Up in the Air

Hi, Boomers,

A few thoughts on travel before I leave for Bali. Bali. It sounds romantic and so "eat, pray, lovish." Let's set the record straight. I'm not going to Bali because of Ms Gilbert's book. While I found her journey somewhat interesting and a bit whiney, I truly believe there are more interesting anecdotes about sappy transformation. She ain't Carl Jung. To those of you who worship her journey, you can all throw rotten tomatoes at me when you meet me.

And while I am on the subject of eat, pray, love, Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem? Please. The guy Ms. Gilbert fell in love with on Bali was much older than she and fully Brazilian. Even though the movie comes out on Friday the thirteenth, it will be a great hit because most females between the ages of 20 and 75 have read her book - except two of my friends and my step-daugher, Camille, and these are ladies whose taste in literature would put book critics out of business. I hope Bali isn't over-run with over-wrought females looking for redemption with that shaman she chased and a Brazilian hunk she fell in love with. I understand from my traveling companion's friend - who just came back from Bali - that her shaman is not a celebrity who says the same thing to everyone who pays him gobs of money to release the evil spirits from their souls. "You will always find happiness." He should work for Hallmark.

I'm laying in bed and beginning to grasp the amount of time I am spending in the air to get to Bali. Probably around 22 hours with a layover in Taipei. My legs are already buckling under me. I lose a whole day crossing the international time line. And I'm leaving at the hideous time of 2 am Thursday morning. I'll sleepwalk into the cabin of the plane, try to get settled in my seat, realize that I have never been so uncomfortable in my life and ask myself why, oh why, I decided to vacation halfway around the world. Answer; it seemed like a good idea at the time - when my friend, Carol, told me on the stairwell of the Math and Engineering building on the UCLA campus after my yoga class that she and Adrienne were thinking about going to Bali for their vacation. I just jumped right in and invited myself. I wasn't even going to take a vacation this year. I was going to wait out 2010 without leaving the U.S

Impulse can be a good thing sometimes. It can be creative and engaging and even exciting. I've been impulsive many times in my life. But as I look around my bedroom with piles of clothes spread out everywhere and a bathroom that looks like tweens have been playing movie star with all my cosmetics and makeup, I'm having more than second doubts about leaving beautiful Santa Monica and the Pacific Ocean. Of course, one cannot swim in the Pacific, so what good is it except to gaze lovingly at its tepid shores.

The energy it took to prepare for this trip, the work I had to finish on marketing my book, getting substitutes for class and giving them detailed instructions about where I teach on campus (min-boggling), engaging my neighbor to water my plants and pick up my mail, excessing about all the details have thrown a damper on my travel excitement. Will it be worth it in the end? All will be revealed when I step off the plane at Denpasar in Bali. Wayan, our driver (almost everyone in Bali is named Wayan), will meet us inside the airport with our names on a sign and I hope I will begin to feel that I am ready for my adventure. After all, my traveling companions and I have outlined in detail all the places we want to go, all the restaurants we want to eat in, all the events we want to attend.

So this once in a lifetime trip is going to be great, right? I am hoping that tonight as I fall asleep, I will begin to surrender to the inevitable.

One more thing. I'm leaving my computer behind. I have not been without my computer for over a year. It has literally become my brain and that's pretty sad. It's time that my MacBook and I separate. It's not a divorce, mind you; it's just a 10 day separation and I can handle that. I'll blog when I return. I'll tell you all about my wanderings. And I swear I will not fall in love with a Brazilian.

PS My new granddaughter, Penelope Sweet, is doing very well. She is eating well and is even gaining back some of her weight. I will miss my daily updates on her progress.

Namaste

Joan

Mother's Day

Hi, Boomers,

Adult children can be taxing sometimes. I was just talking to my friend, Kathy, about her Mothers' Day and how difficult it was for her. Her daughter has her own agenda so she began the afternoon dinner with: "I can't stay long. I have work to do." This after Kathy, who has a respiratory illness that sounds like she is ready to expire; this after shecooked dinner for her family, which includes her husband, her father-in-law, her son-in-law, the two grandchildren - one who is autistic - and her son-in-law's brother. Why should she cook the dinner when she is sick and it's her special day to relax? Who's day is this anyway?

