If you are a yoga person, you've seen a yoga selfie. If you follow any of the famous yoginis on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter, you've seen a yoga selfie. When they are done right, they are absolutely beautiful and let's be honest, quite inspirational. I follow quite a few yoga teachers on social networks and every time they post a picture or video of them doing yoga, I watch absolutely amazed and grateful to be able to watch them practice. But first, let's talk about how I used to feel when I saw these selfies.
When I first started doing yoga, I was driven by the compulsion to be perfect. To be the most goddamn awesome yogini you have ever seen in your life. Those ToeSox ads with Kathryn Budig balancing on a cliffside with her perfect form and epic body stretched to the sky? I wanted to be that. I wanted to be Miss Pretzel With a Smile.
My body didn't think so.
As a formerly obese person, I have a body that is deceptively flexible but in fact is quite vulnerable. My back, from 20 years of bending forward to accommodate the extra weight, has a permanent forward curve in it that yoga is just starting to correct after 6 years in the practice. I have developed musculature around the back of my neck to support a jutting head, again from all of those years that my skeleton was pulled forward by the excess weight. I can bend forward with the best of them, but the parts of the practice that deal with backbends are incredibly hard for me. The same thing happens with my hips; they dealt with so much pressure for so long that any posture involving a leg around or behind the shoulder are excruciating. Therefore, I made the decision to not really practice those postures. Again we're talking about the whole 'let go of that which does not serve you' stuff. With all of these limitations I still consider myself to have an advanced practice; I do hot vinyasa yoga and I can hold full lotus position, and I've just started to incorporate vrschikasana into my practice. But I think that's as far as I'll be able to go.
Also, Suffice to say I am not what you would picture when you think of a yogini. I've got big muscular legs and a tummy. Although yoga did give me the mythical "yoga butt". So that's something I've got going for me!
For so long, this guilt over my former obese state and the limitations it placed on my now healthy body were why I would get slightly nauseated when I saw yoga selfies on my Facebook. I felt like the world's worst yogi for not being able to get into peacock pose, or yoganidrasana (are. you. kidding. me.). Because these people hadn't been practicing yoga for nearly as long as I had and yet there they were, with their long pretzel legs, folding themselves into neat little packages, and I sat there scrolling down thinking to myself Damn, I wish I could do that. I hate my stupid body and its stupid limitations and stupid obesity for making me like this and UGH I cannot believe she's already doing grasshopper, that asshole.
Maybe if I were thinner, I'd get those postures.
Do you see where this head voice is leading to? Destruction and self-doubt and triggers.
It took a lot of yoga, and I mean a LOT of it, to realize that the true purpose of yoga is actually not about the postures themselves, but what happens through them. If you're jamming yourself into a posture because it 'looks cool' but you can't breathe and be still in it, you aren't doing yoga correctly.
The postures are a gateway in order to do what yoga is really all about - sitting still, opening your heart when everything tells you to keep it slammed shut, and to retain peace in the midst of a world that is unquantifiable.
If you can do a perfect yoga handstand and transition that into handstand splits, and then slide perfectly into scissors, but you're not doing any of the off-mat work that you have to do in order to approach your practice from a position of clarity and ease, then you are in actuality not doing yoga. We come for the physicality of the practice, but if that's all it is, you aren't allowing yourself to experience the true transformative opportunities that yoga provides.
So no, I don't do yoga selfies. My yoga can't be qualified by a picture, or a pair of lululemon pants, or a jazzy and expensive mat (although my best friend bought me an awesome yoga mat for my birthday last year, so I will say a really good mat makes all the difference in your practice!).
I won't begrudge anyone for doing the yoga selfie, however. I see those pictures, I smile at what my beautiful friends are accomplishing with their bodies, and I am grateful that so many of my friends and teachers are spreading the grace and power of yoga through their photos.
I choose to do it another way.
Either way, I hope the message is the same: yoga is about putting your body into a state of ease, so that you can approach this samsara we call life with more of an open heart.
The best we can do - the only thing we can do - is love as hard as we can, as much as we can, and as long as we can.
That's my yoga. What's yours?
ally
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Halloween Post! Things that Scarred me for Life.
This post speaks for itself. We are coming upon one of my favorite days of the entire year, the cap on probably my favorite month of the whole year. I freaking love Halloween. I still own a lot of my best-loved costumes that I probably couldn't fit into if I tried, and I also try to watch at least three new scary movies every October. This year, I watched the original Halloween (creepy as all hell and holds up great), Return of the Living Dead (punk zombies!) and the Elijah Wood remake of Maniac (so, freaking, gross).
But what about those things that cross the spectrum of 'normal and fun' scary into 'oh my god never speak of it AGAIN' scary? That's what we are going to discuss today. I will be admitting to you three things that absolutely scared (or still scare) the ever loving crap out of me to the point that I am physically changed when I view them.
The video for "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails.
The 5+ minute Mark Romanek opus is now a venerated piece of performance art. I saw this thing when I was nine in a flagrant defiance of my mothers' orders to not watch MTV and I'm positive God saw me flip on channel 52 and decided to punish me for my flagrant violation of house rules. I got through the first two minutes and ran out of the room when the monkey on the crucifix started writhing around. Watching this now as a 28 year old grown ass woman it's easy to see how the video is brilliant with its shades of Francis Bacon and 19th century mad laboratorial mythos, and the song is insanely catchy and sexy, but I WAS NINE. Video content aside, I didn't even know what sex really was at this point and now someone was telling me they wanted to fuck me like an animal?
But the images in the video are what really set this into the annals of "Things that Scarred Ally For Years". I don't think I've ever fully recovered from that opening visual of the human heart beating in time to the snare, and even when I look the video up on YouTube to listen to the song I turn the phone upside down so the video doesn't get into my brain. That being said, I'm obsessed with this song and am slowly getting more into the NIN canon; I went to their Mohegan Sun concert with the boyfriend and aside from getting a huge light show induced headache, I had a great time banging my head with the rest of the CT goth denizens. Still can't watch the damn video all the way through without pausing it several times. PS - their new single "Came Back Haunted" is creepy as hell with its chord progressions, proving Trent Reznor's still got it after 25 years. And yes, I realize he's done videos much grosser than "Closer" but this is the one that left me profoundly creeped.
The Blair Witch Project.
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| No joke it's like they took a picture of my backyard. |
Child's Play.
This is the big one. This is, no doubt, the source of every single one of my childhood nightmares. Not Freddy Kreuger, not Jason, not Michael Myers. Child's Play very near ruined my relationship with movies.
When I was six years old I went with my mom to the local video store to get the VHS tape of the Ramona TV show. Remember video stores? They had posters on the walls, detailing what videos were now available or Coming Soon. On the Coming Soon wall, close to the Horror/Sci-Fi section, was the poster for Child's Play 3.
Remember, I was six. So I want you to take a moment, imagine how you were when you were six (hopefully full of happiness and butterflies and optimism about the ice cream truck) and then look at this.
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| Seriously? SERIOUSLY? I HATE EVERYTHING. |
Also, bear in mind that I was six years old and had no idea that the early Child's Play films are intelligent social critiques of consumerism and doll/kid culture and that the character of Chucky is actually a hysterical little smartass whose profanity-laced tirades are brilliant microcosms of voice acting by Brad Dourif ("That's one ugly doll!" "Fuck you!"), and that later on in my life I'd come to watch and actually enjoy these films as priceless slasher comedies. Nope. I just saw Satan.
I couldn't rip my eyes away. I compulsively stared at those red irises until I thought my head would explode, and then I followed my mom out of the store claiming I had seen something horrible.
As noted critic Cathy Caruth has stated, traumatic stress comes through repetition. I walked around for years with that damn face imprinted on my brain and suffered through tons and tons of nightmares. "Chucky" was my stock answer at sleepovers when someone asked if anything freaked us out. Even now if I'm staying over someone's house and there's a doll in the bedroom I get a bit nervous. It's a shock I even played with dolls as a kid. Maybe I compartmentalized 'normal' dolls from Chucky? Maybe I assumed if I got the Molly doll from American Girl she was resilient and could kick Chucky's ass? She so could. She'd tapdance on his grave.
It all seems funny now, and it's definitely the subject of many family discussions of Which Kid is The Weirdest (I win nearly all the time), but that stupid bastard influenced the trajectory of most of my childhood. I made my mom stop going to Movietime Video - if you know Manchester at all it was the video store in Blue Duck Plaza that has since turned into a Subway - and insisted we go to Eastern Video or West Coast Video, or Hollywood Video if we were desperate.
I just realized that none of those places exist anymore. Dammit, Netflix.
Not only that, but for years, literally years, I would straight up refuse to go into video stores. If I had to come in, I would loiter near the animated/children's section like a goddamn pervert waiting until my sister and brother had emerged from the cooler sections with their prizes. I watched a lot of Disney movies in my formative years. THEY WERE SAFE. One time a few years later I was in my designated spot in the store studying a special edition set of Peter Pan and my brother came running up to me, holding up a VHS case. "Hey Ally, look!" he shouted as he threw the box in my face. It was the box for Child's Play 2. My response was to run out of the video store and nearly into traffic, hyperventilating until my Dad came out and got me while my brother laughed his ass off. Still haven't forgiven Mike for that one.
