A few Saturdays ago I came home from a hot-power-yoga class and felt stronger than I had felt in decades. I was literally tingling from my head to my toes. The way that my brain chemicals delight me in and after that class is something that I do not have the vocabulary to describe; it could be the endorphins are so powerful that I lose the ability to think about words, but the description that people often use about a “runner’s high” seems perfect to describe the hot-power-yoga class thrill. That my Saturday morning yoga teacher is the same age as my daughter, and yet she thinks I’m pretty cool (at least she tells me so) and doesn’t make me feel like an old-lady-middle-aged-just somebody’s mom taking up mat space in her very popular class, makes me feel pretty fabulous every Saturday in and of itself, that I am mostly able to keep up with the younger or mad-fit folks who attend is like icing on cake! My granddaughter one day said to me, “Nana there are women your age who can’t even touch their toes” when I was talking about this particular class and how it makes me feel, and I thought, well, I have a long way to go but she’s not wrong!!! …and so the point of my story is that I walked into my house after class that Saturday and decided to get over (no pun intended) right that second, my fear of going upside down.

You see, years ago, shortly after I started taking yoga classes, I bought a “feet up trainer” which is basically a short chair with a hole in the seat and a wide leg base and it is designed to help strengthen the abs and the core and to assist your practice by going upside down into any sort of inversion but gives you the stability of not putting pressure on your neck and having your shoulders supported. I guess it is basically made so that you are less likely to fall over, or fall down, into a back bend or, worse, a back break, and the gist of this is that one is less likely to be injured when one is using this trainer to go into headstands. However, despite watching many instructional videos over many years I had not yet tried it!!! I had been, since its arrival to my door, too chicken! For people who fly right up into headstands or handstands or who with incredible strength and control slowly lift into them, they might think I am ridiculous, but chicken I was!! Both of my granddaughters went right upside down the day I showed it to them, but for some reason, as noted above, I was scared…so the long story short, which you might know is hard for me, to make a story short, is that I had been too frightened of getting injured to use my bench, but THAT Saturday I felt so strong and so capable and so awesome that I went right upstairs into my loft and got out my bench and went right into a headstand!!! The joy that I felt, upside down, was indescribable!! It made me feel like a kid!! AND it made me decide right at that moment, that every single day I was going to practice going upside down to get my core stronger and my heart stronger and, if the hype has any truth in it, my face looking younger over time from extra blood flow! Every single day since that Saturday afternoon I have gone into a headstand and every single time I am finished with being inverted I feel stronger and am no longer scared at all.

Feelings of being strong, both in my mind and my body, are EXTREMELY important to me at this time. On August 24th, 37 years after one of the saddest days of my life, I said to myself, “I have had 37 years since the worst time of my life and I don’t likely have 37 years left of life, so whatever I want to change I need to change now” Making my inside and my outside stronger, in ALL ways and better in ALL ways, and more in line with who I feel I am in EVERY way at this stage of my life has become a priority and so for the last five months it has been my focus and some days, if I’m being honest, all I think about…I just want to keep this momentum going and the only way to get to where I want to be is to make small efforts every day to get there…there is no other way. Deliberately changing-up or breaking-up with old habits that no longer serve me well, or will help me to achieve my goals, is real work. Like the old tv commercial “saying it and doing it are two different things” which I think was for a learning center offering tutoring for teenagers, and it turns out that the words are applicable for middle aged ladies too! I can’t rub a lamp to conjure a genie, I don’t have the means to hire a chef or a trainer, I can’t wiggle my nose like BeWitched, and I can’t wave a magic wand to “POOF!” make myself and my life the way I want it to be…all that I have is the desire to make better choices and change myself in small but measurable ways, day after day after day…

Where I wanted to “be” at this stage of life, and where I found myself, as I reflected upon all of this at the end of the summer, was not the same, and so changing my thoughts and actions is the only way to get THERE from WHERE I was, and it has at times been a really difficult challenge…my progress is slow, but it is progress nevertheless. It is not only how I look or how I feel or if I think I’ve accomplished some goal. It is, to sum it all up, my NEED to have alignment of my thoughts, my actions, my inside and my outside. I still struggle with a sugar addiction from time to time, and I still ate too many (WAY too many) of my family favorite orange rolls at Thanksgiving and Christmas, but giving up alcohol has proven to be very easy for me, and eating cleaner has been expensive but not at all difficult, and kicking my excessive shopping for things I don’t actually need and really can’t afford has been easier than I expected as I simply don’t go to Target and when I am on Amazon I put things in my cart and then turn off my computer!!! Changing a little bit every day is still change!

