Tag Archives: truth

Mar23

In The Gray.

Posted on March 23, 2017 by Grass Oil by Molly Field

I decided on Christmas eve as I was dousing my hair with chemicals that it would be the last time; I am over coloring my hair every 3 weeks just to have it fade in a week and not match the rest of it for two more.

I can do without the time suck, the expense and the occasional professional tune-up to correct the banding that I created for myself in my efforts to Feel Like A Natural Woman.

Tomorrow will bring me to the end of the third month of my journey.

I posted on Facebook about this and I referred to this situation in a blog post I wrote a few weeks ago in an attempt to bring both of you up to speed on the higher-level events in my life.

There’s a movie called “The Grey.” Remember back in lit class when we would discuss: Man vs. Man, or Man. vs. God, or Man vs. Machine…? Which type of struggle encompasses this film? Yes.

It’s about a group of maybe nine rank and file (i.e., necessary) men from a petroleum company who survive a plane crash somewhere in a tundra. We don’t know where, exactly, but we can guess it’s very cold and very remote. The group of men are a typical motley crew: one is a new father, another is a great guy, one is an ex-con whose vulnerability dressed in hubris would be his downfall, one has a kidney disorder, another is a kind of MacGyver / dog whisperer / shaman / former Seal, one is a recovering alcoholic who’s divorced or in reconciliation with his wife, one is devoted to his family, another is just a standard prick. I think that’s eight. Let’s go with that. Bottom line: they all have their gifts and their flaws. It’s like Lord of the Flies but grown-up style. We start to get to know them on the night before or of the flight back to the “Main 48” as part of their leave from their jobs in that isolated place. The plane crashes somewhere in the Northwest territories of the U.S. and then we begin.

From the beginning, you sense tension and that’s how movies work.

What lives in the tundra and can do quite well thank you? Grey wolves. And then the drama begins, because you KNOW shit’s about to hit the fan, but who’s going to get it first? And how will he die? Will it be an embolism or a knife fight with another survivor? Before you run to Netflix and start to watch it, I must tell you that Liam Neeson is in the film. So now you really have to decide if you can take it.

It doesn’t matter who dies. Or how or if you’re psyched or sad when he finally he got his because he was so sweet or such a jerk to everyone or he lost his glasses or he has a fear of heights or he softened his granitic heart just before.

What matters and what any of this has to do with me is that this is how it feels for me right now as I have decided to grow out my gray hair.

When I was 39 I tried this. Maybe it was the cut, maybe it was because I was still “young” or maybe it was because it just didn’t look “right” in terms of balance, but I threw in the towel and started coloring again.

Then five years later, I started adding highlights. And “warmth” to my colorings and let me tell you: I am not a “warm” tone person. I am more Snow White. So anytime you add “heat” to my hair… it doesn’t work. (I tried to come up with an analogy that had to do with a croissant and it wasn’t working, so I let it go — some battles are not worthy of the energy.)

I joined a Facebook group, “Gray and Proud” which is a fun place for people like me — trying to figure it out, in the process of no more processing, and the people are generally super supportive.

I feel like the wolf is out there… just waiting to wrestle me to the ground and say, in her “all the more to eat you with” voice, “Stop. Just stop with the coloring… you know how frustrated you get when you see the end result and you feel it’s not you. You are going to be 50 in SIX MONTHS; that doesn’t mean you’re half dead, it just means you’re 50 — so stop trying to make your hair look like you’re 30 … I’ve got grays… so what if they’re tipped in black … but I’m a wolf. You know that’s not where you are right now… so be cool, man… or i’ll bite your head off.”

And then I’ll say, “But you’re a wolf. You were made that way.”

And she will turn around, snarl and say, “So were you. Get over yourself.”

And I’ll snarl back, “yeah, ok…” but in a really weak way because she’s a wolf and I am NOT a wolf and she could just… yknow, END IT right there (IT COULD HAPPEN!) and so here I am.

Before I share pics, some things I’ve noticed:

Less hair is falling out in the shower.
The bluing shampoo I use (to keep the silver from yellowing and to help keep my chemical low-lights from getting brassy) is sort of harsh… my hair feels NOT soft after I use it; that was a surprise.
Even on this Facebook group, there are Nellys from Little House on the Prairie. Someone asked about conditioners, and everyone was giving input and then some person said (insert nasal and uppity tone): “You know blah conditioners are just blah wax and your blah hair is not alive, so you’re just blah putting wax on your blah hair follicle blah like you would on a wooden blah floor…” and I stopped myself from typing: “Stop being a JAN BRADY. Let the woman ask about conditioners, you hag.” (That must’ve been one of my PMS days.)
Combining points 1 and 3: when I posted on this group about less hair falling out, many people commented and agreed and in retrospect commented that they’d noticed it as well and a person much like the person in point 3 said, “Probably not… Hair blah goes through a blah natural shedding blah stages like all cellular blah – can you get me a Tab? processes….” and I couldn’t help myself so I said “I appreciate that. But this is a profound difference, AND I’m seeing baby hairs coming in unlike another time in my life….” she didn’t comment. Maybe the wolf got her.
People are looking at my hair now. I’m past the stage of “maybe she’s going to get her roots done soon” and have entered the “no, this is intentional, she means to let her hair look like this.” Hmm.
The amount of gray coming in is going to rock my world when this is all done. I would say that I am about 75% gray from the tips of my ears forward to my face. I still have a nice (getting slimmer) black streak in the front, but shit’s about to get real… So I need my stylist to help lighten more of the artificially darker hair a bit more.
I spend more time finding a good pink lipstick and putting on mascara. Will it all add up to the amount of time I spent in a chair in a salon? No.
I am more hair aware. That bugs me a bit because I’m not a terribly vain person. I have always tried to look like I didn’t just roll out of bed, but this experience does make me feel as though I need to walk around with a sign that explains point 5.
I’ve lost 5 pounds. That has nothing to do with the hair, just thought I’d mention it.