When I was about 24, I was at Best Buy shopping for some horror movies for my annual watching ritual and stumbled upon that same video cover. My instinct was to run, but instead I stayed and instead of letting that image frighten me into tears, I stared it down. I also had the prior knowledge that the movies had gone from being a smart commentary on consumerism into a straight up idiot fest in which Method Man got gutted in one of the sequels. And I could feel the grip it had held on me slowly slip away. It still bothers me if I'm not prepared for it, though.
Sometimes we attach ourselves to things in childhood that speak to us in profound ways. If it's a positive, we ride that wave for years, and come back to it when we need it for comfort. If it's scarring, we spend our whole lives either running like hell away from it or returning to it at a later date and thoroughly confronting it. Do the three things I've discussed in this post still freak me out? Not as much as when I was little.
But I hope you found some sort of connection to the things in this season - or in others - that can thoroughly scare us shitless. And that's something we all can relate to.
Happy Halloween!
ally
PS. You should also know that Chucky-gate was around the same time my parents took me to the movies to see A League of Their Own and I saw the trailer for Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula with the running blood and got so freaked out I assumed all movie previews were like that...and I refused to go into movie theaters until the trailers were done. I did this for ten years.
PPS. This year they've managed to make a straight-to-DVD Chucky film called The Curse of Chucky, and compared to the first few films in the series, they've really toned down the look of the doll. This guy isn't frightening at all. Still wouldn't let it in my house, though. I'm talking about the DVD, not the doll.
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| Had THIS been the image I had seen when I was six, I probably would have been fine. Ugh. So much of my childhood ruined. |
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
I Heart CT.
A few weeks ago, I posted a picture of a Connecticut sunset on my Facebook page. I thought it was so gorgeous, I thought I'd participate in some typical white girl behavior and take a picture of autumnal scenery to share with my social networks. I captioned it I heart Connecticut.
One of my friends, an actor who is currently making his way across country in various projects, commented You should travel.
I was slightly taken aback by that comment. Not only do I travel a lot for work and play, but I have taken the opportunity to live out of state. My adoration and commitment to my home state isn't some way of being a "townie", or being in a box. It caused me to think of the six months I spent living in a place that is definitively not CT.
New York City is the place I thought I wanted to live for my entire life. I went there with my parents all the time to see plays or meet friends, and it's where I dragged various people on several birthdays. I still remember going into the city to see a Broadway show three weeks after September 11th and feeling a gaping silence that even as an outsider felt unnatural. It was like the heartbeat of a beast had suddenly gone into V-fib.
I begged my parents for years to let me move, and they refused until I graduated college. After a few delays (my sister got married, I got starring roles in a few shows, etc.), I finally got my chance in April 2009. My parents settled me into my tiny studio apartment in Chelsea, I kissed them goodbye, and settled in for what I assume would be an inevitable conveyor belt to stardom.
Three months in I knew I had to leave.
It wasn't a "This is too scary, I don't like this because I'm afraid of change" realization. It was a Gob Bluth style "I've made a huge mistake" revelation. Those three months were like my body had camped out in a panic attack. And it wasn't just about the place. It was the reality of my career path hitting me like a car. And I've been hit by a car, so the comparison is one I feel confident in making. It's apt.
I had spent those three months going to every single audition that would take me, while working extremely long hours at a barbecue joint to pay my bills. I would go into auditions and sit next to incredibly lean - or probably starved out - actors complaining loudly about the juice cleanse they were on in order to lose five pounds of water weight for their next round of headshots, and I'd sit and stare at the slight hint of a roll over the top of my pencil skirt feeling enormously guilty about the pasta I had eaten the night before. If I was seen without getting "typed out" at my auditions I would nervously yowl my way through my 16-32 bars of music before excusing myself, shaking uncontrollably. I would go to the gym and work out for 2 hours because I kept getting told I was too big.
I started losing my hair a month in. I lost my period two months later. Uncontrolled, high-processed stress will do that to you.
I remember texting my sister from a midtown Starbucks bathroom, sobbing uncontrollably. I want to leave. She urged me to stick it out. It's always difficult at the beginning! she exhorted. You can do this!
Maybe I was a wuss. In a lot of ways, I was. But I also knew that I lacked something these people didn't - training. These guys came out of the womb singing and dancing, and were prepared to make their entire lives revolve around their business. In order to make it as a professional actor, you have to want it so badly you cannot think of doing anything else. It's a pretty lonely existence, the life of a professional dramatic. Two months into my stay in New York, I would've worked at a maggot farm rather than sing another note. The business of acting either makes you hungry, or exhausted. And I was exhausted.
Granted, I probably would not have had these problems if I had A) a job waiting for me in the city and B) a job that was in no way related to acting waiting for me in the city. But the life of a nomadic actor whose career is predicated on moment-to-moment changeability? That life drove me bananas.
The one thing I did every single day was write. I wrote almost every week in my blog and every day in my private journal, as well as various other forms of creative musings in other files on my laptop. On my days off, I'd get up early and write. Write about the boyfriend I had broken up with prior to moving that I was most definitely still in love with, write about my day to day in the city, write about fashion/hair/makeup, write about working out, whatever. I never stopped.
It was what got me up in the morning. And I had never been able to fully express that with any amount of courage until my Dad confronted me and I broke down. "I have never been this stressed out or lonely or just totally miserable in my entire life, and that includes the dark time sophomore year of college when I was obese and hating everyone."
Acting, while a huge part of my life, is something that I'm okay with not doing every single day. Same thing with dancing and singing. I'm also much, much better at handling the the pressures of acting and singing when my entire life doesn't depend on it. I haven't been spending the past four years despondent because I'm not acting, that's for sure. That's not to say I don't miss it, but it's something I don't have to do all the time.
I have to write every single day or else something is drastically wrong.
In order to become a writer, I had to go back to school. I wanted to do it correctly. So I left New York as quietly as I came in.
I also had to confront that I had a lot of growing up to do and a lot of darkness to weed out. When I got home, the heartbreak and terror of changing careers manifested itself into a truly dark year and a half of disordered behavior that I didn't fully break until March 2012. I also entered into two different clusterfuck-filled relationships that ended horribly. I ended up swearing off dating at all until I got my shit together.
Some people find themselves when they move away from home. I found it when I came home.
October is a special month for a lot of reasons. It's the month I moved home. It's the anniversary month for my parents (35 years, holy shit). And yesterday marked two years since the boyfriend and I had our first date. Had I not moved back home, I would have not done the deep psychological work I needed to do in order to fully be ready and willing to enter into a, you know, adult relationship built on mutual work. In a weird way, moving home brought me to him. Out of respect for his wishes to remain anonymous, I will keep referring to him as just the boyfriend. Not everybody barfs their life onto social networks. Crazy, right?
There are a lot of reasons to love living in New York. There's a lot of reasons to keep living in New York. I am profoundly blessed to have been given the gift of running around the Big Apple for half a year. I was given space to fuck up, to fail, to grow, to learn. And I will admit I miss having a movie theater, three museums, two frozen yogurt shoppes and a raw vegan cafe within walking distance from my house. Not to mention a Starbucks across the street. Oh, dream of dreams.
But I'm a girl who is loud but craves quiet.
I love nights filled with a silence punctuated by crickets outside my window. I love backyard fire pits, running on reservoir trails, outdoor yoga and pumpkin patch picking. I love a sweet chill in the air, insanely hot summers that make you want to stay in ALL day, and snow on evergreen. I love being able to see my parents whenever I want, to be able to see my godson on a daily basis if I so choose, and being surrounded by the familiar. These things don't mean I've settled. It means I AM settled. In my heart, I'm a Connecticut girl. No matter how much people tried to justify all of the reasons I shouldn't leave, New York wasn't the thing that made my heart pulse. For the first time in my life, I feel both of my feet on the ground. This is where I'm supposed to be, and Connecticut is what formed my sensibilities about life and all the craziness that comes with it.
In New York, the place where I thought my life would begin, I was entirely isolated and afraid. In Connecticut I have accomplished more than I ever thought possible in my small life.
On that first date, the boyfriend and I went through the traditional first-date spillings and grillings about our lives and careers, and over the course of the conversation I mentioned my stay in NYC. He asked why I came back. I looked in his eyes and said with a shrug, "I thought it was where I needed to be. And it wasn't."
Connecticut is where I want to be. And for those lost two years of loneliness, it was where I needed to be.
Of course, one can't just stay stuck in one place for their whole life. It can prohibit growth. My PhD pursuits may have me leaving to go other places. Granted, those places are close by - I'm applying to URI, UMass-Amherst, Brown, UConn, and Yale - but all but one of those schools will require me to move out of state. In a lot of ways I am more ready to leave CT now than I was back in 2009. I am prepared to make moves if I must.
