Letting Yesterday Be

(c) 2011 Christiana Lambert

When I was a child, I often listened to my father and his parents talking. They spent a lot of time in the past. I used to think how great it would be to be able to say “ten years ago” or “twenty years ago” in my conversations.

Oh, I’m up to “forty years ago” and plus these days, but saying that isn’t as fun as I imagined. Not that a lot of great things haven’t happened in those years, but too much time in yesterday takes away from today and the tomorrows we might possibly have.

Good (bad!) grief, if we’re not careful with how we spend our days, we can end up as jaded and disillusioned as Macbeth:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Macbeth chose to hasten death for others and, ultimately, for himself. However, we have the power to choose to be life-affirming, both for ourselves and for others.

Yesterday has the power to steal from whatever else remains if we let it do so. Sometimes, how we have let our yesterdays change us is a choice. When we have earned our scars, do we start to assume that’s all the future brings? Do we react toward new challenges as if they are the same as the old ones or as if we learned nothing the first time around?

That’s the tension I feel these days with yesterday. If I’m not careful, I forget the hope I had before 2008 or even that it’s possible to find it again. Not every day do I forget, but enough so that I know that my connection to yesterdays reduces my sense of possibility.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to fake living until dusty death overtakes me. Not really.

So I have to keep fighting my perception of yesterday as well as keep reminding myself to remember what I can and cannot control about now. I am not in charge of others’ hope, other than providing them encouragement and help along their way. But ultimately, like Macbeth, we all have to choose for ourselves whether or not to let our yesterdays define the tomorrows of our days.

It’s up to each of us to make sure that our life stories are neither told by an idiot, nor full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. This is all we get in this life and I don’t want to waste my choices as Macbeth did. No, for me, I must remember to keep that flame burning and not fret the wax melting down the sides of the candle until someone greater than I says my wick has burned to its end.

Today’s yoga class reminded me again why I really go. The teacher usually starts class by asking what people need to address so she can choose poses and the style best suited to the current day. Today one woman asked for help with stress, which meant many poses we did were designed to help us release our emotions, thoughts, and/or bodies.

Periodically, the teacher explains to us that the purpose of doing yoga is to feel joy. One of the biggest ways to feel joy is to let go of what has hurt us in the past—and sometimes our emotions are so deeply embedded in us that only by releasing our muscles can we begin to let go of our yesterdays. Letting be and letting go frees us to pursue the joy in our remaining todays and tomorrows.

Let it be so with my heart, mind, body, and spirit.

“Z” Had to Be ZUMBA!

(c) 2012 Trina Lambert

Yes, I may have had a hard time sticking to plan on almost all of the letters in this A to Z Blogging Challenge, but I always knew I would finish by writing about ZUMBA. (I do know that “Y” is missing so, technically, I did not finish with “Z”–oh well!)

Although ZUMBA fitness has been around since 2001, these days ZUMBA is the hot, hot, hot fitness craze—and not just because you get really hot while doing it! For me—being the local gym rat that I am (see my “Re-Creation Center” post)—my knowledge of ZUMBA started when I saw a sign advertising a new class coming to my center in August 2009. I’ve been dancing ever since.

I have always loved dancing, even though my formal dancing days were brief and limited to what was available in my Nebraska town of 600. The only choices we had were whether or not to do whatever activities someone was willing to teach in whatever space . For me, that means I learned tumbling, baton twirling, tap dancing, and Hawaiian dancing in a community center and/or school gym, not in a dance studio.

And as much as I learned to love dance, I still suffered a lot of anxiety about performing. In fact, though I would tell you I “retired” at eight because of the growing pains in my back and because I just wanted to have a chance to watch Saturday morning cartoons, I really, really didn’t want to continue if it meant dancing with the group in a scheduled TV performance in a larger close-by town.

At least I now had time to watch American Bandstand with my newfound free time, which was helpful since my friends and I played “American Bandstand” games more than we ever played “school” together.

I often regretted how my eight-year-old performance anxiety stopped my formal instruction, but I didn’t really stop dancing. Cheerleading, a class in Spain, a class at my own college, Jazzercise, and dancing informally whenever I got the chance followed.