Without further ado, the photos… (that’s really why you’re here):

Ooops. How did that get here? (snort, MC)

This is the country club look; or the way my hair looks just before I wash my face. I generally don’t wear a headband because it’s 2017.

I love this one. It captures my ___ perfectly.

When I win the Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes — which would be really great seeing as how I never participate. I feel like I resemble Wynona Rider here… (which explains why I don’t like her.)

This is natural light inside. Things are coming along and I am trying not to hate it. Intentionally messy.

Ooof. Outside. Hair is a mess. On purpose because I’m TRYING to show the randomness of it all.

This is how I generally look when I teach yoga to kids. The bangs soften my face.

This is how I look when I teach yoga to adults if my bangs simply don’t cooperate.

So will the wolf come and get me? I don’t think so. I’ve told my kids they can only say two things about my hair, because I’m really in this to win it … I’m really done with the coloring and I’ve been blessed with dark eyebrows, big green eyes and a fairly happy skin tone and complexion to pull this off for years before I start to worry people.

They can only say, “This is really cool,” or “It’s good you’re doing this for yourself.” The minute they tell me I look old, is the minute the wolf comes out.

Thank you.

Mar5

New Year’s Intention & Perimenopause

Posted on March 5, 2017 by Grass Oil by Molly Field

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It has been almost seven months since I last posted here.

I can not say I don’t know where the time has gone, because I actually do know where a great deal of the time / bandwidth has gone.

It has gone toward my new year’s intention: practicing non-attachment. Non-attachment to expectations, to people, to projects, to myself. It’s really hard… and it’s like a paradox: who says when you’ve achieved non-attachment? Is it ok to be non-attached to your non-attachment? Does that count? And what is the balance? (I’ve likely already failed.)

It has gone toward me applying my best intentions toward practicing detachment from my eldest son’s college experiences. He is doing well, learning lessons that only life can give. Learning academically of course, and doing quite well, but he is learning things in the way that I wanted for him to learn: that you can’t unring a bell.

It has gone toward a near-obsession with the American political landscape. I believe it was around the time that I last posted here that our official presidential candidates were nominated. I won’t go into details or great depth here as this blog is my refuge from those energies, but I will say that I believe I’m finally coming out of the fog from all those days.

It has gone toward a reinvestment of myself into my yoga teaching. I have almost doubled my adult teaching gigs and dropped two children’s yoga gigs. It was both difficult and easy to make those decisions. A part of me wants to help children and teach / inspire them but I have to let go of the notion that I am going to make a difference for some of them. We are all here on this planet in a season which matches our mission(s). I have realized that my mission here is to not try to appeal to all people and those people needn’t appeal to me. The doubling of my teaching time has had an effect on my body: it’s tired. I have learned that I needn’t demonstrate nearly as often as I used to and while I’m physically relieved from wear and tear, I’m a bit bummed about it because some of my teaching cues come from being actually in the pose with the yogis.

It has gone toward hands-on mothering of two sons rather than three. While my eldest still needs me in a philosophical sense, he doesn’t need me to make him dinner, to wake him, to take him for haircuts or dentist appointments. My younger boys still need me for that and believe it or not: the reduction in demand does take some getting used to and head counting. It’s almost the reversal of “Did I leave the baby in the carseat in the front hall?”

It has gone toward not writing. I sure do miss it.

It has not gone toward my laundry practice.

My husband turned 50, and that was a low-key big deal here. I gave him a nifty band for his Apple Watch and took him out to dinner with our younger two sons, his brother and his wife. Connor later snuck home with his girlfriend to surprise his dad with some favorite gelato and a cozy fun time was had by all.

I turned 49. I unfriended some people on Facebook who no longer contribute to the fullness of my life. One is a relative. I am really ok with this decision. The entrenched victim narrative surrounding this person’s every behavior had corrupted our visit over summer to such an extent that when I made the choice, it was not a Newtonian reaction. In fact, I paused for several weeks. I can say confidently though that the distancing from this and the other persons has resulted in stability, actually. I’m tired of feeling as though my every thought was being monitored. And I was tired of monitoring them… (if we are going to be honest here…). I hope everyone is doing well, but I don’t care enough to ask. Sometimes you just have to close the door, y’know.

I am experiencing shitty perimenopause on a daily basis. This hormonal experience is not for the psychotic… because it already has moments of psychosis and sleep deprivation and knee-jerk reactivity built in. Do you see the middle graph? (Don’t even ~~fucking~~ look at the first one or the last one until you look at the middle one first.) That second / middle graph has been my life for the last 10 years. I started perimenopause when I was 39 and it was all cute and curiosity at first: “Oh, I wonder how long that badger will live in our yard?” but after five years, it has been nothing short of a ~~fucking~~ mystery and I don’t know how much longer I must endure its caprice and coquettish ways.