But Connecticut was, and will always be me.
It will always be my home.
Find what makes you wake up in the morning. Commit to it. And always live in and around what makes you wake up.
ally
Monday, October 14, 2013
Thoughts on a (Yoga) Anniversary.
Yoga is a practice of cleansing ourselves body, mind, and spirit, every single day, so that we can show up in the world without reactivity, in our center, and coming from total love and joy. This is the type of enlightenment that we are working towards. - Seane Corn
If you are only working for your own benefit on your mat, you are not practicing yoga. You are doing Indian calisthenics. - Kelly Morris
My first official yoga class - I had done a bit of yoga at home previously - was October 14th, 2007. It was a Moderate class taught by a wonderful woman named Kirstii. My best friend had been badgering me for a few weeks to get me into a class there. "You'll LOVE it," she said over numerous emails. "I swear, we can start going to gentle classes and then the other ones once we get used to it. I swear you'll love it."
From the first class, I was completely hooked. I loved how it made me feel like I was back in the dance classes I loved as a kid, and how it made me feel completely calm at the end. I came home and decided that once a week, by hook or by crook, I would go to a yoga class. I wasn't necessarily into it as a spiritual path, but it seemed like a great workout.
My last yoga class before I left for New York was February 18th, 2009. I didn't return to the mat until the following year, when Connie, sensing I needed an outlet and something that would give me hope, recommended that I try applying for a desk job at our home studio. I would work for four hours a week checking in yoga people and cleaning up the studio, and in exchange I would get unlimited free yoga. It's the best thing I've ever done for myself, and it completely changed my life. Three years later, I practice vinyasa yoga 3-4 days a week and have a consistent meditation practice.n
Obviously at this point, I look at yoga as much more than just a workout.
I cannot stress enough the positive effects that yoga has had on my entire life. I have some thoughts on yoga as a spiritual path that have come from a few years of seriously intense practice (with no plans to go into yoga teacher training...it's goddamn expensive), and I thought I'd share them with you in case you were thinking about going into yoga but feeling intimidated or worried about it in any way.
Go to a studio first. I STRONGLY recommend going to a studio for a good deal of your practice if you can. Yoga teachers are there to help you with body adjustment, encouragement, and sometimes a temple massage if you're lucky. My 'home' studio will always be Samadhi Yoga Studio in Manchester, CT, because it's filled with regular, wonderful people doing yoga and it's not intimidating at all. That being said, most teachers will tell you that a solid home practice is a true testament to how seriously you take your yoga. Currently I practice entirely at home because it saves me a heck of a lot of money (I am a poor, poor teacher in between masters and doctoral degrees, I spend money on my car and caffeine) and I am confident enough in the safety of my practice to take it to my home mat. I also have all of the necessary props - blocks, a strap, and a mat. Note: it took me legitimately 4+ years to get to the point that I felt like I could do a full vinyasa yoga class at home without killing myself, so seriously go to a studio first and take all of the classes/workshops you can. Trust me, if I could I'd go to more studio classes!
If you didn't like a type of yoga class, go to another one. And another one. Go until you find a style that works. I've tried several different types of yoga and have come to the realization that my jam is lightly heated vinyasa with grounding elements. There are several types that I appreciate as a part of yoga but weren't exactly my jam. For example, Ashtanga, while an incredible spiritual path for extremely disciplined types, just exacerbated my anxiety - which we have already discussed can be a problem for me. Plus, it made my controlling tendencies even more pronounced and I felt like a nasty Type-A jerk when I was doing it. On the contrary, the vinyasa practice inspires me to be spontaneous, relaxed, open, and receptive to the changes that life can throw at you. But I prefer a slower, more controlled flow in those sorts of classes; I do NOT like the type of vinyasa yoga that feels like you're in a bootcamp on acid, but if that's your flavor go for it.
You'll start wanting to take care of yourself. I don't like overexercising, eating shitty food all the time, or pushing myself too hard when I'm doing a consistent yoga practice. I don't go more than three days without it in my life or else I get the impulse to do/say/eat bad things.
You'll start wanting to eat healthy...ish. One of my teachers said "Whatever you drink or eat or think will show up on your mat the next day" and it is entirely correct. If I've been boozing or accidentally eating gluten, I turn into a bomb of awful on my mat. So yoga has inspired me to stick to my gluten free diet and stay away from a lot of meat/dairy products. I attempted to go fully vegan a few years ago and my body was not happy. Plus, it made my restrictive tendencies throw a damn party and the first rule in the 8-limbed path of yoga is ahimsa, the act of nonharming. It has to start with yourself. So if you feel that eating meat is treating yourself better, you go eat that meat. But maybe eat some broccoli with it?
Don't worry if you can't do the advanced poses. They aren't the point of yoga. I've been practicing for six years and I am just NOW getting into the difficult poses, but some of the ones that require deep back bends, or deep opening in the hips, my body will simply not do. I used to be obese, and the pressure that extra weight created on my hips/back/knees have caused them to splay in ways that yoga can't fix. I used to get incredibly frustrated that the really beautiful advanced poses would never be part of my practice. But after a few years I began to understand that the poses are really not the point of yoga. After all, if there's no intention behind them aside from the aesthetic, you're just doing another workout. The point of yoga is to better your life and create inner transcendent peace, and to live your life with self-realized, self-inquired clarity. If you can reach that height without ever having put your legs behind your head, you're doing yoga correctly.
Yoga won't make you skinny. Yoga makes your body look pretty great. It's about so much more than the body stuff but that's what everybody asks me when I tell them I practice yoga a lot. I do NOT look like a yogini, all limbs and arms and rippling lean muscle. I'm a soft girl with curves and booty and that's how I like it. But with yoga it's about a whole body shift, not just your abs or arms. It'll help you take care of yourself and your body will become healthy in the process. I'm never going to ever have a six pack without making myself totally miserable, and that's okay with me. If you're expecting to do intense yoga and get super skinny you're delusional. My butt, thighs, back, and lats are the biggest they've ever been. Do you see me complaining? ...Well, I'd like it if my old skirts and dresses weren't so tight, but still. An excuse to buy new clothes! Sure, I was tinier a few years ago but now I'm not freezing cold and hungry all the time!
Don't let your ego out to play. Yoga is incredibly popular right now. While that's awesome in a lot of respects, at times it can feel like it's just something people are doing because it'll make them get a nice ass. And the 'yoga selfie' trend that has been sweeping my Facebook and Instagram is quite troubling to me...mostly because it makes my ego start screaming "You can't do that pose and she's only been doing yoga for two months!" Unless it's with correct intention (such as, when Kino MacGregor or Kathryn Budig or Seane Corn do it) taking pictures of yourself doing yoga is just an excuse to take your ego for a joyride, or the egos of those looking at the picture. I used to feel incredibly bad when I saw pictures of my friends pushing themselves into an effortless Mayurasana, peacock pose. But then I started seeing what the whole "the practice isn't about the poses" thing was all about and that jealousy melted off. My practice is private and it's about a communion with myself and my spirituality and how I can clear my mind entirely and open my heart fully. It's not really about the quest to push myself into peacock pose anymore. It'd be nice if I could do it, but it's not that important. I just now am seeing a full heart opening in my sun salutations and that's enough for this lifetime. (Also: yoga props are the shizzle. Your ego doesn't want you to use them. Your body does.)
Yoga will set you free...but first it will piss you off. This is the most important one, and probably the one that will make you run like hell in the other direction. Like I said, when I started out doing yoga I was like a cloud floating out of class. I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced avocados. It feels like when you fall in love for the first time and everything is giddy and dizzy. But then there were the days I would lay in savasana and cry, or swear at myself when I couldn't get into a pose, or beat myself up in warrior. Then there were the days in which I would emotionally break down during class. I'm talking snotty, hyperventilating meltdowns. That's when the real love story begins to take shape. That's when the yoga starts to penetrate your life.
Yoga will expose all of the shitty, horrible things that you do/say/feel on a daily basis and it will make you confront them in order to eradicate them. The yoga sutras refer to these obstacles as samskaras, and in order to get through them, you have to let your inner fire, your tapas, burn them away. The burning is when you lie in bed sobbing hysterically because of what's going on with our decision to airstrike Syria, or when you think about the kids in the Sandy Hook shooting, or a best friend loses her mother in one of the worst ways imaginable. I was already a highly empathic person before yoga, but it's like my inner volume was turned up to 11. Yoga tells us to love even when things are horrendous. To forgive the unforgiveable. To listen. To realize that we are all the same, and that the whole "all is love and love everyone and everything and everything happens for a reason" applies to everyone, especially those people or situations you don't want to love, or when things happen that seem so totally baseless that you wonder what sort of deity could cause that much pain. And that is ridiculously difficult, because it's so easy to point fingers, to assign blame, to repress/stuff actual feeling, and to only include the 'all is love' mantra on the people who like. To actually feel and allow empathy is when you know the practice of yoga is working its way into your life in ways you never thought possible when you were trying to contort yourself into King Dancer that one time in a backbend workshop.
