One Down, Eleven to Go: My Groundhog Day Resolutions

I managed to make it through January without resolving anything. Based on the overcrowding in my yoga classes, I was swimming upstream (Shout out to the guy who wore jeans to Myra’s Vinyasa class on Sunday:  good effort, but buy some sweats, honey). 

Now, in the spirit of contrarianism, I’m making resolutions for February 2, that day of fresh starts and keenly observed rodents. With only eleven months to toil away at the resolutions, I’m hopeful that my odds of keeping them will be higher.

My perennial resolution-threat, to start smoking, has failed again. I always feel the need to take up the habit each year, in order to balance out all the quitters. After all, Altria has to make money somehow. (By the same token, though, I should also resolve to gain weight, and that’s something I’m all too likely to do, so I’m tabling that proposal until the tapeworm takes hold.)

I’m beginning to think that my failure at starting the smoking habit comes down to a matter of equipment. While I am in possession of an ashtray stolen from Sardi’s in 1980, the only lighter I could use is the long wand thingy-y that’s used to light the broken stove, and that might set the wrong tone. Also, I could really use a Cartier cigarette case like the ones Linda Porter used to give to Cole on opening night, and I can’t seem to get anyone to give me one for Christmas.

So I’m tossing out the smoking plan until 2012, or until I get that cigarette case, whichever comes first. And, for Groundhog Day, I’m thinking of the following fresh resolutions:

Resolution One:  Learn Something New.  Some mornings, when I wake up, I swear that I can actually feel that my brain has shrunk overnight, like a pair of jeans after the Girl Scout cookies are delivered. My children are learning things all the time – Mary Katherine is learning lines for a play and Emma is learning polynomials. Even Boomer is learning how to ingest socks, plastic and entire sticks of butter with no ill effect. It might be a language, an instrument, or just how to frost cupcakes so they look like the ones of the covers of the women’s magazines, but I need to expand my repertoire before ’11 is a dim memory.

Resolution Two: The Yelling Thing. I grew up in a home in which belittling was the order of day, every day, at least for the grownup in charge. Every foible, mispronunciation, or bit of toilet paper stuck to one’s shoe was noticed, called out and mocked. Incidents from years gone by were stored, cataloged, and brought out to be discussed at moments when they were calculated to produce the most possible discomfort. To protest was to be told, in a disappointed tone, that one clearly had no sense of humor. I learned, in my home, that a loud laugh was always meant to accompany cruelty, not mirth.

So, good news, I don’t do that.

However, I also grew up in a home where “good morning” was uttered at a full-tilt shout, and decibels increased throughout the day from there. If happy, one talked loudly, and if angry, one shouted. I learned that a voice could be used as a weapon of intimidation. 

And I do that.  

I’m a yeller.  I try very, very hard not to yell directly AT anyone, but I yell ABOUT things all the time. Lateness and dirt and overscheduling are all opportunities to give my lungs a bit of a work out. Things break. We’re arriving late. Clothes are strewn all over the floor. Really, Julie, do you need to be quite so loud about it?

So I’m going to summon up my inner Minnesotan and try to keep things on an evener, and quieter, keel.

Learning Something New and Piping Down: They aren’t the most glamorous resolutions I’ve ever made, but, then, I only have to live with them for eleven more months.

It's Okay to Hate the Teacher -- Eight Lessons for a New Yogi

Given the fact that I was smacked on the face during utkatasana, rolled on during reclined twists, and farted in the general direction of during a long series of squats during yoga class today, I can tell it’s New Year’s Resolution Time at my local gym. Before I became TPFSY (Too Poor for Studio Yoga), January would pass by with no visible changes in attendance at the nice-smelling, feng-shui’d practice spaces I used to frequent. Since everyone there was Totally Committed and Had a Beautiful Practice, they showed up year-round and on-time (early, even!). They didn’t let the Jenny Craig commercials that started running on December 26 shame then into Moya’s 8:05 Fitness Yoga class at the Southdale YMCA. (Held in what used to be the spin space, it still smells of burned-out gearshifts and man sweat, which makes me want to weep at the thought of Jeffrey, Tarana Studio, and those eucalyptus-scented incense sticks he used to wave around).

