Dislocated

Thursday's Clouds

Noticed a Saturday morning yoga class would be held on Zoom by one of the yoga accounts that I follow on Instagram so I made a point to do yoga at 10:00 a.m. but almost wished that I had gone with the 10:00 a.m. Zumba class when I realized, around 1 p.m., that I'd only taken about 300 steps.

It rained just about all day so I pulled out my workout DVDs and started with a Jackie Warner 15 minute workout that was seriously taxing.

Whenever I went to the gym for Zumba, I had to pass people working on weight machines and I kept telling myself that I needed to get back into strength training and the 15-Minute total body circuit included weights, which I didn't remember. It did  feel good doing something very different from what I've been doing the last couple of years...

While on Twitter, saw a Mental Floss posting about activities that you can do at home so I took a delightful art class for kids of all ages. Drawing is definitely not a talent that I possess but I enjoyed the class that I selected...


Here's another poem that my colleague shared with me:

By Garous Abdolmalekian

Translated from Persian by Ahmad Nadalizadeh and Idra Novey

Even your name

I have doubts about
and about the trees
about their branches, if perhaps
they are roots
and we have been living
all these years underground.

Who has dislocated the world?
and why are birds circling in our stomachs?
Why does a pill defer my birth?
For years we’ve been living underground
and perhaps
on a day in my seventies I’ll be born
and feel that death
is a shirt we all come to put on,
whose buttons we can either fasten
or leave undone…
a man may roll up his sleeves
or he might…

I am
a captive man’s conjectures
about the seasons behind the wall.

Inclining the Heart

Lately, on the weekend, hunger is the thing that drives me out of bed.

Made pancakes and also this dalgano coffee that has been popping up in folks' Instagram feeds. It might have been the really expired instant coffee or maybe my tablespoons were on the heaping side but I didn't really care for coffee concoction.

Felt lethargic so I returned to bed and listened to a guide meditation by Anushka Fernandupolle who's doing the meditations and dharma talks on Saturdays during the pandemic. I actually missed the live meditation but, luckily, Instagram keeps them up for 24 hours.

Fernandupolle's talk was on equanimity. There were many parts that I found useful, including something that she said you can tell yourself during fearful situations:

May I meet this moment with ease and balance; it might not work but you are inclining the heart in that direction. 

Also:

Joy is beneficial for people who are struggling...connecting with joy is positive...is balance.

I totally fell asleep during the meditation but managed to stay alert for most of the dharma talk...

Went to a local park which has beautiful displays of tulips. The county parks have closed but the city mayor is trusting people to keep their distance.

The park with the tulips has actually stopped car traffic from entering to help with physical distancing... Actually, there weren't a lot of people in the park. Might have been the time that I went or it might have been the fact that it felt fall-ish...

On the energy side, feeling more like myself this afternoon.

Life Is Happening

Sent one of my friends a link to a meditation session on Zoom. Shortly thereafter, clicked on the meeting and I was the only one at the meeting when it finally dawned on me that it was Wednesday and not Tuesday.

Tried to participate in a restorative yoga class on Thursday and the host kicked me out. Okay, who knows what she thought but it made me think that I should stick to local teachers.

Went for a walk the other day and saw a jogger with a mask plus two walkers with masks. Walking about while people are practicing physical distancing doesn't bother me but I will don a mask for trips to the grocery store from here on out.

Participated in a Instagram Live meditation with Anushka Fernandopulle this morning and, after the mediation, she talked about how people might be angry at a non-human entity while others might be glad that life has slowed down...

Saw someone post the other day that your life is happening -- it doesn't matter that we're sheltering in place and, as such, I decided to cut the grass.

As I headed to the backyard, thought about what my uncle said about putting fresh gasoline in with the old so I headed to the gas station. Got back and forgot that the thingy that secures the bolt on one arm of the lawnmower was missing. Thankfully, my refurbished lawnmower started up and I was able to take care of my hybrid lawn even with having to pause, occasionally, to put the bolt back in...

These tweets resonated with me:

And this poem that my colleague shared certainly moved me:

By Cyrus Cassells

Still craving a robust

Tenderness and justice,

I will go on living

With all I have seen:

Young men lusterless;

Against my blind cheek—

Blessed be the frangible

And dying,

The irreplaceable dead—

In my crestfallen arms:

With breath,

Then without it,

With flesh,

Then freed of it—

And the indurate man I heard

Condemn the stricken,

While my cousin was dying,

If he had walked these wards,

Armorless, open

To the imperiled,

Surely he would have gleaned

To sit in judgment

Is to sit in hell—

Lesions, elegies,

Disconnected phones—

Rain, nimble rain,

Be anodyne,

Anoint me when I say outright:

In the plague time, my heart

Was tested,

My living soul

Struck like a tower bell,

Once, twice,

four times in a single season.

Same Boat

Someone tagged me the other day to let me know that a Zumba teacher would do a Zoom class. It was cool to see people's faces that I haven't laid eyes on in a while. It was also weird to see people jumping around in individual boxes. Couldn't figure out how to "pin the host" but I'm assuming that I will get more familiar with Zoom.

It felt really weird at first but then I just relaxed and it was nice to get in a workout that wasn't walking.

One day I found myself thinking, I'm tired of walking but I quickly turned that thought around to I'm grateful that I have the ability to walk.

Left Zoom Zumba to attend an Instagram Live yoga class with Seane Corn. Sunday was so nice that it felt like a crime not to emerge from the basement to get outside and soak up the sun...

When I went to the grocery story about three weeks ago, this woman wished me "good luck" because everything had been picked over. It instantly made me think about preppers and a reality TV show that I'd watched on Netflix. Only watched one episode because I found it bothersome...

Thought about the workshop, Yoga As A Peace Practice, when one of the presenters said that you need to know how to grow your own food. This pandemic has been a lesson in many things, including not endlessly keeping food in the freezer.

Anyway, life is weird and scary right now, but I definitely know that many of us are in the same boat so I try not to panic. I continue with my pre-bed ritual of listening to 10 Percent Happier Live with meditation teachers. I get into a restorative posture and listen and breathe and it helps lighten the load that feels like it's weighing down my chest and heart.

One of my coworkers has been sending little notes of encouragement and, sometimes, poems.

I love this one that she shared:

Alive Together

Speaking of marvels, I am alive
together with you, when I might have been
alive with anyone under the sun,
when I might have been Abelard’s woman
or the whore of a Renaissance pope
or a peasant wife with not enough food
and not enough love, with my children
dead of the plague. I might have slept
in an alcove next to the man
with the golden nose, who poked it
into the business of stars,
or sewn a starry flag
for a general with wooden teeth.
I might have been the exemplary Pocahontas
or a woman without a name
weeping in Master’s bed
for my husband, exchanged for a mule,
my daughter, lost in a drunken bet.
I might have been stretched on a totem pole
to appease a vindictive god
or left, a useless girl-child,
to die on a cliff. I like to think
I might have been Mary Shelley
in love with a wrongheaded angel,
or Mary’s friend, I might have been you.
This poem is endless, the odds against us are endless,
our chances of being alive together
statistically nonexistent;
still we have made it, alive in a time
when rationalists in square hats
and hatless Jehovah’s Witnesses
agree it is almost over,
alive with our lively children
who–but for endless ifs–
might have missed out on being alive
together with marvels and follies
and longings and lies and wishes
and error and humor and mercy
and journeys and voices and faces
and colors and summers and mornings
and knowledge and tears and chance.

 “Alive Together” by Lisel Mueller from Alive Together. © Louisiana State University Oress.