The Payoff

I want to talk about payoffs.

Every month, I put $100 into a retirement account. The hope is that 35+ years from now I will withdraw those monthly donations, and that with interest I'll have accumulated a nice little nest egg. (Do you hear the sound of me blithely ignoring the stock market as it drips steadily downward? Ignorance is bliss.)

There are other types of payoffs too, of course, and perhaps they offer far more than monetary value. Several times a week, many of us drag ourselves to the hot room, believing that our efforts will bring us rewards in the form of a healthier body, a saner mind, and a purer spirit. Effort takes the form of therapy, prayer, and meditation, typically done with a sort of "goal" in mind: we endure what is often a "grim duty" in the hopes that we'll achieve a sense of peace.

The struggles that push me into these activities are not unique to me. I get worried. I'm tightly wound. I have difficulty sleeping. And when I do sleep, anxieties persist: even my dreams reflect my mountain of insecurities back to me. "Life is a journey, not a destination," I tell myself to make it through a tough moment, pleading with myself to stay in the present.

One thing I think we can all agree on, though. The destination can be pretty sweet.

I took the time to pause and savor one of those destinations just last night.

Jamul, Hollenbeck Canyon

Every year, I go out to "the country," Jamul, which is located about 20+ miles east of San Diego. Each April, I celebrate the birthday of a dear friend, whose wife invites dozens of friends out to their sprawling property to explore, eat, drink, and dance to a band's rendition of Tom Petty, Santana, and The Doors.

Oh, and people also ride dirt bikes and ATVs.

I've been going to these Jamul parties for about five years now. Whenever I arrive, the hosts, Jerry and Cindy, offer me a drink and the keys their ATV, also known as The Rhino. Always I have declined, unless I happen to be with a guest that wants to jump into the driver's seat. I have ridden shotgun many a time around Jerry and Cindy's sprawling country property, always content to be in the passenger's seat. Whether it is from fear or simply from the result of resistance to new experiences, it never even occurred to me to grab the keys myself.

But there have been changes 'round these parts these last few months. Years of yoga and deep spiritual and emotional exploration have tenderly prepared the soil for new growth. A new man is at my side, a trellis that encourages those new tendrils to sprout upward. I was ready to start a new tradition at Jerry's party.

"Where are the keys?" I asked, not long after I arrived. My partner bravely entered the vehicle and gripped the dusty handle for dear life. Off we rode, bumping through ruts, nearly tipping over into brambles, streaming through mud puddles, and reversing down roads to avoid territorial guard dogs.

To say it was fun would be an understatement. As I steered us through windy country roads, I felt as if I were putting the miles between me and my old self--the past was, for once, going to stay put. A few moments of freedom, speeding steadily forward.

I know I'll keep on toiling away in the hot room. I will continue to sit until our sits bones are sore, and I'll dutifully deposit the money into my retirement accounts. But the payoff? When it arrives, I promise to love it. We should all spend a few moments reveling in that gloriously muddy, dusty destination.

Avoid the territorial canines

  

Enjoy the ride in the Rhino

The Discomfort Zone: Where Life really Begins

No, this ain't a post about contraception :-) For more on that, turn to your preferred media outlet, which  greedily catalogs the Republican presidential nominee race.

Have y'all noticed? Spring is here.

Flowers in the Anza desert

I hate to be cliche, but I'm working on sharing honest opinions. In this case, my thoughts toward spring probably mirror most other folks'. Spring is alive. It's hopeful, and it's bright. It's blue, shiny, green, laden with scent and fluttery animals. Shoot, out here in the SoCal desert, even our cacti bloom, exhaling radiant colors into our atmosphere.

And, dare I say it, I come to life. I admit that I kind of hibernate during winter. It's a time to hunker down and pull into myself. (An aside: I think there's a reason our major holidays are in winter. We've gotta put dates on family celebrations, or else it's likely we'll sink tragically into ourselves for the remainder of the dark months.)

Don't get me wrong. I love me some introspection. Enough about yoga as an Olympic event: if Rumination were a contest, I would take the gold medal.

I guess you can imagine my relief when daylight savings time arrives and the weather starts to tick upward a few degrees. I'm propelled to get outside and out of my routines and out of my head.

It was at this moment of springtime appreciation that I saw a delightful fellow blogger's FB status update that she was going to make adventures a priority. Not just any adventure--as she put it, she's looking for adventures that put her "out of her comfort zone." A ding of recognition went off in my head as I read her post. What if I did the same? What if I identified actions that would put me out of my comfort zone, and then, drawing upon the inspiration of this beautiful spring, tackle them one by one? What would happen if I actually went through with this little experiment?

I am tempted to try it out. 

So, the first step is to identify just what constitutes adventure for me. It's not as easy as it sounds. In my case, I do not need to sign myself up for more traditional occurrences that would be labeled "adventurous." I have been spelunking. I have bungee jumped. I dove off cliffs into cool pools of water in Belize. I climbed rocks and rode horseback in the Rockies, I've swum with sharks; I traveled to South and Central America alone; I have ridden across the border into Mexico on the back of a motorcycle, my arms around a man I hardly knew.

Those aren't the kinds of adventures I need. For me, those are comfortable adventures. Although I plan to get back to Asia one day, perhaps to stay in a monastery in Bhutan or to soak in hot springs in Japan, I don't have to rev myself up much to make that a possibility.

The kinds of adventures I need are the ones that will knock me off balance. I am one who walks through life as if on a tightrope. As you can see from the list above, I can manage some real feats! However, those feats are accomplished under a microscope of minute calculations--none was taken up as a result of true spontaneity. Everything is planned, analyzed, evaluated, and teased apart for potential complications and consequences. Don't want the week to be too exciting--tomorrow, I might get exhausted and behind on work. Don't become too much of a recluse--boredom and anxiety can breed under such conditions.

What I need to do is take myself off balance. Below are actions, listed from simplest to most complex, that would do precisely that. This would get me into the discomfort zone.

