Lessons unlearned

Today I am thankful that I went back to budokon class tonight, when it would have been much easier to stay home.  I took up space, and it was great.

One of the lessons I learned last year was to avoid messing with unusual (for me) silhouettes:

Corollary to 5: the worst mistakes I make are when I try to shift my silhouette dramatically; and bad proportions, rather than any one piece in particular, make me look frumpy.

So, I should not love this sweater, which I received as a gift

Mine is black — I included the brown version to show the details.  You have to click on the photos to see much at all.  Wordpress’s settings defeated me tonight.

There is nothing at all I should like about this sweater:   It is more or less a turtleneck, although a bit drapey, and turtlenecks make me look like a turtle; it is black, and black near my face makes me look yellow (a yellow turtle!); it has batwing sleeves, and those are entirely not my style; it has those leather buckles, which means I can’t wash it by hand, and I am sufficiently sweaty even in winter that washing sweaters is much better than dry-cleaning them; the points of the arc hem end where my body is widest and peaks where my thighs are full and plump — it’s like a spotlight on the most cushiony part of my body; and it’s itchy.

And yet… I wore it today with slim black pants and my gray ankle boots and felt like a rock star — and I needed to feel like a rock star.  I looked like the the middle-aged woman with the dragon tattoo!

So just when I think I’ve got all my rules set down, something upends them.  I am sneaking in another goal: to know when to leave lessons, goals, rules and prescriptions aside.

A significantly more elegant expression of a similar thought arrived today in one of the yoga newsletters I subscribe to. It resonated with me today especially, because I have noticed how much easier the mornings are now that I’m not trying to wedge a yoga practice in before walking the dog with Milo.  I can sleep a little later when I need to, so I am not rushing Daniel to settle down at night, either.  Giving up my morning practice, as much as I miss it, has helped me achieve some of the goals of practice:

Dear Friends, Happy New Year!  I hope that everyone had a restful break.  This year, rather than making resolutions, I have been letting them go.  About eight years ago, I made the resolution to do sitting meditation every single morning.  And until recently, I have kept that resolution, rising from bed very early, even in the darkest, coldest mornings, sitting through illnesses, sitting in hotel rooms, on planes, and even while in doctors’ waiting rooms.  But last month, something shifted. One morning, while traveling abroad with my husband, my alarm went off, and I prepared to get up and sit.  And I had a moment of noticing that if I got up, I would be severing something very precious with my husband, and myself.  We had recently been feeling very close and enjoying a deeper intimacy and connection with each other.  So when my meditation alarm went off, I realized that I had to choose between staying cuddled with my beloved and getting up and sitting alone in a chair.  And I decided to stay cuddled. During much of December, I stayed in bed with my beloved in the mornings, each of us feeling a sense of love and care for each other that we hadn’t experienced before.  And questions kept coming up in my mind: What does it mean to practice mindfulness?  What is the practice, and why do we do it?  Is it sitting up and following the breath, or is it loving others in the deepest way we know how?  When do we let go of the form of the practice in order to stay with the formless practice of love? The Buddha said that his teachings were like a raft that leads us from the shore of suffering to the shore of non-suffering.  And he asked his disciples whether someone, after reaching the other shore, should carry the raft with them on their shoulders.  Clearly, they answered, a practitioner should not carry the raft on her shoulders once she has reached the other shore.  In the same way, there are times when our discipline is important and we need to cling to the raft and the practice, coming to yoga class, and having a strong home practice.  And there are other times when we have reached a further shore and we need to set the raft down and enjoy the new landscape by loving and playing and enjoying this precious life to its fullest. In my case, spending quality loving time with my husband was the most important thing in that moment.  And what got me to that moment were all of the mornings when I dragged my sleepy butt out of bed to sit.  Those daily sits were what allowed me to see my husband and our relationship more clearly, and helped me wake up to the love that we shared.  Without those mornings, I might not have gotten to this point.  But once I was there, I could let go of my attachment to my morning sitting practice in order to fully engage in love. It’s not easy to know when to hang on to the raft and when to set it down.  And very often we need to pick it back up to reach yet another further shore of non-suffering.  Even though I have really enjoyed the connection with my husband, I can see other parts of my life which need more meditation and mindfulness practice.  So I have started sitting again, sometimes in the morning, but also finding other times that work when I don’t have to separate myself so dramatically from my loved ones.