This is not my personal pattern, but one from NIH or something like that (I give up trying to divine the exact source and so should you: I’ve had that graph for at least a year).

Let’s look again at that middle graph which ostensibly covers a six-month period and copy it 20 times and run it linearly (as in a timeline) to cover a 10-year period and then you will have a SNAPSHOT of WHAT MY LIFE HAS BEEN LIKE.

I look at that graph, like it’s yearbook. And I suppose it is to a certain exent…

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Those premenopause years: from BIRTH to my 39th year, were all: Let’s go to the beach, then the movie and then dancing and frolic all in light-colored and white clothing, go to camp, learn to swim, play an instrument, have a crush, lose a friend, gain a friend, watch your parents fight … then one day in puberty do those things in those clothes except for XYZ days… and then let’s learn to drive, go on a trip, play some soccer, go for a run, fall in love, dance in the rain… pause….. then let’s have some friends over, and go to a mall, fall out of love, lose a friend again, gain another friend, stare at cute guys, go to college, apply for a job ….buy a car… get a place …. pause….. then let’s take a cooking course, stare at more cute guys … maybe date one… then marry one and then buy a house, have kids …. pause…. another kid (or years go by) ….

Then in my 39th year, this….

screen-shot-2017-03-05-at-3-33-36-pm

I’m flying without radar here and as you can see, from that graph above, that flight plan is fucked up. Would you get on that plane? Go ahead, look at it again… it’s worth the laugh. And that’s what most of this has shown me: that I have to laugh. That’s not to say that I can’t cry (because I do, believe me) but crying over this (that image above) is unnecessary.

I’m not looking for a trophy or a badge or a pat on the back. I’m looking for an end to this stage of my life.

My mother is dead, and she was the only woman (just like her paternal aunt was the only woman in two generations) in her sibling pool, so I don’t have an aunt. And her being gone means there’s no soft-focus “Summer’s Eve” moment for me when I could walk down a misty, dusky beach with her (not that there ever was that kind of vibe to our relationship) and gently query her for finite honesty about her cycles and her reproductive history… that would require things she could not deliver.

The fun part about all this is that in order to be considered a member in the postmenopausal populace:

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you must be without a period (that bleeding stage) for at least a year. I have to say, I can’t help but see all those flat lines as… shitty. The very hormones that I’ve grown accustomed to, estrogen and progesterone, are leaving me at the party. No, they are taking the party away and leaving me there to clean up after the party.

But I’m nowhere near that, yet the eggs I’m spitting out are likely capable of creating life that would not be sustainable. I like to think my eggs, if they could be an emoji, would be this one:

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Let’s see… what else… I learned that I have two basal cell carcinomas scheduled for removal in a couple months. It’s the glorious results of misspent younger days under the sun with my then bestie whose parents were Puerto Rican and Greek. I am 71% Irish (thanks, big bro for getting the Ancestry.com DNA test). This friend would invite me over to her house and I’d go. I’d wear my royal blue with black piping one-piece LaBlanca swimsuit. We would “lay out” under the Virginia sun, in July, covered in baby oil and USE A SPRAY MISTER TO KEEP US SHINY! and she’d walk away like a Bain de Soliel model and I’d need paramedics to carry me away on a stretcher because I could not move my smooth muscle tissue beneath the exoskeleton I’d created in those four short hours in her backyard.

I joined a new studio to teach yoga (I touched on this earlier) and I’m really enjoying it. The owner feels like someone I’ve known all my life and I’m grateful to help her further her dream of providing a haven in the community to practice yoga, learn pilates, build strength and sometimes, just sit and be.

I directed a 660-boat rowing regatta the first weekend in November. The weather was sublime and glorious. I was in my element of serving people as well as protecting and reestablishing the brand of our rowing club after a couple years of inconsistency. I have offered to do it again for this fall. People think I’m crazy, but they’re right. But I’m really good at it — I am in a zone when I’m managing chaos with a smile on my face. (That was a scary sentence.) I walked almost nine miles that first day. The second day was almost six. I was utterly wiped out. But I was really gratified too because it was such a rewarding experience. I bought myself some expensive Adidas shoes a week later.

I do need a megaphone sometimes; it didn’t cut through the fog, but it helped me keep the coxswain’s attention.

The next night I taught yoga and two days later, still riding the regatta wave, we all woke to some really historic news: a woman was NOT elected president of the United States and instead, a man who strategically went after the electoral college (so: with an actual plan to win, not a hope to win) votes, attained more of them than the other people running for office. That was an ASTONISHING DAY for me. The night before, we had my brother and his wife and kids over. My dad too, to watch the election and just sort of huddle as if preparing for an apocalypse. We used the hot tub and had a really lovely night. My brother left around 10:30, glued to his iPhone. I decided at 11 that I was going to bed; I had to teach yoga the next morning. Some of the results weren’t in yet and the west coast had only recently begun to get later tallies. I remember clearly still that my husband came up to me to gently wake me the next morning in the pre-dawn darkness. He said, “It’s unbelievable. Trump won.” I was mildly shocked. I didn’t like Clinton, but I honestly thought she would win. I voted for Johnson.