• Stay up late doing something I love, the night before I've gotta do some heavy-duty teaching or grading. Enjoy myself without worrying about the consequences for once.
• Tell students, point blank but with compassion, that they simply will not pass this time. Feel the discomfort and tell them anyway. 
• Have a drink when I'm out with friends. Don't have a drink when out with friends--do what's more uncomfortable.
• In yoga: do not leave the room. 
• **Unless staying in the room is something I'm doing out of fear of the teacher's disapproval. In that case, leave the room.
•  After lying in bed for two hours, trying desperately to sleep, mind stuck like iTunes on repeat, get up, and do something I love. Do not worry about the consequences.
• Do something really, really loving for someone I'm related to. It has to take the form of an act of love not typically expressed in my family (i.e., money-bestowing or letter-writing). 
• Say no--repeatedly--when I am asked to do something I'm not up for. Say no, especially to men. 
• Get uncomfortably intimate (emotionally) with someone I care about, knowing full well that doing so will feel like inhaling water. 
• Do not make important decisions without knowing how I truly feel.
• Be who I am, who I really am, around the people I'm often not.
• Recognize that this list might contradict itself and make decision-making even tougher.
• Sit. (Meaning, meditate. On a regular basis.)

This may not be your list. But if I could get through this, even once (except for the yoga/meditation ones: those have to be regular), I would be taking a long stroll through discomfort. And as they say, life begins when we leave our comfort zones.

So. How do I proceed from here? Well, some of that stuff can't be scheduled, so I'll have to keep 'em in the back of my mind and act when the moment arises. Others, like yoga and meditation time, are easier that way. I recently bought tickets to a concert that will take place on a Tuesday evening. It's almost mandatory that a couple of adult beverages will be consumed at this show, and wouldn't you know it? Wednesday is my longest (and earliest) teaching day. But I won't worry about the consequences--at least for that one day.

Part of me wants to keep writing and address questions like, "for how long is this experiment an actual focus of mine? How often will I report on it?" But I think I've done enough obsessive planning. I'm trying to do less of that, after all.

It's in the name of science that I undertake this little experiment. Does life really begin when we leave our comfort zone? And what would be on your "discomfort zone" list?

It's What I Know.

The school's absence policy is strict: two weeks of missed classes and you are out.  Armed with this reassurance from the dean, I walked into class, prepared to go to the mat on this issue.

"I've been recovering from surgery. I have a baby. I'm a veteran. If you drop me, I'll lose my stipend." The student stood in front of me as I prepared for class to begin, his arm wrapped in a cast. Persistently, he repeated his reasons for staying in the class as he washed a Percocet down with soda. My resolve buckled. I told him to sit down, and I caved to his every request for missed materials and laborious recounting of past lectures.

As I left class, I felt myself slip into a familiar pattern of thinking: trapped between my "take a hard line" self and my "Yes! Limitless compassion for all!" self. Fueling this vacillation was my old self-loathing, angry and ashamed that I had been unable to take the stand I'd committed to.

On my way home from work, a stanza from Ani Difranco's new album stuck out like a neon vacancy sign blinks at weary travelers:

"I walk past my own self-loathing
Like I walk past animals in the zoo
Trying not to really see them
And the prison they didn’t choose."

One of the reasons I love that stanza so much is because it pictures the self-criticism so aptly as a series of traps. It is like a prison, but, as a friend once told me, it's a prison with an open door; we can walk out at any time. "How frightening it could be out there!" we think, and cling desperately to the bars of our own cells. Because there's something familiar in those old negative patterns, isn't there? We grasp onto our suffering, afraid that if we let it go something new and more terrifying will replace it.

In the past few years, I've cultivated technique after technique for dealing with this, ah, problem. Yoga provides me with a baseline of strength and awareness from which to address this stuff directly. Meditation, prayer, and biofeedback training arm me with methods for interrupting these thoughts mid-stream. But sometimes I get too tired to fight, and let's face it: these techniques don't provide an easy 180 out of suffering. And fighting means facing the fact that those old patterns are still there.

So, fine, I'll say. Let the student stay in class. Let nepotism continue. Let me continue to lie awake at night, haunted by streams of self-criticism and doubt. I may not have chosen this prison, but it's what I know.

I've never been much of a gardener, but I imagine this is what folks mean when they say it's like getting stuck in a rut. It can be so easy, so comfortable, to keep pushing your wheelbarrow forward on that familiar path. But a rut is a rut; at some point, we've got to get the strength to heave our barrows up and out and to continue on, forging a new (if bumpy) path forward.

Wheelbarrow/ "So much depends..."

Scalpel Moments

When I was 18, I cut open a pig.

Small pig

I don't mean that I enjoyed a nice pork chop, or that I wrapped filet mignon in bacon. I literally took a baby pig, sliced it open with a knife, and poked and marveled its insides.

I guess the knife part gives it all away. It was a biology lab I took my first semester of college, and the one dissection we had to do was of a fetal pig.

I remember the first day of class, when the instructor announced that we'd be doing the fetal pig dissection. "No fucking way," I thought to myself.

I was young, high on Ani Difranco and burgeoning liberal beliefs, and there was no way I would let this injustice stand. I discussed this with my mother, who encouraged me to abstain and to bring a brochure from AAVS to the instructor. I put the brochure in my bag, and on the second day the class met, I had fortified myself, ready to broach the topic with the instructor.

"Don't trip," my lab partner (and former McDonald's coworker) said. "I'll dissect it when the day comes. And you get to miss one lab per semester; you can just be absent that day." My political standpoint crumpled in the face of this opportunity for laziness. Plus, the instructor was kind of scary, and I didn't want to get into it with an instructor my first semester of college.

Inevitably, the day to dissect the pig arrived. My lab partner's one absence coincided with D-Day. My last-minute protestations to the instructor fell on deaf ears, of course, and the pig was placed in front of me. Bigger, pinker, and waaay cuter than I expected, the pig lay tragically on the tray, scalpel neatly placed beside it. I didn't know what I was going to do. As the only person without a lab partner, I felt the victim of some great injustice. I was an English major, for Chrissakes. In what possible context would I need to know what the insides of a dead pig look like?

To say that making the first incision was the hardest part would be an understatement. I couldn't have felt more dread and disgust as I would walking toward a pile of writhing caterpillars (of which I am intensely afraid). I understood that I was most definitely not going to take a stand, that I was going to participate in what I thought was a strange and unnecessary process. But once the skin gave way to the blade, once it pulled away to reveal the tiny, compact organs, the resistance dropped away. There was the pale heart, the maroon liver; there were the daffodil-colored intestines that could be unraveled like a ball of yarn. Not only was it not as bad as I thought it would have been, it was actually kind of cool.