Still, for several years the only dancing I did regularly happened in my mind during savasana in yoga. But what a dancer I became in those last minutes of class, twice a week, over a period of four years.

I think my heart knew what I truly needed to become mindful: dance.

You see, I love what yoga has done for my mind and body, but for the most part, I have to work hard to keep my mind from wandering off in classes. I have to push away those “to-do” list thoughts, the worries about loved ones, the meanderings away from where I am right then.

Not in ZUMBA. In ZUMBA I am just dancing. No matter what is happening in my life, I forget it once the songs begin. Even more than the desire to teach or feel better physically, I know that I want my body to heal so I can self-medicate my mind through ZUMBA.

The tagline for ZUMBA is “Ditch the workout—join the party!” but I think of it more like the words from that song “Get Happy”:

Forget your troubles and just get happy . . .

“Z” really stands for happy in the moment with ZUMBA—for me.

Re-Creation Center

(c) 2009 Christiana Lambert (Trina: after working out at the Englewood Recreation Center)

You know, the term recreation center doesn’t work that well for me. Maybe that’s because I consider recreation more of an optional thing, but I don’t consider exercise optional at all. I don’t know, when I’m skiing or hiking, that’s recreation, but yoga or Pilates are work—although work I choose to do. Though the term recreation center doesn’t work for me, however, the recreation center itself does work for me.

I remember when my hometown built a recreation center when I was in junior high. Suddenly there was some place to go and do physical things, even if it was too cold and/or icy to run outside—you know like when the temperature dropped below ten degrees and the wind chill below zero—I could at least run around the gym. Oh, the center didn’t have all the bells and whistles today’s centers have, but I could lift weights, play racquetball, or meet friends in the swimming pool (did I mention I’m not enough of a swimmer to swim for fitness?)

Truth is, even in metro Denver, I’ve mostly stuck with recreation centers. I just feel more comfortable there—something about the term “club” just seems a little too high-brow for all the sweating I do when I exercise. These days I think of myself as a gym rat, even though I don’t go to the local recreation center to lift weights or use the equipment. Instead I attend classes there at least four times a week.

Signing up for scheduled classes means I will exercise because I am too cheap to pay for classes and not go. We all have to have our motivators, right? I’m just sure that if paid by the month or year or whatever that I wouldn’t stay as committed as I do by taking specific classes at a specific time. Because, like I said, exercise isn’t always recreation for me.

Still, I don’t want you to think I don’t enjoy exercise—it’s just I don’t always enjoy all of the activities in my classes. I mean, I am never going to be a fan of the Pilates “100s” or that one particular yoga position that resembles being a prisoner chained to the wall in a castle dungeon (sorry, I don’t know the technical term for that one!) or even dancing to any country song routines in ZUMBA.

Yet if you look in my gratitude journal, my trips to the rec center are among my top entries. No, my local recreation center does not have a catchy (or annoying!) song such as the YMCA does, but I still think it’s fun to work out there anyway. After all, once I split the word “recreate” into re-create, I start to understand the term recreation center after all. There’s no denying that all those Downward Dogs and planks have re-created me into a much, much better version of me.

No Fear . . . of Posing

(c) 2009 Christiana Lambert

Anyone else a runner during the running boom of the late 70s? Do you remember that some time later some studies came out that said running was actually harmful? What about the stir raised when running guru James Fixx died from running? I didn’t pay much attention to the hype, but it seemed the media often chose to pick up on the “running is bad” concept without analyzing studies or considering other factors.

I just thought a lot of people were looking for a reason not to do an activity they didn’t like in the first place. You know, the kind of people who are always doing the latest thing whether or not they enjoy it and whether or not it’s good for their bodies. I think the media buzz is happening again with yoga (and like it did with aerobics and Pilates and . . .)

Yes, I learned the truth—at seventeen—that running could hurt me. I ended up getting fitted for orthotics which helped me recover my health long term. The podiatrist said that running didn’t cause my imbalance problems—it just accelerated how soon they showed up and began affecting my life. Never again did I have the same obsession with running nor was I as naïve about the helpfulness of running, but I didn’t stop for good—I liked running.

