Peeping frogs, loud birds and strawberries

I woke up this morning thinking about strawberries. I can’t say why, exactly, but it might have been the bright sun just beginning to intrude through a gap in the draperies. Or it might have been the trilling cacophony just outside my open window. The sun and the sound of the birds only wake me in the spring and summer and I suppose my brain was already moving on to the next things that herald the best time to live on Candlewood Lake: strawberries, Johnny’s chicken burgers on the grill and cold beverages.

So back to the berries. I really learned about the art of buying fruits and vegetables when I lived in France more than 10 years ago. At that time, super-speedy refrigerated shipping and storage were not as prevalent as they are today. We found in the markets only the fruits and veggies that were ripe and in season in the nearby area. I think the only time we could anticipate a fresh fruit treat out of season from a truly distant land was clementines from Israel at Christmas.

Strawberries were my introduction to this wondrous phenomenon. I had just arrived in Paris with my two young children and my husband announced that we would go food shopping. I was soon to discover that there was nothing in the fridge in the huge, old house we had rented. Thoughtfully, he had waited for me to join him to accomplish such a task. The irksome part of this is that he had already been living there for six months. Those tales, my friends, are for another day.

So we go to the market. It is a magnificent, outdoor affair with lines and lines of stalls featuring everything from salad greens to rabbit carcasses. My jet-lagged brain was slow to adjust to the French writing on all of the signs, and filling my ears. My husband, ever the eager helper, picked up a cardboard basket of strawberries and asked me, “is this a good price are these good?” Before I could answer, the woman operating the stall reached across her beautiful display and slapped at his arm, nearly causing him to drop the carton. She growled something incomprehensible at him and shook her finger at me in admonishment. Hmmmm. I guess we are not to touch the goods, as we do at home in the United States. Lesson learned. I looked at him in despair and said that any price would be good right now and would he please just pay the unhappy woman and let us be on our way.

A few weeks later, I had learned to navigate the roadways and the kids and I found a wonderful, pick-your-own farm. Here we used shovels to wrest carrots from the ground, pulled green beans off their bushes with our fingers and sat in the warm sandy soil among the strawberry plants and simply ate the berries as fast as we picked them. When we got home, we made a dinner of those veggies and for dessert, a beautiful strawberry tart. I had not had any cooking lessons yet, and boy did I need them, so the tart was not actually beautiful in the traditional sense. I did not get the cream right but we sure had fun creating designs on top with the sliced berries. Sadly, by the time we were finished with the masterpiece, we were too full to eat it. The tart was a little defeated looking by breakfast the next day, but it was still delicious.

So today, I conjure up all of my strawberry memories as I lie in bed and think about summer. Strawberry season is upon us now in Connecticut and the local crop is a good one indeed. My mother always told me the best way to buy fruit is to smell it: does it smell like a strawberry? Surprisingly, the answer is often no. But go ahead and lift that plastic container close to your face and inhale deeply. It should smell like sunshine, sweetness, birds singing and the star of your lunch-time salad.

Kyoto

When we lived overseas, people would ask me what I missed most about my home. Without hesitation I would say, autumn. Nowhere in our world travels have I found more magnificent foliage, brighter blue skies, and crisper fresh air than our own New England. That is, until we visited Kyoto, Japan, about three hours southwest of Tokyo by high-speed bullet train.

Our introduction to life in Tokyo was a few months of stifling summer swelter. Once monsoon season arrived, the temperatures only cooled a bit before I saw a scattering of leaves changing color around the parks in the largely modern city. As we traveled out into the countryside, the landscape morphed dramatically and when we entered the ancient city of Kyoto, I realized that this was the Japan that I was expecting to see when I first arrived.

The trees are simply spectacular with such vibrant colors that they take your breath away. Unlike Tokyo, which has been completely destroyed several times due to fires, earthquakes and the ravages of World War II, Kyoto was spared most of this damage and now boasts the highest number of pre-war buildings in the country. Here are the temples and shrines with their sensuous, curving rooflines and delicately carved details. The narrow streets are lined with low, wooden buildings. This is where the famous geisha live today though it is rare to get a glimpse of one.

