Stream of Consciousness…Nov. 2017

11-10-17

One idea after the other has flooded into my head today and I am not able to act upon a single one in completion.  Yet, that’s okay.  My brain is working, and I’m thankful.  I wrote an added chapter to my work in progress which

has opened doors and avenues for more ideas….

 

I met with friends who inspire me and nurture my brain, as we talk on one topic and then another which leads to even another.  Then, we decide on a general time frame for our next meet, all of which enriches my soul.

It is comforting to know there are many more ideas waiting to come to life when this current goal comes to its fruition.

To my delight, my doctor’s visit today included discussion about Quentin Tarantino movies.  Dark and disturbing, but nothing I’d walk out on.  Darkness lives among us.  We cannot run from it, but we can try to shine our light into its corners.  I also tend to take a muscle relaxer when it creeps up on me like some of those Tarantino scenes…They creep up on you and blow up immediately.  Case in point:  The Hateful Eight.

There is awe-inspiring literature still to be discovered, and though I am in between books, I am once again teaching the wonderful novel by Walter Dean Myers, titled Bad Boy.  At the heart of it is his struggle for identity, his longing to be a writer like Shelly or Byron, existing right beside his love for ‘playing ball’ and his increasing awareness that race and his place in society (back in his time) may not fit with his desire to write like Yeats.  His struggle for identity touches me.  Portions of this novel are very dark, but I can say that I have been there.  I went through that.  It had nothing to do with race, but more with my place in society, living in a mobile home park with a divorced mother who worked very hard to make ends meet.  Living with the memories of my dad as an angry alcoholic and later, talking with him on the phone, a converted stranger trying to get to know me as a sober dad, long-distance.  I never felt college was really within reach until my dad made it clear to me in 12th grade that I really needed to try it, and that he would help.  There were dark days where I trusted no one, lots of awkward social experiences,  days I had lunch alone (before I remembered to take a book everywhere), and bright days when I earned an A in College Algebra because I studied three hours the night before.  When I read of Myers’ dark days, I feel it.  There were times, as a teen, when I was cutting, thinking of suicide, or partying with other lost teens.  It is such a soul-searching venture to dig deeply into this novel.  It also makes me relive some of my son’s teen angst years, all of which is fodder for an entirely separate entry or story.

And then it is time to come back above water.  I know how it ends.  Myers finds his identity and place as a writer.  I am, as an adult, of the mindset that believes there is always hope.  I’ve found my place in society, and I’ve used the dark moments of my life to fuel my writing.  I am still emerging as a writer.  Maybe I’m a fledgling.  I don’t think I’ll ever rest on my laurels.  This makes me feel young, and I pray, pray, pray with all my might that my mental capacities will allow me to spin tales for years to come.

This is what’s on my mind lately.  What’s on yours?

 

Advertisement

Stream of Yogic Consciousness, My Exercise Evolution, Pt 3

“Let yourself sink into the gap between your thoughts, they are like chains, linking, but with the small gaps in between,”  the young, calm yoga instructor suggests.  I can’t help it…my thoughts are more like flames chasing each other…You have to appreciate the metaphors, though, and I really love this instructor!  But sometimes, during yoga, a spark appears in my thoughts and it just takes flame, so I watch it, amused.  My worries gone, my thoughts unthreatening, sometimes they represent ideas, and I really should go with them.  They delight me.  I do not want to throw them back.  So, I just pretend I am counting to ten as suggested, and ridding myself of thoughts, all the while, chuckling inwardly at how I am fooling them all.  🙂

I decided quite a while ago to embrace my thoughts, after worthless attempts to empty them.  Sure, I’ve tried.  I read a “Buddha Bliss” book on meditation that suggested visualizing each thought as a fish that just landed in my hands, and letting it go into the pond of …. pond of, relaxation, I guess?  It did help since I was going through a tough emotional time.   In several ways, though, I have become more able to box up disturbing thoughts and realize when it is time to just let go, to just accept that, hey, it is what it is!  Obviously, sitting in yoga class, I can’t get my son a job or get my bills paid, can’t do anything about my ex-husband and his mess or the things in my life that I want to happen.  Might as well let that all go, and I do.  Those thoughts become replaced by higher-level thoughts, more blissful thoughts.  Well, they are to me, anyhow.  Here is an example from a year ago:

*The instructor tells us to count back from ten when a thought pops into the mind and let it go.  IF another one comes, count backward from ten again.  So, I try.  Then, I notice how my yoga towel is the color of sand, and that being on it is like being at the beach, no, it’s like being on Mars!  Isn’t Mars sandy?  If not, it at least has a lot of that sandy color.  I almost chuckle at myself and start the countdown again.  Then I think about a rocket launch countdown, and while we’re on that topic, let’s circle back to Mars!  Matt Damon is going to Mars in the upcoming movie, The Martian.  Oh, I have to see that movie!  I love Matt Damon, he is awesome!  Thinking of which, I loaded that book on my Kindle, I ought to get around to reading it before the movie.  So, this yoga towel is a flat landscape of Mars.  Then I start thinking of the movie, Interstellar.  They are along similar lines, but not the same.  Each unique in its own right.  I am so excited to read The Martian and see the movie.  Then I start thinking of Matt Damon and his movie, Elysium, and the message he was trying to convey.  Back to a plank, and I see the flat, sandy landscape.  Yes, I realize Mars is probably more rocky than that, and I may be quite wrong about the landscape.  Doesn’t bother me.  But I make a note to self to read more about space and the other planets.  Good plan, I tell myself, almost chuckling again as the instructor does another count back from ten.  It’s all good!  I am such a rebel.

