Do your practice and all is coming.

Do your practice and all is coming.
--Sri K. Pattabhi Jois

I reminded myself of this the other day as I stepped onto my yoga mat, trying to ignore my chattering mind.  I began my sun salutations, moving through them smoothly not wanting them to end. They don't always feel that way, sometimes I feel choppy and chaotic, lethargic and heavy. But what I love about the ashtanga practice* is that it doesn't matter. I flow through the same postures, my body remembers where to go--following my breath. It is a rhythm, a sequence. By the time I reach utthita hasta padangusthasana, I am laughing as I work to keep my balance while standing on one leg and lifting the other leg up by wrapping my fingers around my big toe.
It's fun.
Yoga is fun.
It's not as serious as people make it out to be-- inisisting that you 'must' do yoga...or that you must do it a certain way. bullshit.
Have fun. Do yoga if you want.
I like it because it makes me laugh (and sometimes cry). It helps me to enjoy my body in new ways--to truly 'inhabit' my body rather than live crammed up in my head all of the time.
I like it because it helps me to laugh at myself as I watch my chattering mind and see how completely insane my thoughts can be.
I am grateful to have a studio where I can go and practice right around the corner. I teach there too. It's a sanctuary for me-- away from the endless demands of the two little boys who call me mama. Even if it's only 40 minutes-- it is so damn good.
On days when I feel anxious, down or completely insane I am trying to remember:
Do your practice and all is coming.

*Ashtanga  is a system of yoga that was recorded by the sage Rishi in an ancient manuscript called the Yoga Korunta. Pattabhi Jois (1915-2009) was the founder of modern Ashtanga yoga. The practice was taught to him by Krishnamacharya who is credited with being the source or influence of almost all modern yoga--specifically Ashtanga, Iyengar and Viniyoga.  I'll write more about the practice of ashtanga in a future post.

Photo by Jason B Smith

Roast Chicken--yum.

Rosemary Lemon chicken from Saveur (see below for recipe link)

You know why I love roasted chicken? Because it is so damn tasty....and simple and economical. I've decided that it's the most affordable way for my family to eat organic chicken. Seriously. I sometimes pay over $8 for boneless skinless organic chicken breasts. I can buy a 3-4 lb organic chicken for around $11 and I get multiple meals out of it plus about 4 quarts of chicken stock in the freezer.
Ever since we began playing around with the GAPS diet 5 months ago (see previous posts here and here) which is kind of like the paleo diet (no/low grains), I've been cooking a whole chicken almost every week. One night we'll eat straight chicken with vegetables and then I'll use the leftovers in something like chicken tacos or with pesto on pizza. Plus we'll get a few lunches of 'crunchy chicken' for me and Finn which is leftover bits fried up in virgin coconut oil, salted and served with avocado. If we're feeling over-chickened, I just shred it up and throw it in the freezer.

Thanks to Desi, tonight I found "20 Ways to Cook a Whole Chicken" on Saveur's website. I am so excited about trying one of these each week-- Butter chicken? Bacon fried chicken? Yes, please.
Tonight we had Lemon and Rosemary chicken and it was delicious.
This recipe calls for cutting up the chicken before roasting. Here is my favorite quick tutorial for how to cut up a whole chicken quickly and easily.

 In the past I have followed Alice Water's roast chicken instructions in The Art of Simple Food (pgs 108-110) and it never fails to be perfect:

• Season the the whole bird--inside and out 1 or 2 days in advance if possible (I usually forget to do this --but it makes a huge difference. Even a few hours is helpful) Use celtic sea salt & pepper.
• Cover loosely and refrigerate. At least one hour before cooking remove from the fridge, place in lightly oiled pan (I never oil the pan) and let sit, breast side up.
• Slip sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme under the skin of the breast and thighs and then stuff the cavity of the bird with herbs
• Thinly slice garlic and slip it under the skin as well. I also throw a few quartered cloves in the cavity.
• Roast at 400 degrees F. for 20 minutes then turn breast side down for 20, then back up until done-- you can tell by looking at the chicken and if the drumsticks don't bounce away when touched-- or about 165 degrees in the deepest part of the thigh.

 That's all for now. I'll post about chicken stock & bone broth another day.... I've got some simmering on the stove right now.

Photobooth

 This is the last post about Halloween. I promise. As I mentioned in the last couple of posts, I convinced J to set up a photo booth in our front yard so that all of the little kidlets (and their parents) could capture their cuteness with an image. He was stuck there for the night taking photos. It may or may not have been worth it, but it was a fun experiment. Here we are on Halloween eve testing out the lighting:

And here is Bobolicious in his adorable owl costume. I actually made this (can you hear the shock in my voice?)! I want him to wear it every day for the next month. I'm not one of those 'crafting moms' with an organized, perfect crafting room and cute homemade things everywhere. It was more like chaos in the garage with leaking glue guns, misplaced paper flowers and scraps of felt everywhere. But I had so much fun making stuff, maybe I just will become a crafter of things....or even an artist (less likely)!-- who knows? For now, I enjoyed copying other people's ideas and searching out online tutorials. (The owl costume is from Martha.)