We stayed at a traditional lodging called a ryoken. This is about as far away as you can get from the American bed and breakfast experience. Upon entering the building, you must remove your shoes and put on the slippers waiting for you. Luckily for me, Japanese folks have smaller feet; my husband and daughter managed to get only half of each foot into the slippers. Next you are given a yukata, a unisex, cotton bathrobe, and shown to your room. The room is sparsely furnished but very clean and elegant. The traditional rice paper screen doors are prominent and on the floor is your bed, a futon. This mattress with no box spring or base, is rolled out on the floor and covered with a cozy duvet and small pillow filled with rice or something like it. You literally sleep on the floor. Again, this works great for me, but my travel companions’ legs stretched well beyond the edge of the futon.

You are expected to wear the yukata while relaxing in your room. You must also wear it when you go out to enjoy an onsen bath. This is a hot-spring fed, shallow pool, centrally located in the garden or a small shelter. Usually separated by sex, one must scrub vigorously with the brushes and soaps provided before entering the onsen. Also, no swimsuit or clothing of any kind is allowed. It took me nearly a year to try this out and only at 4 a.m. when I was sure nobody was around. While my sense of modesty was uneasily put aside, the glorious hot water and silky minerals made the risk worthwhile.

On a sunny Sunday afternoon, the entire city was a feast for our eyes. We saw many Japanese women strolling along, decked out in their finest, traditional kimonos (flowing, robe-like gown) with unique obis (large belt). The fabrics of these garments are extravagant with ornate designs, rich colors and delicate needlework. The ladies wear platform, thong-type shoes with socks allowing the big toe to be separated from the rest of the foot. They walk in small, clopping steps. Their hair is elaborately styled in a modified chignon and studded with all manner of decorations from delicate chopsticks to small birds and flowers and sparkling stars. Their faces are made up with bright white foundation, very red lipstick and carefully penciled brows. They are all absolutely gorgeous and will smile shyly when a gai-jin (foreigner) can’t stop admiring their parade.

Kyoto is home to many World Heritage sites. One of my favorites is the Nii-jo Castle, home to the Tokugawa shogun. It has many rooms designed for specific waiting, preparing to visit, then finally getting an audience with the shogun (high-ranking lord.) This building boasts a unique flooring system known as the nightingale floors. These boards are nailed in a unique way so as to squeak slightly when they are walked upon. This served as a warning system to those inside in the case of a ninja attack. They really did wear all-black and moved with deadly stealth.

Then there is the breathtaking, must-see Golden Pavilion or Kinkaku-ji Temple. Decorated with real-gold paint, the temple served as the private residence of another retiring shogun from 1358 to 1409. Afterwards, it was converted to a Zen temple and adapted the traditional gardens and contemplative landscaping that makes this place so beautiful to behold in any season.

Known for its dramatic five-story pagoda and massive main gate, the Ninna-ji Temple also features magnificent gardens with bridges, ponds, teahouses and small halls for prayer and residence. It is a lovely example of the Japanese Buddhist temple’s harmony with nature. This building was originally the summer home for the imperial family and became a temple in 886. The miniature Japanese maple trees on the grounds glowed fiery red and orange in the reflection of the shiny building and serene pond surfaces.

Among many, many temples in Japan, some of my favorites follow Shinto beliefs. Very simply, Shintoists  see all things as “kami” or gods. There is a special god for all sorts of specific circumstances. In keeping with this, the gates (stylized entries to the grounds of the temples) are usually dedicated to specific causes or groups. For example, we happened upon a group of young local, ladies dressed in jeans and sweatshirts coming toward us en masse waving their cameras. It was not unusual for people all over Asia to want a photo with us because of our blonde hair and well, different look. They were participating in a scavenger hunt and needed our image to complete their list. There were no young men with the group as we came to understand this particular gate is dedicated to young women in search of boyfriends for marriage. Of course I snapped a shot of my 16-year old daughter to show her children some day. She was not smiling, but the hundreds of young Japanese girls behind her were.