I taught three yoga classes, as I always do on Wednesdays, and I witnessed a three-generational fog in those classes. In the morning, I teach women my age and they were all … quiet, sort of blown away. In the early afternoon, I teach mostly seniors or people older than I am and they were all subdued. The children I usually teach on the afternoons were simply stoic. Little girls openly cried in front of me, “My mother said a bad man is going to be our president…”

I felt as though I HAD to openly discuss the election because they were so affected and because they are children and are not savvy to the nuances I employed in my earlier classes. One of the little girls, who is usually a game show host in my classes, who likes to co-opt what I teach and preempt me as much as possible asked to stay in “child’s pose” the ENTIRE class. She didn’t even want to play “musical mats” (which can usually get any kiddo out of a funk).

I don’t have an inflated sense of who I am to these people, but in a sense, especially for the first class, this was likely the first social gathering of their day. I didn’t feel compelled to speak to the election, but I also wasn’t ok with ignoring it. I can’t remember what pearls of wisdom I may have imparted other than to suggest what I always do: “Whatever you’re feeling is OK.”

On Christmas Eve, we went to dinner at a restaurant in Georgetown. The buildings are historic and their floors are uneven. I slipped down the steps but managed to stop my fall by grasping one of the spindles on the landing I was escaping. I had just taught a power vinyasa that morning, so I was still “worked” from that but I did hear a snap. I didn’t tear my rotator cuff, but I definitely strained it. I believe the “snap” was from the heel of one of my brand-new Frye Boots smacking the riser as I stopped my fall.

When I returned to the table, after announcing to the numerous wide-eyed diners and the freaked-out expression of the maitre’d rushing to my aid, “I’m good, I’m a yoga instructor!” (I do NOT know why I said that other than to spare myself some embarrassment [it didn’t work] but more likely shame [ditto] and more likely to spare any discomfort on the part of the restaurant staff), I had immediate tingling in my arm, and almost near-immediate numbness. I raised my arm above my head, I did some classy yoga moves with it at the table (with some wincing, so I knew the nerve was OK) and the sensation returned within five minutes. I could move my arm on its own.

That night was the last time I colored my hair. (Nice transition, huh?) I’d been dancing around the concept for awhile, but I’d like to see how I look with my natural hair color and I’d like to spend the rest of my life not sweating my roots coming in. So far, so good. I don’t have the chutzpah that some people have: going cold turkey, so that’s not happening. I am getting a chemically assisted transition or detox. My tactic has been to wear my hair pulled off my face as often as possible because it shows people what’s coming in and what to expect. It also helps me deal with the choice, which if I can say so myself, is pretty damned gutsy. I don’t believe that I need to adhere to an unattainable standard based on artifice. I’ve long struggled with my own “lie” of coloring my hair while being someone who is SO WHOLLY INTERESTED and devoted to alignment and truth.

To spur me on, I joined a Facebook group “Gray and Proud” which is a supportive and empowering collection of humans (mostly women) who know that this choice “to be the way we were born” can be hard. I do not mean to imply that I know the struggles of those who’ve chosen to live a cloistered life because of fear of coming out as their true selves, but I do believe I share a kinship with them. We are all afraid of being judged and sometimes, truth scares people. Sometimes, people like to live their lives and their narratives. I’m cool with that. Sometimes other peoples’ truths upset another person’s narrative. Well, that’s not the other person’s problem.

The previous time I tried to go gray I was 36 (I’ve been coloring since I was 20) and it didn’t look right. I wasn’t feeling quite as confident and as “fuck it” as I have been lately. Don’t get me wrong, “fuck it” does not mean I’m “letting myself go”; “fuck it” means I’m letting you and your standards go.

It means I’m trying to walk my intention for the year. I’ll post pics on my progress, but not yet; there’s really not much to see here.

The dogs are doing great: Charlie, now three, and mellowing a bit is a sweet and loyal boy. He still barks at things that are not there and tries to take down Murphy at every chance he has when Murphy is standing up (which isn’t terribly frequent these days as he’s now nine, AND he’s a dog).

Well, there is always lots more to say, but I’m at almost 2900 words and I’m a little tired. It’s nice to be back. I’ll come back sooner, I promise. Feel free to drop me a line in the comments and let me know how you’re doing.

Thank you.

May9

Blue Monday: The Day After Mother’s Day

Posted on May 9, 2016 by Grass Oil by Molly Field

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I bet the boy who asked me to prom 30 years ago is glad the post I wrote about that experience is being replaced…

Yesterday was Mother’s Day. I have long disliked Mother’s Day. Not only because my relationship with my own mother was complicated (show me a mother – daughter relationship that’s as smooth as silk and I’ll show you two medicated people), but also because well, it’s stupid. My own mother also disliked Mother’s Day, especially going to the Catholic Mass on Mother’s Day because she heard the mewing of the priest on the altar talking about his own sainted mother. Let me tell you… nothing like a supposedly chaste and godly grown man spewing unrealistic honoraria about his own mother to make you vomit in your mouth a little.

