Yoga and Me

For me, yoga is like a banana.  I know it's really good for me, and I feel guilty not enjoying it.  After much soul searching, I've finally decided neither yoga nor bananas are for me.  However, I can't help feeling like a misfit.  Where did I go wrong?

I've had good individual instruction in yoga and a few group lessons, including one just last week. I don't try anything fancy or "not recommended for older people."  No aerobic yoga, no frantic yoga, no hot yoga (or even lukewarm yoga) for me.  I choose what are labeled the easiest, lowest key, least invasive classes and I still can't get it.

So many people, even guys, are devoted fans.  After just a few classes, some swear yoga has changed their lives.  At the rate I'm going, it has the potential to change my life but not necessarily for the better.  Here's how my friends say yoga works for them:
"Each time you exhale, you'll find it easier to stretch."  The only way I'll ever be able to stretch out my leg while holding onto the end of my foot is by wearing a pair of those elf shoes with the long curly toes, and I mean LONG.
"Imitate what the instructor does."  Right.  I might be able to move from one pose into the next and look like the instructor if I cut my legs off and reattached them in a different spot.
"Focus on your breathing."  When you're in a pose and trying not to topple over, the last thing you want to do is to upset your balance by taking a breath.
"It's so relaxing."  Are they kidding? How can you relax when you're worried about whether you'll ever walk again after you untangle yourself from the pose you're in.

I tried a yoga class with my college friends in Wisconsin and learned a different meaning of hot yoga.  It was a warm August morning in a beautiful open space with lovely woodwork and big windows.  The sun was literally pouring in. I got a hot flash just walking into the room.  It went from bad to worse, and, if you think there is anything more embarrassing than doing a "Down Dog" with sweat dripping off your hair and over your nose in a roomful of cool-as-a-cucumber women from Wisconsin, think again.

The best thing about yoga is the part at the end where you lay on your back with your eyes closed, practice your breathing and relax.  I really get into that and do it well.  Unfortunately, after it's over and everyone is rolling up mats and putting on shoes, they look at you funny if you've been snoring.  I think it destroys their karma.

I know I need to improve my flexibility, my concentration, my balance and all those other things that fade out as you get older.  Maybe I can do it another way.  For me, yoga is like hitting my head against a stone wall -it feels so good when I stop.
Namaste.
P.S. The yoga pose shown above is not for beginners

Haves and Have Nots

When you’re 60, the designation of “Haves” and “Have Nots” has nothing to do with economics. It’s all about grandchildren. Some people cross into the “Have” category in their 50’s – those who started their families early (or whose kids do) may be even younger. Ideally, for me, it would wait until I was an empty nester and had time to recover from the teen age years. My kids’ biological clocks may not be running out but, as I head past 60, mine certainly is. I have thoughts like “By the time I have a grandchild, I’ll be too old to have fun with him or her” or “Looks like I won’t be around to see my grandchild married” or, if I’m in a long range planning mood, “I’ll never live to see my great grandchildren.”


As our circle of friends with grandchildren builds, it is hard not to get impatient. We try to be super-careful not to make any references to grandchildren with our married children, not wanting to appear pushy, especially since we waited until we had been married 7 years and were 30 to start a family ourselves. We’ve always avoided using phone conversations with the kids to offer the “Death and Accident” report, a litany of who is sick, dying or dead. Now, I think twice about including the “Stork Report” as in: “Guess what? Alisha is due in December; Jason and Mindy just had a baby boy; Tom and Pam are having such fun watching Suzanne’s boys learn to ski.”

When we get together with friends, we not only hear how their adult kids are doing; but we hear, in much greater detail, all the cute things the grandchildren are doing. Friends with grandchildren in town halfheartedly complain about being exhausted by babysitting, hosting sleepovers and driving to pre-school. I’d love to have their problems. Those with out-of-town grandchildren talk about visits as well as emailing, Skype-ing, and other tech ways to keep in touch and, of course, always have the latest digital photos.

I have the feeling that everyone in the world has grandchildren, except us – from the shoppers in Kroger’s, to the members of my golf league, to the bigwigs in Washington, like Nancy Pelosi, who view swearing-in ceremonies as photo-ops for themselves and their grandchildren. We are aware of being left out on a daily basis even more, living in a neighborhood where lots of people grew up in big families and had big families themselves.
Some of these folks have hordes of grandchildren, a well-deserved reward for raising a houseful of children themselves. (I admire their spirit but doubt  I would have made it to grandparenthood if I’d attempted to raise more than two kids.)