I thought of that pig yesterday as my mind mapped out brilliant excuses to skip out on yoga (these scalpel moments present themselves all the time, don't they?). This time, the pig was far too cute, and I talked myself out of a Bikram class. How many wonderful experiences do we miss out on because we resist and fight? As Jack Kornfield says, "This resistance is a pushing away or closing off to the experience, just the opposite of opening to it."

I'm not really sure what the "takeaway" for this piece is, exactly, but maybe we can take a page out of Kornfield's book and just keep opening to experience. Pick up that blade and get to work! :-)

Trails Untrod

Do you ever feel like "doing the posture" is an incredibly lofty goal? Do you ever want to laugh in the teacher's face when they say, "One day you will touch your forehead to your toes!" Not in this lifetime, right? (Those of you who can do this, well... I guess I'm not talking to you ;-)

What force entices us to undertake these seemingly impossible challenges again and again? It seems like inside and outside the hot room, challenges we've seen time and time again are placed before us. I think of 'em as "Deja vu Obstacles": The frustration I feel in the balancing series, the claustrophobia that sets in during the floor postures, the heart-pounding head rush of Camel pose. And don't even get me started on stuff in my personal life. Boy, have I been here before.

I've been thinking a lot about these patterns lately. I feel like I've been stuck in a certain sticky cycle--one you'll have to buy me a burger to get me to open up about--for quite a while now. I get out of a tough situation, and I breathe a sigh of sweet relief. Then, I notice a pretty trail open up before me. I happily toss my stuff into my wheelbarrow and skip down it, thinking, "This time it's going to be different." Almost immediately, though, I can see it's not. The trail is as well-trod and worn, and before I know it my little wheel has slipped right back into the same rut.

What compels us to sign up for more of the same?

To answer, indulge me in a little detour into my grad program. One semester I took a seminar on William Faulkner. The teacher, a grumpy PhD who was itching to retire, assigned me a presentation on his short story, "Red Leaves."  Part of the story centers on a slave (known only as "Negro"), who has been assigned to live and work with an Indian chief. (Criticism of this white Southerner's problematic portrayal of Native Americans and black slaves is duly noted.)

When the Indian chief dies, the nameless slave panics, knowing that it is his fate to be buried with his "master." Although he has been prepped his entire life for this hard fact, the slave runs for miles and days, trying to outrun his fate, saying, "Ole, grandfather. It is that I do not wish to die." At last, though, the slave gives in and is caught, led back to the village to meet his death.

When I was to present on this story, the only instruction I was given was to be prepared to tell the class why the nameless slave ran. I read and reread the story, thinking there must be some magic sentence in the text to help me answer the professor's question. Finding none, I stumbled nervously on the day of the presentation until she asked me the question outright. "Why did the slave run?" "Uhm, because.... ah, that's Life," I managed to spit out. "Human beings are compelled to live, and no amount of conditioning can take away our desire to live."

I think this is the same force that compels us to take up that trail again in the hopes that it's fresh and untrod. Or perhaps it's that we take up the trail in the hopes that we'll have the strength to propel ourselves out of the rut in the hopes that we can continue marching toward our goal. We may know deep down that it's our fate to fail to touch our forehead to our toes, but that doesn't stop us from unrolling our mat in the hot room day after day. No amount of neurotic conditioning should rob us of our will to attempt improving ourselves again and again. Find that pretty trail. Get your wheelbarrow ready. Try, try again.

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You can read "Red Leaves" here.

The Fort-Builders

When I was a kid, my brother was my favorite person to play with. We'd enter into our own world, fashioned typically of boy things like sticks, Star Wars toys, and GI Joes, and everything else would drop away.

When he and I were really young, one of our favorites was to build a fort out of the couch in the spare room. I think it's a common experience for fort-builders: ironically, they're kinda frail. My brother and I would take the cushions off and rearrange them very meticulously so that they surrounded the couch with just enough room for us to slide in on one side. Once we were inside, we had to move very carefully so as not to collapse the walls surrounding us.

There was always something so thrilling about that activity. The joy was in the doing: in the placement of the cushions, the imaginative reasons for making the fort, and the cautious entrance. Honestly, I've forgotten moments after we actually got inside. I imagine we looked at each other, reveled in our creation, and then got bored and punched our way out. Or maybe we started fighting and it all came crumbling down ;-)

I think most of the fun was in the acceptance of the cycle: you build, you love what you're doing, you appreciate it for a moment, and you let it all wash away so you can build it up again. This is particularly easy for kids to do, I think. Think of the way a toddler passes his favorite toy back and forth with you. He trusts that what you take from him, you will give back. (Maybe it's harder for us adults, but I digress...)

I feel like I'm on a similar cusp. I feel this especially strongly today. This morning, I took a step back and looked at what I've been building as I was recognized in a special tenure ceremony. For those who don't know, tenure is kind of a permanent position granted to teachers after you put in some dues and demonstrate you're qualified for the job. (Please note, not all teachers who deserve tenure are afforded an opportunity to get a job, especially these days.) It was such a lovely experience, and what was especially interesting about it was the reminder that the times we're most honored are the ones in which we're the most humbled. I stood on a stage with 12 other faculty members, feeling those two extremes pretty profoundly. I allowed myself to recognize that I've spent the last six years lovingly, joyfully (mostly) building this little fort, all the while knowing I was dependent on all those who continually show me the way and build with me. I may have "done it," but, at most, all I did was combine ideas I pretty much stole from everyone I've befriended along the way. That's the way it is. We build together, and when we're doing it right, we love the process.

It's so like yoga, isn't it? The teachers tell us over and over that it's not the degree to which you exemplify the posture, or whether you get your forehead to that knee. The more joy and compassion we bring to our practice, be with the posture, and are able to let go and happily embrace the next, well... I can't help but thinking those forts will become just a little more solid.

My Right Path

It's a time for important dates. Soon, it's the 4th of July. Last week, it was my two-year anniversary at my Bikram Yoga studio. In less than a couple of months, I'm going to hit the big 3-0.

I have been having so. much. FUN this summer. Lots of Bikram Yoga! Lots of restorative yoga! Naps! Good food! Catching up! With every sun, sweat, family, and friend-filled moment, though, comes some pretty intense reflection. I think that's the nature of dates in general, right? They remind us of our limited time on this blessed planet and invite us to think about whether we're living our lives the best way we can. This series of anniversaries have been no exception. I don't think one can step into the next decade without asking, "Did I do enough with those years? Am I really on my right path?"