I said a few years ago that I wanted yoga to help me become a better person in all facets of my life. It's only been in the past year and a half or so that I've actually let yoga do that.
Yoga opens you. It shatters you. It lifts you.
Here are some other articles that get my point across in a better way than I ever could:
The Yoga of Darkness
Seane Corn Lecture at Wanderlust. I freaking love Seane Corn and this is the lecture that made me really start looking at my yoga more concretely. I repeat a lot of her phrases when I'm stressed.
Kelly Morris's Lecture at Wanderlust. This presentation started me on a path to study karma and emptiness more fully and it has truly impacted my life.
lokah samasta sukhino bhavantu. may all beings everywhere be happy and free and may the thoughts and actions of my own life in some way contribute to that happiness and freedom for all. namaste.
ally
PS. October is a highly lucky month for me, but we'll get to that another time.
If you are only working for your own benefit on your mat, you are not practicing yoga. You are doing Indian calisthenics. - Kelly Morris
My first official yoga class - I had done a bit of yoga at home previously - was October 14th, 2007. It was a Moderate class taught by a wonderful woman named Kirstii. My best friend had been badgering me for a few weeks to get me into a class there. "You'll LOVE it," she said over numerous emails. "I swear, we can start going to gentle classes and then the other ones once we get used to it. I swear you'll love it."
From the first class, I was completely hooked. I loved how it made me feel like I was back in the dance classes I loved as a kid, and how it made me feel completely calm at the end. I came home and decided that once a week, by hook or by crook, I would go to a yoga class. I wasn't necessarily into it as a spiritual path, but it seemed like a great workout.
My last yoga class before I left for New York was February 18th, 2009. I didn't return to the mat until the following year, when Connie, sensing I needed an outlet and something that would give me hope, recommended that I try applying for a desk job at our home studio. I would work for four hours a week checking in yoga people and cleaning up the studio, and in exchange I would get unlimited free yoga. It's the best thing I've ever done for myself, and it completely changed my life. Three years later, I practice vinyasa yoga 3-4 days a week and have a consistent meditation practice.n
Obviously at this point, I look at yoga as much more than just a workout.
I cannot stress enough the positive effects that yoga has had on my entire life. I have some thoughts on yoga as a spiritual path that have come from a few years of seriously intense practice (with no plans to go into yoga teacher training...it's goddamn expensive), and I thought I'd share them with you in case you were thinking about going into yoga but feeling intimidated or worried about it in any way.
Go to a studio first. I STRONGLY recommend going to a studio for a good deal of your practice if you can. Yoga teachers are there to help you with body adjustment, encouragement, and sometimes a temple massage if you're lucky. My 'home' studio will always be Samadhi Yoga Studio in Manchester, CT, because it's filled with regular, wonderful people doing yoga and it's not intimidating at all. That being said, most teachers will tell you that a solid home practice is a true testament to how seriously you take your yoga. Currently I practice entirely at home because it saves me a heck of a lot of money (I am a poor, poor teacher in between masters and doctoral degrees, I spend money on my car and caffeine) and I am confident enough in the safety of my practice to take it to my home mat. I also have all of the necessary props - blocks, a strap, and a mat. Note: it took me legitimately 4+ years to get to the point that I felt like I could do a full vinyasa yoga class at home without killing myself, so seriously go to a studio first and take all of the classes/workshops you can. Trust me, if I could I'd go to more studio classes!
If you didn't like a type of yoga class, go to another one. And another one. Go until you find a style that works. I've tried several different types of yoga and have come to the realization that my jam is lightly heated vinyasa with grounding elements. There are several types that I appreciate as a part of yoga but weren't exactly my jam. For example, Ashtanga, while an incredible spiritual path for extremely disciplined types, just exacerbated my anxiety - which we have already discussed can be a problem for me. Plus, it made my controlling tendencies even more pronounced and I felt like a nasty Type-A jerk when I was doing it. On the contrary, the vinyasa practice inspires me to be spontaneous, relaxed, open, and receptive to the changes that life can throw at you. But I prefer a slower, more controlled flow in those sorts of classes; I do NOT like the type of vinyasa yoga that feels like you're in a bootcamp on acid, but if that's your flavor go for it.
You'll start wanting to take care of yourself. I don't like overexercising, eating shitty food all the time, or pushing myself too hard when I'm doing a consistent yoga practice. I don't go more than three days without it in my life or else I get the impulse to do/say/eat bad things.
You'll start wanting to eat healthy...ish. One of my teachers said "Whatever you drink or eat or think will show up on your mat the next day" and it is entirely correct. If I've been boozing or accidentally eating gluten, I turn into a bomb of awful on my mat. So yoga has inspired me to stick to my gluten free diet and stay away from a lot of meat/dairy products. I attempted to go fully vegan a few years ago and my body was not happy. Plus, it made my restrictive tendencies throw a damn party and the first rule in the 8-limbed path of yoga is ahimsa, the act of nonharming. It has to start with yourself. So if you feel that eating meat is treating yourself better, you go eat that meat. But maybe eat some broccoli with it?
Don't worry if you can't do the advanced poses. They aren't the point of yoga. I've been practicing for six years and I am just NOW getting into the difficult poses, but some of the ones that require deep back bends, or deep opening in the hips, my body will simply not do. I used to be obese, and the pressure that extra weight created on my hips/back/knees have caused them to splay in ways that yoga can't fix. I used to get incredibly frustrated that the really beautiful advanced poses would never be part of my practice. But after a few years I began to understand that the poses are really not the point of yoga. After all, if there's no intention behind them aside from the aesthetic, you're just doing another workout. The point of yoga is to better your life and create inner transcendent peace, and to live your life with self-realized, self-inquired clarity. If you can reach that height without ever having put your legs behind your head, you're doing yoga correctly.
Yoga won't make you skinny. Yoga makes your body look pretty great. It's about so much more than the body stuff but that's what everybody asks me when I tell them I practice yoga a lot. I do NOT look like a yogini, all limbs and arms and rippling lean muscle. I'm a soft girl with curves and booty and that's how I like it. But with yoga it's about a whole body shift, not just your abs or arms. It'll help you take care of yourself and your body will become healthy in the process. I'm never going to ever have a six pack without making myself totally miserable, and that's okay with me. If you're expecting to do intense yoga and get super skinny you're delusional. My butt, thighs, back, and lats are the biggest they've ever been. Do you see me complaining? ...Well, I'd like it if my old skirts and dresses weren't so tight, but still. An excuse to buy new clothes! Sure, I was tinier a few years ago but now I'm not freezing cold and hungry all the time!
Don't let your ego out to play. Yoga is incredibly popular right now. While that's awesome in a lot of respects, at times it can feel like it's just something people are doing because it'll make them get a nice ass. And the 'yoga selfie' trend that has been sweeping my Facebook and Instagram is quite troubling to me...mostly because it makes my ego start screaming "You can't do that pose and she's only been doing yoga for two months!" Unless it's with correct intention (such as, when Kino MacGregor or Kathryn Budig or Seane Corn do it) taking pictures of yourself doing yoga is just an excuse to take your ego for a joyride, or the egos of those looking at the picture. I used to feel incredibly bad when I saw pictures of my friends pushing themselves into an effortless Mayurasana, peacock pose. But then I started seeing what the whole "the practice isn't about the poses" thing was all about and that jealousy melted off. My practice is private and it's about a communion with myself and my spirituality and how I can clear my mind entirely and open my heart fully. It's not really about the quest to push myself into peacock pose anymore. It'd be nice if I could do it, but it's not that important. I just now am seeing a full heart opening in my sun salutations and that's enough for this lifetime. (Also: yoga props are the shizzle. Your ego doesn't want you to use them. Your body does.)
Yoga will set you free...but first it will piss you off. This is the most important one, and probably the one that will make you run like hell in the other direction. Like I said, when I started out doing yoga I was like a cloud floating out of class. I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced avocados. It feels like when you fall in love for the first time and everything is giddy and dizzy. But then there were the days I would lay in savasana and cry, or swear at myself when I couldn't get into a pose, or beat myself up in warrior. Then there were the days in which I would emotionally break down during class. I'm talking snotty, hyperventilating meltdowns. That's when the real love story begins to take shape. That's when the yoga starts to penetrate your life.
