I just got back from doing my first yoga class in about 15 years. Yes, used to be a crisp little pretzel; now I'm a soft round one. I've got to start somewhere, so I'm starting back at the beginning. The most important thing I learned 25 years ago was I didn't need to be a 'dancer' to be moved. I also learned it's o.k., (& actually takes the pressure off), to remind myself, 'I'm always beginning.' A few things I'm REALLY passionate about where both are SO true are Art & Movement. I've never been one of those artists OR movers who stuck with any one medium for long. I have drawn, done pen & ink, water color & many other types of art. I've stuck with mixed media & assemblage for so long because it's all encompassing & can take just about any form. I've studied Ballet, Modern & African dance, Improvisational, Contact, Yoga, Sufi dancing & believe I stay with Authentic Movement, like mixed media, because I always get to begin again where I am NOW; in this moment. I AM a 'cooker'; the art & moving ideas are always running around in my head, but I also bang out projects pretty fast & furious once I get started.
I did my B.A & M.A. in Somatic Psychology; pretty much spending 20 years totally IN my body & then the next 10 years pretty much OUT. A great deal of my own emotional & spiritual content used to be worked out from the neck down, then it just became too threatening & painful to go there & it all went up, above the neck & got stuck there.
The moving piece pretty much stopped around the time I gave birth to my son. I was not an earthy, natural type pregnancy person. I WAS thrilled to be pregnant with my only child; I just didn't particularly care for the 10 months it took to get him here. It was a high risk pregnancy & I was told I wouldn't carry him to term. He was born the day before his due date. The birthing process? I screamed at the top of my lungs until the nurse looked me in the eye & said, "Bring it down....", so then I screamed at the bottom of my lungs. Gabe wasn't breathing when he came out due to a lack of oxygen from the cord being wrapped around his neck. If I was going to have a compromised special needs child, Gabe was & is definitely the one to have. He IS the love of my life, but from his day one, that's where ALL of me went, , then to my husband, then to my two young step children, then to teaching college, then to standing in my art studio until late in to the night after Gabe went to bed, creating art pieces like there was no tomorrow. Prolific, expansive, yet in my head art & that was ALL I had for a good 8 years. Then the marriage was falling apart, the house was being sold & we were working out a parenting plan.
By then I finally got to NOW & I walked back in to my first yoga class today. Back to the mat; the blocks, the belt & the wall. It felt exhilarating & challenging. Until I can't move tomorrow anyway.
I did my B.A & M.A. in Somatic Psychology; pretty much spending 20 years totally IN my body & then the next 10 years pretty much OUT. A great deal of my own emotional & spiritual content used to be worked out from the neck down, then it just became too threatening & painful to go there & it all went up, above the neck & got stuck there.
The moving piece pretty much stopped around the time I gave birth to my son. I was not an earthy, natural type pregnancy person. I WAS thrilled to be pregnant with my only child; I just didn't particularly care for the 10 months it took to get him here. It was a high risk pregnancy & I was told I wouldn't carry him to term. He was born the day before his due date. The birthing process? I screamed at the top of my lungs until the nurse looked me in the eye & said, "Bring it down....", so then I screamed at the bottom of my lungs. Gabe wasn't breathing when he came out due to a lack of oxygen from the cord being wrapped around his neck. If I was going to have a compromised special needs child, Gabe was & is definitely the one to have. He IS the love of my life, but from his day one, that's where ALL of me went, , then to my husband, then to my two young step children, then to teaching college, then to standing in my art studio until late in to the night after Gabe went to bed, creating art pieces like there was no tomorrow. Prolific, expansive, yet in my head art & that was ALL I had for a good 8 years. Then the marriage was falling apart, the house was being sold & we were working out a parenting plan.
By then I finally got to NOW & I walked back in to my first yoga class today. Back to the mat; the blocks, the belt & the wall. It felt exhilarating & challenging. Until I can't move tomorrow anyway.
I loved reading this. I loved how you compared yourself to something crisp and now soft. How you feel exhilarated until you can't move tomorrow. Kids do take most of your life for awhile but then look what we created!! They are our canvas and clay but with their own unique-ness. So AC (after children) we slowly but surely begin to take our lives back piece by piece.
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