social smile

From Loka Yoga’s Blog and Alice Joanou-Oakland’s finest yoga instructor:


When I am, not Mother Theresa patient with the girls...
When I imagine the Berkeley Bowl going up in flames...
When I use words that would wilt a flower...
When I manage to fail at each and every one of the yamas and niyamas in ONE SINGLE day...
When I shove the cat off the bed without remorse...
When I am mentally cruel to myself and others, especially when in front of a mirror...
When I am quite sure that the Galileo was wrong and that surely the earth is rotating around ME
I think, Jeez Louise, this Yoga is not working...
And David says: "Just imagine what your life would be like without it."


Though my practice is slow going. My life is still yoga and Alice’s quote from her blog was apropos. Six weeks into this and I have finally rested in the place where I realize life is different and I now have 2 priorities, one to go to work to make a little money to pay the bills and two to take care of Banneker. It’s incredibly simple and yogic. Now I just have to convince Jeff of the same thing. When he is at home the short 3 hours a day I go to the office, I told him he has to look at it as the 3 hours he feeds, changes, plays with and puts down to nap Banneker and if he gets one more thing done it’s a bonus. It takes some (ok, a lot) of reconditioning. But it’s really pretty cool when you think about it in our busy life’s: it’s paring back, getting down to the good stuff. It’s one thing to have a partner in life and have to consider their feelings and take into consideration their choices. It’s another entirely to have someone depend on you and realize there is something more pressing and important than if you get to shower today. Humbling.

Then there is this 6-week landmark, the time your child begins to recognize you and even smile. The book said “it’s the most emotionally gratifying thing” and they are so right. All this time you make yourself crazy with no sleep and a lifestyle change beyond, what you could ever conceive.
… and then this little shining, beaming, cooing, glowing, sparkling gem shows up in the form of a little smile on your child’s face and it’s aimed at you and it feels like the biggest, warmest, sweetest hug around your heart and you feel everything is good in the world and it is. And like my yoga practice, I can’t imagine what my life would be like without it.