Kyoto was Japan’s capital from 794 until 1869, and as such, attracted many artists to the court of the emperor. The beautiful artwork special to Kyoto includes rustic pottery, all manner of textiles, and paintings. The vintage fabrics, woodcut prints and fine drawings particularly prove that the unforgettable fall foliage here has been spectacular through the ages and appreciated by many. As a souvenir, I bought a vintage obi made of black silk shot through with bright orange and gold metallic threads depicting the important temples of Kyoto. I like to think of a geisha, perhaps, wearing this proudly as she stepped among the red leaves fallen to the street, a parasol shading her from the bright fall sun.

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Not What I Expected

Sometimes I feel like a traitor to my gender. I have become exactly what I did not intend to be: a wife and stay at home mom.

What I was supposed to be is editor in chief of the New York Times. I should be living in Manhattan, by myself with a dog perhaps. I should still be eating macaroni and cheese from a box and quaffing the finest diet Dr. Pepper. I should not know how to cook, speak French, operate a sewing machine or change a diaper. I should not know how to run a bake sale, fix a clogged sink or diagnose an ear infection. I am doing all of these things under an assumed name, having given up hyphenating my last name when my oldest child went to school. At that time, it just seemed pretentious and complicated. I don’t claim to do any of these things well, but I am certain that I was not really supposed to be able to do them at all.

I went to a women’s college in the 1980s and even that was a surprise to me. From the time I got my first typewriter, I knew I would be a reporter. It was red plastic, manual of course, and I kept track of important things in my 7-year old life. I was always taking notes. From middle school, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. Going to college was never a question as both my mother and her mother had gone to college. I truly believe that my early life was so much richer for their experiences and insights as educated women. I graduated from the same school my grandmother attended. I even lived in the same dormitory, 50 years after she did.

When I was in college, I enjoyed participating in student government and of course, the campus newspaper. At that time, my classmates and I were directly benefiting from the women who brought the ERA and NOW and ideas of gender equality to work, politics, life. I had the distinct honor of being sent to pick up Bella Abzug at the airport. Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinam and even Phyllis Schafly visited our campus. We were empowered, emboldened, and encouraged to ask questions, question authority and think big. Throughout the campus, we ran the show, unimpeded by male perspective. We celebrated the tremendous achievements of the mothers who went before us, creating a path for us to continue the fight. We respected our place in history and felt ready to take on the future as fully functioning workers. It never occurred to me that there would be any issue of my gender as I looked to the future. Then I graduated. Once we got out there, however, we discovered that despite the gains, there was still a long way to go.

As I moved from one job to the next, I realized that my gender worked for and against me. I know that I was hired at a technical magazine because they needed another girl on the editorial board. I took that job because I wanted the experience. Looking back, I am sorry that being female counted for so much on my resume. Naively, I thought my writing skills were what they wanted from me. Once I got pregnant, it became clear to me that my gender was indeed in the way. It was a tough pregnancy and I got no support from my all-male colleagues. The other girl on the staff was still out on maternity and would come back just in time to take my place.

When I finally met my son, I changed my plan to leave him at six weeks and return to my real life. I realized that it would be better for him and me if I stayed home with him. I got a part time job and thoroughly enjoyed learning how to be a mother. I realized, that I am grateful for the ability to make that choice. In the long run, I believe that my education and work experience are not wasted on my work as a stay at home mom. I believe my children are richer for the things I have learned and our family has benefited overall.

I was reminded of this recently when I read Sheryl Sandberg’s book, “Lean In.” My first reaction was to feel insulted. I could not believe that she was so arrogant as to believe that women today are just not trying hard enough. I got the message that we still need to advocate for ourselves and stop being so tentative. It seemed that she was dismissing decades of progress. Who the heck does she think she is? When I discussed this feeling with my college roommate, who does not consider herself a feminist and is working as a corporate executive, I began to see another side. She sees the message in this book as giving a push to the younger women who may not appreciate how they got to where they are today. We both agreed that the possibility of choices – choosing family over career or career over family – are a direct gift of those women on whose shoulders we stand. There is no shame or obligation in either choice.