So, here I am, being me,enjoying the heck out of my yoga practice and the thoughts it is inspiring.  I’ve gotta be me, right?  And that, my friends, is healthy thinking, brought to you by the benefits of yoga.  Shhh…Don’t tell anyone.  They might find my rebellion disrespectful.  😉

My Exercise Evolution. What it does for me, Intro…Stream of Consciousness.Pt 1

I’ve run the gamut with exercises.  Aerobics, to kickboxing, to weights, to Zumba, to yoga.  I’m planning to start a regular blog series, weekly or bi-weekly, time will tell, that is focused on the benefits I get from exercise. So, yes, my exercise of choice keeps evolving.  I’ll start here with Zumba.  One day I had a discussion with my students about releasing aggression.  At that time, Zumba was my go to.  That discussion spawned this stream of consciousness that occurred during Zumba class. * They say exercise is good for the brain….

Yoga has, at times been a great outlet for me.  It is more like hypnotizing.  Nothing else matters but the moment, so I leave it all behind.  I still use this one at times.  But what works so well for me in releasing aggression, besides the calming medicine for my overactive colon,  is a mixture of two things.  And I guess I could share this with my students but I didn’t.  Because I get pretty tired of all the sugar-coating.

Right now, the first method of releasing my aggression is my obsession with “Breaking Bad.”  It is a go-to since I can even do this if I’m sick.  I get to watch a meek, down-on-his-luck fellow totally buck the system, come up against some really bad villains, and succeed.  Man, this show is violent.  I myself am even surprised I got hooked, but you know, it makes you care about the characters.  It’s not just the violence, there also are some excellent story-telling elements like flashback and foreshadowing.  Similarly, I have, for a long time, been totally hooked on “Fringe”, which is also pretty violent and ominous.  But I can put myself in the place of their unstoppable female heroine, Olivia, who,yes, always wins, even escaping captivity after countless times.  These are great ways of escape for me.  Life can’t be all about work and cooking dinner, you know?

Then there is Zumba.  Last year I had told some students that I do Zumba and their eyes got wide.  They probably know about the snake (which I don’t do unless I want to laugh at myself).  Well, I stay away for a while and then go back and it’s like returning to a lost lover.  It is so good for me.  Not to mention I love to dance and this is my only dance right now.  So there’s the expression element.  But it’s not just dance.  It’s Zumba.  You move your hips and do some fancy footwork and, oh, so many chances to wave your hands!  Just to make sure you move your hips, they always play at least one or two songs by Pitbull, that hottie from Cuba with the goatee.  His voice is unmistakable.  Deep.  Raw.  What a perfect example of channeling aggression.  And that fits so well with Zumba.  He has been touted as a misogynist.  That’s beside the fact.  They play him for the aggression in his voice.

It is okay to shake it and you are really Zumba-ing the more you shake your hips (which is a side-effect of the Pitbull songs for me).  I think it is ALL about channeling aggression, expressing it, and not being ashamed.  Oh, Lordie, I grew up with lots of shame so this is SO freeing to me.  His lyrics are also pretty aggressive.  In fact, on the radio, it sounds like they are bleeping a few words out of every one of his songs I have ever heard.  But, ah.  That voice.  Yep.  Zumba works for me.  Anyone who ever made me feel inadequate doesn’t see me letting loose my inhibitions, dancing out my demons and feeling like an island princess.  I can close my eyes and make believe I’m Rihanna.  I have the right class, with women of mixed ages and backgrounds all there for the same reason.   My son was embarrassed at first about me going to Zumba, since he goes to the same gym and works the weights while I am in class.  He seems more supportive, though, maybe because he likes the Latino girls.  Whatever.  Doesn’t bother me…….I am no longer too old, too shy, too judgmental, or too inadequate to dance.    Nor am I overly concerned with my mothering or teaching techniques when I am in there listening to Pitbull and getting the Spanish lyrics wrong (one song sounds like “Happy Drunk.”  To me anyway.)  And that releases all manner of tension, aggression, and inhibition.

That is the goal, after all.  Release the aggression.  Don’t just swallow it and don’t deny it.  We are human.  We are of this earth.  Imperfect.  That is what made us survive as long as we have.  I love to listen to the jungle rhythms in Zumba and imagine myself there.  Yes, I am of this earth.  I have something that works for me.  I wasn’t sure if the kids asked me the other day what my answer would be, but it all came to me in Zumba class. 🙂

*The gym where I had regularly attended Zumba class has since shut down, and I have moved on to a new exercise of choice.  Such will be the subject of my next Exercise Evolution blog post!