Greetings! Welcome back to my little experiment in getting and staying un-stuck. (If you missed last week’s installment and want to know why I titled this project “Move and Groove,” find it here.) This week I’m trying a different format: links first, and then my own words at the bottom.
This week’s moves
If you have the means to help, here are some ways to support people in Hurricane Florence’s path. I know and trust one of the people leading this effort.
Rebecca Traister on Serena [The Cut]. Dr. Salamishah Tillet on Serena [NYT]. And I’m looking forward to watching Serena Being Serena [HBO].
A high school friend posted this piece on FB: To the Non-Racist, White People, Please Just Be the First [My Mixed Thoughts]. Related: The organization Hollaback! offers pay-what-you-can bystander intervention training webinars. I registered for the one coming up later this month; if any of you decide to participate, let me know and maybe we can debrief. The American Friends Service Committee also has good resources. Last year I went to one of their local workshops and learned a lot.
Celebs using their platforms this week: W. Kamau Bell and fam at the Emmys [Instagram]; how did we all feel about that Miss Michigan intro? [Cosmopolitan]; Ilana Glazer’s guide to voting in NY [also Instagram, and slide 1 might be NSFW]. BTW, have fun voting tomorrow, New York friends! If I were there, I’d treat us all to cinnamon raisin bagels with lox afterward.
This week’s grooves
Fluffy stuff: I’m about to make these these brownies for the third time in two weeks. My sis introduced me to this recipe almost a decade ago and I used to bake them all the time. I’m happy to have them back in my life. I also got reacquainted with one of my favorite games, Code Names, and had reasons to reference this evergreen piece from The Onion.
I am not religious but there are ways we’re trying to instill in our kid both an appreciation for ritual and a strong root system. I would love to hear how others, particularly parents in nonreligious/agnostic/mashup households, do this; write me if you have favorite practices or examples and maybe I can share them in a future installment! One very small thing I do is read the board book All the World to her every Sunday.
Got my ticket to Gloria’s show this weekend! Join me if you’re in Chicago. <3
Hold it against your bones
In August I got a promotional email from the yoga studio where I took some prenatal classes last winter. “Happy birthday!” it chirped, “Come in for a free class in the next two weeks.” So a few nights ago I left after bedtime and drove north the twenty or so minutes to a restorative class, wearing the one set of workout clothes that feel like they fit me right.
A year ago at this time, I was finally starting to “give in” to prenatal yoga. I was still reporting for my work-exchange duties at my old studio twice a week, signing folks into beginner and intermediate level vinyasa classes, taking class myself, and locking up the studio afterward. But in truth, I hadn’t been able to fully participate in those classes all summer. My Sunday morning shift was particularly tough during the first trimester: I’d drive myself there instead of walking, tentatively munching Saltines if I didn’t feel too queasy, and on more than one occasion had to leave class and go outside to either sip slowly on an icy lemonade or to vomit in the summer heat, crouched pitifully in the alley next door.
Still, I felt mostly better by September, and it felt good to finally be able to go back to some of the old poses without puking. According to Google Calendar I resisted prenatal yoga until at least the end of that month. My usual studio didn’t offer it, I wasn’t ready to abandon the work-exchange, and maybe I was in some denial about how radically my body was shifting. I also remember that my OB/GYN at the time said “meh, keep going to your old classes and just modify. Prenatal will be boring for you.”
(Plus, when my friend J was pregnant she’d told me the story of her first prenatal yoga class. She described a cliche scene out of a movie: the instructor asked a circle of mostly white women to first introduce themselves by stating how far along they were and a bit about how pregnancy was going for them and if there was anything they wanted to focus on that day. One by one, the other women cheerfully said things like, “I’m Jen, and I’m eight months pregnant, and I’m feeling really good! I mean, I’m having a lot of horrible heartburn this week, and I also wake up every two hours to pee, so I’m really tired, but other than that I’m feeling good!” or “My name is Wendy, I’m sixteen weeks, and I’m feeling good! Well, my low back is killing me, so I’d like to stretch that out today. But other than that, I’m getting really excited!” J’s turn rolled around and she said evenly: “My name is J, I’m twenty weeks, and I have not enjoyed being pregnant.” She listed a just a few reasons she’d felt physically uncomfortable and inconvenienced.
And then there was an awkward pause, and then they moved on.
Recently my friend Steph said to me: “I’ve been thinking a lot about the difference between being nice and being kind.” I would argue that J. was, in her blunt way, being kind to pregnant people everywhere in that moment. She was absolutely thrilled to be pregnant, had thought and planned for it and rejoiced about it. She’s just the kind of person who invites others to live life with Reality Goggles on.)
Anyway, as my shape and balance changed, it started to just feel better to be in classes surrounded by others who faced similar limitations. By the time mid-November rolled around, I’d phased out work-exchange and was only going to prenatal yoga. I remember going to a class at this studio on Christmas Eve. I was three weeks from my due date. This baby and I were a team by now. We had our own secrets. I didn’t fully believe she was real, but I could press on my abdomen and feel the hard little curve of her heel or her butt. Class that late afternoon was lovely and grounding. Afterward, as I put on my big boots and got into a Lyft to ride to my in-laws’ house for Christmas Eve dinner, snow started to fall, heavy and thick.
The class earlier this past week was only the second or third time I’ve been to the studio since then. I took a sweatshirt but wore sandals. When the instructor asked if there were any physical conditions she should know about, one person shared that she was pregnant — thankfully, no forced chipper energy — and I said “I’m several months postpartum but still taking it easy.” “I’m glad you’re here for restorative class,” she said, and I agreed.
In restorative yoga classes you use a bunch of props to set up and sink into poses and hold them for a long time. If you’re in pain, you can obviously modify your position. But if you experience discomfort you’re supposed to breathe into it and focus on staying present.
The instructor read this bit of a Mary Oliver poem as we got started:
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
And then she invited us to think of something we wanted to let go of. Usually I start to feel a little impatient if a yoga instructor offers both a quote and a suggestion like this — it starts to feel non-traditional in a way I’m not sure I’m comfortable with. But apparently I was here for it all on Monday night, because a thought immediately came to mind and surprised me: I’m letting go of the feeling that I’m not connecting with my baby in the ways I “should” be.
So I was already feeling pretty emotional and then she had us do this resting pose on the floor that involved reclining against soft, sturdy bolsters, heart towards the sky, arms splayed in surrender, knees supported by blocks. And then she put on a damn Sara Bareilles song.
And that’s when I cried. Like, stayed calm and breathed as instructed for counts of three, then four, then five, but all the while could feel tears pooling in my closed eyes until the right eyelid couldn’t contain it anymore and a single teardrop crept all the way down my cheek and landed in my ear.
My baby is eight months old this week. Today, as I send this! And all of the cliches are true. The days are long and the weeks are short. When she was really new, I’d see her wiggle or feel her little butt and say “I recognize that motion from when you were on the inside.” That hasn’t happened for a long time.
This week it occurred to me that maybe I should reach out to the owner of my old yoga studio, get back on the work-exchange substitute list in case last minute shifts pop up.
Maybe next month.