Choosing Joy – On Retreat – 1/13/07

Can we choose joy? I believe we not only have to want it, but must also expect it, and deem ourselves worthy of joy. And I often think to myself, there are moments that have been complete joy.

When my stepdaughter gives me a hug and I am the adult, I should have been reaching out to her. But there is joy in that she chose to hug me, not because it was what she had always done. When my middle stepdaughter opens a letter from the foreign exchange program and asks, did you have this sent to me? When I hand my oldest stepdaughter an article about a female improve trio appearing at the playhouse proving that she too can feel joy when someone else recognizes her hopes and dreams and doesn’t call her dreams silly or a waste of her talents. When during Davis’ basketball game, his stepsisters and visiting cousins, all girls, start a cheer for him when he comes in off the bench – D-A-V-I-S and he rises to the occasion fouling the biggest kid on the other team only to turnaround on the next play and toss in a layup..

And on Christmas day, when my new husband, who swore he didn’t know what to buy for me, really believed me and bought me a dartboard, because, well, I wanted a dart board. He was under the impression I was an expert dart thrower, but I confessed that I really just wanted to throw darts because its a lot like life. No matter the supposed target, I am always off, but I always land exactly where I aimed.

There is joy inside of me today. Perhaps it is this joy that has made it difficult to write about what been referred to as the bigger stuff. But this was also a break, a time to welcome joy into my life and remember that I wrote the big stuff, I told the truth, I wrote the ugly words about death and cancer and beautiful words about Oregon and my son and the poignant ones about love that was lost and the love reclaimed.

I skipped a leadership meeting last night, where many women were discerning their next move with their practice. I wondered later if I would regret this move. But I believe I already know my calling at least in this moment. There is no greater proof than this: My two stepdaughters have both been participants in the young women’s classes. The youngest wrote a lot of rhymes, but always about her mother. She writes likes she is on a deserted island with nothing else to do. The middle one had shared many stories of her mother’s death in her writing and she will again someday consider the leadership academy. The oldest asked me to read/help edit all six of her college essays and writing prompts. She wants to start her own laugh Olympics sketch comedy event because she found healing in laughter and knew others would as well. And even Davis, who finds healing in his art because he cant sit long enough to look up how to spell a word, says the only reason he can’t attend summer writing camp is because our community is called Women writing for a change, not women and boys. But he will be here someday too. And just recently, Mark and I co-wrote our first piece together for a newsletter for Cancer Family Care, We wrote about things we would have done differently during the final days and months with our respective deceased spouses concluding no doctor or human will ever be equipped to know when to stop the clock stop, but if we continue to share our experiences, other may have the opportunity to be more forthright in their decisions about their loved ones.

My intentions this weekend were many pronged including hesitancy in writing more in the second phase of about me, per my former pastors previous remarks. But, on my drive down here, I found myself chuckling about the story mark and I said we would write one day, about blending families and how hard it is to have sex in a household such as ours, with kids up at all hours and neighbors always peeking in or calling. When I woke Saturday morning, I wrote four pages on this particular theme.

And in my new year’s resolution, with so much agony in our world, with war, poverty and sickness, with our family reeling from a sister who drinks too much and can not possibly see joy in her life right now, with drugs and guns and the killing of little children, I said I would choose the light each day. That I would lead in this way, and that I may not always write about light and joy, but I would live a life of light, to constantly seek and reflect the joy that is in each one of us.

So as I write this, I see now that within the context of our family’s fusion I have created my own writing circle and developed a practicum that may not always be practical or applicable to the outside world. We don’t always light the candle or open the circle with poem, but we have created a safe space for the children and for ourselves, when they are hurting, when we are hurting. We have allowed for plenty of light in lives that could have been overshadowed by anger and grief. We have no plans now or in the future to add new members to our brood, but we are giving birth to joy.

Confessions from a Basement Yogi
Annette J. Wick
January 5, 2007

It comes as no surprise that my practice of yoga began in my basement. The basement played a primary role in much of my upbringing. I learned the lyrics to Jay Geil’s Centerfold and Bruce Springstein’s ThunderRoad in the basement of my parent’s home while sitting at an old kitchen table covered by the gold and white checkered tablecloth. In college, our rental home’s only shower was located in the basement. In my first starter home, the pool table took prominence. And now, as I have matured, not aged, in the basement of my current, I began the practice of yoga surrounded by prickly berber carpeting, greystone grey walls and a basket of laundry waiting in the tangerine pink laundry room nearby.