Yoga will expose all of the shitty, horrible things that you do/say/feel on a daily basis and it will make you confront them in order to eradicate them. The yoga sutras refer to these obstacles as samskaras, and in order to get through them, you have to let your inner fire, your tapas, burn them away. The burning is when you lie in bed sobbing hysterically because of what's going on with our decision to airstrike Syria, or when you think about the kids in the Sandy Hook shooting, or a best friend loses her mother in one of the worst ways imaginable. I was already a highly empathic person before yoga, but it's like my inner volume was turned up to 11. Yoga tells us to love even when things are horrendous. To forgive the unforgiveable. To listen. To realize that we are all the same, and that the whole "all is love and love everyone and everything and everything happens for a reason" applies to everyone, especially those people or situations you don't want to love, or when things happen that seem so totally baseless that you wonder what sort of deity could cause that much pain. And that is ridiculously difficult, because it's so easy to point fingers, to assign blame, to repress/stuff actual feeling, and to only include the 'all is love' mantra on the people who like. To actually feel and allow empathy is when you know the practice of yoga is working its way into your life in ways you never thought possible when you were trying to contort yourself into King Dancer that one time in a backbend workshop.
I said a few years ago that I wanted yoga to help me become a better person in all facets of my life. It's only been in the past year and a half or so that I've actually let yoga do that.
Yoga opens you. It shatters you. It lifts you.
Here are some other articles that get my point across in a better way than I ever could:
The Yoga of Darkness
Seane Corn Lecture at Wanderlust. I freaking love Seane Corn and this is the lecture that made me really start looking at my yoga more concretely. I repeat a lot of her phrases when I'm stressed.
Kelly Morris's Lecture at Wanderlust. This presentation started me on a path to study karma and emptiness more fully and it has truly impacted my life.
lokah samasta sukhino bhavantu. may all beings everywhere be happy and free and may the thoughts and actions of my own life in some way contribute to that happiness and freedom for all. namaste.
ally
PS. October is a highly lucky month for me, but we'll get to that another time.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Moonbeams.
I went to a private high school. A private, single-sex high school in the miraculously beautiful enclave of Farmington, CT. Miss Porter's School has since been rebranded as simply "Porter's" on all of its merchandise - similarly to how the University of Connecticut is now UConn - but to those of us who knew it back in the burgeoning years of the Aughts, it was MPS.
Let's be honest - my school has gotten a lot of shit in the past few years for being, apparently, a den of cultish witches who breed pearl-clutching cheaters or haze-happy harpies who dress all in black and cultivate fantasies of the Russian secret police. I'm not even going to get into that stuff, because it was never what I experienced at Miss Porter's.
I'm feeling a bit nostalgic for this era of my adolescence, mostly because I have my 10 year high school reunion this weekend and I'm due to see a lot of my old friends, some of whom I haven't seen since the 5 year reunion. A lot of them are married, or are on their way to the altar. Some of them have one, even two babies. They are all successful, smart, and pretty interesting people.
The four years I spent at MPS changed my entire life.
I entered my New Girl year (every single Porter's Girl in her first year of study, no matter what year, is referred to as a New Girl) in the fall of 1999 with butterfly clips piled high on top of my head, a brain full of NSYNC and Britney Spears, and L.E.I. jeans that flared out from the knee. I had a severe learning disability - ADD is a clinically diagnosable LD, it's not just something people say to get longer exam time - and was heartbroken at the fact that my best friends were attending the public high school back in my hometown without me. I was also slightly perturbed at the fact that I would be attending a single-sex school; I had just realized that boys were, you know, a thing, and I was pissed I would be kept away from them. This anger/fear was not unfounded...the first weekend I was able to go to the mall in my hometown, I nearly had whiplash from snapping my head around to look at all the boys. It was like Homer in a doughnut factory.
I was also thoroughly, and I mean thoroughly unprepared for the workload. I can attribute this to my learning disability all I want, but the truth of the matter is I was a lazy-ass student who just wanted to eat Ben and Jerry's all day and watch Singled Out on our dorm's TV. For a little while it was almost a point of pride of how close I got to failing out of Porter's but I managed to get my shit together and have a pretty great GPA senior year. It helped I was taking pretty much all English and Art History courses.
Also - let's face the bald facts, shall we? - I was a fucking weird child. I thought musicals were realistic portrayals of life. I was extremely loud. I was so untrusting of everybody and so unwilling to look people in the eye that when I talked to people I was unsure of, I would stare out of the corners of my eyes and avoid their eye contact.
Let's just say that freshman year wasn't exactly the cat's pajamas.
I did get a freshman year superlative in the school's yearbook. Class Slacker. That was a fun conversation with my parents! I managed to work my way up; by senior year, I was voted "Future Celebrity", which I still think is both fascinating and hilarious.
But really, this post isn't about school; the actual sitting in class, the taking of notes, the memorizing of biology keynotes. This is about all of the things we did in high school that are antithetical to learning and entirely aligned with living.
I remember meeting a lot of my friends on that first day. A few of them didn't make it through freshman year, but the ones that did I remained close with.
I remember the Day Student Room. I was a commuter, so the school provided us with big rooms on campus that we could decorate and make our own. I remember sleeping there a few times when senior year hit and things got really intense with schoolwork. I also remember freshman year's room in New Place and the enormous dodgeball fight we had with an orange. I'm positive they're still scrubbing rind out of the walls.
I remember playing on our junior varsity basketball team freshman year and being told my sophomore year that I could either do the winter musical or play sports. I chose the musical.
I remember our first 'German', a prank the upperclassmen play on the freshmen that involves making the newbies freak out about having to learn several German phrases, then all of us gathering in the school's auditorium to watch a skit put on by the seniors making fun of all the teachers at school. It was only after this play was over that the freshman learn the entire German portion of the evening is a huge joke (which made me scream with happiness, because dude, German is hard.). My senior year, I helped produce the production and had a part in it.
I remember watching several of my classmates stand up on National Coming Out Day and declare their homosexuality - or their alliance with LGBTs - and realizing that my little bubble of heteronormativity had just been popped.
I remember the school dances with the all boys schools that were bused in, and having a legit heart attack when I walked into the Noni and saw all of the testosterone bobbing their heads to "Pretty Fly For A White Guy."
I remember getting chosen for the seniors-only a cappella group at a special dinner, and going around the whole campus singing.
I remember being heartbroken when my friends transferred, or took a year off to go abroad.
I remember the giant scavenger hunt thrown by the junior class in which the freshmen had to run around the entire campus dressed in crazy mismatched motley - or, "K-Tell" - and collect various items while the juniors, dressed in black, cheered us on.
I remember long, throaty, loud walks to Naples Pizza and Starbucks, and even louder, Moulin Rouge - soaked walks back.
I remember conversations and Chinese food until 3AM. Sometimes longer.
I remember mix CDs: Indigo Girls, S.O.A.P., 2Gether, the Broadway soundtrack of Rent, "Teenage Dirtbag", Weezer.
I remember funny lists on the daystud room whiteboard, such as "What Character From South Park Are You?" (Butters. Always Butters.)
I remember watching Trainspotting in the Wean and being simultaneously excited and freaked the hell out by it.
I remember prom and feeling like an obese Audrey Hepburn in my black cocktail dress and black gloves.
I remember the graduation party, and falling asleep under the stars on top of a tarp and being woken up at 6 am by a bagel shoved in my face.
I remember sitting in the Barbara Hacker Theatre on September 11, 2001, and feeling like the entire world was crashing like Towers, and feeling the community embrace all of us like a fierce hug.
I remember the hard, the scary, the beautiful, the wonderful. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are some memories that are just for me.
In the summer of 2007, a tremendous tragedy happened to the Porter's community. I didn't know Hayley Petit, nor her family, but she was a Porter's girl, and therefore it felt like we all lost someone incredibly important and full of potential. We all mourned her, and we all remember her and her sister and mother.
Because more than anything else, despite the things that I could say about my high school experience that weren't so pleasant...Farmington became my home. Those girls became my family. They will always have a giant chunk of this heart.
This weekend, I will walk onto the campus of my high school. I will hug my friends and try to reconcile with those I've lost touch with. I'll sit and reminisce and recall a time in my life when the world was still a big question mark. And I'll pay tribute to the school that taught me how to shape it.
I'm coming for you, girls. Wear your grey and yellow and get those garden songbooks ready.
Puellae venerunt. Abíerunt mulieres.
ally
Let's be honest - my school has gotten a lot of shit in the past few years for being, apparently, a den of cultish witches who breed pearl-clutching cheaters or haze-happy harpies who dress all in black and cultivate fantasies of the Russian secret police. I'm not even going to get into that stuff, because it was never what I experienced at Miss Porter's.
I'm feeling a bit nostalgic for this era of my adolescence, mostly because I have my 10 year high school reunion this weekend and I'm due to see a lot of my old friends, some of whom I haven't seen since the 5 year reunion. A lot of them are married, or are on their way to the altar. Some of them have one, even two babies. They are all successful, smart, and pretty interesting people.
The four years I spent at MPS changed my entire life.
I entered my New Girl year (every single Porter's Girl in her first year of study, no matter what year, is referred to as a New Girl) in the fall of 1999 with butterfly clips piled high on top of my head, a brain full of NSYNC and Britney Spears, and L.E.I. jeans that flared out from the knee. I had a severe learning disability - ADD is a clinically diagnosable LD, it's not just something people say to get longer exam time - and was heartbroken at the fact that my best friends were attending the public high school back in my hometown without me. I was also slightly perturbed at the fact that I would be attending a single-sex school; I had just realized that boys were, you know, a thing, and I was pissed I would be kept away from them. This anger/fear was not unfounded...the first weekend I was able to go to the mall in my hometown, I nearly had whiplash from snapping my head around to look at all the boys. It was like Homer in a doughnut factory.