There wasn't much relaxation going with with her daughter's comings and goings and errands and drop-offs of the kids. The final cap on the day was that her autistic grandson refused to sit down at the table and eat and her granddaughter got up from the table without eating, roamed around the dining room hiding under curtains and tables and declared that she was bored and wanted to go home. End of dinner. End of day. Back to bed and no yoga today for Kathy because she is too sick to get out of bed. And she is so very sad about what happened to her mother's day.

Sometimes we ask: where is the honor, where is the respect, where is the cherishing from our adult children. I had no dinner to prepare, no flowers to look at and no company. I was sad but resigned. And Kathy was sad but resigned, too, the Monday after. Sometimes we can expect the unexpected.

In my world, I didn't have the time or money to fly to Las Vegas to be a part of my ex-husband's Mother's Day lunch for the family. I'm going for a visit in June. I got calls from my sons, and I got to speak to my adorable grandsons. And I was very sad about the loss of my mother. It was the first year that she has been gone from my life. I always used to send her pears from Harry and David and some yellow roses.

I didn't know where to put all this emotion. So, like my therapist told me, I just sat with my emotions, experienced them, and went to bed to read the last chapter of Michael Lewis's The Big Short and got more sad. But that sadness was about the state of our country and the amazing rip-offs by Wall Street. That's a topic for another blog.

I received two cards in the mail today: one from my oldest son and daughter-in-law and one from my grandsons. It was a day late. Mother's Day was over for me. While I appreciated the sentiments, I felt oddly detached.

We often expect too much. We often have unrealistic expectations. We often experience struggle that is of our own making. It's challenging to remember that our happiness is of our own making. We want our happiness to be the responsibility of others.

The curve balls we get in life give us the opportunity to rebalance. The ego tells us we "deserve" and the id tells us to "expect" and the superego tells us we "deserve more." It's all out of wack. Who's on first?

Our joy comes from self-love, self-respect and self-worth. It's not so complicated and yet it is so complicated.

Namaste

Joan

Mother Nature - Alive and Well at Sixty-Six

Hi, Boomers,

I traveled to Las Vegas last weekend to make my monthly visit to my adult sons and my grandsons. I have made this trek for over three years, beginning with the birth of my first grandson, Jordan Mac, about 5 years ago and a particularly pointed call from my brother who urged me to share visits with my mother more frequently. I had been kind of hiding out, working my tail off for years in Los Angeles, and completely oblivious to sharing mother responsibilities with him. He gave me a needed wake up call.

Two years later, Luc Daniel was born; then a year later Greyson Ambrose was born; and recently Jude Love came into our lives. It's absolutely amazing to me how a mother's love can morph into a grandmother's love for her grandchildren. Being in love with family is beyond verbal description. I was waking up and doing the 1 am feedings with Jude and giving him his bottle and thinking nothing of the time or the effort it takes to nurture a baby, especially a baby that is so darn fun and happy. I wasn't even tired the next day. In fact, my mother's instinct so kicked in that I awoke about five to ten minutes before the baby did, anticipating his hunger.

The weekend brought a whole new set of needs for my growing grandsons. Jordan dresses himself now and Luc is learning the process. With Baby Jude on my hip, I went from room to room attending to clothes selection, to face washing to brushing of teeth to starting breakfast. All in a morning's work for a mother and I was ready set to take on the tasks.

I am astounded at the flood of love and emotion I experience with my grandsons. Who knew being a grandmother was going to be like that. Who knew the unending joys of taking care of young children. Soccer games, swimming classes, basketball practice, birthday parties - the whole wonder of kids.

If I ever thought I would loose my mother nature, I have been proved wrong time after time in the course of the last five years. I'm thrilled that at my age love is easy to provide and the care-taking is effortless for my family. It's so rewarding that later in life we are given so many surprises.

In yoga/meditation, we learn to take time out at least once a day to offer gratitude for our gifts and our joys. It's so easy for me to do that because I teach yoga many times a day and I have a built in gratitude machine within my open heart. But I never take my teaching or practice for granted because it feeds my soul.