The very concept that everyone has to cool their narcissistic jets to be nice to their mothers (who may or may not deserve the homage, quite frankly) for one of 365 days of the year is jacked.

Who is Mother’s Day really for? Is it for the kids… to feel like they did it? They spent a few hours on one day thinking and being nice to Mom? Is it for the mother? Surely that can’t be it. If this poll is correct, most moms just want to be left the heck alone.

I won’t bother with the notion that it’s all about Hallmark and Our Lady of the Shopping Mall, because it’s no notion, it’s a verified fact. Last year, people spent $2.3 billion (B) on flowers last year. Flowers die. Just sayin’…

I can’t wait for the Home Depot ads to start up for Father’s Day… Actually, I can wait.

What matters to me most of all, and is the best barometer of an authentic Mother’s Day homage is the condition of the kitchen after Mother’s Day ends.

I will not share photos I took.

My father suggested I not write this post. He started out our chat today friendly enough, asking me about my Mother’s Day. “It was fine; I just spent about two hours cleaning the kitchen from it…” and he HOWLED with laughter. Thanks. Then he started to tell me about how my mom didn’t care for the “holiday” either.

He suggested I not write about my kitchen because well, that would tarnish the good feelings that came from celebrating Mother’s Day.

Yeah. I’d hate to tarnish that good feeling of my family lovin’ on me all day yesterday with cleaning a sink, scrubbing the counter tops, hand-washing the expensive kitchen knives, loading the dishwasher, wiping down and shoving the kitchen table back to where it belongs, putting the fondue pots back in the boxes and bringing those boxes back to the basement where they live, but only after the forks are cleaned from the dishwasher.

The years of my kids bringing home handmade trinkets and tissue paper flower bouquets from school are over and I’m a little sad about that. My oldest son tweeted me last night, around 11pm telling me Happy Mother’s Day and that he loves me.

Maturing Mother

Because our kids are children for a finite period of time, the work of Mother’s Day largely rests on the shoulders of adults in the picture. It will be interesting to see if and how my kids choose to celebrate Mother’s Day with me as we all age.

I have a neighbor who has one child. A son. He used to spend all day Mother’s Day with her, but now he has kids of his own, so I’m guessing he’s busy being armchair QB for his kids to remember their mom. To make up for being absent on Sunday, he visits with his mother all day Saturday and I think that’s pretty cool.

I’m not writing this to shame anyone. I’m writing it to do all I can to preempt an error next year and to ~~keep resentments in check~~ manage expectations. If you really mean to honor your mother, clean up. Do it without asking. Do it because it’s the right thing to do. Even if you do it semi-completely, all is forgiven because you tried.

Little kids who are cogent about holidays love Mother’s Day because they get to participate in it even though they have no clue about how much we do behind the scenes for them.

Usually my kids serve me breakfast in bed; I get a few flowers from our garden and it’s a sweet and cozy experience. They sit on the bed and talk to me and we have a nice time. This year, I didn’t get that treatment because I attended a brunch hosted by my mother-in-law. Upon my departure to the brunch, my middle son hugged me awhile and said, “Thanks for putting up with me for the last 15 years” which was really nice to hear because he’s a tempest in a teapot at times. When I told my older son, who dashed down the steps and out the door to bid me farewell in his bathrobe, what his younger brother said and asked him if he’d like to say anything to me he said, “Hello” which is pretty appropriate because this kid so far has been a freaking dream to raise. My youngest didn’t make the dash to the driveway.

So this year, instead of my kids bringing me breakfast (and they would do their best to clean-up after themselves before I would come downstairs), my husband quietly honored my mothering of his children with a cup of coffee and a biscuit and strawberries. It was really sweet.

Don’t Steal My Thunder

The narcissism of people / groups who think they should get in on Mother’s Day action really chaps my hide. Political correctness and fear of marginalizing during these benign holidays have butchered the intention to the point of being unrecognizable. My simple day of recognition has been hijacked, co-opted and morphed into a feeling of isolation for people who DON’T directly celebrate Mother’s Day but are somehow involved in a kids’ life.

This day is mine. Get your own.

Mother’s Day is for mothers. Adopted mothers also count. Plain and simple.

Don’t make my SINGULAR holiday about your sense of disenfranchisement, and don’t try to get in on my action. Single dads don’t count. Aunties whose siblings are still raising their own children don’t count. If your great aunt or grandmother raised you, she gets massive props and you better dish them out. The thing is: let the kids decide who gets the flowers. That’s when it’s real.

Human pet owners who fancy themselves “mothers” don’t get a nod here, either. You didn’t squeeze out that cat or fill out adoption papers with a judge in an official legal court to take in that animal. If you truly identify yourself as the mother of a dog or other animal, you need help. You’re not educating that animal, you’re not walking it to school or folding its laundry or wondering if your animal will meet the wrong crowd and start taking drugs. You’re not teaching it how to ride a bike or to clean its room or helping it select classes for the following academic year. You’re not driving that animal to soccer practice or voice lessons. You’re not sweating paying for college for that animal. Oh God… maybe you ARE…

So… let’s get that shit straight. Pets aren’t children.

I’m sure what I’m saying chaps someone else’s hide. Welcome to the 21st Century. That someone who owns a fish wants in on my day chaps my hide.