One of the reflective activities I've been devoting my time to this summer is reading. I have five books in my bed right now, and I'm actually making pretty good headway in all of them. One of them is In the Buddha's Words, a collection of his teachings. It's dense and reminds me of reading the Bible, which, no offense, is not that exciting, so I view my time spent reading it as devotional practice. In a comforting and oft-quoted passages I reread earlier this week, the Buddha is at the end of his life. He tells his devoted but confused disciple "be a lamp unto yourself."

The instruction invites us all to consider what is true for us. As helpful as religious instruction can be, and as devoted we may be to our wise teachers, our belief system has to resonate with what we already know to be true. At best, religion is like a compass. It simply points us in a helpful direction. But whether we have the energy to get ourselves on the path, whether the destination even seems like it would be a cool place to go to... well... that part has to come from inside.We ultimately have to feel the destination is worthwhile and the path the right one, or else we'll get tired, bored, and call a taxi to take us back.

Of course, the trick is that it can take a lifetime(s) to discover what it is we know to be true and to set upon the path we deem right for ourselves. I feel like a newborn baby when I try to think with this in mind, and at the same time feel blocked by mistakes that I already seem to make over and over again. (How is it possible to feel too young and too old simultaneously?)

I have, however, learned or become convinced of the importance of the following things. These are *some* of the truths that comprise my own path, the lamp I will look to when it seems like it's all pretty dark out there.

• I really, really love swimming in the ocean.
• I am as worthy of my own love.
• Everyone is worthy of my love.
• Travel is hard, but damn, is it worth it.
• I love air conditioning.
• I love heating.
• I am terrible at sleeping, but when I do, it's worth the effort it takes to get there.
• I would love to be a "real" vegetarian, but sea creatures taste really, really good.
• I need a lot of alone time.
• I am always so glad I gave up the alone time to be with others.
• It's OK to lose yourself in a book or in watching wind move plants.
• It helps to be still.
• Without yoga, I would not be the person I am today, but my hamstrings will probably never become more flexible than they are right now. There will be no forehead to toes in this lifetime.

Those are little truths on my path. What are some of the truths on yours?

Please... Make Me a Borg

Resistance is futile

...do I even need to explain the reference to the Borg? Or to the phrase, "Resistance is futile"? For those of you who were not lucid between the years of 1987-1994, or for those of you who are not pop culture nerds who research utterances that seem to refer to something generally understood, please Google "The Borg Star Trek." Also, if you don't know who the Borg are, you don't need to talk to me anymore ;-)

It's summertime, and the living is easy for She-Who-Eats-Yolks. Well, mostly easy. I have slept in until the record late hour of 9:00 a.m. I have stayed in bed until all hours of the night (i.e., 11:30 p.m.) reading Ann Patchett's new novel, State of Wonder, imagining my bed to be a boat cruising down the Amazon, my cats snakes and other such jungle marvels. I have yoga'd at other studios, gone to the movies, signed up for a meditation group, hiked, cooked. I even plan on baking. Yes, there will be baking.

There is, however, the tiny inconvenience of teaching one online class, which prevents me from oozing into a complete puddle of decadent, summery bliss. What amazes me is how this class, which generally demands no more than an average of two or three hours per day of work, absorbs much of my mental space. Through studying yoga and meditation (and also just observing what happens) I've learned that the resistance to those approximately two hours per day probably adds up to as much time as I spend actually working on the class. I wake up in the morning, and one of the first thoughts is, "I should really respond to those discussion boards first, so I can enjoy the day." During yoga: "I should've done those discussion boards earlier. Now I can't focus." After lunch: "Damn. I should really do those discussion boards." And on and on.

Once I actually sit down to respond to the discussion boards, however, it's so easy. It's relatively enjoyable! I like my job. Why so much resistance to actually doing it? Hey, Borg ship, you giant cube of lights, wires, and drone people. Come get me. I'm ready to stop resisting.

A Return

Blergh. I've been opening the blogger.com page for three days now. I returned home from a little trip to Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico late Saturday, and I suppose I've just been processing ever since. I have a new found admiration for bloggers who post almost daily, regardless of what's happening in their lives. For me, it seems I must arrive upon some perfectly appropriate insight to share with my imagined audience :-)

It's taken a couple of Bikram classes to "reset" me. The trip... wow. How to sum up such an

experience? Sometimes, language is a way in, and sometimes it's a barrier laden with cliches. Parts of the trip, like waking up to the sound of the Caribbean from my cabana on the beach, were like this: Tulum, Mexico Mayan Ruins, Tikkal

It's not Zico! Parts of the trip, though, such as the relentlessly hot, air condition-free hotel rooms in Flores, Guatemala, rendered me brain-dead, baffled, like the moment when your eyes set upon "Alaskan" coconut water. Yeah, you yogis think you’ll be ready for the heat, but it’s one thing for sweat for 90 minutes, knowing that at some point, the buckets of liquid will stop oozing from your pores. When there’s no end in sight, though, it’s a completely different story.

I've got an endless list of the "good" things to talk about. The food. The crumbling churches in Antigua. The jungle surrounding Tikkal. Jumping into cool water after riding in a van for hours through Mexico. Did I mention the food? Camaron del ajo, conch steak, ceviche, ceviche, ceviche. And, randomly, the best nachos I've had in my life.  And there were challenges: riding in vans for hours. Watching soldiers pile out of their trucks to surround a nearby vehicle, enormous guns aimed at the driver. Having sweaty Apocalypse Now nights, sleeping in dead, humid air, because a local politician cut the power to our electricity (i.e., fans) so people couldn't watch a TV program portraying him in a bad light. And then there are the spells of pure joy and connection to experience, found usually in unexpected moments, like the tiny gecko that graced my hotel room in Mexico, as if to say adios. Eating dinner by candlelight because the power was off. Realizing on the 8th hour of a cramped van ride that this is it, this beautiful ride is what I came here for. The real experience defies expectations, right? Mi amigo de Playa del Carmen  _______________________________________________________________ *Sorry for the crappy formatting, y'all. I suck at blogger.

"Aha!"

Serves me right!

Right after my post about rockstar classes--the audacity with which I spoke of driving the yoga truck--I was back to my normal ho-hum yoga classes: painful standing series, temptation to sit out Triangle and/or the next posture, and an overwhelming desire to leave the room during spine series. The anticipation (and, admittedly, anxiety) of travel and the changes it brings have hit.

"What's the use?" I whined during a particularly growly class. Our bodies are borrowed. Each time we look in the mirror, we're older. We're all marching steadily toward the grave, funeral pyre, etc. Why bother struggling and straining as we do in yoga?