Now my children are grown and I face a crossroads. I am looking in the mirror and not sure who is looking back. I have time and I have choices and for that, I am truly grateful. Another thing for which I am grateful is that I have raised an intelligent, self-confident daughter, who, at the tender age of 20, is involved on her own college campus with women’s issues. Unlike me, she already knows how to cook, and even made her own prom dress in high school. She recently observed that, “It is not the question of what we can do, but what we choose to do,” when it comes to contemporary gender issues. I am happy to see that perhaps I am not a traitor at all, but a teacher and a leader, in my own small way.

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Posie Paralysis

Our eyes met briefly across the top of thousands of geraniums in a rainbow of colors. We bumped into each other about an hour later. We collided, back to back as we focused skyward on the hanging baskets obscuring the sun. She laughed and patted my hand. “You have it too?” she asked conspiratorially. Yes, I nodded wordlessly. We agreed that we were trapped in the complete inability to make a decision at the garden center and had no idea how to get out.

Every year it is the same: I am paralyzed by choice. Methodically, I visit my favorite local garden centers, spending hours among the hydrangeas, coleus, petunias and begonias. I am fond of making matching pots or baskets for the front porch and the back deck, so I find it challenging to search out the plants and flowers that complement each other. In the beginning, it was simple red geraniums. Everywhere. Then one year we went on vacation and the neighbor who was supposed to babysit my floral friends got distracted and the poor things withered and died of thirst. When I went to replace them, I discovered very little choice so late in the season and ended up with some winsome, miniature petunias. They were white and had sweet potato vines growing among the flowers in the pre-planted pots. End of summer sale – loved it! That fall, I discovered that those vines were not just decorative. We found frozen sweet potatoes in the pots when we went to empty them for the winter.

So, one would hope that after decades of this game, I would have learned sooner to overcome this ridiculous habit and make confident, speedy, pre-planned annual choices. Alas, it was only last year, but the trick I learned then reduced this year’s agony by weeks.

I had been prowling around Locust Glen Garden Center and was finally down to the last two baskets for my deck. I found one that had already been made up – with red geraniums, blue petunias and white lantana. It was festive and bright and perfect for July 4 decoration. Just when I thought I had gathered enough plants to create a matching basket, I spied some amazing purple and yellow flowers in a smaller container. I wavered, as I always do. After I put down the red, white and blue basket, I gathered the purple and yellow, but needed just one more yellow to make my matching set. Minutes turned into an hour and I still could not find the right plant. As I made my way around the corner of the building, I came upon a woman wearing work gloves, surrounded by hundreds of potting plants. She was elbow deep into a large, stone container, reaching for one of my yellow plants, when she noticed me watching her. I expressed complete envy of her eye and skill in putting those containers together to look so artful and unique. She smiled, handed me the yellow plant I needed from her already finished pot and said these three words: “thrill, fill, spill.”

Like so many things in life, the concept is simple and makes perfect sense. As with algebra, physics and the metric system, I would never have figured it out without help from a patient professional. Here is the key to potted plant perfection, the garden center goddess explained. This one, she said, is the tallest element in the pot and provides the thrill, the focal point of the arrangement. Next, you fill in the middle area with smaller scale plants, and finally, you add a plant or two with a horizontal habit so that it spills over the edge of the pot. I was elated to discover that I could easily duplicate her creations at home while chanting thrill, fill, spill, quietly to myself.

Now back to my new friend with the geraniums. She saw the lack of conviction in my eyes and tried to help. She pointed to a hot pink geranium that would have contrasted nicely with the yellow strawflower I was clutching. I thanked her for the suggestion and admitted that all I needed was a “spill” to complete my task. She stepped back a tiny bit, and hesitated before asking, “huh?” I explained the garden center mantra and she raised her hands in victory. I can do that, she told me. Indeed, I agreed. Wishing each other good luck and good gardening, we parted ways.

I left that place without my spill but found it on the way home while stopped at a traffic light. I saw the missing element to my container masterpieces through the fence but had to make plans to return. That second garden center was closed for the day. This year, I have added another helpful habit for myself: I draw a simple sketch and label the plants, including the year and location of purchase. Who knows, I might be able to get it all done in one day next year.