As we moved into a new year I still felt that I needed to do more or try more things and so I had my first acupuncture session last week. I didn’t know what to expect and didn’t google it either because I didn’t want to see the needles or see any sort of video of how the needles go in. I have no pain, I have no chronic illness, I take no medicines, I have no disease, but what I do have is a desire to be a better version of THIS, this vessel that is my current human body and all its parts. From what I read, acupuncture is an ancient tool for moving energy through the human body or to address needs of certain parts of the body, and in my thought process, if I have felt “off” or stuck (well, I guess to be brutally honest with myself, for 37 years) moving some energy more efficiently through my body seemed like a reasonable thing to try. One of my yoga teachers calls it “stuckness” when we hold onto feelings or memories or anger or regret or sorrow or well ANYTHING I suppose that we are holding onto inside, when we could just release the stuckness and move on…I told the needle lady about this, that I wanted to get rid of any blockages inside of me that were jamming up my changes…I said to her, “like if I was on I95 trying to get from Florida to Maine and I want to just blow right on through.” She totally “got me” and said that I was in the right place. She covered my eyes with a lavender pillow, she warmed up a blanket under me and started…I did not count but the needles started in my left ear and went down my left arm to my left foot and up my right side and then she told me to just relax and that the energy do its thing. I just let the feelings wash over me, of strength and change and openness and repeated to myself that I wanted what was stuck to get out…I think I must have fallen asleep but I don’t know for sure. Frankly after it was over I felt just fine but no better and no different, but I also know that stuckness does not flow after one hour when it has been in me for 37 years, so I know it might take time and I am okay with that. At least I made the effort…

I find myself sitting here at my desk ready this morning noticing that I will be turning my calendar to the next page in a couple of days and will start another month. Another month of trying to do better and trying to be better. Another month of making choices that support my wellness and my stability. Another month of thinking before I act, before I eat, before I speak. Another month of modifying behaviors that get me nearer to my goals. I already have a strong work ethic and I already exercise at least six times a week and I have a physical job, so there is not much to change there, only to improve, and I suppose if you are already accomplished at clean eating, diligent at meditating, maintain a non-negotiable fitness regimen, have no unease about your financial stability, and your relationship is solid, all this is just jibber-jabber about nothing to you, but to me, it’s pretty much everything right now! AND regardless of how long it takes me to get to the point where clean eating is common place and not something I have to think about, and meditating is daily rather than occasionally, and miraculously my finances and relationships become more stable, rather than the most worrisome aspects of my life, the fact of the matter is that I now can contemplate these inside and outside things while UpSideDown, with my feet over my head, and with visions of stuck-ness flying right out of the tips of my toes! (which, in case you wondered, in my mind’s eye, I visualize as stars…shiny, glittery, stars...)

I have been thinking of Priscilla Presley too much these last couple of days. Lifestyles of the rich and famous really can be far more traumatic than any kind of ordinary financially-struggling-working person. Sure, I often think that if I had more money everything would be easier, but thinking this weekend about ELVIS and his family, I think it’s not true at all. I feel like my level of contentment with my life and the wellness of my loved ones at this moment is such that Priscilla would trade with me in a flash if it could rid her of her anguish. It’s a big burning love, motherhood. It’s often messy, and sometimes angry and uncomfortable, and occasionally overwhelmingly disappointing…the flip side is that it is sometimes perfection, and pure unimaginable joy, and like everything else about being alive, it has its ups and downs.