Namaste

Joan

The Single Drive

Hi, Boomers,

I got up at 5 am today to drive back to Los Angeles from Las Vegas. I rolled out of bed and, sans makeup, dragged my bags into the car and took off in the dark of early morning.

I don't usually drive the LA to Vegas route. I'm a once a month Southwest weekend flyer. But there is something so appealing about driving at 4 or 5 am in the morning. I get to drive with the truckers and see the sun come up. I listen to Howard Stern and the drive goes fast. I've listened to the shock jock for years, ever since I introduced my sons to him on the morning school drive. It was one of the ways we bonded. Anyway, I think the guy is pretty smart and very funny. Not the smut part, but his "take"on the human condition is fascinating.

Along the way on this single drive, my mind flips back and forth between missing my family, especially those adorable grandsons, that I just left and missing David, my long ago significant other. I usually have a good cry, one of those missing cries, and it actually doesn't make me feel any better. It just makes me miss more.

Along the way, I saw that my new man friend had called me an hour after take off. I had told him we needed the clarity of space until he returned to his home in Montreal. But he didn't exactly adhere to our plan and I was secretly happy. It was sweet of him to call after me. I didn't mind because it felt good to be watched over by someone, to be cared for from afar.

I just read an article about loneliness. Loneliness can be a by-product of depression but not always. I am not usually lonely. I like my own company. But sometimes I bounce off a few walls, especially when it comes to waking up in the morning and I would really like a man's arms around me. Of course, the feeling passes and I get out of bed, make my espresso and get on with my day.

I get that feeling when I drive alone sometimes. The wide, flat expanse of the desert, the sun rising in faded orange and yellow colors reminds me of how small we are in the universe, how this journey is transitory, our lives merely borrowed for a time, and how important it is to honor the present.

Sometimes driving is good for the soul.

Namaste

Joan

Yoga And The Art of Body/Mind Maintenance

Hi, Boomers,

Every day I give gratitude for yoga, especially today when I gave my son on the morning of his 38th birthday a yoga class. This is the second time he asked me to give him a class since I have been spending the week with my family. Yesterday, my daughter in law also asked me for a class. They are both awesome yogis.

Years ago, when my life seemed to be in a downward tumble, my son and to-be daughter-in-law asked me one Sunday to go to their favorite yoga studio to practice with them. I was beside myself with glee. Because I was living in Venice at the time behind Muscle Beach, I had been practicing at my gym down at the Marina. It was a small class and not very inspiring but it was yoga nonetheless. But to practice with my family made me really happy.

Thus began a ritual of Sunday practices either at Maha Yoga in Brentwood (where I now live - really west LA next door to Westwood and UCLA campus) or in Venice at Yoga Works where our favorite yoga teacher gave a class that could kill a decathlon athlete. We would come out of the studio, sweating and exhilarated, and go to a favorite breakfast place on Main Street and talk about the what was on our minds at the time. It was a simple moment in our lives and we don't have that kind of simplicity much any more.

My second son and his wife are also yogis. Although they don't practice much anymore, their hearts are opened and they spread the positive joy. My intention is to give all of them together a yoga class in the not too distant future.

The lives of my adult children and their wives are so much more complicated and stressful at this moment than I could have possibly imagined. I thought I'd be sailing over smooth waters at 66, but I am still that parent that my sons rely on to give emotional and psychological support. I am hitched mentally to their well being and their happiness as they try to put one foot in front of another and live their lives to the best of their ability. Both the men and the women in my family are terrific parents, devoted, loving, embracing and understanding and I am extremely proud of them as divine beings and professionals.

But what yoga adds to their lives is extraordinary and they are well aware of yoga's benefits. The birthday boy just left the house this morning telling me how fantastic he feels, how clear and joyful is the beginning of his day. He went out the door playing "Tool" feeling positive and hopeful. The success of my family rests on his shoulders.