The way I see it: if you have a uterus that either successfully birthed a baby, or tried to host one but couldn’t and you are raising the human product of someone else’s uterus, you’re mothering.

I know what mothering is. I’m acutely aware. A successful Mother’s Day –to me– will give me a pause from that acute awareness. And let’s get real… that needs to extend into the following Monday too.

So uh, peeps, let’s get this right for next year. Don’t make your mother clean up after your homage to her, because that’s no different from the other days of the year, when she is absolutely mothering you, and mostly without complaint.

Thank you.

Nov20

Missives from the Mat 15 — Seeing Things for How they Really Are #teaching #yoga

Posted on November 20, 2015 by Grass Oil by Molly Field

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It has been a very long time since I last wrote a blog post. Personally, lots of things have been going on; primarily, bronchitis and a sinus infection for me, a mild concussion for my middle son, college visits for the older son, Hallowe’en (which is truly a Holy Day around here), lots of glorious rowing, and helping to run the registration desk for a large regatta. Oh! And I had a basal cell carcinoma removed, but I’m good. (I’ll write about that later, it’s pretty funny. Well now it is…)

The most notable executive news for me is that I have decided to stop teaching my evening adult yoga class. This wasn’t an easy decision to make. When I took over the class from a well-known instructor and teacher trainer, I remember her sigh-saying as she handed over the metaphorical keys, “I always thought that this class would blossom with someone in the community running it…”

Looking back through my jaded lenses, that should’ve been a sign to me… I have been reluctant to admit the truth about the reality of the yoga potential here.

You can’t get much more “in the community” than me as I live less than a mile from the facility. The logistics remained the same. Even payments carried over. For students, it was easy-peasy.

That said, changes were a’coming and people don’t always adjust to change.

The first change was that people were about to get a new yoga teacher. GULP.

The second change is that I was about to shake up the payment scheme. People do like their money. They also like to do whatever the hell they want with it.

The third change was actually a constant: I can’t change who I am… But people said they liked my style, they loved my classes, they wish they could keep taking them…

In retrospect, at first, I tried to be all things to all people: I tried to be that departing instructor. Then I also tried to be the original instructor who started the class. So that’s two separate people besides me — the funny thing is: I never attended either one of those teachers’ classes, so who knows what I was trying to replicate.

The first two instructors ran the classes on what I like to call a “peace love happiness” hippy punch-card scenario. That’s not at all my style. I treat yoga more as a ~~studio~~ business would: you buy a set of classes in a “session” (a finite period, say 10 weeks, so you attend the commensurate amount of classes remaining during that session and classes could carry over only per request).

Upon taking the helm, I decided that I would honor for two more months whatever “balance” remained on the punch-cards, as several of these cards had been in circulation for TWO YEARS and were unused.

In fact, several of the people on the original email list never contacted the second instructor, they never attended her classes for the one-year period when she took it over. It was only when they heard from me, that “use it or lose it” was in effect, that they attended classes.

In a punch-card world, someone has to keep track, someone has to “X out” a class on that card. At a studio, a receptionist can do that. I don’t have a receptionist. I don’t babysit adults, nor do I “X out” anything. We are in our 40s and beyond, people. If you’re going to make your yoga teacher hold you accountable, you’ve got problems.

Before starting the classes, I consulted with my brother. He’s an MBA with a big job and he and wears fancy shoes. He gave me his advice and told me why he likes to pay for his fitness instructors and how he “gets it” that this isn’t about “nice feelings” but rather, it’s a transaction of values. “Don’t let people confuse you either, this is a business transaction. Yes, yoga is all about energy and feeling good, and being good, and all that shit; but it’s also a transaction. It’s about money.” He told me (along with my own yoga teacher) to change the payment program to “buying a group of classes in a ‘session'” instead of a “punch-card” because a punch-card doesn’t impart a commitment to the self and to the practice, and that self-improvement, as we all know, only works when you work it.

“If you don’t show up, or you don’t do the work, how can you expect any changes?” he reminded me. “I could go get McDonald’s or a Slurpee instead of coming to your class. I don’t value you if I don’t show up. I also don’t value myself, but that’s totally different, and not your problem. Your problem is waiting on people to follow through: to take you up on the service you are trained to provide them. Your service won’t be like anyone else’s, that’s what they’re buying. They’re buying YOU for 90 minutes. Not with a punch-card, but for that time only.”

He could sense that I had a problem asking people to pay me for a service that I felt they could just as readily perform on their own.

“But they can’t, can they? They can’t see their own misaligned knee or that their shoulders aren’t stacked, can they, unless they’re looking for them… but even then, if they’re looking, they’re not ‘doing yoga‘; they’re concerned with their appearance… They can’t see how the pose is performed, or hear you talk about what to feel or engage what muscles where or to loosen their jaws, can they?”

“No.”

“That is reason enough to pay you. Shit, no one but a trained and observant teacher who is doing the work with them, and who can talk about where things are working, as they do the work with them, can tell them that stuff.”

So he was right. Over the last 21 months, the count of participants ebbed and flowed. My most successful quarter was about a year ago: I had about seven registered session students, and several drop-ins. I bought myself a pair of boots last year. I didn’t ever make a killing. I could use the money to pay for gas for a long road trip and maybe a nice dinner out for my family, but that was it.

