into the house in one trip. You took the subway for the first time, and it didn’t smell. You ran into your friend you’ve been meaning to call at a local coffee shop.

All these are excellent examples of “Festivus miracles.” Be sure to exclaim loudly and proudly when you realize it is such.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/23/living/festivus-5-ways-to-celebrate-trnd/index.html

On the Road

I awoke this morning enveloped in dead silence. Aaaah. So lovely.

I am in a hotel miles away from home in Osprey, Florida. At home, I realize, electronics run perpetually about me. The ceiling fan. The bathroom fan. The outdoor heater. The air purifier.

In this here hotel, there is none of that. My ears awoke this morning to nothing and I was struck by how different that is from my normal.

I am abed and luxuriating in this simple and peaceful environment. I am headed for a Christmas weekend adventure to stay in a houseboat overnight. Florida is unquestionably an odd state in the union.

Known for its weirdness and tackiness and Disney World. But Florida affords travelers unique water-based experiences that you would be unlikely to find, say, in Nebraska.

No doubt Nebraska has its own unique charms and surprises to discover. Houseboats on the ocean is definitely not one of them.

Isn’t odd how we end up living where we live? The possibilities are endless but eventually we must all decide on somewhere. Maybe we were born where we live. Most unusual these days but still, possible.

Or we transferred jobs or got a promotion. That planted us somewhere across the country to a place we have become deeply attached to and now call home. Or we retired, and deliberately sought out sun, sea and sand and zero personal income tax. Maybe John and Susan moved here first, talked it up, had you visit and now you live here, too.

I know people whose whole extended family has pulled up stakes and moved several thousand miles across the country to live around each other in retirement. I consider them lucky to have family relationships strong enough to merit that move.

So my intent this weekend is to see a little more of the surrounding countryside in the place I temporarily call home. Gathering me rosebuds while I may and all that.

There is something mentally refreshing about simply seeing different signage along the road or as you pass through small towns. Meandering down highways that are bordered by different landscapes than you are used to is visually interesting snd stimulating.

Last night, I ordered take-out from a Mexican food chain called Tomatillo’s that I had never heard of before. Mighty tasty steak tacos.

So soon I shall rise, eat a hearty breakfast and get back on the road. My chosen route is through a backcountry route where I hear alligators laze up on the side of the road. You can’t get a more extreme than that for a change of scenery.

What I like about travel is what awaits me when I go back home. I always see my home with fresh eyes after an outing, regardless if it is long or short.

We never travel any distance in reality in the long run. Wherever we go, there we are. But travel does stretch and educate us, if we’re lucky. I used to regard people with disdain who travelled in developing countries and spent little time outside their hotel and constantly complained and made disparaging comparisons to their living conditions at home. So why did they bother to leave home at all, I often wondered?

I have only another day of wandering around before I head back to my “permanent address” and pay my respects to the biggest day of the Christian calendar. Meanwhile, I am going to milk this day and tomorrow for all they are worth.

I hope to return home with a new perspective. And if I’m lucky, pictures and tales of alligators I encountered lying along the road.

Eventually we all come home again. To a physical one here on Earth or to our spiritual home. It’s just a matter of time. My responsibility on this planet is to suck as much of the marrow out of this earthly experience before I light off for a purely spiritual one.

At that point, I will live each timeless moment in all the silence I ever longed for.

Nada Christmas

I believe I have solved my Christmas ennui. This holiday comes after a very rocky and tumultuous pre-season. For the world at large and for me.

I honestly don’t think I can handle one more story about Gaza. Every time humanity survives a major global fiasco and declares “Never Again,” a new set of horrors rise up again.

I shake with mortification about the assumptions of younger me. To be fair, I think every 21 year old believes they can save the world. It is probably designed that way so we can continually relight the internal fires of ambition and hope as we struggle to get a toehold in life and on our feet.

Life changes us. All of us. One way or the other. Our ambitions don’t necessarily change but they narrow. We trade in our ambitions to save the world and focus on saving ourselves. We shift our focus away from helping faceless masses to supporting the individuals who are born or led to us.

I am not saying we should or do move away from sharing our wealth with causes that deserve our attention. It is just that it becomes necessary to make sure our own boat is solid and floating before we try to save the ill-fated Titanic.

I have done nothing for Christmas this year. And I want nothing. As I was dithering about this and wrestling with my old inner compulsions at this time of year, I came across a most helpful blog post.

Beloved writer Garrison Keillor of Prairie Home Companion on PBS fame published a post that popped up at just the right time for me. His stories about Christmases past resonated deeply with me as he recounted the fruitless hours he spent on finding “perfect gifts” that received an at-best lukewarm reception from the recipients.

He made a most convincing argument for escaping the commercial allure of the season. In his case, he will spend Christmas at sea with his wife and daughter and no presents. He is right about one thing.

At a certain stage we are all going to declutter the accumulated possessions of a lifetime. Either we take charge and see to that process while we are still able. Or, as many do, we leave the planet and foist the unwelcome task on obligated family members.

That lacks grace and consideration. A truly loving legacy is to leave behind clean closets and organized photo albums. Not shoeboxes full of unidentifiable and unwanted keepsakes that only you wanted to keep.

I took a page from Keillor’s blog post. Today we depart for parts south on a holiday road trip to places I have long wanted to see. Not a long holiday. Just the weekend and Christmas Day. But long enough and far away enough to temporarily sever ties with the weight of holiday expectations.

That’s good enough for me. It pleases me to consider that thousands and thousands of young families with small children out there to pick up the slack. Most children still shake with anticipation and excitement about Santa’s upcoming visit. It is a joyous, fleeting and delightful life stage. Until one day it isn’t.