We have tried to be cool. Some of our grandchild-less friends have a harder time with that. On several occasions, friends announced at their kids’ weddings that they wanted to be grandparents, and soon. I was reminded of my own grandfather (not the one in the photo), who told my future in-laws that, if he wasn’t a great grandfather within a year after we were married, he’d “put more men on the job.”

We do have a number of friends in the same boat. They provide a welcome outlet – we can express to each all other all the wishes, hopes, impatience and, if we’re honest, jealousy we feel at not being part of that elite, favored, fortunate group, who exchange knowing smiles when they talk about how special their offsprings’ offspring are.

When your married kids live in a 600 square foot, one bedroom East Village of New York apartment, you don’t have much hope, even after they have completed their post-graduate degrees and celebrated their 7th anniversary. This past summer, when they were looking to move, we held our breath, hoping they would at least set the stage by getting another bedroom and a few more square feet. The move to Brooklyn, which they described as more of a family neighborhood, allowed them to get a second bedroom for less money than their Manhattan place but we still had low expectations.

This spring, a good friend was raving on and on about grand-parenthood, adding, “It’s something you would really love,” as if she was recommending a restaurant. I could only say, “I know I’d love it, but it’s out of my control.” At my niece’s wedding this summer, there was some speculation (by other family members, not us) as to whether David and Megan might be thinking of starting a family soon.
“Is that water you’re drinking,” someone asked Megan at one point.
“No, vodka,” was the response. Back off, Miss Marple.

A few weeks ago, we spent the weekend in New York, trying out the Brooklyn apartment’s second bedroom and touring the neighborhood. We had our usual wonderful visit – great conversation, terrific food, lovely walks and that all important “face time” that has to be scheduled when you live in different cities. But the highlight of the weekend was that IT HAS FINALLY HAPPENED!! We are potentially leaving the “Have Not” category in about 8 months. They’ve asked us to go slow in spreading the word as it is so early. So, at this point, we are running a race against time – hoping to get the green light on telling everyone we know before both of our heads blow off from holding this exciting, fabulous news inside. YES!

P.S. This was written in October of 2009 –now, all is going well, nobody’s head blew off and we are only 4 1/2 months away from joining the “Haves.”
P.P.S.  The photo above left is of me and my grandpa. Above right is John and Nana, his great grandmother.

One Picture Is Worth . . .

Most of the sample blogs I looked at have a photo – this seemed like a good one for starters as it tells a lot about my sister and me – then and now. Naturally she has the fur piece and the dressy purse while I have the cloth stole – she has always had classier and more expensive tastes than I. The baby in the stroller/grocery cart is definitely mine – I had tons of baby dolls while she was a big Barbie fan.

The stuffed dog had to be hers as I have never been an animal lover – dogs jumped up and licked you (yuck!), cats scratched and left hair all over you (yuck, again!) and horses were huge and smelled bad (triple yuck!) To be honest, I was a fairly obnoxious and prissy kid – think Lucy in “Peanuts” or Margaret in “Dennis the Menace.” (After two boys, lots of boy birthday parties, burping contests and sleep-overs, numerous hikes and camping trips, and some positive encounters with animals, even horses, I think I am safely out of the “prissy” stage.)

The mystery about this picture is the hats. Kay’s must have belonged to Nana who had a large collection of them, all in variations of this shape. Nana was well under 5 feet tall and always wore hats because she thought they made her look taller. My dad loved his mother-in-law very much; but said privately that, when you’re built like a fireplug, wearing a hat just makes you look like a fireplug in a hat (albeit a taller fireplug.)

However, the hat I am wearing had belonged to Nana’s best friend, Ethel. They were truly Mutt and Jeff as Ethel, at probably 6 feet tall or more, towered over Nana. She was “statuesque” with high cheekbones, bronzy skin tones and sleek black hair that she wore in a huge knot (it was too beautiful to be called anything so mundane as a bun.) I imagine she had some Native American ancestry – think the dancer, Maria Tall Chief. Well, Ethel gave that rich rose-colored velvet hat with the fetching little balls to Kay who treasured it and wasn’t big on sharing it. (She turned down all sorts of tempting offers including probably a lifetime supply of candy from our cleaning lady who wanted the hat very badly.) The mystery is how I got her to let me wear it for this photo – either I knew something she didn’t want me to tell mom or she was getting her ducks in line for a big haul from Santa Claus.

You have to start somewhere

Over the past two months, it has been fun writing emails for an audience. I had been thinking about starting a blog, and, with David and John's encouragement and technical support, here it is! I have no grand plans for its content - at the moment I'm the keyboard equivalent of tongue tied. I'm also a little bit awestruck at the idea of having a blog - something I always assumed I was too old and not cool enough for. We'll see about that.