I feel like an uber-nerd mentioning Insight Meditation teacher Jack Kornfield again, but I've just gotta. He addresses the question that I'm posing quite beautifully in an article of his. In honor of Oprah's farewell, I allow myself to say, I had a total "Aha" moment.

Kornfield writes of a meditation student so full of anger and judgment at the other students. At just the moment the student was about to leave the retreat from frustration, he ever-so-faintly noticed that he had the ability to see the connection between the physical manifestations of anger (tightness, shortness of breath) and his thoughts toward the students that were pissing him off. This realization was enough to keep him at the retreat. "He realized that his body had become a mirror," Kornfield writes, "and that his mindfulness was showing him when he was caught and where he could let go."

There's not really much more to say here. I think that most of us who practice yoga are comfortable with the idea that the body manifests its emotional traumas. As one of my teachers recently mentioned during class: "I have a very tight hip. When I was little, something happened, and my hip contracted." She had no need to elaborate further--those two sentences spoke volumes. That tight hip is her bodily reflection of whatever pain (emotional, I assume) she experienced as a child.

So... what's the point? "Aha!" There are a lot of good answers to that question.

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If you're interested in reading the (pretty awesome) Kornfield article, you can check it out here at the Shambhala Sun.

Shadows. Yoga. Narcissists. Gold. Suddenly, it got all ephemeral.

I've been having such rockstar classes lately. I just love it.

Yogis joke about the yoga truck. Some days you get hit by the yoga truck, some days you ride it. Dare I say that today I kinda felt like I was driving the yoga truck, as if I were a unionized trucker schlepping goods across the state in record time. I'm gonna allow myself this little dip into narcissistic thinking 'cause, well... it's rare for me to do so. Typically, my thought turns toward what is wrong with my practice, behavior, teaching, grading system, etc, and when I'm momentarily released from it, dammit, I'm just gonna wallow.



Narcissus

 I mulled over the rockstar class, as I typically do with every class (except for the nightmare classes that threaten to haunt my dreams). Yes, my teachers are pretty freakin' great. Yes, I'm almost done with grading. Yes, I'm about to take an amazing journey to Latin America. But none of those things really get at why periods in our yoga practice are just better than others.

I am certainly not qualified to answer that question, but I've noticed that my practice "goes downhill" in the middle of the semester and revs back up again once the finish line is in sight. That cause and effect is obvious. But what's behind it? I tend to start getting very un-narcissist about myself halfway through the semester. Spirits flag in class, students start dropping, my grading load triples, and I figure pretty much everything crappy in the universe is my fault. Then, yoga becomes one more place to practice counting the reasons why I suck. It's almost like I have this idea that because things are "not going well," yoga should reflect that. Probably, the opposite should happen. I'm strong, I'm remarkably flexible, and dammit, I've been doing the same freakin' 26 postures for two years without a break, to say nothing of the years of other types of yoga I've done before.

This is an oft-quoted passage from Jungian analyst Robert A. Johnson that might explain things:

"Curiously, people resist the noble aspects of their shadow more strenuously than they hide the dark sides. To draw the skeletons out of the closet is relatively easy, but to own the gold in the shadow is terrifying. It is more disrupting to find that you have a profound nobility of character than to find out you are a bum. Of course you are both; but one does not discover these two elements at the same time. The gold is related to our higher calling, and this can be hard to accept at certain stages of life. Ignoring the gold can be as damaging as ignoring the dark side of the psyche, and some people may suffer a severe shock or illness before they learn how to let the gold out."

Wow. So much there. The gold metaphor doesn't really work for me personally, but the concept of being frightened by what I'm good at really resonates. Glad I'm not the only one on that. Thanks, Jungian analyst guy, for making me feel a little less alone there.

I think yoga gives us the perfect opportunity to see "these two elements" so clearly. When I'm in class, I'm so aware of my body and thoughts. The criticism of self and other, as well as the pride I feel for myself and the other, are observable. So, I really feel those "shadow" classes and those "gold" classes.

No idea if I'm making sense here. No idea at all. Did it all get ephemeral? I'm sorry.

Good Movie. Memorable Mother's Day.

Holy Madre de Dios. 100 posts.

I just felt I had to acknowledge that. I'm not going to mention it again. I think. I'm actually going to fill my 100th post's text box writing about pain.

I spent the better part of the past weekend (or is it the worst part?) dealing with a migraine and its after effects. I don't get migraines nearly as often as I used to, thanks to yoga, growing up, eating slightly better, and having hormones that don't belong to a teenager.

I've always been floored by the pain migraines create. All headache sufferers know that even a small one bugs waaaay more than it should. And migraines give you the extra benefit of making you queasy and throwing up! And then hurting your joints and muscles because you're doubled up in pain! What a good reminder that the body is interconnected. Yay.

Now that I don't get migraines as often as I once did, when they come, I'm floored by the riveting fact of pain itself. I spent a good half-hour slumped on the bathroom floor, my head leaning against the cool tub, trying to focus on the pleasant smell of Dove soap while I moaned through the pain like a teenager experiencing her first hangover. I may have even thrown in a "Mom, heeeellllllpppp meeeee"--to a mother who passed away five years ago--for good measure. (Believe me, the fact that I'm got one of the two migraines I've had this year the day before Mother's Day is not lost on me.)

But all that isn't really what I wanted to say about pain. There was something almost profound about what I was experiencing. The really bad part lasted about six hours, and that time was like a six-hour meditation. There was no distraction from myself. No turning on the TV, no Youtubing, no phone calls, no yoga poses, no emails, no cleaning the litterbox, nothing but my own unpleasant thoughts and sensations to lie/slump/sit with.

Perhaps because I was finally forced to sit so still, all this mental and emotional pain came roaring up. A lot of stuff about my mom that I had simply not dealt with came out and whacked me across the face. It was like that time I was a kid, minding my own business on the playground, sitting by a tree with a book during recess, when a soccer ball randomly fell out of the sky and onto my head. (Seriously, all that happened.) It was there, waiting for me to be captive by something to go, "Oh, remember this? You knew you'd have to face it at some point." There was no escape.