I’ve been practicing yoga regularly (I hate to say “seriously” because it sounds so pole-up-the-ass-y) for about eight years. I can honestly say that I was the most pathetic yogi on the planet for a good three of those years, and maybe more. I grunted. I sweated. I fell over during every class, in poses like, oh, say, triangle (not a real balance-buster for the normal person). I’m not that much better now, but I’m less visibly pathetic. Still, just because I’m not falling over doesn’t mean I don’t sympathize. So during today’s full-to-the-resolution-brim class, in between the smacks and the farts, I decided to create a Quick Guide for the New Yogi, with some tips I wish someone had shared with me back in my early days.

Lesson One. Show up on time. And if you simply must be tardy, and you are currently tipping the scales at a nifty two hundred pounds, don’t tromp past all the other mats in your big dirty outside shoes, and rearrange your rustly coat, while the rest of us are accessing our inner whatevers in child’s pose. Lady with the bad haircut and the kittycat t-shirt, size XXL, feel my wrath. Wait until an appropriate time, open the door quietly, and unroll your mat in the closest space possible. You're already late; don't be loud, too.

Lesson Two. Close your mouth and breathe through your nose. The teacher isn’t kidding. Breathing really does help. But if you keep imitating a Japanese koi during class, you’ll never have a chance to find that out for yourself.

Lesson Three. Take your socks off. If your feet, or any of your other parts, are that grotty, go outside to the weight room, which, to my delicate sensibility, resembles the yard of a penitentiary and will be much more to your liking. Otherwise, you are going to slip around so much that there is sure to be a cross-mat violation with your neighbor. The way things are currently going in my life, odds are that the neighbor will be me.

Lesson Four. Stop looking around. It will just depress you and it will make me very nervous. I once had a teacher say that if you walked out of class and could describe the person who had been on the mat next you, you weren’t doing yoga at all. In short: Stay On Your Mat.

Lesosn Five. Brush up on “left” and “right.” Here’s a little exercise: Hold your hands out, fingers straight ahead and thumbs touching. See the letter “L” made by that one special hand and thumb? That’s your Left Hand, and it’s attached to your Left Side! If this little exercise does not do the trick, use a Sharpie to write the 411 on your knuckles, like a prison tattoo. Your fellow classmates, who do not really want eye contact with you when you’re on the wrong foot every single time we do Warrior II, will thank you.

Lesson Six. It’s okay to hate the teacher. I think back on the best yoga teachers I’ve ever had, and I hated them so bitterly and miserably, and with such specific plans for their demise, that it’s a wonder some of them didn’t just immolate about half an hour into the proceedings. (That’s the point at which, even now, despair usually overtakes me and I realize I will be stuck in this room For. Ever.) I think it’s better to allow yourself to really fixate on how much your hate that teacher’s well-toned behinder. Go ahead and despise deeply -- it may allow you to stop thinking about the pain in your knees for a few seconds longer. And now, a personal note: Andrea, I owe you a special apology here. Yes, now I do understand that you were in fact aware that we were all holding side angle for HOURS while you were helping that grandma understand that a bent knee and a straight leg were Two Different Things. You were a wonderful teacher and you did not deserve the evilness I sent your way.

Lesson Seven. Find the top of your mat.  Stand on your mat.  Walk forward.  When you feet touch the floor, back up.  You are now at the top of your mat.  Stay there until further notice.  Also?  When all the mats in the room are not perfectly parallel, the Buddha weeps (another shout out to Andrea, who taught me this important tidbit).

Lesson Eight. It’s going to hurt. For the first two years of my practice, I never climbed up my front steps after yoga class in anything but a whimpering crouch. My butt hurt all the time. If you’re doing it right, yours will hurt, too.

So why bother? Bother because it IS hard. Bother because progress IS slow. Every class, you’ll move forward the thickness of a piece of paper. One hour of your time invested, and all you’ll have to show for it is one flimsy sheet of paper. And if you think that’s not worth it, look at a phone book some time.

Someday, you’ll be a great yogi. Or, maybe not. But every single class that you attend, you’ll leave in better shape than when you went in. And, I hope, you won’t remember anything about me, that lady on the mat next to you.