Girls Fly for the first time in Russia

First Flying Females

We watched our tour guide casually hop over a barricade and stand with his heels on the brink, very much alone. Behind him, the ground dropped away and the magnificent Wasatch Mountains spread across the horizon. The wind whipped frozen snowflakes into our eyes and into our gaping mouths. The view from the top of the Olympic ski jump in Park City, Utah is breathtaking from the platform. At the very edge of the steeply sloping strip, where the jumpers perch in preparation for their 60 mph catapult run from track to air to landing, the view actually takes your breath away. As we stamped our feet to keep warm, I could not stop wondering, “why would anyone in his or her right mind voluntarily do this?”

The 2014 winter Olympic games, opening in Russia this week, will be history-making as the very first female ski jumpers will be allowed to compete. This is not for lack of wanting to compete in previous games, nor for a lack of trying to compete on an Olympic level. When the winter Olympics became gender inclusive in 1991, (yes, you read that right) the 1924 inaugural events, including ski jumping, were not included. Some old timers even went so far as to suggest that ski jumping could damage a woman’s reproductive organs. And here I am so naïve, it never occurred to me that there was not a women’s event. I thought I just hadn’t caught it on TV.

This is not to say that women have not been ski jumping for more than a century and competing globally in the past decade. The American team, boasts the 2013 World Cup champion and brings impressive credentials to the Sochi games. I can’t wait to see how they compare to their male counterparts. According to the official Women’s Ski Jumping website, the women will only compete in one of three possible events: the 90-meter normal hill jump. Interestingly, just before the 2010 games in Vancouver, American Lindsey Van held a Vancouver K95 record of 105.5 meters for both men and women. That distance would have earned her a podium spot in the men’s competition that year. Instead, she joined a dozen current and former female jumpers in a lawsuit that eventually gave her the right to do this officially in 2014.

In January we visited the Olympic Park, built just outside of Park City in 2002 for the games hosted by the US. Along with our tour, we saw current qualifying action in the luge, bobsled, skeleton and freestyle skiing. Most of these sports share terrifying speed, little physical protection, and contact with frozen surfaces that defy common sense. And yet, these athletes are just so enthusiastic about their sports. We were enjoying a hot drink and mulling aloud, these aspects of winter sport, when a woman sitting nearby joined the conversation. A former Olympian herself, she is the coach of the women’s bobsled team. She looked pretty sane to me and very kindly explained the mechanics of successfully piloting the 2-person bullet-shaped sleds. Speed and subtlety are key components. A tiny shift in weight can send the dual runners beneath the sled in the wrong direction. She explained that the skeleton is a sled sport where single competitors lie on their stomachs, head up, much like we do as children on a gloriously snow covered hill. The luge is also a flat sled but with the opposite technique: single competitors lie on their backs, unable to see where they are going. All of these events go careening down the same ice-covered tube, which is carefully tended by hand with paint brushes and water. There is no Zamboni to smooth out the ice surface like in hockey. Thank God they all wear helmets.

So, how do these brave ski jumpers get their start? I guess it is like anything else, you just see someone else doing it and think, “I can do that, it might be fun.” Most American jumpers hail from Park City and Lake Placid, NY, both sites of winter Olympic games. They usually start between ages 5 and 8 and work their way up from 10, 20, and 40-meter hills to the 90-meter competition runs. Youngsters and female jumpers have historically done what is called “forejumping,” where they take the jump just before an official competition to determine the effects of wind, temperature and weather. Our guide laughingly calls them guinea pigs, adding that it is a privilege and the last step before becoming a competitor.

Like most Olympic athletes, ski jumpers train year round. In Utah, they do their summer jumps on the same winter runs with the ice being replaced by ceramic tracks and grass-like hills. They fly, with the classic V-shape of their skis, bodies bent slightly forward, arms just away from their sides. Instead of landing in a telemark on snow, with one leg ahead of the other, knees bent, the summer jumpers land in a large pool of water. They get the same height, no more than 15 feet above the ground, and claim the same distance thanks to the laws of physics. The facility runs clinics for ordinary folks who want to give this a try, sans ice. You see mostly photos of children doing this, big smiles and dripping hair in each shot.