Yoga is a mind/body experience that is connected by breath. In Sanskrit, the word breath is prana or life force and it is considered sacred. Yoga is a practice that creates joy and a positive attitude; it centers the self by emptying the mind, for it is truly a meditation whether the yogi is moving or siting in silence. Yoga/meditation has an impact on the way we think (more positive) and the way we feel (more joyous). It gives the body more energy as it speaks to the spiritual center of our being. If this is the gift I can give to my children, I am content and fulfilled. Nothing else matters.

Namaste

(The divine in me recognized the divine in you)

Joan

Happy Birthday, Jonathan

The Single Life and Bali Here I Come

Hi, Boomers,

I was musing today about being single. After years of fighting the odds to mate with man, I have succumbed to the freedom, the joy, the bliss of being single. Don't get me wrong, I haven't given up sex. Being single and sex are not antithetical to one another. I love sex now as much as I loved it at 19 when some hunk took my virginity at UCLA on New Year's Eve. Funny, we never forget who took our virginity. Oh, well, sorry, "took" is not appropriate since I was the other half of the consenting situation. I can still remember that small, dark motel room in Manhattan Beach, past midnight, January 1st, with a little light coming through the faded white, shabby venetian blinds. His name was John and I was madly in lust. But I digress.

So being single is being able to come and go as I please without checking in with anyone. It's being able to be in Las Vegas with my family and not worrying about whether I have called my significant other today to let him know that I miss him and I promise to be home on Saturday afternoon. It's fully planning my day without questions, planning my trips without censure, planning my meals without a thought for anyone else. I can go to bed when I want and get up when I want and take my computer to bed and read at 3 am if I want and listen to the silence. I can get up to feed Baby Jude Love at 4 am and gaze into his little face with love.

I'm going to Bali in August with two single female friends. I am visiting my tango friend, Brenda, who, with her husband, built Desa Sanctuary in Ubud. Check out the website. It's so very beautiful and special.

The way this trip camd about was that Brenda emailed me on Linkedin to connect with me and to say she was reading my blog. Bali had been in my head for a long time and I felt I needed to get there before the Eat, Pray, Love movie came out this summer and the followers of Ms. Gilbert began to pay homage in Ubud to her personal journey. A few days before, my friend, Carol, a yoga student of mine at UCLA, was talking about going to Bali with her friend and I immediately invited myself. I showed Carol and Adrienne Desa Sanctuary and everyone was hooked. It took us 3 days to make the plane reservations and reserve a sanctuary for a week. Women are so smart and efficient with organizational execution because we know what we want and communicate efficiently. Bali, here we come.

Last year I went to southern Spain and Morocco with GAP Adventure Tours and I was the oldest of the seven women. It was a fabulous journey and one that I will remember always. The year before I went to Costa Rica for a yoga retreat and then an eco tour with my guide friend. Another great adventure. Being single allows me to plan my travels intuitively and take fully advantage of my curiosity. I used to think that I could never, ever travel without a man beside me. Life sure plays funny tricks on us.

So while I think that I may be falling in love as indicated in my last post, I am not rushing to fall in love. This is probably the first time I have been reserved in a relationship process. I have some things at stake this time around. I'm older and maybe a little wiser and maybe, just maybe, happier with who I am, my family relationships and my dearest friends.

Life is beginning to work out very well for a change.

Namaste

Joan

How Old Are You, Gran?

Hi, Boomers,

This morning at breakfast my 5 year old grandson asked me how old I was. I thought that was a pretty curious question coming from Jordan; however, this young boy has an unusually potent intellect. So his father, my son, asked him to do a little math.

"Before you answer this questions, Jordan, let's first find out how old I am," my son asked his son.

"How old are you, Daddy?" Jordan asked.

"I'm going to be 38 on Wednesday," Jonathan said. "So if I am 38, how old is Gran?"

Jordan gave it not more than a few seconds of thought.

"You're 60, Gran."

"Good guess," he father replied.

I told Jordan I was more than 60, so he began to guess moving up the 60's ladder. He hit 65 and I said, "One more, genius."

"Sixty-six," he giggled. Then he asked, "Do people who are 80 years old still have birthday parties?"

"Of course we do," I responded.