You see, I didn’t run because it was “in” or the cool thing to do. For the most part it was a lonely experience, except for when I could meet up with my friends to do it or be part of a track or cross country team. Yet running often soothed my soul. I truly believe this was how I managed my undiagnosed ADD for so many years.

Enter real life obligations, children, and another undiagnosed condition that worsened—asthma—and running became less frequent in my life. It got to the point where I knew my weight gain was a risk factor for running, yet I didn’t know how to keep down my weight without running. This time I ended up with an injury common to inflexible, heavier, long term runners of a certain age: plantar fasciitis.

After that injury healed enough that I could use my feet, I switched to walking. Didn’t “everyone” say that was healthier anyway? I walked and walked—and continued to gain weight. With my feet problems, I couldn’t do any hard core land-based aerobic activities. So . . . I signed up for my first yoga classes.

By that point my lower back was hurting so much that I couldn’t get out of my chair easily. While I did find that yoga was helping in so many ways, maybe it wasn’t enough or maybe it just wasn’t fast enough. When I told my doctor, she thought I ought to add Pilates classes first to see if I could avoid physical therapy.

Here’s the deal: with yoga, Pilates, and walking, I did start to feel better—everywhere, but especially with my back and feet—and that ADD mind. And then I started to lose weight which meant I could move more vigorously, enough so that I could return to running and begin doing ZUMBA dancing.

So are all those things to blame for my recent back injury? Well, maybe. However, I will point out that my injury surfaced after I took off a week from exercise while spending most of that time sitting in a car.

Now that yoga is the new evil activity, it must have been the real cause behind my injury, right?

Really, I think that living and aging are behind my recent physical woes. As far as I can tell, people can get injured by moving—or not moving—or both as they age. When my father needed back surgery, it was because he carried excess weight and did not move unless necessary.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather earn my badges of aging from activity versus inactivity.

So I’m not going to stop practicing yoga even if I am more likely to modify my poses now. I have always gone to restorative yoga classes led by mature instructors who aren’t fostering a competitive environment. And I will argue with a teacher if I think a pose goes against the advice I am receiving from the medical practioners treating my condition—if I’m not going to believe them and follow their advice, then I need to stop seeing them.

I guess I have to say that if people don’t like to do yoga, then they should not be doing yoga to please others. They can take their chances lifting weights, swimming laps, or sitting in their Easy Chairs while I’m holding a Downward Dog—or attempting to get back to running again.

Maybe we’re all just running against the wind trying to maintain our bodies in the face of time, but I’d rather move than sit down to wait for the Grim Reaper to find me.

Front Row

(c) 2009 Christiana Lambert

I bet most of us have a workout spot in our fitness classes. Where’s yours? Front, middle, or back?

If I can I always end up on the left side of the room—I think that’s because I am “left-legged” for whatever that’s worth. My yoga teacher thinks I should switch it up—after all, haven’t I been in physical therapy for one-sideness? Maybe, but I’m not changing that up so far in this new year.

However, for most classes I do prefer to be toward the front. After all, I like to see. Once I feel confident about what I’m doing, I don’t mind if other people can see me better—I just want to see the instructor. I’m both a kinesthetic learner and a visual learner. (And, perhaps my already weak auditory skills are getting weaker with my hearing diminishing a bit—got to be close to hear the instructor!)

Just about seven years ago I began taking yoga for both my body and my mind. I was recovering from a hysterectomy as well as having trouble getting out of my chair easily due to back problems. At the same time I struggled with both my son’s AD/HD and my own ADD.

A totally inflexible and distractible person, yoga did not come easily to me. At first I was happy to be in the middle or even the back, as long as I had good access to vision through the mirrors.

However, at some point I moved to the front row. I was losing weight, gaining flexibility, and working on becoming more mindful. First of all, being in the front row helped a lot with that mindfulness thing. Not only could I see the teacher well, but also I wasn’t so tempted to lose concentration because she could see me way too well also!

Yoga made me feel like a whole new person—rather like my old formerly fit self yet so much better, even as I was aging.

