alright. i'm getting weary of this site and the voice i seem to have gotten here. expect some changes.
i went to
yoga yesterday, for the first time in months and months and months. yoga was supposed to be one of the things i did regularly this summer (along with swimming, which i haven't kept up, and reading, which i have), but this is the first time i've been.
here's the thing about yoga - it's
hard, and it's hard in a way that leaves you no mental room to do anything but concentrate on holding the pose and not falling over. that's why it works, and all the trite stuff about strengthening your mind and body together is really kinda true. it was exactly, exactly what i needed yesterday. i left the house feeling drab and sticky and slow, almost turned back halfway there because i've just been so lethargic and tired. as was, i arrived already sweaty from the nastiness outside, and the studio is heated.
i don't think i've ever sweated so much in my entire life. the class was all people who had practiced before, and the instructor was big on people finding (and pushing) their "edge," so it was intense. i was pleased with how well my body responded, considering how long i've been delinquent in my practice. this morning, however, i'm one big mass of aching shoulders and sore limbs. which is good. i need to be using my body or i forget to inhabit it, just let it get full of bad food and too much sleep. it isn't so much about being in shape to be any particular shape - i actually like my little round belly, it makes me feel soft, and sexy, the way a good flamenco dancer is sexy, not the way
the magazines insist is sexy. but but but, i can remember when i was strong and knew my muscles, when i trusted them to serve me well, and i want to feel that way again.
also, there is nothing quite like two-dozen people chanting
om, and that is my absolutely favorite part.
legs twitching from walking in the heat, sweat slicked across lips and hips and neck from same. haze outside the window, room dark with close air that swirls beneath the fan like a lazy finger trailing through soup. feet bare and all my limbs in need of stretching, of working, of cleansing. boxes on the floor waiting to be filled, books on the bed waiting to be read, everything preparing itself. but for what? a thunderstorm is coming; in philadelphia in august, a thunderstorm is always coming. but that may be enough.
we went to cornell. let's just say i'm intimidated - by the hills, by the
snow, by the sheer intensity of the school, by the very idea of the application process. i'm full of uncertainty, angry at circumstance, and in need of a change.
when i was little, i used to put peanut butter on tortillas, grab a handful of pickles, and read about
trixie belden or
valedmar, depending on just how little i was.
the reading list has changed a bit, but peanut butter tortillas and pickles are still just about the best things ever.
i know it's always dirty, but
today the river ran red.
not bloodred,
not roses.
opaque and ugly,
like it had rusted
all through,
full of corruption.
i watched the sky
for some explanation
horsemen or
wolfshadow,
but it continued on
in its blueness,
reaching.
now. i missed out on
blogathon 'cause i was up on a river in the woods and didn't think it prudent to bring my laptop on the
canoe. and while i know i'll be in
costa rica for the whole of november, d'ya think i might be able to
write a novel while i'm there?
the volubility of it worries me. paul told me once that he thought i was the most stable person he knew; now i slide between contentment and despair like clouds across the moon. i used to worry that i never got angry - never - but now there is a roiling blackness lurking somewhere and i seem unable to predict when or why it will leap to the surface and darken all my horizons. my skin feels tight and my jaw aches all the time, i need to crack my neck but can't seem to, my words bring me no solace. the rain came screaming down today, so hard and for so long that i expected to see pine trees thrashing outside my door. i sat outside with my journal but couldn't write, and when the water ceased and the heat came rushing to fill its void, my spine shifted and and edgy exhaustion welled up through me. i'm restless, prone to pacing and fidgets and sudden fits of self-consciousness, like i've suddenly been thrust into a new body and can't tell quite how it works. my slapped-together story written in the rain was a character who wakes up to find that some internal force in her has been shifted a few inches to the left and down- everything she reaches for she knocks aside, every step she takes stubs her toes, and she can't seem to adapt to this change, can't understand why the doorknobs and showerhead are so strangely out of reach. it's hyperbole, but that doesn't mean it isn't true.
there was a child crying, and crying, and crying, and then a loud, angry voice telling it to shut its worthless fucking mouth before it was given something to cry about, and then a sharp, hard skin sound, and then silence.
do i call the police or just break down and cry myself?