Eventually, the pain began to lift, ever so slowly at first, as if feathers were being pulled off me. I could finally focus on something of my choosing. Many Buddhist scriptures begin, "Oh nobly born, you sons and daughters of Buddha, remember who you really are." I recited that in my head like a mantra, and each part stood out so clearly. I could write paragraphs on each part--being nobly born, remembering who we are instead of learning who we are, etc. There was some real comfort there in spending some time with that one line.

Finally, I got out of bed and watched Terms of Endearment until I knew I was well enough to sleep. Good movie. Memorable Mother's Day. Peace out, blogging world. I love that I can come and write here.

I got an F? Good.

I'm good at a great many things. I'm a good baker, a good friend, a good nature-watcher, a good traveler, a good reader, a good teacher, and a good morning-riser. Part of me hates the idea of grading, but as a teacher, I'm compelled to do so ;-) In these things, I give myself a solid A or an A-.

If I had to grade myself according to polite society's standards and give myself F at something, I'd fail myself at finding a partner, at "being in a relationship." (As I type this, in a reflective state, I see the absurdity of the statement. In truth, I'm in relationship all the time. Always was, always will be.)

Polite society would tell me I've failed at every attempt at forming a life-long partnership. Some men have left me, and I'm tempted blame myself for being leaveable. Most I have left, and, apparently, I enjoy blaming myself for leaving. I realize that there was nothing "wrong" with them, that they're no more flawed than any of us are.

Still, I leave. And, if given the opportunity, I just might leave again!

Upon leaving/being left, there is an initial sense of despair. It usually comes from the agonizingly universal "WTF is wrong with me?" question. As the years idyll by (ahh, the turning of another decade--I'll soon be 30!), I can no longer cling to the "I just haven't met the right guy" delusion. Time to take stock, time to look at who I really leave when I walk out the door. Time to see who it was I left long before the guy walked out on me.

So... where to go from here? How to take stock? Or, a more immediate question: how do I comfort myself in the face of this pretty painful realization?

Darlene Cohen, a Zen teacher who passed away recently, writes of how her pain has been a source of great strength in years past. She suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, and despite this, it's said that she had a tremendous healing spirit. This passage is a little long, but bear with me--it's pretty powerful:

• "People sometimes ask me where my own healing energy comes from. How in the midst of this pain, this implacable slow crippling, can I encourage myself and other people? My answer is that my healing comes from my bitterness itself, my despair, my terror. It comes from the shadow. I dip down into that muck again and again and then am flooded with its healing energy. Despite the renewal and vitality it gives me to face my deepest fears, I don't go willingly when they call. I've been around that wheel a million times: first I feel the despair, but I deny it for a few days; then its tugs become more insistent in proportion to my resistance; finally it overwhelms me and pulls me down, kicking and screaming all the way. . . I can never just give up to it when I first feel it stir. You'd think after a million times with a happy ending, I could give up right away and just say, 'Take me, I'm yours,' but I never can. I always resist. I guess that's why it's called despair. If you went willingly, it would be called something else, like purification or renewal or something hopeful. It's staring defeat and annihilation in the face that's so terrifying; I must resist until it overwhelms me. But I've come to trust it deeply. It's enriched my life, informed my work, and taught me not to fear the dark."

There's so much here, really. But what stands out to me now is that Cohen recognizes this pattern: pain, resistance, despair, and finally, the giving way to something beautiful, to an energy that inspires everyone that comes into contact with her.

I think that pattern is evident everywhere. Yogis know it. The more we resist the hot room or a dreaded posture, the greater the pain we feel down the line. But it's precisely that depth of pain that enables us to feel tremendous joy when we finally surrender. The depth of pain enables us to radiate a fuller joy that is reflected by those whom we encounter later.

I'm fortunate not to have a lot of physical pain, but with each F I earn in a relationship, I add to the mucky shadow Cohen talks about. I'm really not complaining, though. I'm actually quite happy! What a powerful reservoir to draw from in the future. Maybe one of these days, I'll stop resisting ;-)

F? Good.

Unbound

I'm stunned. I've been leveled. I've been flattened by a joyful steamroller.

It's spring break in my corner of the world, and it got kicked off on a most lovely note. A gorgeous childhood friend is getting married in a month, and to celebrate, I took a drive up the coast with some girls I've known since elementary school. The gloomy SoCal weather magically dissolved, and we spent the weekend lounging by the pool, picking citrus, and soaking in a hot tub under a luminous moon as we celebrated marriage, babies, and almost 25 years knowing each other. 

So, where's the "stunned" part come in? I'm not quite done processing, but we all came home and, via a chorus of emails and text, agreed that the experience was even more amazing than we'd anticipated.

I think, in part, that these girls have finally grown up. We were never an uber-catty, high-drama bunch, but what little of that there was seemed to completely drop away. It was almost dream-like--it seemed like each of us had learned to make room for the other person in the time that had passed from our last trip together: my lovely friends knew that I would be the first one to sleep, the first one to wake, and to spend a quiet hour to herself doing yoga and basking in the sun before everyone else arose. I could see that this recognition, this knowing,  was felt as deeply by them as it was by me.

I lowered my achy, stiff torso into standing backward bend in my Bikram class this morning and felt so grateful for the warmth, friendship, and this sense of being unbound that we all seemed to experience this past weekend. I bow to it, and I let it go, trusting it will be felt again and again.

Santa Barbara loveliness

"Body is a playground," or, How I got into Yoga

I must confess: I've become a Bikram traitor! Again! Heheheh.

OK, I know there's really no such thing. But I admit to feeling a little naughty when I walked back into my Bikram studio after taking a few days off to try some vinyasa classes. I have been having a great time at this studio. I've been humbled, I've been uplifted, but mostly, I've been reminded that, as my newly-favorited self-help guru Byron Katie says, "The body is a playground."

I have not shared much about my history with yoga on this blog, but my time at these classes inspired me to reflect on how I came to it. I've been doing yoga since I was 16. I can hardly believe it--that means I've been doing yoga for 13 years! I can actually say I have a history of doing yoga now.

When I was 16, I joined a gym to impress my then-best friend. She wanted to "get in shape," and I wanted her to like me more. (Typical E!) She wanted to take step classes and lift weights. I was drawn to one of the (only) two yoga classes the gym offered.

(**I should mention that I do not come from a gym-rat family. My dad golfed and played racquetball, but no one ran or worked out for the sake of staying healthy. I was never overweight as a kid, but I was always un-athletic. I couldn't touch my toes, do ten sit-ups, or run a mile. I surely failed all those presidential fitness tests--you can forget the competitive sports. No, seriously, I'm still trying to forget tetherball.)