No matter the age we celebrate the years of living. It's an important ritual because it marks a another year in the journey of our lives. And we celebrate our children's birthdays and our grandchildren's birthdays to stay connected to family no matter what is going on in our personal lives.

Jonathan will turn 38 on Wednesday and it is another milestone for me. He still possesses that innate and quick intelligence that makes him so engaging. By a long shot, he is not perfect, never was and never will be. He has flaws like the rest of us, but his heart is good and his loyalty to family and friends is huge. He still parents me like crazy and monitors my thoughts and feelings when I am in his presence, teases me endlessly, and he still drives me nuts. But I love him unconditionally and cherish the fact that he is and forever will be my oldest child.

Which brings me back to Jordan Mac, my first grandson. I never imagined being a grandmother. It was the most distant of thoughts until 5 years ago. I didn't know how I could love more children, and I find myself loving my grandsons as much as I loved my two sons. Love is simply magic. Holding my newest grandson, Jude Love, is the most delicious experience, even at 5 in the morning as I am walking the floor with him and trying to make his gas pains go away. We fell asleep on the bed together about 6 am, Jude on my stomach, my head flopping on a pillow and I knew I was in a magic kingdom where pure love exits.

I made a commitment to be with my family for this spring break week, to be living in their homes, watching their children, my grandchildren, because family is the single most important value in my life. Sure, I could have been in Buenos Aires dancing tango as I have done in the past; or I could have gone back to Costa Rica to my yoga retreat center; or I could have worked some more to keep my students happy. Yet, none of the travel or work means anything to me at this moment. Jude Love in my life right now and I want to hold him and watch him smile endlessly and grab on to his first few months with every bit of energy I have.

Namaste

Joan

FINDING MY INNER ELMO

Good Morning, Boomers,

      I love being a grandmother in my 60's.  I'm headed to Las Vegas tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn to take care of my 2 grandsons and attend the 1st birthday of my third grandson.  My daughter in law will be away attending a college reunion of friends from her Tulane days.  My son, Jonathan, and I will take care of the kids.  This is the best part of being 60.

     Text message last night from my daughter in law, Carli:  "I know you'll be so excited to know I got tickets to see the Elmo show at the Thomas and Mack Center."  Carli knows I won't be excited.  She was laughing at me when she sent it.  I went into a deep depression when I read it just before teaching my 4 pm yoga class at UCLA.  Way to mentally prepare myself for a positive yoga practice.  

     I've done lots of things as a grandmother, some good and some not so good.  The bad things are related to losing my temper when my grandsons begin to play with food and I get the stern witch voice going so I scare the holly crap out of them.  But I do love to hunt for books at Barnes and Noble with my oldest grandson, 4 year old Jordan, and we do like to play in the part and swim together and those are part of the great fun of hanging out with the boys. 

 

     But Elmo!!!!!   I hate Elmo!  I don't like the way he looks or talks or moves.  I don't like anything about Elmo.   Both my grandsons love Elmo and so I have to look interested in their fascination with the creep.  Thank God Jordan is on his way of love with the guy, but Luc is right on track developing an addiction to him or it.  

     I can endure the birthday parties this weekend, especially Greyson's 1st birthday party; I can endure eating out with them and watching them play with their food.  I can endure the craziness at bedtime and the screaming when they don't know how to share toys.  But I cannot endure Elmo and, yet it seems I have to.  This is my inner child screaming for a way out and there is no out.  There is a way out of cleaning poppy diapers, a way of sleepless night, waking a baby grandson for an hour at 2 am, a way out of coaching them to eat when they have no interest in food, a way out of distracting them from dangerous behavior, but I believe with all my heart, there will be no way out of my Friday night meet and greet with Elmo or my name, Gran, will be mud.

     I don't feel bad about this negative feeling even though I am a yogini and teach yoga all day in the positive light of the universe.   You see, Elmo isn't real.  Elmo is a made up character in Seasame Street so he doesn't have to touch my heart or my mind.  This really gets me off the hook because it doesn't relate to my karma in past lives or on earth.  Now, I'm free to really despise the big guy.  Take that, Elmo!

     Now I feel better.

     Namaste

     Joan