Back to that exercise position in class. There really are no assigned spots in these classes and sometimes people start to fight for position. It’s rather unyoga-like, but if you’ve been in a class, you know many of us do it. Well, as I began to need yoga desperately to deal with my mother’s Alzheimer’s and my daughter’s depression, I had to miss some classes for their appointments. You guessed it . . . people started claiming my spot.

I remember having a stress dream about a woman being really nasty about “my” spot—and in my dream this woman was one of the nicest people in my class! I laughed with her about that, but found that I was too emotionally fragile to deal with the additional stress in my life of jockeying for position. After all the struggles in life, I just wanted to walk into a class, drop my mat, and get down to being in the moment of yoga.

So I moved to the back row with my gentle friend. I don’t even like the back row—after all, I don’t worry if the instructor or other students can see me—I just worry if I can see them.

After three years in this spot, for the most part I still don’t feel ready to return to being a front row person in yoga, even though my old spot is strangely vacant. Truth is I just want to be left alone—I don’t want to be that person who has to answer the instructor’s questions constantly or who gets adjusted more than others. It’s not really about yoga—it’s about me.

I am not a front row person these days. Yet, I’m not going to be a back row person forever. During yesterday’s class I realized how frustrated I was because I could not see the instructor at all—not even in the mirrors. The more men we have in class, the more taller people there are in my sight line. In the end I had to choose which front row student to watch for direction.

Still, I don’t want to leave my friend’s company yet. We share tight hips, locked down shoulders, and the overwhelming sadness of losing our mothers to Alzheimer’s. But . . . she never wanted to be anywhere but in the back and I did.

For right now I’m just moving one pose at a time in my Bob-Uecker-style front row, but one day I’ll be back behind home plate again. Well, assuming someone else doesn’t want that spot . . .

Lessons for this Less-than-Patient Patient

(c) 2010 Christiana Lambert

Patience may be a virtue, but not a natural one for me. But, hey, Life often just gives you opportunities to learn about the virtues you lack, right?

Although I am approaching three months since my injury, there are those in my family who might suggest I haven’t quite earned high marks in my patience tests. Still, I don’t think any of them would wish that I need to take more lessons in the subject—for their sakes as well as for mine.

Yet, I have been somewhat patient. After all, I didn’t stop moving. For every day I felt like giving up and becoming someone different, there were several more where I kept working through my exercise routines.

In the past week I have gotten a lot closer to forgetting the injury while in both ZUMBA and yoga classes. In fact, I left the trochanter belt behind for those activities. I surprised myself when I realized I wasn’t modifying my workouts any more than I ever did. In other words, I got sore from working out, not from being injured!

Who knows? Maybe it was the infrared treatment the chiropractor tried this week—if so, too bad we didn’t try that earlier! (Please forgive the multiple exclamation points. Trite though they may be, they are sincere reflections of my excitement.)

Now, I’m not exactly up to running a 5K, but I have added a few more minutes to my jog/run. I suspect my running will be the last activity to recover to former levels, but on the other hand, I do harbor hope that some of this rebalancing will eventually allow me to surpass my most recent running form, if not the running level.

At the same time, I have made it through sorting enough of my mother’s music that our household has been able to reclaim the family room floor space. Which means that, in addition to my feeling better, I also have the space again for practicing ZUMBA routines.

Perhaps this feeling of optimism led to my purchasing a docking/speaker system for my iPod yesterday. You see, I’m starting to dream again, both of maintaining my regular fitness schedule, as well as of becoming a ZUMBA instructor.

Actually, I’m really dreaming of not having to think so much about my body when I contemplate any of my dreams—whether or not they involve fitness.

And that, my friends, is that real fruit of working through the injury—that I didn’t give up on my life vision just because I ran into a very unexpected roadblock. I am wiser about what I can and cannot control and just a wee bit more patient than when I set out to get my puppy and returned with him—and the sore hips/back that gave me a chance to learn just a little bit more from Life’s lesson books.