Questions for my Mother Part 3: Where do they go?

Have you seen the movie Temple Grandin? It stars Claire Danes and is the true and wonderful story of an autistic animal behaviorist. There are a couple of scenes where Temple sees the dead body of an animal or a person and asks: Where do they go?

Since I've been thinking about death lately (not in a morose way, I just have a Day of the Dead obsession--that's all), this line of Temple's reminded me of seeing my mom's dead body.
[Note: growing up Catholic means that I saw all sorts of dead bodies at wakes, but the enbalming, kneeling, flowers and dark curtains make for an entirely different spooky experience.]
I took a red-eye across the country and arrived at my parents house in Rhode Island a few hours after my mom passed away.  As I came in the front door, my dad pointed me to the bedroom. The word 'lifeless' had a new significance after seeing my mom's body there without "her" in it.

So the question for my mother today is: Where do they go? 


I could muse about this for hours-- the science, the philosophy. Of course it's an age-old question, but it becomes poignant when you witness  the death of someone first-hand.

Here is something I wrote a couple of months later  (It's meant to be spoken rather than read):

My mother is dead.

I saw her body with my own eyes , An inanimate object , she lies on the bed. Empty.

Her suffering gone

Her smile gone

Her hair gone

Her laugh quiet

Her hands cold, and twisted

Her mouth slightly open

I can no longer resist it

My mother is dead.

So I just sit there on the bed, wishing I wasn’t there, wishing I could  talk to her one more time, let her hold me one more time

Wishing I’d been an easier child,

Wishing  I’d  been one of those girls with a mild, temperment

But this is permanent.

My mother is dead

I knew this would happen But not so soon There was part of me that

Felt immune . Felt like there would be some sort of miracle

Like she was really some sort of mythical character.   

A mother immortal

My mother is dead.  

And as I Look at her body, I see clearly that she is gone. That whatever life is, it’s been withdrawn . And whatever life means  is beyond me

You see, to me—it seems  impossible, and when I get philosophical i trip out on the question: who am I ? what is this? And I don’t mention it much because people don’t want to think about it.

We’re so wrapped up in our lives that we miss out on it. And I ask: what really matters anyway?

My mother is dead.

The men in suits walk into my parents house. The men in suits walk into her bedroom and carry her out in a black body bag.

A black. body. bag. The object removed.

The men in suits are polite standing with their hands folded behind their backs speaking in hushed tones.  Neighbors bring platters of little sandwiches on soft rolls. The bed where my mother has been lying for weeks for months, is empty.

My mother is dead.


photo by Terrence Gavan

Dia De los Muertos: part 2

The Day of the Dead is officially tomorrow, but we started celebrating it on Halloween night. I posted last week about our preparations for what everyone told us would be an insane night in the 'hood. It was everything the neighbors had promised and more: lines of kids stretching down the walkway, streets closed, mobs of people walking around (which you just don't see in this tiny town), dance performances. Wow. Jason was at the photo booth for about 4 hours straight and I was (what was I doing?)....making sure our 'open house' was running smoothly while carrying 2 clingy children that I was occasionally able to peel off of me and hand to a grandparent. (They are adorable though--even when they cling).

Did I mention that we commissioned 2 dozen tamales from the tia of a man who works with my cousin? Oh my. They were amazing. I also made tamales de elote....let's just say I need some practice. The taste was good. The form? far from perfect. I also made: almond flour butter cookies cut into cute halloween shapes and gluten free pumpkin cookies, Martha's butternut squash salad (yum), (actually, jason's sister showed up at my house just in time to make it for me). My aunt made black beans and I bought Pan de Muerto from the local bakery.  Oh...and atole-- a traditional Mexican hot cinnamon drink-- but I don't think anyone realized it was there--or maybe they just wanted something harder.