22 hours or so from now, my “baby” is another year closer to 40 than 30…and I was thinking this morning, whether you are 37 weeks pregnant and patiently waiting for your whole life to change with this birth, or your toddler is 37 weeks old and you are waiting patiently for the terrible twos to finally be over because nobody told you about the terrible threes, or you are the mother of a 37 year-old elementary school teacher and patiently waiting for her life to get easier after her recent divorce, the FEELING is the same…the burning love is imprinted on your heart once you find out you are pregnant and you commit to the choice to carry a pregnancy and decide that you are going to become a mother. From that moment on, the moment you make that choice, there is a before and an after of every single part of your life…

Whether you birth a baby, adopt a child, or have a surrogate carry and grow one for you, once you are a mother, however you have come to the title, you can’t go back to being anything else. Even if you want to put yourself first, it’s impossible, because this other person, or these other people are now the most important people in the world, and every one of their needs is more important than yours…at least this has been my experience of life. Once I heard my sister quietly say “it’s a girl” I knew that the girl I once was was forever to be put on the back burner while I took care of this pink hatted bundle the nurse handed to me…how it has been 37 years seems impossible, but it is so…

When my daughter was four-years old, and my life was very hard, and not very happy, I was at work one day and a very wealthy and well known local restaurant owner came in to the gallery. My boss and I nodded to each other and we greeted her warmly as we had not seen her in many months. She used to be a “regular,” but had recently suffered the death from brain cancer of her little girl, who was the exact same age as my little girl. I had written this woman a note of sympathy and mailed it when I had heard the news but this was the first time I had seen her since the child had died, and I was teary and uncertain if I would accidentally say the wrong thing, so instead I walked up to her and reached for her hand and looked her in the eye and told her how very sad I was for her sadness…At that moment, looking into her eyes…she was beautiful and blonde and rich and “famous” on the little island where I worked, and she had EVERYTHING a 22 year-old struggling, single working-mom, college student could want to be very happy…BUT one thing…it was a moment of such clarity for me, the realization that at that moment, I had a healthy vibrant four-year old little girl and pretty much nothing else, and she had everything but not a healthy little girl…

I want to say that I was forever changed that day, and in many ways I was…I still suffered from envy (my worst character flaw, but we won’t talk about that today) over the years; girlfriends who got married to successful men who provided them with a bigger and better life than I had, women who were able to achieve their dream jobs that I was unable to attain, vacations people got to go on, silly stuff I guess, looking back on it all …but the one thing that always was in the back of my mind, and is to this day, was that that woman, all those years ago, in her fine clothes, with her flawless and huge diamond ring, and her expensive European car, and her handsome husband, and upscale restaurant, would have gladly given up ALL of what she had, to have the one thing that I did…

It’s a burning love, the love for a child, whether it’s a wee one or an adult, and the desire to protect and nurture and cheer-on never wanes…this daughter of mine, the woman next door, this mother of my granddaughters, is a big love that I have always felt so deeply, and yet never could put into words, even now, as I suppose is the case with all mothers; we feel it, but we can’t explain it…On this morning, the day before my daughter’s birthday, I can’t help but think about the restaurant lady, and Priscilla, and these women who had the riches and the luxury and all the goods for a good life, and yet today, with my daughter as my next door neighbor and my friend, with her good health and good looks and good job, and healthy beautiful children of her own, I can’t help but feel like I’m the richest woman in the world.

I don’t remember being read to and I don’t remember learning to read but I do remember, vividly, the moment that reading grabbed me…I was in my big brass bed, with the purple bed spread (of course) with a mound of pillows propped and stuffed under my head and neck (still my position of choice) and I think I was about 8 years old, and I was reading a hardcover book called The Secret Garden. It was my first “big girl book” with chapters…I got to the lines about the “mysterious moaning in the night” AND I WAS HOOKED. I can’t remember what I thought, but I absolutely remember what I felt…my heart rate was up and my fingers were tense as I held that book to my nose and I would not want to stop reading until I found out what the sound was and from where it was coming…AND later, the moment when Mary is out in the yard and feels through the vines and flowers and realizes that she is standing at a door, not a wall, and turns the knob to discover the garden!!! I still get goosebumps when I think about it (and I read it again in college and the excitement was still there) maybe it was my first realization that magic did exist and that I had found it in a book. I discovered at a young age (maybe I was 7? maybe my mom will know?) that READING IS THE GREAT ESCAPE!