I was also thoroughly, and I mean thoroughly unprepared for the workload. I can attribute this to my learning disability all I want, but the truth of the matter is I was a lazy-ass student who just wanted to eat Ben and Jerry's all day and watch Singled Out on our dorm's TV. For a little while it was almost a point of pride of how close I got to failing out of Porter's but I managed to get my shit together and have a pretty great GPA senior year. It helped I was taking pretty much all English and Art History courses.
Also - let's face the bald facts, shall we? - I was a fucking weird child. I thought musicals were realistic portrayals of life. I was extremely loud. I was so untrusting of everybody and so unwilling to look people in the eye that when I talked to people I was unsure of, I would stare out of the corners of my eyes and avoid their eye contact.
Let's just say that freshman year wasn't exactly the cat's pajamas.
I did get a freshman year superlative in the school's yearbook. Class Slacker. That was a fun conversation with my parents! I managed to work my way up; by senior year, I was voted "Future Celebrity", which I still think is both fascinating and hilarious.
But really, this post isn't about school; the actual sitting in class, the taking of notes, the memorizing of biology keynotes. This is about all of the things we did in high school that are antithetical to learning and entirely aligned with living.
I remember meeting a lot of my friends on that first day. A few of them didn't make it through freshman year, but the ones that did I remained close with.
I remember the Day Student Room. I was a commuter, so the school provided us with big rooms on campus that we could decorate and make our own. I remember sleeping there a few times when senior year hit and things got really intense with schoolwork. I also remember freshman year's room in New Place and the enormous dodgeball fight we had with an orange. I'm positive they're still scrubbing rind out of the walls.
I remember playing on our junior varsity basketball team freshman year and being told my sophomore year that I could either do the winter musical or play sports. I chose the musical.
I remember our first 'German', a prank the upperclassmen play on the freshmen that involves making the newbies freak out about having to learn several German phrases, then all of us gathering in the school's auditorium to watch a skit put on by the seniors making fun of all the teachers at school. It was only after this play was over that the freshman learn the entire German portion of the evening is a huge joke (which made me scream with happiness, because dude, German is hard.). My senior year, I helped produce the production and had a part in it.
I remember watching several of my classmates stand up on National Coming Out Day and declare their homosexuality - or their alliance with LGBTs - and realizing that my little bubble of heteronormativity had just been popped.
I remember the school dances with the all boys schools that were bused in, and having a legit heart attack when I walked into the Noni and saw all of the testosterone bobbing their heads to "Pretty Fly For A White Guy."
I remember getting chosen for the seniors-only a cappella group at a special dinner, and going around the whole campus singing.
I remember being heartbroken when my friends transferred, or took a year off to go abroad.
I remember the giant scavenger hunt thrown by the junior class in which the freshmen had to run around the entire campus dressed in crazy mismatched motley - or, "K-Tell" - and collect various items while the juniors, dressed in black, cheered us on.
I remember long, throaty, loud walks to Naples Pizza and Starbucks, and even louder, Moulin Rouge - soaked walks back.
I remember conversations and Chinese food until 3AM. Sometimes longer.
I remember mix CDs: Indigo Girls, S.O.A.P., 2Gether, the Broadway soundtrack of Rent, "Teenage Dirtbag", Weezer.
I remember funny lists on the daystud room whiteboard, such as "What Character From South Park Are You?" (Butters. Always Butters.)
I remember watching Trainspotting in the Wean and being simultaneously excited and freaked the hell out by it.
I remember prom and feeling like an obese Audrey Hepburn in my black cocktail dress and black gloves.
I remember the graduation party, and falling asleep under the stars on top of a tarp and being woken up at 6 am by a bagel shoved in my face.
I remember sitting in the Barbara Hacker Theatre on September 11, 2001, and feeling like the entire world was crashing like Towers, and feeling the community embrace all of us like a fierce hug.
I remember the hard, the scary, the beautiful, the wonderful. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are some memories that are just for me.
In the summer of 2007, a tremendous tragedy happened to the Porter's community. I didn't know Hayley Petit, nor her family, but she was a Porter's girl, and therefore it felt like we all lost someone incredibly important and full of potential. We all mourned her, and we all remember her and her sister and mother.
Because more than anything else, despite the things that I could say about my high school experience that weren't so pleasant...Farmington became my home. Those girls became my family. They will always have a giant chunk of this heart.
This weekend, I will walk onto the campus of my high school. I will hug my friends and try to reconcile with those I've lost touch with. I'll sit and reminisce and recall a time in my life when the world was still a big question mark. And I'll pay tribute to the school that taught me how to shape it.
I'm coming for you, girls. Wear your grey and yellow and get those garden songbooks ready.
Puellae venerunt. Abíerunt mulieres.
ally
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Thinking Thursdays: Birthday Edition.
Today is my birthday. I am 28 years old.
To some of you, especially my readers who haven't even broken through their four years of high school yet - gah - I am probably thisclose to applying for my AARP card. For others, I'm still a baby barely cutting their teeth.
I could go into a long stream of consciousness rant about my 27th year on earth and what to expect for my 28th, but really, I can't. This year, for all intents and purposes, with a few pockets of light sprinkled into it, completely sucked. I was in a cavernous hole of depression for most of it, and the other part of it I was literally too busy to eat solid food. This has gotten better, but that's a post for another time.
So without further ado, here are 28 thoughts for your Thursday.
1. I'm pretty positive that although I am one episode into the 3rd season of Breaking Bad, the cult-like behavior surrounding the show makes me dread continuing just on principle. I just hate EVERYONE on it, with the exception of Jesse. And Hank, sometimes. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to close my laptop and avoid everybody I know this coming Sunday when the finale airs because good God, it's getting annoying. The show is brilliant, I'll just be glad it's over.
2. On a similar note, I'm totally obsessed with New Girl. Oh, Schmidt and your hair chutney.
3. If you don't watch DailyGrace on YouTube, why are we friends?
4. I haven't run for a week and a half. I don't like it.
5. My birthday is National Pancake Day. Obviously I made pancakes.
6. I wonder if Ted Cruz is still talking? Maybe if he develops edema in his legs he'll need an Obamacare-funded medical procedure. Additionally, I hope he reads Hop on Pop as an indictment on gay marriage.
7. I'm watching Evil Dead - the 2013 remake - today for a project involving a paper proposal for a conference next year. I plan on livetweeting it. Have mercy.
8. My nephew started pre-K. I can't even handle this. I want to yell 'STOP GROWING OLDER' every time I see him.
9. This is difficult.
10. One of the classes I teach is close to noon. I tend to wolf a salad down my throat right before I go in to teach but that's making my stomach hurt during class. Anybody have suggestions?
11. I have a crush on Jason Mantzoukas. That is all.
12. The boyfriend and I are going to the Big E this weekend. As a gluten-free person, I'm worried this will consist of me watching him wolf down deep-fried things with abandon while I gnaw at a protein bar in my purse.
13. I cannot take SVU seriously after they got rid of Stabler. Yes, I know Benson has a much more complex backstory, and I should be appreciative of her presence as a complicated woman on prime time television who is not in her 20s and who is not a twig figure...but still. STABLER.
14. Why did I think this was a good idea?
15. I'm incorporating more difficult yoga classes into my life at the moment. My arms aren't very happy with me.
16. I ended up dyeing my hair dark from a box. Like I told myself I would never do again. But on the plus side, it didn't get so dark that it looks black and it'll grow out rather nicely. So I win.
17. ESPN 30 for 30 comes back and they finally have a women-centric documentary and....it's about Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. I will not stop until they do a 35-0 documentary. It would be compelling with zero mention of Jeff Gillooly.
18. I purchased Revlon by Marchesa jeweled nail art strips, and they are doing what most nail strips do when you attach them on top of already-painted nails - they're peeling like crazy and look terrible. Why did I buy these? Because I am easily hypnotized by glittery gold stuff.
19. I'm spending this Sunday carving pumpkins and watching shitty movies with my best friend while slurping down gallons of pho. It's going to be wonderful and everything good.
20. My brother and I are nearly a week apart in birthdays. He turns 25 next week. I need to process that a bit.
21. On that note, a lot of my friends are turning 30 this year. I'm actually not too freaked out about turning 30; I hear the 30s are when the awkward shit starts to turn into the things that make you awesome.
22. watch this.
23. and this, too.
24. and this last.
25. I just got all pissed that Mumford & Sons are apparently on indefinite hiatus.
26. On the plus side, Lady GaGa's new album drops in less than two months.
27. I have my 10 year high school reunion next weekend. I'm pretty sure I'm either going to have a blast or spend the entire night worried. A friend of mine from high school and I had a major falling out a few years ago and although I'd like to resolve it, I'm not sure if she is because we haven't spoken since. If you're reading this, I'm ready and willing to talk.