My Beat Goes On

(c) 2009 Christiana Lambert

Be glad I kept my laptop shut—or at least chose not to approach it last Friday. In general, my blogging policy is if I can’t say anything nice at all—or at least head toward a slightly positive ending—that maybe I should just leave my private thoughts, well, private. After all, I do know how to write by hand in a journal if I want to spew.

But I didn’t do that either.

No, I sat in my reading chair with the dogs (don’t worry, not until after I invited them, Mr. Behaviorist) and finished a book. As I reflected on facing the weekend with limited mobility and limited funds, I realized a trip to my local library could rescue me from a truly mopey fate. Thankfully, our taxes still support a superb facility that can provide entertainment to the poor and downtrodden or those just temporarily broke and grumpy, such as myself.

Unfortunately I ran into a longtime acquaintance when I was really not up for chit-chat. I was too busy wallowing in my supposed restricted future, thank you very much, to socialize.

“How’s it going?” she asked.

Ms. Grumpy replied, “My hips don’t work.”

Now, she’s known me long enough to know that I wasn’t talking about pain. Still, I wish if I were going to be so brutally honest, that I would have added something like, “And you know how I get when I don’t move.” She and I are both, after all, women of a certain age, who have experienced our share of physical downtimes due to injuries. We may have met on school committees, but we also run into each other at the local recreation center (another public-supported facility that has saved both my body and soul!)

Then I took myself, as well as a few books and a DVD, home to my chair where I lost myself inside someone else’s world—OK, not a world I want to inhabit. But hey, I wasn’t reading about my own murder.

The next day I woke up, hips aching, not ready to give up my grudge against Life’s newest twist. A few hours later, though, I’d kind of forgotten about the hips because they had started working better with little more than a B-Complex capsule.

Which meant my previous day’s conclusion—that life as I had known it was over—might have been a little melodramatic.

At the chiropractor visit the week before, I’d finally had success—my hips had not moved at all thanks to work with wearing my oh-so-stylish trochanter belt. That meant I graduated to wearing it less, as well as increasing my level of activity when I did wear it. I have to admit, I worked hard in my yoga classes with that belt. However, I did have to exercise in Deep Water class without it.

By last Thursday night, I could not even walk close to a normal pace as we worked with our dogs and the behaviorist.

On Friday, when the chiropractor asked how I was doing, I told him much better except for that walking thing—which was really not improving.

So he attacked the painful spots and then followed-up by having me lie down on the roller table where I also received more of the electro-stimulation treatment. Then he suggested I follow the session with a slow walk.

My fifteen minutes on the trail were excruciating while my stride mirrored the length of my foot. I just assumed that my hips had not even held half an hour.

“Gloom, despair, and misery on me . . .”

I’d forgotten the chiropractor had stated that in a perfect world I’d go straight to a deep tissue massage, not a walk. What I think I was really experiencing was a reaction to having the scar tissue manipulated—I know from doing restorative yoga that focused release of longtime toxins can initially cause intense pain.

Not only was I not sentenced to my chair for the whole weekend, but I also continue to notice improvements.

I think I am getting better.

Thank goodness I didn’t receive the new DVD/CD for ZUMBA instructors on Friday. I might have thrown it at the wall, but instead, yesterday, I got out the music, popped it in the CD player, and started figuring out which songs I plan to learn in order to teach.

My beat goes on . . .

My Sounds of Silence

(c) 2010 Trina Lambert

Haven’t had a lot to say this past of month—you would think that being forced to sit still might lead to a few deep thoughts. I regret to inform you that has not been the case.

And, I’m afraid that it’s because what I thought might be true, appears to be true: I have to move in order to slow down my brain enough to think.

So I am in a waiting period to see how well my hips/back are going to heal.

What’s really frustrating about these types of injuries is that it’s hard to figure who really can help you heal. There are so many types of specialists out there: orthopedic doctors, physical therapists, chiropractors, and a whole slew of alternative health practitioners. It often seems that each type of specialist disdains the work of the others. Even within the same field, practitioners often don’t agree.

