WITHDRAWAL...

How many kilometres is it from Town Hall station up to the Mint building for coffee, through the park to the art gallery, through the Archibald Exhibition, out to the café for lunch, back through the Art Express Exhibition, back across the park down to the bus station and home?  Because that’s what I did instead of running today.  I talked about running if that counts.  On national radio no less.  You can hear it if you like. And since today was such a lovely, low-key, hang out with my mother and cousin, look at art sunshiney day, I didn’t need to run as much as I normally do.  I’m a little antsy and taking the dog for a walk hasn’t quite cured it, but sometimes I wonder, if just like someone on long-term prescription medication often tries to reduce their dose, if that’s not a bad idea for me.  Am I too reliant on running for my sense of wellbeing?  Without it am I difficult and withdrawn because I haven’t had a chance to process the day’s incidents?  Do I find it difficult to relax if I haven’t worn myself out?  The answer to all these questions is unreservedly yes, but I’m not sure that’s healthy.  So, unadvised by any medical professional, I have forced a reduction in medication by not running today and deciding to yoga instead tomorrow.

This could be interesting folks, I’ll let you know how I (and anyone around me) fairs.  

POCKET SIZED POOCHES

Is it just me, or has the number of breeds of small dogs in Australia increased dramatically during my absence over the last seven years?  I don’t mind the occasional game of dodge the dog, but the smaller they are, the bigger the problem.  They’re harder to see, they dart rather than trot, their movements are unpredictable and they are NEVER ON A LEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!  I appreciate giving dogs their freedom – I would try with ours but he has no street skills and we live just off a major arterial road.  He would be free all right.  Or his spirit would be, as he took up his place in doggie heaven.

All I mean to say is, sometimes it’s a little frustrating to have to hop, skip, cartwheel, gallop and levitate to avoid squashing a dog the size of my sneaker under my pounding heel.  Truly this is not a rant against dogs, or dog owners, I am one and a lover of both.  But it’s a bit like when people are strung out all along the footpath and the person directly in your way refuses to move over to allow you passage despite the fact that footpaths are, as far as I’m aware, a two way street.  Dogs don’t speak English, so I don’t expect them to understand.  But presumably their owners do.  Does it not occur to them that their untethered midget canine is actually rather a nuisance?  If the situation were reversed and I was blithely allowing my pet duck to wander at will across a path, would they not find themselves frustrated?

Don’t worry, I didn’t let this issue with the vertically challenged pooch ruin my run, and it was a glorious one in the warm, fading autumn sun.  Owing to my article in today's Sydney Morning Herald, I had skipped Yoga out of fear that someone would recognize my name when I checked in to take class, but will be back again tomorrow.  I don’t normally do this many yoga classes in a week, but the tight arse in me is lured by the flat rate they offer you for the first seventeen days.  I guess they hope you’ll develop a yoga-addiction, but for me it’s purely mathematics.  This is a good deal and I’m going to exploit it.

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD DEBUT!!!

Look who is in today's Sydney Morning Herald.  It is curiously similar to a blog I wrote recently, but now it's in hard print.
Very exciting indeed!

I DID IT...DOWNWARD DOG AND DEODORANT

I did it.  I went back to yoga.  I know I vowed to weeks ago, but making it public really forced me to go…eventually.  And it wasn’t too bad.  Honestly.  I think the instructor designed the class just around me – all the stretches were the ones I should have been doing after every run but somehow seem to always forget.

Flatulence is an interesting problem in Yoga.  Perhaps it’s the positions you worm your way into, or maybe it’s the way the instructors foster a sense of sharing and togetherness.  “We’re all on a journey, supporting and encouraging each person’s individual path.”  Maybe so, but does that really include their bowel movements?

I always wonder what my fellow devotees (as we’re sometimes called) are thinking when the instructor is banging on about our journey.  If you’re lucky they let you get into child’s pose (though to this day I’ve never seen a kid actually pull this move) where you fold your legs under themselves, lean forward between them and stretch your arms out in front.  The instructor can’t see your face this way so I tend to consider it nap time and let my mind wander.  While they are busy telling me about the joy of a yogi’s spirit I am busy planning my next meal.  Baked beans or eggs, I think if it’s an early morning pre-breakfast class.  The good thing about yoga is, you can usually get by without talking to anyone so I tend to rush out of the house without cleaning my teeth.  I don’t deem undies essential either since you’re in form fitting clothes as it is, but I do consider my peers and wack on a bit of deodorant.  I wish I could say the same about them.  Yoga is often synonymous with vegans, being at one with your environment and dreadlocks. None of which I have a problem with.  Abandoning hygiene however, I do.  If you’re living in a hut, practicing your warrior three on an abandoned beach, go ahead, smell as much as you like.  But this is Australia.  We consider ourselves a civilized nation.  Deodorant is not a conspiracy, it’s a necessity.  Trust me people, nothing puts you further away from being ‘at one with your environment’ than filling the room with the stench of last night’s tofu curry.