I admit to early ignorance about the practice of yoga. Instead, I confess to finding a bargain bin with Rodney Yee’s gentle pose and sculpted forearms staring up at me in the middle of the grocery aisle between the Cookies and Cereal aisles. The latter being comfort foods for me, during long winter nights after my husband has passed away.

Physically, I had been running five or six miles a week and had found a new workout routine through a local tennis club. Exercise was not new to me, but body work was. I had been seeing a therapist who was also a rolfer. The sheer force of the emotions she unleashed during a deep-tissue massage was in some ways overwhelming. Why not try yoga? I asked myself after wandering to the middle of the Snack aisle. I raced back to the bin, hoping no one else had been given this divine intervention, at least not within the last ten minutes.

Rodney and I began in the basement, after my son left for school in the morning. I loved the dark damp nature of the basement and needed it at the time. I would turn off all the lights and literally let myself fall into the black blank space unsure of what emotions would follow me there, unsure of what emotions would follow me back out.

Soon enough I realized the practice of yoga was helping to release tension in my elbow from typing out my memoir I’ll Be in the Car and pain in my hip from trying to live too fast and speed up my my grief. I found a place where I time crawled and so did I. When my session with Rodney was over, I would shudder with tears and recall my days spent in the basement of my parents house, singing ThunderRoad, the loneliness of Bruce’s voice breaking into my yoga silence. The pain of losing my husband would drain out of my fingertips. Amazingly, I would feel energized and march on through my day.

The months and years alternately crawled and flew. I continued to practice yoga in my basement only. I was self-conscious about my postures, but not really interested in moving my practice to any new levels. Every aspect in my life as a single mother was already new, including how to throw a fastball with my son. There was little sense in adding to the mix.

Then, I remarried. My oldest step-daughter moved into the basement bedroom and occupied the basement bath. The area where I used to have an open space was now occupied by an elliptical machine and a foosball table, neither of which inspired me to become a better person. The view to the small TV was blocked by an old leather recliner. The media room next to my formerly open space contained a large screen TV, a concession to my new husband, and an L-shaped leather pit group. Though the lighting remained the same, and the color of bluish walls remained, my ability to find peace was stifled by the largeness of the TV and couch. Life felt overwhelming when trying to practice in either of these rooms.

In a 3700 square foot home, there was no where to practice in peace. This sounds small, but this realization forced me to pop out of bed one morning and walk into the new yoga studio, yogehOMe, 1.52 miles or four minutes from my home for Traditional Vinyasa. While still our honeymoon phase, my new husband must have certainly expected otherwise on this rainy Saturday morning. But to be bold, one must act quickly.

In the yoga studio, a gentle green graced the walls, a crème painting of budda gave me a focal point for (my drinsi). Candles set the mood and the enclosed space allowed me to see past the piles of laundry. I joined in the Traditional Vinyasa class and at the end, signed on for a five-class pass and decided to give my practice of yoga a dose of intentionality. With lackluster commitment, I tended to my practice every so often.

But the weeks went by and the notion of feeling present in the moment in a house of teenagers and ten year olds boy was not going to happen because everything is an emergency with teenagers and ten year old boys will not stop to look where they are going and simply run you over.

Perhaps it was the purchase of a mat and a ten visit pass that cause me to resign myself to the fact that I would have to leave my house to find peace. Or maybe it was just plain envy over the fact that my husband was now practicing with Rodney, as I had done, so many months ago that was the final shot of reality.

I have since made my way around the mat, trying Hot Yoga, Gentle Yoga and Anusara Inspired. With sweat still streaming out of my pores, I came out of shivasina the after Hot Yoga the other morning. My senses had awakened in a place that felt familiar but it did not feel like the studio. I struggled for moment to ground myself in the dimly lit room. The music had stopped, but the calm raspy voice of the instructor harkened me back to my teenage years and the rhythms pulsing on the stereo. I had found a new space to call my basement.