Case in point, Christiana went to see a physical therapist who didn’t believe that a person should be fitted for custom orthotics (for shoes) until various physical therapies had failed to remedy the problem. Several therapy sessions, an MRI and X-rays, as well as pain, reduced activity levels, and lost sports seasons later, another physical therapist referred her immediately to get fitted for orthotics saying that physical therapy couldn’t do enough for her structural problem. Within a week of wearing the devices, much of the pain had receded.

One professional felt the other had been wrong, but I’ve been around long enough to know we were just stuck in the middle of differing philosophies. Meanwhile my daughter was mired in pain and lost many opportunities that would not return.

And because there is no clear-cut path to healing for these types of injuries, often our friends are just as adamant about the right or wrong way to face our injuries.

In the end, we have to make the decisions for ourselves.

I prefer active healing techniques, whenever possible. I can’t begin to explain how much I have improved on my own simply through practicing yoga (over six years) and Pilates (just under six years) with what some would call religious attention. Believe me, I do sweat and raise my heart levels in those classes. I work hard at both the poses and understanding what I can control about my physiology.

However with my energy levels, I’m not just interested in such focused inside mat activities.

Thanks to yoga and Pilates, I could return to running and jumping and bouncing. I pray to God those activities are not yet over for me. I swear I have miles to go before I sleep, as well as dance moves to practice—and I don’t just mean in my head.

Supposedly I have L-4 radiculitis—which is pronounced a lot like ridiculitis. I can promise you this whole situation seems ridiculous to me. Before I left to get the puppy, my usual week included three yoga classes, one Pilates class, one to two ZUMBA classes as well as practice, and running a few miles twice a week and one supervised track practice. All I wanted to do after my protracted road trip week was get back to moving again.

Suffice it to say I had to change my plans. Now I walk slowly with the dogs and do whatever moves I can in yoga and Pilates and ZUMBA—and skip the rest.

But after a few chiropractic treatments I am feeling somewhat better—just not sure how to get my hips to stabilize enough so I can do whatever activities I choose. Just another Baby Boomer not yet ready to sit in the rocking chair . . .

For now I am taking B-Complex supplements and adding a lovely fashion accessory—otherwise known as the trochanter belt—to my wardrobe. I don’t know if these activities will heal me, but after several weeks, I have at least weaned myself from heating pads, Epsom salt baths, and ibuprofen.

It’s a start. Tune in to see how I figure out to jump start my brain, regardless of whether I’m facing a temporary detour or a permanent shift in my road plan. Not only am I not ready for the rocking chair, I’m also not ready for driving on auto-pilot.

Back to My Future

(c) 2011 Sherman Lambert

You might think I’ve been absent from blogging due to having to chase dogs. Yes, that is part of the formula right now as we transition from a home with one elderly dog to one with a pack of three dogs—two with great amounts of energy. You can bet we are off walking them often, plus I have to spend a lot of my daytime hours redirecting attention—and I don’t just mean mine!

My attention, however, has been more self-focused than I’d like, especially at this time when I need to ramp up the acuity of those eyes in the back of my head. My back problems from the crazy week of sitting in a car have not left me. Somewhere, somehow I have finally encountered the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I don’t know what has been worse, the pain or the lack of mobility, especially at a time when I need to move quickly and bend down for all sorts of puppy-related activities.

My daily routines have come to include applying Sombra warm therapy gel, taking Epsom salt baths, sitting on heating pads, and doing things very slowly. All that stuff that didn’t get done when I was on the road? It’s mostly still not done—it’s as if I’ve lost a couple weeks.

And I can’t even begin to think about what I’ve lost from not exercising. I tried so hard to make it back for ZUMBA class the day we came home from Durango, but did not succeed. So when I woke up on that Tuesday morning, I could not wait to exercise after a week without it.

Oh well, I can tell you I’ve been in enough pain that I haven’t miss it that badly after all. It’s not as if I haven’t exercised, it’s just I am busy modifying almost everything I do in yoga, Pilates, and ZUMBA. Running is out of the question. I just have to take one day at a time.

Some days the puppy, Furgus, seems to be on a one-dog mission to keep me from what I can do for myself! Either he’s busy trying to eat my hair as I lie down on the floor with legs elevated or he’s causing so much trouble in the bathroom that I have to leave my Epsom salt bath a couple times before I can relax or he’s trying to bite my heating pad cord and electrocute us both. Yikes.