I also tend to get a bit distracted by the ujjayi breathing they try to make you do.  (Other names include ocean breath, hissing breath, or victorious breath, though I’m not quite sure what you’ve won or whom you’ve beaten).  Apparently we’re trying to constrict the throat to find a more powerful breath but the logic doesn’t hold for me.  I’ve tried it, but I feel like I’m gargling my own spit and everyone around me sounds like they are preparing to hock a loogie which makes me very wary to slip into a yogic state and find my zen.

Having decided to breath exactly as I’ve been doing for the last thirty years, I proceeded through the class and worked out some of the knots in my left quad.  The best part is the final move where you get to lie down, close your eyes and meditate.  I enjoy a little mini-nap here, and am about to go an enjoy a longer one in my waterbed.  Goodnight blogees.  I’m sorry I haven’t written more of late, life outside the yoga studio has been very far from zen.

EXCELLENT FRIDAY

I played another focus game with my students today, and decided to use Easter as the theme.  Again, they had to come up with words associated with the holiday and one of my students said this; “oh you know…excellent Friday.”

Isn’t that fabulous!  Close, but so much better than the original.  Don’t just have a good Friday, have an excellent one. 

And today is, indeed an excellent Friday.  One of those autumn days where you can pretend the glorious sun and gentle breeze is going to last all the way to September when it will start to get warm again.  My imagination is my greatest device but sometimes I wonder if it could also be my downfall.  Sometimes when I hear about a landslide, or an earthquake, and people are discovered alive under the rubble three days after the disaster, I wonder if I could be one of those people.  What would I do stuck in the dark for seventy-two hours straight?  No one to talk to, nothing to eat, nowhere to run.  Would I survive? Or would I do myself in?  I like to think my vivid imagination could transport me to an alternate universe where I forget that I’m lying under a collapsed building and am, in fact, at a wonderful party, or swimming at the beach, or running through the bush.  But I’m an impatient kid, always on the go, which could definitely work against me.  Gregory’s stubborn streak would see him prevail.  Ain’t no way a building is getting the better of him.  They're a bit macabre, these thoughts I'm having and I’ve got no idea why they are consuming me today.  This is not the attitude of Excellent Friday.  Time to change track, get out for a run and live!  It's Australia.  We haven't had a tsunami, we don't have volcanoes, earthquakes are a remote possibility.  The closest thing to dangerous on this run is me tripping and falling into the water.  Hope I haven't jinxed myself...

EASILY PLEASED

The sun is shining, the sky is blue, the grass is green.  There is a gentle autumn breeze rippling through the turning leaves and I am going to get out in it.  My two lily-white legs will carry me around the shores of our majestic harbour and I am going to love it.  Simple pleasures I agree, but if seven years in New York teaches you nothing else, it’s that simple also often means free, and that’s the best kind of pleasure to have. 

POUNDING AND PONTIFICATING

Are you meant to exercise over Easter?  Sometimes I can be discouraged by the feel of autumn in the air and wuss out.  Tomorrow, I think, as I snuggle into my slippers and bathrobe.  It’s such a lovely holiday, the Easter long weekend, and my first one home in eight years was even more so.  Family, friends, yummy desserts and Easter Monday takeaway.  Long walks, longer talks, crisp sunshine, bright cool nights. 

But I still awoke on Sunday morning far earlier than I intended owing to the extra hour we gained as we abandoned daylight saving.  Usually I love this day, and consider the sleep-in the only good thing about winter.  This year I didn’t even get that and by 8.30am while Gregory was still sleeping soundly, the ants in my pants were busy indeed.  So off I went, listening to my favourite running album and running my new favourite route.  Easter is about renewal, and that’s certainly how I feel living back in my old stomping grounds.  Everything has changed but it’s all still the same.  I’m still me, my family is still mine, Sydney still has bad public transport.  And yet, I’m now the me with my husband, we are our own family, an off-shoot from whence we came and the buses I catch seem to be running on time.

The passages of time slip by with great excitement and yet also great mundanity.  

This is the glory of life.  And I pondered it while I ran.