The total number of nights of my life that I have not read before bed could probably easily be counted by a toddler learning to count. It is a very VERY rare occurrence for me to not read at night. Reading at bed time is the best form of sleep-aid that could ever be invented, in my ever so humble opinion, but there is a method to it; the moment the sensation of sleep hits you, you must put the book down and turn off the light, for if you try to push through it, because you want to keep reading, your sleep will neither be restorative nor deep. I know this to be true and have plenty of data to support this theory! When you are reading you can’t think about the snarky comment your boss made to you at work yesterday, when you are reading you can’t think about the jerky lady in line Sunday at Target who turned out to be parked right next to you, crookedly no less, and then did not put her cart back, when you are reading you can’t think about the fact that your property taxes, homeowner’s insurance, and car insurance are all due in February which is your poorest month of the year, and when you are reading you can’t think about your marriage, your aging parents, your kids, your finances, or ANYTHING AT ALL…your eyes look at the letters and your brain joins the letters into words and those words make sentences and tell you a story, a tale, and weave a web of wonderment right in front of your face, in real time. It’s absolutely a form of magic. If fiction is not appealing to you, there are plenty of books where the words make sentences that tell you about a person, a place, an event, or a thing.

There is a quote by James Michener that I adore, “I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions” and I sometimes wonder, how people can LIVE if they don’t read??!! I don’t mean the great tragedy of illiteracy, but I mean people who do not like to read but can, and I feel like they probably think of me “well how can she not like to water ski?!” the way that I wonder how can they not enjoy the pleasure of reading! I know, I know, everybody is different, some people like Wonder Bread and Breyers vanilla, and some people have their sourdough rounds shipped from Boudin Bakery in San Francisco and only eat Jeni’s small batch ice cream…we all have tastes, desires, and habits that are different from each other, but here is part of what makes reading magically universal…when a story is extraordinary and you are talking to somebody who has also read the same book, the excitement of discussing the events that took place feel like YOU EXPERIENCED all of it…reading brings you into a world, a place, a time period, and a sensation of being not where you are in your life, if that makes sense??!!

In the winter of 1992 I read a book that was the greatest escape of my life and remains one of my favorite books I have ever read. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon took me away from my life for three days…I was a single working mom and a college student. I had a charming little cedar house to rent and a charming little crooked toothed daughter to raise and was going to community college at nights after work so I could transfer to a four-year-school, and I worked at a fantastic gallery filled with beautiful objects and I had a wonderful life, but it was not an easy life…that winter my boss decided to close for a few weeks and I had an unexpected paid vacation so to speak…six weeks where I could be a stay at home mom/get her off the bus mom/make her dinner and eat with her at the dining room table every night mom/a joyfully cleaned all day mom/a do something fun on the weekend mom because I was able to collect unemployment for those six weeks that winter when the gallery closed…and Outlander by Diana Gabaldon arrived for me at the library and I started it, and then I read and read and read until it was finished…I found myself NOT in my little cedar house and I found myself NOT in the throes of new semester assignments and I found myself NOT a single mom hoping to finally someday, somehow, meet a handsome and interesting man to color my world…this story sucked me into one of the greatest escapes of my life…I could see the highlands of Scotland and I could feel the cold damp wind on my skin and I could see Jamie as clear as day…in my mind’s eye I imagined every inch of him and his voice and his skin and his hands and I could feel the wool on my fingers if I closed my eyes…I have since told every person I ever talked reading with about those glorious hours of reading, and that glorious magical love story of fiction, and an author who completely invited me to escape my life, for many hours over three days…

In the winter, or during times of unease, there is nothing wrong with escaping your life, and unlike alcohol or drugs, THIS kind of behavior is good for your brain. I’ll leave you with this message on this cold January morning; if seasonal blues have got you feeling bluer than usual, if after Christmas finances have you more worried than usual, if sickness and diagnoses or infirmity of any sort has got you feeling bewildered or empty or uneasy, I promise you, pick up a book tonight at bedtime and start reading…you will escape from your disquiet and discontent, whatever vexes you, just sort of disappears when you have your nose in a book and you let yourself GO IN…I believe that it’s better than any sleep medication or anti-depressant ever invented through science…I promise, you’ll thank me and then once you experience the magic, you’ll thank yourself…Once Upon A Time…