28. I have a special anniversary coming up. More on that in a few weeks.
In summary -
I'm in a good place right now. 27 wasn't exactly what I wanted it to be. But I'm ready and willing to make 28 everything it should be.
Here's to birthdays.
And pancakes.
Always pancakes.
ally
To some of you, especially my readers who haven't even broken through their four years of high school yet - gah - I am probably thisclose to applying for my AARP card. For others, I'm still a baby barely cutting their teeth.
I could go into a long stream of consciousness rant about my 27th year on earth and what to expect for my 28th, but really, I can't. This year, for all intents and purposes, with a few pockets of light sprinkled into it, completely sucked. I was in a cavernous hole of depression for most of it, and the other part of it I was literally too busy to eat solid food. This has gotten better, but that's a post for another time.
So without further ado, here are 28 thoughts for your Thursday.
1. I'm pretty positive that although I am one episode into the 3rd season of Breaking Bad, the cult-like behavior surrounding the show makes me dread continuing just on principle. I just hate EVERYONE on it, with the exception of Jesse. And Hank, sometimes. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to close my laptop and avoid everybody I know this coming Sunday when the finale airs because good God, it's getting annoying. The show is brilliant, I'll just be glad it's over.
2. On a similar note, I'm totally obsessed with New Girl. Oh, Schmidt and your hair chutney.
3. If you don't watch DailyGrace on YouTube, why are we friends?
4. I haven't run for a week and a half. I don't like it.
5. My birthday is National Pancake Day. Obviously I made pancakes.
6. I wonder if Ted Cruz is still talking? Maybe if he develops edema in his legs he'll need an Obamacare-funded medical procedure. Additionally, I hope he reads Hop on Pop as an indictment on gay marriage.
7. I'm watching Evil Dead - the 2013 remake - today for a project involving a paper proposal for a conference next year. I plan on livetweeting it. Have mercy.
8. My nephew started pre-K. I can't even handle this. I want to yell 'STOP GROWING OLDER' every time I see him.
9. This is difficult.
10. One of the classes I teach is close to noon. I tend to wolf a salad down my throat right before I go in to teach but that's making my stomach hurt during class. Anybody have suggestions?
11. I have a crush on Jason Mantzoukas. That is all.
12. The boyfriend and I are going to the Big E this weekend. As a gluten-free person, I'm worried this will consist of me watching him wolf down deep-fried things with abandon while I gnaw at a protein bar in my purse.
13. I cannot take SVU seriously after they got rid of Stabler. Yes, I know Benson has a much more complex backstory, and I should be appreciative of her presence as a complicated woman on prime time television who is not in her 20s and who is not a twig figure...but still. STABLER.
14. Why did I think this was a good idea?
15. I'm incorporating more difficult yoga classes into my life at the moment. My arms aren't very happy with me.
16. I ended up dyeing my hair dark from a box. Like I told myself I would never do again. But on the plus side, it didn't get so dark that it looks black and it'll grow out rather nicely. So I win.
17. ESPN 30 for 30 comes back and they finally have a women-centric documentary and....it's about Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. I will not stop until they do a 35-0 documentary. It would be compelling with zero mention of Jeff Gillooly.
18. I purchased Revlon by Marchesa jeweled nail art strips, and they are doing what most nail strips do when you attach them on top of already-painted nails - they're peeling like crazy and look terrible. Why did I buy these? Because I am easily hypnotized by glittery gold stuff.
19. I'm spending this Sunday carving pumpkins and watching shitty movies with my best friend while slurping down gallons of pho. It's going to be wonderful and everything good.
20. My brother and I are nearly a week apart in birthdays. He turns 25 next week. I need to process that a bit.
21. On that note, a lot of my friends are turning 30 this year. I'm actually not too freaked out about turning 30; I hear the 30s are when the awkward shit starts to turn into the things that make you awesome.
22. watch this.
23. and this, too.
24. and this last.
25. I just got all pissed that Mumford & Sons are apparently on indefinite hiatus.
26. On the plus side, Lady GaGa's new album drops in less than two months.
27. I have my 10 year high school reunion next weekend. I'm pretty sure I'm either going to have a blast or spend the entire night worried. A friend of mine from high school and I had a major falling out a few years ago and although I'd like to resolve it, I'm not sure if she is because we haven't spoken since. If you're reading this, I'm ready and willing to talk.
28. I have a special anniversary coming up. More on that in a few weeks.
In summary -
I'm in a good place right now. 27 wasn't exactly what I wanted it to be. But I'm ready and willing to make 28 everything it should be.
Here's to birthdays.
And pancakes.
Always pancakes.
ally
Sunday, September 15, 2013
The Tao of Tailgate: A Story of Love, Friends, Family, and a Blue Bus.
How good of a title is that? I should write a book. Seriously. Someone let me write a book.
This post was drafted prior to last night's loss to Maryland. All of these opinions and viewpoints remain accurate.
You may have noticed that so far, our University of Connecticut football team hasn't been doing so well. We lost to a team that we paid to play us and whose name I still don't really know how to pronounce (is it Toe-son, or Tow-son?), and we are probably going to get massacred by a bunch of Terrapins tomorrow night. I've heard a lot of comments from my friends and my Twitter feed about how everyone is going to start selling their tickets because clearly the games aren't going to be fun anymore. If you are one of these people, you are missing the entire point.
Maybe I'm a bit unorthodox in the way I watch football. For me, unless the Giants or the Eagles are on my television*, the game itself is slightly incidental when you think about all the rest of the things that make the practice of attending a football game memorable.
* Yes. I root for both the Philadelphia Eagles and the New York Giants. When they play each other I'm happy no matter who wins. If you have a problem with this, I suggest you take it up with my Dad, who is a Philadelphia native and makes me root for every single Philadelphia team even when they suck. It's fine. Just go with it. Also - HAHAHHAHAHAH REDSKINS.
Growing up in my middle-of-the-state town, I didn't really understand the ritual behind tailgating. Mostly because until I was 18 we didn't have a football stadium in our state that warranted any tailgating, unless you parked above the old garage up on campus to watch UConn football when they were still fighting to become a Division 1 team. I would drive up with my parents and eat hamburgers and not watch a single moment of the game, but rather would play on the blacktop with my friends and lay on the car hood looking at the darkening sky. It was a ritual that I liked but didn't get too involved in. Probably because my school is first and foremost a basketball school. Maybe I'm biased. I'm probably biased.
Additionally, when people I knew did go out to tailgate it wasn't to sporting events - unless they made the trek to the Meadowlands or to Gillette Stadium - but to concerts like the Dave Matthews Band at the Meadows Music Theater. Yes, I know it's called the Dodge now, but to me it's the Meadows. Back then, DMB would play every single summer for a few nights and my friends would traipse out there in their cars and secretly drink in the parking lot before dumping the beer out and rolling around on the lawn seats. The first and only time I went to a DMB tailgating adventure it was with a first date that did not end very well - he was more into the concert than me - and I came home smelling like cheap weed.
So, as you can see, my tailgating experiences weren't the most regular or the most exciting. But things changed. As they always do.
A few years ago, I believe back in February of 2008, I started to participate in a production of Crazy for You at the Warner Theater in Torrington. I made a lot of lifelong friends in this play, and I still try to speak to all of them regularly now. One of the girls in the show turned out to also work at another theater I was going to do musicals at in the fall. She stage-managed a production of Camelot I was in, and asked me if I was interested in tailgating with a group of her friends in the fall. Although I couldn't even stay for the game itself because I had to go to work at my seasonal hours at J.Crew, I decided to come for the tailgating part of a 12PM kickoff for the final home game of the 2008 season, before they went to the Meineke Car Care Bowl.
The tailgate crew started at 8AM, a fact that shocked me initially; who the hell gets up this early to tailgate? But when I met the crew, I instantly understood. These people weren't the drunk/high denizens flopping about to "Satellite", nor the bored families chasing after their kids. These were adults that got up this early because they just wanted to be together and they really, really liked football. It made me shy at first - I am horrendous in groups of people I don't know - but I was immediately embraced, literally, by this crowd of awesome dudes and girls. It was at that point I started to understand the culture of football.
I must mention that my Dad's identity came about in a very funny way at that first tailgate - one of the women came up to me and said, after a beat, "This is going to sound insane, but are you at all related to Geno Auriemma?" "Yes, did Lisa tell you?" I said, not at all mad or embarrassed. "No, you just look so much like him!" she said. "You are a GENIUS", I shouted. Instantly friends. I must also mention I came to the tailgate hoping to meet up with a guy I was interested in. He never showed up. But this story ends happily!
Over the next few years, I tailgated once a year with this group of people. I started to learn their names, their families, their histories with each other. I began to be part of the fabric of the group, and each time I showed up for my yearly go-round they were psyched to see me. I was equally happy to see them; they were becoming my close friends. And yes, I ended up starting to stay for entire games.