A Shimmy in Place of a Crow: New Year’s Resolutions Redux

Whenever anyone asks me what my New Year’s resolution is going to be, I always say, with complete seriousness, that this year, I’m going to start smoking. Just saying these words out loud drives everyone around me crazy, especially my children.

Each year’s conversation, predictably, goes something like this:

Children: What do you want for Christmas, Mom?

Me: Ashtrays. And lighters. I’d ask for cartons of cigarettes, too, but you’re probably too young to buy them legally. I’m really going to stick to my resolution this year!

Children: Squeals of dismay, followed by: Plead, plead, plead. Lecture, lecture, lecture.

I grew up in a household with two chain smokers who favored unfiltered Chesterfields, in quantities approaching “bulk,” so my lungs have surely seen enough tar and nicotine to last a lifetime. But a gal can dream, and I always picture myself as Bette Davis. Early years Bette, that is, before the emphysema got her.

In addition to my perennially doomed smoking-related resolution, I try to make one additional promise to myself each year. Two years ago, it was to never refuse a request to volunteer for any task, no matter how odious, for the next twelve months. Good resolution, it turns out. It was a busy year, a surprising year, and a year in which I made several new friends. It was also a year in which I reminded myself why volunteering at my children’s grade school made my armpits itch, but that’s another story. On December 28 of that year, I met a friend for coffee and she arm-twisted me into joining a board of directors to a non-profit group to which we both belonged. I felt like asking her, “Couldn’t you have waited four days to ask me, when I’d be knee-deep in cigarette cartons, plowing through my next year’s resolution?” But I accepted, and, honestly, I can’t say I’m any the worse for wear.

Last year, I determined to master bakasana, or crow pose, in yoga. As a marginally adequate but enthusiastic yogi, I have progressed enough in seven years to refrain from falling over whenever we have to stand on one leg, but I lack the arm strength, confidence and inner peace to manage even the most rudimentary arm balance. Last January, it seemed suddenly possible. When the teacher would announce time for crow, I’d think, “Today’s the day.”

Resolution Update: It’s December. No crow. I’ve rediscovered the fact that, in addition to moving too rapidly downhill or operating heavy machinery, I really hate to teeter. I would rather stay put, always. This, in fact, is why I like yoga in the first place. Bare feet, firm ground, and I’m not going anywhere. If you think I’ve missed the significance of this as a metaphor for my own pathetic life, I haven’t. And I can’t even step into the smoking lounge to forget about my failure.

I did master something else this year. It became one of those mid-year resolutions that I allow into the mix when it seems as if the main resolution is already a lost cause. And it started because I was desperate when my Tuesday – Thursday yoga teacher quit. Since I had become, then as now, TPFSY (Too Poor for Studio Yoga), I had to find an acceptable substitute within the YMCA system, and the pickings, let us say diplomatically, were slim. I pined for Stephanie, my Tuesday/Thursday guru. Finally, emboldened, I decided to take a class That Was Not Yoga. This was a huge step for a woman who loves standing still on a mat. I laced up my sneakers and went to Wendy’s Zumba class. Ay caramba. It was as if the top of my chakra-aligned head had been peeled open, and a freshly mixed blender of frozen margaritas poured inside. Zumba is everything yoga is not. It’s fast and loud and crazy. I loved it, even though a glance in the class mirrors told me that the memory of Gwen Verdon could rest safely for the nonce.

So what if I danced like someone who had been living in Minnesota for sixteen years? It was almost as much fun as I might have had smoking, or doing crow pose, or doing crow pose while smoking.

I started bringing my daughters, then their friends, to class, and we took over whole corners of the studio with our enthusiastic gyrations. My youngest girl is a great dancer, and I couldn’t help but admire how this innocent little pre-teen could shimmy. Her shoulders never stopped shaking what the good Lord gave her, and then some. I, in contrast, had stiff, intractable shoulders that moved with all the grace and flexibility of a couple of bulldozers.

I resolved, mid-June, to perfect my shimmy. I watched my daughter carefully. I asked for pointers. I broke down the steps and moved very slowly at first, and then I built up steam.

And you know what? I’m not half bad. It’s not Marilyn Monroe in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.” It’s not even a sidekick shimmy such as Jane Russell might manage. But it’s me -- moving off my mat and shaking things up. And that might be the best resolution I’ve made – and kept – in a long time.