I finally got up the courage to go yoga without my friend. From my first class, I was hooked. After all those years of awful P.E. classes and feeling lame because I couldn't even touch my toes, I finally found this way in. And it was all for me. It didn't matter that my hamstrings and shoulders were tight, that I couldn't balance for shit, couldn't breathe right, or that I didn't know what I was doing. It was like someone had given me this permission, this key to enjoy how I felt, regardless of how "good" I was actually doing in comparison to others. Body is truly a playground when you're open to it, no matter how you feel.

Wouldn't you know it? That key has continued opening doors. I was an introverted kid--still am, in many ways--but I don't doubt yoga gave me the ability to stand a little more confidently on my own. Of course, I touched my goes. My friendship with that mean gym girl dissolved. I started looking forward to school, rather than hating the world when my alarm went off at 6:30 a.m. to wake me up. I made cool, new, happy friends through that yoga community. I even convinced my mom to let me go on a yoga retreat in Mexico when I was 17, something I never would have wanted to do if I hadn't known yoga's ability to open me up, to tug gently at the tension binding me together.

I remember overhearing my mom, who had initially wondered about my new-found interest, talk on the phone to one of her friends a few months after I started yoga. "There's something different about her. She even walks straighter."

In coming back to that vinyasa style class, things are definitely a little different. It was humbling. Though I could be wrong, I doubt I'll ever see the physical progress I saw when I started at 16. But physical strength or flexibility were never really the point, were they? I needed to get myself to that yoga retreat when I was 17, and that had nothing to do with touching my toes. Who knows what other journeys await? I might become the most social person on the planet ;-)

I'm so glad I went to that new studio. Even though some of that playground equipment was rusty, it was so fun to give it another spin. After two classes there, my Bikram return was the most phenomenal class I've had in a while. I look forward to finding a new balance!

Yay, yoga!

Put It Down

I made a huge life decision a couple of weeks ago, and while the process (deciding, going through with it, dealing with it) has been painful, I've already experienced a lightness I have not known for a long time.

As all regular practitioners of anything disciplined already know, your practice reflects what goes on inside. (I am also learning that how you treat others is pretty much an inversion of how you treat yourself, but that's a whole other blog!) I know this intellectually, but it hard to feel it inside at all times. I was reminded of this a couple of weeks ago when reading a post by The Lady J. In it, she was expressing gratitude for being able to let go of her "life" and just focus on what was happening for 90 minutes. The lovely LalaPiggy confirmed that she, too, knew freedom from those stressors when she was in the hot room.

I've been having such awful classes lately that I could hardly believe what I was reading. My stuff has weighed on me like a ball and chain when at yoga.Yes, the classes brought relief, but only because I suffered so tremendously when I was there that I was simply yoga-stoned by the time it was over. I would spend the majority of the class pondering things going on in my life.

It even manifested in very specific physical hindrances. For months now, I could not kick my leg out and hold it the entire time. Ever. Either set. I couldn't get my head to the floor in separate-leg-stretching pose, and this is a girl who has been doing yoga since she was 16.


But now that I made that choice, I feel like I've put a tremendously heavy weight down, and I can simply go further than I could before. Sometimes, I can hold my leg out the whole time, the kicking leg getting closer and closer to being flexed. I can also usually get my forehead to the floor.

Nothing, of course, is much different in my world. I still wake up, go to work, grade papers, play with kitties, read, write, do yoga, watch tv, see friends and family, sleep, and start the whole thing over. On one level I can see so clearly that what causes us stress is just the thoughts. It's arguing with reality that freaks us out, and that war is fought entirely in our heads. I can also see, though, that sometimes you just gotta put some things down in order to move forward and kick that leg straight.

No advice here, just reflections. Thanks for reading! :-)

What Makes a "Good" Teacher?

I've been appreciating good teachers lately.

I've been thinking of the qualities the teachers I value as "good" have in in common. When I was still in school, I thought good teachers had to have an air of confidence and a developed ability to read the room. I thought they had to be brilliant--many steps ahead of the students they taught. When I started teaching composition, I thought this, and I also thought a sense of humor would endear the students to me and thus, learn the material better.

Now that I've taught for a few years and been a student for over 25, I know of no universal checklist of qualities that one can aspire to. We never get the chance to sigh satisfactorily once they've been attained. I know plenty of people who are intelligent, funny, and who initially appear confident. But the teachers that reach me again and again seem to have a well-defined sense of who they are.

There's a fairly new yoga teacher in town who helped me see this. I remember the first time she walked into the room. She looked young, geeky, and did not have a strong, commanding voice. She didn't force herself to be cheerful or firm. She continued to seem young and geeky and didn't pretend to have a commanding voice. But damn if she didn't get the best class out of us. And I've seen her do that again and again.

This teacher has a particularly gentle way of encouraging us to try. Rather than make it seem like we're rockstars if we do the pose and not trying hard enough if we sit it out, it seems she simply points out that it's possible to do the work. Last week, she singled me out in Standing Bow pose. Normally, I'm falling all over the place in that posture, and teachers who know me don't bother to correct me or offer encouragement. (I don't mean this in a "those teachers suck!" kind of way. Let me make my point.) It takes a real act of bravery to offer them encouragement in just the place they need it.

I think it was the last side of Standing Bow when I realized she was talking to me. "Yep, you've got it, E," she said. "Just keep kicking." I don't remember what else she said, but it was so nice to really feel her reach out to me in just the posture I feel the weakest in. It was exactly what I needed to hear, and I finished the pose pretty strongly.

As a teacher, I too know that it's hard to take a leap of faith like that for a student. I see now that it's because that yoga teacher was not a drill sergeant, because she was being her normal, geeky, joking-about-a-book-I-read-last-week self, I knew it would be OK if I fell out. That was the exact thing I needed to go forward--I needed someone to reassure me it would be OK if I "failed." It was like the criteria for being a good student had dissolved, too.

Like all those self-help messages that emphasize that we should be who we are, we need to give ourselves permission to be ourselves when we teach, when we work, when we parent, etc, even if we are nervous, silly, or irritated. There's no need to force yourself to act a certain way--you're already OK as you are. This is the message we need to hear again and again. Maybe that's why it feels so wonderful to get a teacher who sees this!

Oh God. Here it comes: A Valentine's Post.

"Happy Singles' Awareness Day, dude."