Two years ago one of our guys ended up buying a short bus. It's painted Husky blue, covered in Jonathan decals - they just re-did it so the new Jonathan is glaring out from the side - and has an interior wall reserved for tailgater signatures. When I arrived for my annual game that year, which happened to be the 2011 homecoming effort, I spent about five minutes just walking around the bus, yelling "This is the coolest thing EVER."
That bus ended up being a bit more fortuitous than I could have ever anticipated. Because of our new way of transportation the group could tailgate at the field reserved for buses and RVs rather than the regular car-filled Blue Lot. This gave the group much more space to branch out. It also allowed more people to come join our tailgate.
Because more people were able to come, a lot of the sons/daughters of the people I tailgate with were able to hang out with us. I ended up meeting a ton of wonderful guys and girls my age that day, including one particular guy who ended up being pretty wonderful indeed. (I told you this story had a happy ending.)
Since then, aside from some games I had to miss that season because of school, I have been at every single tailgate. It's one of the things I look forward to the most about fall. Well, that, and the sudden need to put pumpkin in everything.
I have traveled to Maryland in that bus, blaring the UConn fight song and scarfing down tortilla chips. I've drank ice cold mimosas at 8:30 in the morning while setting up chairs and fire pits. I've shoved Bud Lights down my pants in order to get them past security. I have played Beer Grab Bag in the freezing cold, wearing two pairs of leggings and a pair of sweatpants and still begging for mercy from the wind (and having people pound on the car door and yell "CHEATING" when I tried to warm up in the car). I've fallen asleep in the autumn breeze. I've sat in snow-covered bleacher seats sucking down hot chocolate and eating pretzels. I've played cornhole and swizzle sticks and catch and tried to figure out how many layers will warm me up without making me sweat. I've laughed and yelled and thrown things and laughed some more.
And in all of these moments, I never can remember who won the games or lost them. I simply remember the moments spent with a group of people who, with every passing year, are becoming more and more like another family.
Tomorrow, I will traipse with my guy and our merry band of misfits to Rentschler Field for the 7:30 kickoff. We will drink, nosh, and commiserate. I'll catch up with my friends I haven't seen since the last game, and see those friends I see nearly every week now. We will probably watch a bad game of football. I will fall asleep on my love's shoulder on the way home, the love I found because I started tailgating. My belly will be full of chili, Angry Orchard, and contentment.
Perhaps that's the love of the game.
ally
This post was drafted prior to last night's loss to Maryland. All of these opinions and viewpoints remain accurate.
You may have noticed that so far, our University of Connecticut football team hasn't been doing so well. We lost to a team that we paid to play us and whose name I still don't really know how to pronounce (is it Toe-son, or Tow-son?), and we are probably going to get massacred by a bunch of Terrapins tomorrow night. I've heard a lot of comments from my friends and my Twitter feed about how everyone is going to start selling their tickets because clearly the games aren't going to be fun anymore. If you are one of these people, you are missing the entire point.
Maybe I'm a bit unorthodox in the way I watch football. For me, unless the Giants or the Eagles are on my television*, the game itself is slightly incidental when you think about all the rest of the things that make the practice of attending a football game memorable.
* Yes. I root for both the Philadelphia Eagles and the New York Giants. When they play each other I'm happy no matter who wins. If you have a problem with this, I suggest you take it up with my Dad, who is a Philadelphia native and makes me root for every single Philadelphia team even when they suck. It's fine. Just go with it. Also - HAHAHHAHAHAH REDSKINS.
Growing up in my middle-of-the-state town, I didn't really understand the ritual behind tailgating. Mostly because until I was 18 we didn't have a football stadium in our state that warranted any tailgating, unless you parked above the old garage up on campus to watch UConn football when they were still fighting to become a Division 1 team. I would drive up with my parents and eat hamburgers and not watch a single moment of the game, but rather would play on the blacktop with my friends and lay on the car hood looking at the darkening sky. It was a ritual that I liked but didn't get too involved in. Probably because my school is first and foremost a basketball school. Maybe I'm biased. I'm probably biased.
Additionally, when people I knew did go out to tailgate it wasn't to sporting events - unless they made the trek to the Meadowlands or to Gillette Stadium - but to concerts like the Dave Matthews Band at the Meadows Music Theater. Yes, I know it's called the Dodge now, but to me it's the Meadows. Back then, DMB would play every single summer for a few nights and my friends would traipse out there in their cars and secretly drink in the parking lot before dumping the beer out and rolling around on the lawn seats. The first and only time I went to a DMB tailgating adventure it was with a first date that did not end very well - he was more into the concert than me - and I came home smelling like cheap weed.
So, as you can see, my tailgating experiences weren't the most regular or the most exciting. But things changed. As they always do.
A few years ago, I believe back in February of 2008, I started to participate in a production of Crazy for You at the Warner Theater in Torrington. I made a lot of lifelong friends in this play, and I still try to speak to all of them regularly now. One of the girls in the show turned out to also work at another theater I was going to do musicals at in the fall. She stage-managed a production of Camelot I was in, and asked me if I was interested in tailgating with a group of her friends in the fall. Although I couldn't even stay for the game itself because I had to go to work at my seasonal hours at J.Crew, I decided to come for the tailgating part of a 12PM kickoff for the final home game of the 2008 season, before they went to the Meineke Car Care Bowl.
The tailgate crew started at 8AM, a fact that shocked me initially; who the hell gets up this early to tailgate? But when I met the crew, I instantly understood. These people weren't the drunk/high denizens flopping about to "Satellite", nor the bored families chasing after their kids. These were adults that got up this early because they just wanted to be together and they really, really liked football. It made me shy at first - I am horrendous in groups of people I don't know - but I was immediately embraced, literally, by this crowd of awesome dudes and girls. It was at that point I started to understand the culture of football.
I must mention that my Dad's identity came about in a very funny way at that first tailgate - one of the women came up to me and said, after a beat, "This is going to sound insane, but are you at all related to Geno Auriemma?" "Yes, did Lisa tell you?" I said, not at all mad or embarrassed. "No, you just look so much like him!" she said. "You are a GENIUS", I shouted. Instantly friends. I must also mention I came to the tailgate hoping to meet up with a guy I was interested in. He never showed up. But this story ends happily!
Over the next few years, I tailgated once a year with this group of people. I started to learn their names, their families, their histories with each other. I began to be part of the fabric of the group, and each time I showed up for my yearly go-round they were psyched to see me. I was equally happy to see them; they were becoming my close friends. And yes, I ended up starting to stay for entire games.
Two years ago one of our guys ended up buying a short bus. It's painted Husky blue, covered in Jonathan decals - they just re-did it so the new Jonathan is glaring out from the side - and has an interior wall reserved for tailgater signatures. When I arrived for my annual game that year, which happened to be the 2011 homecoming effort, I spent about five minutes just walking around the bus, yelling "This is the coolest thing EVER."
That bus ended up being a bit more fortuitous than I could have ever anticipated. Because of our new way of transportation the group could tailgate at the field reserved for buses and RVs rather than the regular car-filled Blue Lot. This gave the group much more space to branch out. It also allowed more people to come join our tailgate.
Because more people were able to come, a lot of the sons/daughters of the people I tailgate with were able to hang out with us. I ended up meeting a ton of wonderful guys and girls my age that day, including one particular guy who ended up being pretty wonderful indeed. (I told you this story had a happy ending.)
Since then, aside from some games I had to miss that season because of school, I have been at every single tailgate. It's one of the things I look forward to the most about fall. Well, that, and the sudden need to put pumpkin in everything.
I have traveled to Maryland in that bus, blaring the UConn fight song and scarfing down tortilla chips. I've drank ice cold mimosas at 8:30 in the morning while setting up chairs and fire pits. I've shoved Bud Lights down my pants in order to get them past security. I have played Beer Grab Bag in the freezing cold, wearing two pairs of leggings and a pair of sweatpants and still begging for mercy from the wind (and having people pound on the car door and yell "CHEATING" when I tried to warm up in the car). I've fallen asleep in the autumn breeze. I've sat in snow-covered bleacher seats sucking down hot chocolate and eating pretzels. I've played cornhole and swizzle sticks and catch and tried to figure out how many layers will warm me up without making me sweat. I've laughed and yelled and thrown things and laughed some more.
And in all of these moments, I never can remember who won the games or lost them. I simply remember the moments spent with a group of people who, with every passing year, are becoming more and more like another family.
Tomorrow, I will traipse with my guy and our merry band of misfits to Rentschler Field for the 7:30 kickoff. We will drink, nosh, and commiserate. I'll catch up with my friends I haven't seen since the last game, and see those friends I see nearly every week now. We will probably watch a bad game of football. I will fall asleep on my love's shoulder on the way home, the love I found because I started tailgating. My belly will be full of chili, Angry Orchard, and contentment.
Perhaps that's the love of the game.
ally
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