Then the numbers started to really drop last spring.

Lives change: elderly parents get sick, job requirements shift, people move, bodies ache, people lose their jobs or their motivation… My purpose on this planet is not to judge anyone’s decision to do anything, but to rather look at where I was feeling satisfied and if I was being “of service” to people; if I was actually helping people instead of sitting there picking my navel and feeling sorry for myself because no one showed up anymore.

The numbers continued to drop. I had three registered students, and only one regularly showed up. More logistical challenges for the other members, wrenches thrown in the engine.

It became a real drag.

I have a giant IKEA bag holding 12 yoga blocks; 6″x 2′ strips of my old yoga mat for extra knee / spine / elbow support; and 12 static double-D ring straps to hold poses or to stretch more effectively. I played amazing music (Todd Norian, “BIJA,” get it) too. I spoke softly and humorously about what was working in the poses. I offered modifications to challenge or support the body. I sprayed lavender oil mist in the room. I recited a guided breathing exercise during savasana for anyone who was interested. I infused a brief yoga nidra during every meditation. I had created, in my estimation, the very class I always wanted to attend. It wasn’t perfect: I was nervous teaching inversions, but I tried every so often and most people didn’t really care for them. I was not teaching to change people, or to get them to do something they’re not comfortable with. My goal always, has been simple: to help people feel good and let go.

But the numbers continued to drop. One day, I was quite certain no one would show, so I texted the people that hadn’t let me know and one did come to class! I was thrilled to see her! In fact, I even had a drop-in that night! Two people in the room with me! It was really nice! But I knew it would be short lived, so I decided that night I was throwing in the mat.

If it weren’t for one seriously dedicated person, and she knows who she is, I would’ve given up a long time ago. She asked me one night, “Is it discouraging when no one else comes?” I was so touched and surprised and defensive of the question. I answered sort of automatically, “No, it’s nice you’re here; I enjoy being here with you…” But I do wonder about it all… I said to myself.

The concept of “walking out on this class” never occurred to me. Nor had the idea that I had a choice. Growing up in the world I did, with the mother I had and the father I had, I couldn’t leave my post, or my mother would falter. She could die. I couldn’t stop my sentry work, or things would fall apart. My father was relying upon me to keep watch, to let him know how things were going, to let him know if Mom was sick or where she was, or what she was doing or who she was with. I had to stay. I had to keep my post. The same thing happened with the yoga, I guess. Even as I type this right now, I realize that I’d taken the position of yoga instructor to heart. There’s nothing I don’t do that isn’t done 100% and I think people have come to expect that from me. I have come to expect that from me. That’s fine, because I’ll always try to deliver. But my duty was to the yoga mat, and to hold the door open, so to speak, to the space where we practiced. To always be ready for people to come in. And to wait, even alone, in the dark, in that big room for people to come because that meant they would be safe. That meant they would be well. That meant they were taking care of themselves. I could relax when people were doing yoga, because they were secure. I knew where they were.

I’d never been given permission to retire. Failure was not an option, nor was deciding that the seas were too strong and that the prevailing winds were simply trying to teach me something: to lie down, to batten down, to steer my craft to calmer seas… to stop waiting for adults to show up at night. (Woah, that use of “adults” just now, just typed itself.)

It’s hard to admit. If it weren’t for the health club where I was recently hired, and if it weren’t for the growth in those attendances and the news from the health club management that I “have quite a following” for my yoga classes, I would be crushed.

They say ego is not supposed to be part of a yoga teacher’s energy, but if it weren’t for a healthy ego, I would keep trying to make this work despite the obvious signs it wasn’t working. It’s November, chilly, and once daylight savings time ends, people go into hibernation mode. They do NOT want to leave their homes, no matter how glorious the yoga. I get that. But still… it’s hard on the ego. However, empathy must prevail: it’s cold and dark out, who wants to leave home?

What also must prevail is the absolute truth that anyone’s decision to not come to yoga classes that they’ve already paid for has NOTHING to do with me. I really have to get my head out of my ass.

I have had some really interesting students, too, in this evening class. These are amazing people with some pretty spectacular disorders and physical challenges; I’m grateful for the opportunity to teach these people because they taught me as well: that no matter how strong a teacher I want to be, there are SOME THINGS I will never match. (That sounds a little too familiar to my story growing up, doesn’t it?)

In the very beginning, I had a student who became very attached to me. She was sweet and sparkly-eyed. But I have limitations and I’ve done a shit ton of couch time to not only allow for the existence of the flags, but to see them and turn heel and run.

I can’t handle that, when people become attached to me. There are only four people and two dogs I will be OK with attaching to me: my kids, my husband and Charlie and Murphy. This is not to say I’m not a reliable person. I absolutely am reliable. Just don’t expect me to be your everything; I’m barely my own anything.

This one student somehow identified with me. Maybe it was my kindness, or my optimistic attitude toward her situation, and my utter newness toward her and her idiosyncrasies. I was sincerely proud of her accomplishments despite a major disability. But, like they all do, these empty souls whose mommies didn’t love them enough (raises hand sheepishly), she attached to me. She idolized me, for something, and inevitably, I disappointed her. I treated her like I treated everyone else, despite her identification of me. She thought she was someone special to me, because I was someone special to her.