Here are some preliminary photos. [Sorry if you've already seen these on Instagram and Facebook. There will be others tomorrow]:

Dia De Los Muertos.

image link

We recently moved into a Halloween crazed neighborhood up here in the hills. There are only a few thousand people in the area and it seems that all of them trick-or-treat on my street. My neighbor literally has a pirate ship in her yard along with cannons that blow "smoke". Across the street, the elderly couple (who can barely walk), had their daughter come over and put up orange pumpkin lights, scary masks and a large inflatable black cat that moves its head. There will be dance performances by local troupes in various cul de sacs (all to Thriller I'm guessing). I kid you not. We are told that we need 1000 pieces of candy. Ouch. That's expensive.  And it makes practicing what I preach about fair trade chocolate cost prohibitive for us. So I'll be giving out slave chocolate damn it. [I cringe every time I think about it. More on slave chocolate in a separate post.] Fortunately local businesses collect candy for us since no one else in town gets much action --but I'm not sure how much.

So what am I doing? Or, what have I been spending every 'free' and non-free moment doing for the past few weeks? Making stuff. It's been so much fun and slightly insane and obsessive (but that's not surprising, is it?).  Jason is shocked every evening as I pull out my latest creation. Of course I'm mostly just re-working ideas that I find on the internet and pin on Pinterest, but I'm learning a lot of cool stuff. For example: how to use fusible interfacing with felt on owl wings and how to keep an active baby away from my hour's work of paper flowers without losing them and having to do the whole thing again (I haven't fully accepted this yet, I'm still looking for that bag. I fear it's found a new home at the dump).

image credit: associated press

I fell in love with the Day of the Dead when I lived in Mexico 10 years ago. On November 1st and 2nd (All Saints and All Souls Day respectively) the tradition is to create altars (ofrendas) to honor your deceased. The idea is that the dead will come back for a visit. It's a happy day with comical dancing skeletons and smiling calaveras (skulls). There are fiestas at the cemetaries, loaves of pan de muerte, golden marigolds and paper flowers everywhere. It seems like such a healthy way to look at death and the act of making an altar has been therapeutic for me since my mom died four years ago on October 30th.

El Dia de los Muertos has Aztec origins in Mexico, but was catholicized when the Spanish conquered the country. I find it so interesting that cultures across the world celebrate a similar holiday with nearly the same meaning. It coincides with the cross quarter day-- we will be half-way between the fall equinox and the winter solstice right around Halloween and the Day of the Dead. In Celtic Pagan traditions the high holiday is called Samhain and is based on the same idea: that the 'veil between the worlds' is thin and the dead may come back for a visit. Isn't that cool? I love it. 

Here is what I've been making (or will be in the next few days): A colony of black bat sillouhettes for inside the house, painted and decoupaged bottles, paper marigolds and other flowers (which I guess now I'll be re-making), an owl costume for the baby and a frog costume for the toddler, a large painted banner for the garage, pumpkins yet to be carved, a skeleton dressed up like a nurse to honor my mom, tiny painted plastic skeletons, mason jars with faces....the list goes on.  These are just the inspiration photos. I'll post the photos of my actual results next week. We're going to have a photo booth set up out front for trick-or-treaters (I had to talk Jasona into this, but he's finally agreed that it's a cool idea).

What else? I commissioned 2 dozen tamales from a local Mexican woman, ordered Pan de Muerte from the bakery (I was originally going to make both, but decided that I might severely stress myself out). Instead I'm only cooking 1 dozen sweet corn tamales, gluten free halloween cookies, and champurrado (Mexican hot yummy drink).

Oh, and for my own costume? It will be similar to this (but I'll be wearing traditional Mexican garb):

[Photo credits: Martha Stewart, Country Living, Flickr: Amyr_81, DeviantArt: Docophoto}

How I got here.

Two weeks after my second baby boy was born, we packed up and moved from San Diego to  northern California where my husband grew up.  I went from working 50+ hours a week at a wonderfully intense charter school to being a full-time mom to a  2 1/2 year old and a newborn in a tiny mountain town.

I miss teaching and I really miss the teenagers (I taught 12th grade), but I knew that my personality just couldn't handle the insanity of being a full time teacher and a mom of young children. I'm not exactly good at drawing boundaries at work and we design our own curriculum at my school (which I love)--but that means I could keep working and working and working. Also, did I mention that I'm crazy sensitive? Teenagers have a lot going on emotionally and I just soak it all up, so that I by the time I get home, I'm completely zapped and then I dream about them ALL NIGHT LONG.



And then there's the perfectionist in me--I just couldn't handle thinking that I was doing less than my best at either the teaching or the parenting--or BOTH! Yikes. It makes me uncomfortable just thinking about it (obviously this is something I need to work on).

So, here I am for now-- a mom. It seems so much more difficult than the stressful teaching job. Why is that?

This post was going to be about my latest intellectual and creative obsession: Dia de los Muertos. (and how I fill the intellectual void now that I'm not constantly researching and developing material for my class).

Stay tuned!

(note: the slide show above is from a couple of years ago--I still have to archive and organize my more recent projects. Yet another thing to obsess about. Ha!)