happy Sunday

I just had a really terrific yoga practice. I felt so strong and centered--my body really wanted to be doing yoga. I did my strength-training circuit, AND I did my first-ever all-by-myself headstand. I did one a few weeks ago in Lucia's class, but that was with Lucia standing there to catch me if I fell on my head. Today it was just me, leaning against my front door. It really is all abs. I mean, I knew that, but experiencing it is different. I'm hoping if I work on headstand some more I might be able to work up to handstand in a few months. Whee. Probably a 50-55 minute practice altogether.

AND I finished the first draft of a really difficult essay this morning. And read some poetry. Now I'm going to work on sending out submissions and maybe downloading new yoga music. (I also watched two hours of HGTV today and ate several pieces of greasy restaurant cornbread, but small steps, right, and I clipped the coupons and did dishes at the commercials.) Yesterday I put away all the Halloween decorations and cleaned the apartment (including sweeping the dreaded floors). Overall I feel like I'm in a genuinely healthy place, location and body and mind, for the first time in weeks.

Galway Kinnell poem

(This post's title could also be "I have the awesomest boyfriend in the world", because he just emailed me this sweetness out of nowhere and I almost cried.)


After Making Love We Hear Footsteps
by Galway Kinnell

For I can snore like a bullhorn
or play loud music
or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman
and Fergus will only sink deeper
into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash,
but let there be that heavy breathing
or a stifled come-cry anywhere in the house
and he will wrench himself awake
and make for it on the run—as now, we lie together,
after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies,
familiar touch of the long-married,
and he appears—in his baseball pajamas, it happens,
the neck opening so small he has to screw them on—
and flops down between us and hugs us and snuggles himself to sleep,
his face gleaming with satisfaction at being this very child.

In the half darkness we look at each other
and smile
and touch arms across this little, startlingly muscled body—
this one whom habit of memory propels to the ground of his making,
sleeper only the mortal sounds can sing awake,
this blessing love gives again into our arms.


(You can listen to Kinnell read this poem here.)

books 2008: West Wind, by Mary Oliver

I finally finished this today. I can't even remember when I started it--it's F's copy, so... maybe July or August? It's just been sitting on my windowsill for months. Sigh. Anyway, I think Mary Oliver is pretty delightful. She loves trees and writes so beautifully about the natural world and our place in it. Not a whole lot in this book really struck me in particular, but I liked the overall feel. Here's my favorite.

( Maples )