My job as a yoga teacher is to teach yoga, not cleanse your soul. I teach yoga, not emulate Jesus. I teach yoga, not act as your therapist. I teach yoga, not solve your problems. I teach yoga, not be your mother. I teach yoga, not set you apart. I teach yoga, I teach yoga, I teach yoga. I ask for payment. I expect you to show up. I teach yoga. That is all. If I am lucky, we will become friends, but we are equals. I am not superhuman, but I am very sensitive to energies, so the moment I feel people set me apart and think of me as special, I start to feel sick, as though I am picking up their self-loathing; it’s a very tenuous sensation: it feels like you don’t know if you’re coming or going: “are these my shoes?” After many years, I know when I start to do that to other people, make them my saviors. So I take a deep breath and I re-center myself. Don’t make anyone else your idol; it’s a lot to live up to.

I liked to get to the space early, to loosen up myself and to prepare to teach, go over notes, play with a transition or a flow, or select a reading for the class. It was as though she could see the parking lot from her house because as soon as I pulled up, she would be walking up or waiting on the steps for me. She would text me in the morning, “Hey Doll! Have a great day!” on days we didn’t have class. I said inside to myself, for her benefit, please don’t do this to me, don’t do this to yourself.

On the one day she wasn’t waiting for me or preternaturally aware of my arrival, she stormed into the room. She started barking out her day. This was fairly common, but I could usually get her to simmer down, to let it go… but she was having none of that. I spoke to her gently and privately before others arrived about her disposition; suggesting that maybe she should take her dog for a strenuous walk instead of yoga, that I’d credit her for the class. She said the others knew her better and longer than I did. She wanted to pass out her business cards to the people in the class. She wanted to cross all sorts of boundaries. I said no. Absolutely not. “People come to yoga class to practice yoga, to get away from their day and their lives off the mat,” I explained to her. Do the business card thing later. Not before.

People started coming in. She was erratic. Like a loose puppy. I sat and waited, made small talk with students. I took up my chimes and started to sit up straight. People started to center on their mats. She fidgeted.

As I did during every pranayama (the seated opening breath and meditation sequence), I invited the group to give themselves “the gift of keeping the day outside and preserve this space, for the yoga, inside,” and I rang the chimes three times with our conscious inhales.

As usual during pranayama, my eyes were closed, so I don’t know if she glared at me, but I did open them after hearing her huff and snarl, to witness her get up, gather her things as noisily as she could, and let the door slam behind her.

Awwwwwkwwwwaaaarrrrd.

I spent a little longer in pranayama, for entirely selfish reasons, and we did some sort of conscious breathing exercise, likely alternate nostril breathing. I can’t recall the exact one, but we did it for another five minutes.

She never came back to my classes.

I fell from grace.

I became the “anti-her” person. Another bad guy. Another reason, as she told me in a text, during that class, for her to not leave her house.

Don’t give me that power. I certainly don’t deserve it, nor do I know what to do with it, I texted back to her the next day, followed by telling her I was glad she got home ok.

After several very quiet months, despite telling me to never contact her again (and I hadn’t to begin with), she sent me an email. A blog post from MindBodyGreen about how to be a good yoga teacher, “I thought you would find this helpful,” she wrote as an intro. It was about the importance of teachers keeping their egos in check; to not show off or show up the students with displays of magnanimous self-control or pious self-awareness. To not demonstrate crane, or bird of paradise, or dancer poses because it was too upsetting to those students who felt unable to perform them.

Ask any of my students if I’ve ever demonstrated crane or dancer without a request to do so; you will hear crickets. I purposely keep my classes mellow, meditative, mostly on the ground, and introspective because I know that no one is coming to me to look like the cover of Yoga Journal. I never expected this woman to exceed the massive limitations of her disability, but I never made her limitations the focus of the lessons. As an “all levels” teacher, you must teach to the highest ability, so that’s what I taught. No one was in those classes to levitate or balance on one toe, the classes were well-designed and challenging.

After Little Miss Backhanded-Awareness sent me that blog post about keeping the ego in check, I ceased all communication with her, and told her to give me distance as she demanded of me: “I’m not your Virgin Mary, your Jesus, your Buddha, your Saint. I’m a flawed, suburban mother of three who is working her ass off to conquer her own demons, so save your blame and finger pointing for your mirror.” >booya.<

But here we are again. Admitting the truth: the number of people coming to my evening classes has fallen. I can’t beat out the four health clubs in the 3-mile radius with their fee-inclusive classes; nor can I beat out the churches with their “Christian yoga” (ha! it is ABSOLUTELY to LAUGH!) versus my “satanic yoga,” I guess. So I am not going to try. I am finished being Sisyphus. I am letting the rock roll.

I’ve decided to go back to my teaching roots and teach children’s yoga. The classes are shorter, the students are shorter too. The kids are game, sometimes too game, but that’s what being a kid is all about. For me, teaching yoga to them is a game, and we play games. Kids are super honest and they are also really into noticing how things affect their bodies. At least in the way I teach it, they get that yoga is about everyone, not just one of us.

In my next post, I’m going to write about what it’s like to teach yoga to kids, and how we as parents can know if our kids are truly ready for the mat instead of us just wishing they were…

Thank you and namaste.