Your kids choose to spend holidays with their lover’s family. Pals elect to get together and make Christmas their own way. Soon, you are planning a Christmas cruise with other girlfriends. Christmas, as we once knew it, is over.

It is not necessarily a bad thing. Christmas is a loaded season emotionally precisely for its history and traditions. I have newly widowed girlfriends facing their first Christmas without their husbands. Estranged parents make excuses or lie outright to peers about the amount of contact they have with their adult children.

I have one searingly honest friend who has never enjoyed the Christmas holidays and cannot wait until this “joyous” season is over. That joy is not universally shared by a long shot. Having to keep up appearances and fake feelings of joy at a difficult and emotional time of year can make it even worse.

So I am planting a new stake as a way to “celebrate” Christmas this year. Taking care of those nearest and dearest to me without much fanfare at all. Their company and outreach is all I hope for. I can say emphatically as I get older that truly is all that matters.

At the end of the day, holiday celebration is a deeply personal and individual choice. Rebel that I am I will be celebrating my own version of “holiday cheer” with my husband by leaving town.

Santa Claus is coming and, now that I’m all grown up, I don’t think there is room for both of us. If you’re lucky enough to have little ones in your life at this time of year, then enjoy them with gusto. It is a fleeting phase.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate. Happy holidays to those who celebrate other mid-winter traditions.

Whatever you celebrate at this time of year, and however you choose to do it, focus on making it yours.

OPW

Sometimes OPW (other people’s wisdom) is too good not to share.

Especially when OPW is your wisdom and belief.

I’ve often thought a manual should come with every newborn baby.

That way, eager young parents would have the tools at hand to imbue their children with solid life lessons for building a happy life.

But no. Life doesn’t work like that. We are all given challenges and lessons to learn as we (hopefully) grow. Each life is individualistically designed to teach us what we need to know.

That said, this list is a pretty solid “go-to” for guiding you to better decisions and making better use of your time on the planet.

  1. Fix yourself before you try to fix anyone else. People are often very comfortable in their miserable lives.
  2. You’ll be 10 times happier if you forgive your parents and stop blaming them for your problems.
  3. Marry the right partner. The right one will help you build your physical, mental, and financial strength.
  4. Make friends who are ambitious, motivated, and strong where you are weak.
  5. Be old enough to realize no one cares. Chase what you believe is right and just.
  6. Seek zero advice from people who are not where you want to be in life.
  7. Your circle of friends should discuss business ideas, family, and success more.   Not politics, religion, and celebrity gossip.
  8. Spend a few hours every week working on your business and dreams. Working for someone will only get you enslaved forever.
  9. Invest in a home library. Nothing is more toxic than wasting your time watching the news, Netflix, or scrolling social media.
  10. Create opportunities for yourself. No one will ever come to save you from your problems.

Yoga

I went to a yoga class this morning for the first time in what feels like forever. Man, was it good to be back in a studio.

Yoga is often misunderstood as a mamby-pamby exercise routine characterized by weird and exotic names, pretzel twists and breathing work that is based on the philosophy of Eastern religions. It is marked by chanting and incense and all manner of distinctly un-athletic activity.

While parts of that are true, it could not be farther from the whole picture of what yoga is and offers practitioners. Of course, there are some pretzel twists if I’m honest. But they are sooo satisfying.

I reconnected this morning with muscles in my anatomy I had forgotten were there. Hamstring stretches. Spinal twists. Deep and focused belly breathing.

Speaking of flab, it flabbergasts me how easily once taut muscles can dissolve into lassitude.

I must compliment the yoga teacher for her gentle but rigorous teaching approach. This session was no walk in the park but neither was it boot camp for Navy SEALS. I had done a lot of yoga in my previous life.

I even completed a sixty day marathon once where I did one yoga class every day over two months. That took a little commitment. I got to explore a lot of different Yoga disciplines over that time period in the Rama Lotus Yoga studio: Vinyassa, Hatha, Iyengar, Vini, Ashtanga wore me out! Thankfully, there really is something for every age and fitness level.

I cheated once or twice (in my opinion) by taking part in a Yoga Nidra class. All we had to do for the entire class was lie prostrate on your back on the floor. I love Yoga Nidra.

I find it funny, though, how busy your body can be even when you are doing nothing. Every knot and pressure point and tensed up muscle makes its presence known when you’re simply lying on your back on the floor.

I came to love yoga for its health and energy benefits. Other than swimming, not many sports appeal to me. Competitive sports are for other brave souls.

Yoga kept me limber and flexible for a good long time. To me, that is one of yoga’s greatest gifts. Muscles need to move and yoga postures address all of them.

Don’t be put off by the weird posture names. Downward Dog. Sun Salutations. Tree Pose. I was put off by the names, at first, and I definitely have my favorite practices. Yoga is great in that it offers a diversity of choices so you can find and settle into the preferred practice you want to actively pursue.

I was once heavily into Bikram yoga. That is a special branch of “hot yoga” and is practiced in a very hot room. Its’ creator has since come into disrepute for the “touchy-feely” license he took with students.

But the foundations of Bikram yoga are solid. A steady progression through the twenty-six postures from start to finish that gently stretch every part of your body for a complete and deeply satisfying exercise routine.

I hope I started on a new path today. Day One of what I hope will be a revived weekly yoga practice. Baby steps however.

I don’t want to commit the familiar mistake I make of jumping into something with too much enthusiasm. That tends to burn me out and could threaten to put me off an otherwise engaging and beneficial activity pretty darn quick.

I was heartened to discover that by reengaging in a “first step” back to something I previously loved and was committed to, it may once again become a regular habit.

After today’s session, I am heartened and encouraged that a regular yoga practice may take root again in my life.

Time will tell, of course. But it was a decidedly promising start.