One of the toughest challenges, our new coach friend told us, is not so much a physical one but is difficult nonetheless: raising funds to keep the training going year round and between competitions. When watching the athletes on TV at the Olympic games, it is easy to forget that these are people who have jobs, families, and lives off of their skis, skates and sleds. “It is truly passion and love for the sport that keeps us all going,” she says smiling.

We stood at the base of the freestyle ski hill watching the young competitors practice. Their coach stood in the middle of the hill with a walkie talkie and we could hear her encourage each one, giving criticism here and there. Each young skier soared through the air, landed with determination and trudged over to the lift to ride back to the top to do it again. And again. We left that day with a deep appreciation for the vast preparation required for that penultimate 10-second jump.

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March is so frustrating!

March is a frustrating month. Even die-hard winter lovers like me are pretty much fed up with cold, cold, cold by the time the Ides of March roll around. This middle of month, enough-already space in our collective psyche is not doing me any good these days. I’ve got a serious case of cabin fever and actually cried out in frustration when the lighter jacket I put on the other day, while the sun was strong and clear, was not nearly heavy enough to keep me from shivering.

            Of course Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar was warned of the Ides of March for different reasons, the danger we contemporary New Englanders face is the feeling that picnics, baseball games, waterskiing and long dog walks are just so far away.

            I drive past the garden centers, wistfully peering at their meager pansy offerings. While they are cheerful plants, pansies do not assuage my intense yearning to dig in the dirt. A good friend, who is truly knowledgeable, has already been out in her garden, pruning, digging and getting a jump on the rest of us. She is a much hardier soul than I. If there is still ice under the mulch, I recoil and go back to wishful thinking as I urge the calendar forward just a bit. I don’t mind the hard work, but I crave warm sunshine on my back and a breeze wafting the scent of newly dug dirt and just-unfolding blossoms as I toil in the garden.

            For sure, there are teasing signs of hope. As the morning sun brightens the sky earlier (thanks to daylight savings), I hear birds bravely facing the chill to call spring to life. George, the bald eagle, and his mate Martha have been seen soaring overhead. I hope they have returned to their nest just a football field away from my kitchen window. There have been only a few sightings of my little fox family from last spring. Perhaps they are waiting for warmer weather before they allow the kits out to play and entertain the lucky humans nearby.

            I saw a bunch of intrepid high school athletes out on the fields yesterday. The wind was howling, the wind chill was in the teens and there they were, lacrosse sticks and tennis racquets in hand, doing their best to prepare for this week’s team try outs. This behavior is the very definition of hope and youthful resiliency. The parking lot told a different story. Here, wiser and older parents, remained in their cars with the engines running, some holding steaming cups of coffee as they watched the action through the windshield. Somehow the same weather conditions in the fall are seen as bracing and exhilarating. In March, the cold wind and stubborn flurries are simply tedious.

            For the past few months, we have been fighting the winter blues by playing with a video game called Wii. This thing is truly interactive and can get the most uncoordinated, grouchy couch potato moving and laughing. We do everything from downhill skiing to hula-hooping to yoga with this thing – all on the television. Tennis and bowling not only work out our muscles but our vocal chords as we talk trash and do our best to rile the opposition. The game absolutely transcends the generations because the adults in our house often kick the teenagers out when we want to play. I know senior centers throughout the state use this game to enhance indoor activities for those otherwise unable to enjoy sports when the weather is cold and icy.

Though I look forward to next week's forecast of a comparatively balmy weather, I was not happy about needing to wear mittens when I took my little dog for his walk this morning. I did see something, however, that warmed my heart and made me laugh. It was a bright green Volkswagen Beetle car, sporting bunny ears on either side of its roof and a fluffy pink nose (with whiskers) on the hood. A spring bunny, if you will, hopping down the road towards spring. Such silliness is a true sign of hope that warmer days are surely on their way.