I overheard a student commenting sarcastically to his friend as I walked through the hallways today, feeling kinda grumpy about Valentine's Day. Jeez. It's a cliche to point out what a useless and industry-generated holiday this is. For those of us who aren't in a relationship, seeing the ads of happy couples, people walking around with pink gift bags, flowers, and balloons can be a painful reminder of what we think we don't have. For those of us who are in a relationship, the holiday can make us feel pressured to express emotions we may not actually be feeling, or buy a bunch of crap we can't afford that the other person probably doesn't even want. Corporate bottom line? For the win! Individual? FML.

There was something about the student's comment--which actually resonated with what I'd been feeling in the buildup to this "holiday"--that actually snapped me out of my self-righteous sarcasm. It does suck to be reminded of loneliness or feelings of disconnection. It does suck to feel like we've got to please our man or woman by buying or doing things.

Even the cynic in me, though, must grudgingly admit that the holiday has at its essence a good message. While at the grocery store yesterday, I saw little pots of flowers that made me think of a couple of really great women friends I work with, so I bought 'em and put 'em on their desks this morning. It just... felt... so.... good!

Of course, the TV ads tell you to buy a diamond ring for your girlfriend, or your family tradition says buy some chocolates from See's. They don't show two platonic female friends exchanging flowers. But that "I'm glad you're in my life and I'm thinking of you" message is one we all deserve to hear, and one that feels really good to say!

So, let's use the skills we develop in yoga and meditation. The message is perfect! The delivery might not be so good and may even be driven by the bottom line, but go back to the message and let that drive our action and thoughts instead. Doing so is what makes us feel connected and loved.

Dare I say it? Happy... Valentine's... DAY. I'm thinking of you.

Heather/a South African flower

Renovation!

I've been contemplating renovation lately. It's definitely not time for spring cleaning, but the holidays and the coming of the new year get me into pensive contemplation mode. I walk around the house, thinking, "If only I had the motivation to re-pot those chili plants. They've been hanging on for dear life for 9 months now. Gosh, I wish I had the time and the interior design know-how to replace those gnarly curtains in the bedroom."

You would not believe the curtains in the bedroom. They're red, they're IKEA (like, cheap, old IKEA), and they've been sagging and pretty much non-functional since I installed them two and a half years ago. I've been wanting to replace them since about five minutes after I put 'em up. I have ambitions to get a lot of projects done over the winter break because once the semester is under way, I'm lucky to be able to  shower regularly. 

My house needs a lot of work, but even more than my house, the inside of my head needs a little dusting and rearranging.

There's a very cool Ani Difranco song, "Back, Back, Back," that addresses exactly the idea of working on yourself now so that you're not stuck later.

She sings, "When you sit right down in the middle of yourself,
you're gonna want to have a comfortable chair
So renovate your soul before you get too old,
'cause you're gonna be housebound there."

OK, cool. Learn how to be contented with life now, because as we age, the many distractions we desperately cling to now are likely to disappear. I think most of us believe in the validity of that message, one way or another. But how do you actually renovate your soul? And what does the final "house" look like?

One of the things I'm constantly working on is my tendency to over-please. I realize that I do so even during yoga class. I think I know why I love taking classes from new teachers: I perceive them as having no expectations of me, and as a result, I "do" better. When I take a class from my studio owner (whom I love love love, by the way), I stress myself out. I wage an unnecessarily silly mental battle with myself. Because I've been practicing with her for a year and a half now, I have this self-important idea that she remembers stuff about me and holds me to a certain standard. "You NEVER sit out this posture, E. She's gonna remember! Get your fingers to your toes--that's what she's always seen you do before!" Ridiculous. Ludicrous. And as a result of that silly inner-battle, I stress myself out and add to the intensity of it all.

So, when I saw that my studio owner was teaching this morning, I made a promise to myself, a promise I apparently need to make myself before every class. "This class is NOT about her. Just listen to the words and focus on your body." Hand to God, the class was about 50% better than it normally was. I was able not to worry about what I perceived her to be thinking.

Maybe today's class had nothing to do with the actual renovation process. But maybe, I at least took out and contemplated the tools.

One day, I will actually take down those disgusting curtains.

Enjoy this cheesy video for Ani song :-)

Of Mites and Men

So, I've been counting my blessings this week. First, my yoga practice got a much-needed kick. I went to another studio this week to take a class with my former teacher, and I had a wonderful class. Halfway through it, though, I noticed someone peeking his head in the back door: it was Bikram himself! No one else seemed to notice, and I spent the rest of class going, "Uhh, was I hallucinating that?" But he was there, and I got to wave to him after class. This time, he wasn't screaming at anyone on his cell phone :-) 

After that exhilarating class and talk with my former teacher, I had a great early class yesterday with a marvellous teacher visiting during training. I really connect with her, both as a student and a person, and I'm glad she's gonna teach us a little while longer. And then, God willing and the creek don't rise, I'm going to training tomorrow. My practice just feels... revitalized! And just in the nick of time.

Also, I got through a big work hurdle this week. I can't go into details, but one big stressor has been removed, and for that I'm taking the time to feel thankful.

Well, I'm trying to feel thankful, anyway. I keep getting distracted by these little crawly bugs that have begun emerging with this heat wave.

Yep. I've got a termite problem. One day, I noticed a bunch of slow-moving bugs on my stairway. Thinking they were some kind of weird moth, I vacuumed 'em up. Of course, more showed up, and then it became a full-blown swarm. I've never seen ANYTHING like it. It's like something out of a Stephen King novel. I was truly horrified that first day. I kept vacuuming and calling pest control people, completely freaked out of my mind, scratching my skin and envisioning myself being eaten alive.

They're still dribbling out. I'm still vacuuming up. I'm still processing the bad news, but at least my incessant scratching has stopped ;-) If I want to actually deal with what is a truly widespread, serious problem, I'm gonna have to tent the place. There's just one small problem with that: I live in a 6-unit set of condos, and there's no way I'm gonna be able to convince every one of those people to spend a lot of money to move out for a few days.

So, the question is this. Can we learn to be at peace with the fact that there is something endemic, some systemic pestilence in the foundation and roof of our homes? What if we can't just "get it out"?

Maybe this is where the real work begins. Maybe I'll have to find ways to stop scratching my skin and head out of horror, maybe I'll have to put down the vacuum. Maybe I can learn to accept the bugs. Or at least find a quick fix...

One thing's for sure. Going to the hot room will seem a lot more pleasant after this!