I tried to wait this out, but couldn’t. For the first time in my life I’ve gone to see a chiropractor. No, that activity was not on my bucket list, but I did seem to be one of the few I knew who hadn’t gone to one.

I’ve always been unbalanced—go ahead and laugh—but I’ve mostly just dealt with it. However, turns out I’m really unbalanced now—blame the car, blame my structure, blame my age, whatever. My lifetime quarter inch difference at my hips has grown to one inch. Apparently, you’re supposed to be in pain by that point—good to know I’m right on track. My right arch has fallen, my neck shows permanent damage from whiplash and posture, and even my cheekbones have shifted. I have become a crooked little woman who only wants to get back to running my crooked little miles (or dancing or sitting without discomfort or whatever!)

Instead this crooked little woman will be walking her crooked little miles with her crooked little dogs for the time being—and having them wear harnesses that reduce their opportunities to pull.

One adjustment appointment down—who knows how many more to go? But, here’s the deal—I no longer have to modify so many of my day-to-day activities. I can shave my legs, dry off after showers, and sleep in most of my usual positions. And, boy, have I come to respect how much work my back does doing simple things such as unloading a dishwasher, putting clothes in a dryer, or picking something up from the floor before the puppy can attack it.

(c) 2011 Trina Lambert

Lots of deep breathing going on here while I wait to get back to my future. Better just focus on a little pet therapy—and be glad I have Sherman and Jackson to help me when a certain young pup gets to be a bit much to handle.

Thank goodness puppies sleep a lot—there’s nothing like watching Furgus sleep to warm up my energy for him again—and it’s not even harmful for my back.

Forever and Ever

(c) 2011 Christiana Lambert

Yoga has this way of bringing out feelings or thoughts you don’t even know you are having. Honestly, I would tell you this was a pretty good day. I completed some work, exercised hard, discovered my favorite driving route was construction-free after about a year and a half while noting the absolute beauty of the April day, and got answers to a few questions.

Not bad considering yesterday I was in a bit of a funk after finishing reading a book and comparing myself too closely to the unfavorable protagonist—or rather the main character of the story who settled for so little for himself. It’s one thing to be happy to have time to read a good book, but it’s another thing to think there isn’t anything more beyond that.

I promise you I don’t want to be that person, even if I do like my solitary at-home activities.

Thankfully, today’s intense rain followed by the blue skies that enhanced the pinks of the crabapple blossoms, the emerald-green grass, and spring-green baby-like leaves unfurling from trees reminded me that it is finally really, really spring, even if we will still have occasional cold spells ahead. Ask anyone who lives here—there is nothing like the snow-capped mountains on the horizon to set off April’s colors.

But yoga took me back within, back to going from one minute to the next when I could only look for the balance and/or strength to complete a pose as best I could. There were no seasons, just breath and sweat and trying to remain mindful.

So, when it came time for final relaxation, I did not expect emotion. Yet, there Robyn was, saying to breathe in “Let” and breathe out “go”—the very phrase that caught up with me a few weeks earlier.

Let go of what? Everything? Specific things? The past? Worries?

Oh, but how can you let go, if you try to answer that with your mind in the midst of the breath?

You just have to go with the breath and let the unnamed tears come, then brush them away and roll up your mat and go back out into the world outside yourself.

There that oh-so-gorgeous day greeted me once more. As I observed all that glory, into my head popped, “I am so glad this long Lenten season is almost over.”

And once again I was crying. This was not about the past 40 days in the desert—unless you consider 40 days to be a symbolic number. No, this was about my wanting to stop living with so much sad news.

However, Easter is a few days away—first I will try to share with Christ his bitter cup even though this year I seem to need the Good News (now!) for my own peace of mind.

In fact, I need not only the peace of the resurrection, but also the secular chocolate bunnies, colored eggs, and rebirth in the earth.

So during these next two days, I will also sneak in a few sips of the tangible signs that show me life continues—forever and ever more. Amen.