So I’ve been keeping up with the Bikram, and I’m really liking it. It’s challenging, but the heat really leads me to focus and still my head in a way that I find difficult with other yoga practices. There have been so many times I’ve attempted to empty my head and lie in Savasana the way you are instructed to, but instead I’m counting off some to-do list in my mind or thinking about what I’ll make for dinner this week or rehashing an earlier uncomfortable conversation I had or basically doing anything but meditating as you are supposed to. With Bikram though it’s all heat and sweat, and you can’t muster the energy to meander through your mental maze. On the wall of the yoga studio I’ve been visiting, there is a quote by Dharma Mittra that stares at you as you sweat and breathe. It says Everything is perfect, and nothing is permanent. And of course my first reaction is that everything is not perfect. My restless and critical self can tell you five things that are imperfect at any given moment. Right now? My hair, my house, my unconfirmed fall travel plans, my half-finished craft projects lying around here, and the ridiculous mess of an American educational system that is completely broken.
That’s off the top of my head, but I can certainly keep going if I choose to. Imperfections are everywhere it seems.
It’s one thing to be as glass-half-full as you can be and list out gratitudes in a journal somewhere, but it’s quite another to convince yourself that your right now is perfect and just what is needed and that things are transient in a way that inevitably brings more change and more of what you need and more assurance that what happened before was indeed perfect. And on this topic, I pinned this lovely print this week on Pinterest.
How lovely is that? To bring you to the now that is right on time just sinks in for me. It’s a constant battle for most of us, I think, no matter the age, to convince ourselves that certain detours or seasons in our lives are not “lost” time, but they offer us something that was necessary and worthy. So my usual questions of what is good today? and what can I offer today? are morphing into what perfections do I see? and gratitude for not only little lovely things but also ways that my days are all seamed into a bigger picture I might not even fully understand yet but one day I will. I feel my restlessness creeping in lately, and I’m trying to battle it with some affirmations about enjoying right here and right now without planning and dreaming and scheming as I tend to do. Restlessness is a curse of the human condition, I think. Or this human’s anyway. Stillness is hard sometimes.
We’ve been gone so much these past few months with our recent travels that it does feel good to dig our heels in again at home though. Sometimes I think travel is a rescue from doldrums and restlessness, and other times it seems that it can inspire even more restlessness if you fail to see the good in home because you’ve had a little too much time away. I think that’s where I’ve been lately. Some gypsy nomad family life would probably be much better in the imagination than in real life because you wouldn’t have moments like finger-painting over coffee.
Or hearing someone say, “mama hide!” from somewhere under the table and finding this.
Which in case you are wondering why he’s hiding under the table with a graham cracker, this might shed some light on that equation.
Never a dull moment around here, even in these familiar four walls. So for now, we are sinking a little deeper in the sofa seats and using these weeks before fall to try and savor the end of summer. Maybe some more swimming or popsicles on the porch or garden raiding or margarita drinking or lightning bug watching. Whatever we need to remind us that right here is perfect for our right now.
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Mama the Reader 