Yoga -- try it, you'll like it

My doctor looked at me over her glasses and frowned slightly. You should really try yoga, she admonished me, not for the first time. It has so many benefits, including fitness and stress release, she continued, why on earth did I not even give it a try?

Actually, I had given it a try and in my estimation, failed in an epic way at the start. But like Goldilocks, I finally found a yoga practice that was just right for me. Ahhhh.

 At the very beginning, I took a class with a friend who is a fitness fanatic and could pass for 30 instead of her 50ish years. We were creating triangles with our bodies, twisting legs, then raising one arm and finally eyes to the ceiling. I could not stop thinking about pretzels as I used my hand to manipulate my uncooperative knee into the right position. My father loved pretzels, the thin crunchy kind. He would eat them along with a cold Coke while watching the Johnny Carson show. I would be allowed to join him for just a few minutes before I was sent back to bed. Which brings me to the other component of yoga that escaped me completely: concentration.

The instructor was telling us to focus on our breath and empty our minds. Let the mind chatter disappear into blissful meditation. I was really trying to do this but knew I was fooling no one when an upside down face appeared before mine and said, “you are not even trying to concentrate.” She was right. I was enjoying the view out the window and thinking of the things I would buy at the grocery store when the torture session, er yoga lesson, was finished. This class was definitely not for me.

A year later, I was encouraged by another friend to try yogalates, a combination of yoga and pilates. While I did not love pilates, I thought I would at least enjoy trying this class which was held in an historic barn. Cool. When I entered, I was pleased to see a few students who looked more like me: not too thin, not decked out in perfect yoga attire, and wearing the same hopeful expression. The teacher was excellent and I found myself enjoying the class, except for the incense she burned. I suppose this was intended to infuse our lesson with good karma. Here I learned about my heartspace and being grateful in the moment. I kept up with this for a few weeks and found true mastery when she added head stands to our routine. For some bizarre reason, I have always been able to do this. I was inspired.

Scheduling and money stopped this experiment. Years passed before I tried again.

This time, I was persuaded by the class description as “gentle” yoga. How hard could that possibly be? When I arrived, I was the youngest person in the room by far, but was soon impressed by everyone else’s flexibility and dedication to the practice. Here, I finally got the breathing thing down for the most part and began to understand how to slow down the hamster on the wheel in my brain. It took me months to join the group when they ended the session with three “oms”. This is a long-winded sound emitted in a breathy growl somewhere between agony and hunger. When I tried it, however, I found it felt great. Expressing all of the air from your lungs is oddly liberating.

My favorite part of the session is at the end. It is called shavasana. This pose is extremely simple. All you need to do is lie on your back, spread eagle, eyes closed and listen to beautiful, tingly Eastern music. The room is darkened and you actually can sleep sometimes. It is a great way to finish the twisting and stretching and it is strangely energizing. While I can’t define what personal enlightenment would be, I certainly feel lighter when I’m finished with each session.

I suppose yoga is called a “practice” for a reason. You really need to experiment a bit and try out different instructors and styles to find the right fit. There is one type of yoga that I will not try under any circumstances. It is Bikram yoga where students do their poses in a superhot room. I cannot think of anything more unpleasant and counterproductive than sweating in a sauna and trying to find inner peace. My husband tried it and said he burned his tongue on his water bottle, forgetting that this would get hot too.

According to the American Yoga Association, more than 16 million people practice today in the US. The history of this activity stretches back thousands of years but only the last hundred or so have been chronicled. Yoga is evolving as its proponents do and that is why there are so many varying interpretations and styles.

We joke at our house about our 12-year old beagle when he stretches out his back legs and tucks his front paws under his chin, eyes up and watching everything around him without moving his head. We call this the “bored dog” pose because he sure looks like he is waiting for something more interesting to happen.

Without knowing it, we are actually at the edge of a new yoga trend: doga. I am not kidding. Somewhere in New Jersey, there is a yoga studio set up for people and their pets. According to the owners of this establishment, dogs get stressed too and react to their people’s stress as well. By doing downward dog, known as play pose for the four-legged participants, they are emptying their minds too. I can’t even imagine what cat yoga would look like.

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