The Golden Coin of No

Today I went to yoga class for the second time. I am childishly proud of this for some reason. It's not the forty minutes on the elliptical machine I was doing all summer. Not the two days of circuit training that made my legs shaky and tightened up my flabby chicken wings. I fell off the proverbially exercise wagon in September and just haven't been able to, or perhaps more truthfully, haven't wanted to climb back on. I'm not exactly living out my days in a fog of self-loathing either. I really do feel crappy about my lack of ambition, just not crappy enough to start working out aggressively again.

I am well aware that I need to get back on good terms with cardio, but for some reason I'm courting yoga instead. I think maybe it has to do with something my instructor said today. She read a passage about the word no. We're no strangers to no. We hear it constantly, especially if we have toddlers. We hear it at work, at home, at the bank, on the internet. No, there's no money for Hawaii this year (or next year), no you really can't fit successfully into those jeans even though you actually got them zipped up, no, aparently we aren't going to [insert event here] because you were too lazy to get the tickets before they sold out.

Training a puppy has been a real exercise in the word no. What starts off in the morning as gentle but firm admonishments blossom into full-blown shrieks by nightfall. No! (stop barking), No! (stop chewing), No! (don't you dare pee on that rug again). We probably utter the word no a hundred times a day.

Gloria Steinem taught me that no is a powerful word. And I do sometimes enjoy using it more than I should. No, I won't chair your event. No, I won't relinquish the remote control so start liking Mad Men or take a hike. No, I won't feel bad about my smallish house, my 38 year old face, my love of bacon. No, when used properly, is a word of pure empowerment. And that was the general point my yoga teacher made today. The passage she read said that we should value the No's of our daughters over the compliant yeses. That no is often our first word and should be treated with respect. The writer entreats us to hold no on our tongues like a golden coin.

Apparently it's possible to honor and love yourself by saying no. But my question is this: When does no cross the invisible line from empowerment to selfishness? How do I reconcile myself to saying no when I know that I am disappointing someone? Someone I love? Someone in need? Someone who moonlights as a vampire and wants every last drop of my time? Someone who's in a miserable place that could possibly be helped by a donation of my moments. When does saying no kill a relationship or make it stronger?

I've been reading Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now. It seemed necessary as I had been spending equal portions of time either grieving my memories of being at home with my kids, or wringing my hands about how going back to work is going to mess up this good thing I've got. Between the past and the future I was wasting a whole lotta NOW. And maybe, if I wanted to go all Oprah on you (as my lovely Fish Head friend says), I could look at yoga in terms of now. Every second I spent on the elliptical was spent in a suspended state of future. My butt's going to be tighter. My lungs are going to be stronger. My chin's going to be thinner. And while living in the future of a better me is infinitely healthier than flogging myself over my post-baby mom body, I think that maybe I choose yoga because it's kind to me today. When I sat on my new turquoise yoga mat yesterday the instructor said, "Yoga is the practice of loving yourself" and I really liked that. It's a little like some good advice I once heard about love: Love in the past is a memory. Love in the future is a fantasy. The only way to truly experience love is in the now. In this moment. So maybe it's not really about no, maybe it's more about now.

I wasn't grouchy when I woke up this morning. Even though Dash promised he'd let me sleep in the night before. Of course he reneged in true six year-old fashion the next morning. The Lego Indiana Jones PS2 game was harder today and could I please help him figure out how to swing across the snake pit? Daddy got up with him (nice Daddy) and I lay there awhile realizng the double bed T and I have shared for 14+ years has got to go. I don't ever stretch out in my sleep anymore. Our sleep ritual is a lot less like brain/body rejuvination and a lot more like a synchronized swimming routine. Is it any wonder I'm cranky? I feel like Esther Williams without the rubber daisy swim cap. T dislocated his shoulder in a high school soccer accident and I have a very deep and personal aversion to sleeping face to face so we have settled into a spoon routine. When one is ready to change positions they bump the other and that's our nocturnal cue to roll over. I'm amazed that either one of us is half as pleasant to be around as we are given the crappy sleep we both get.

Or maybe it has nothing to do with sleep at all. Maybe it has more to do with the fact that strong coffee and a persistent kid repeating, "Mommy, mommy, mommy!" every thirty seconds is a recipe for a pissy mood. If the irritating kid is the recipe for a crap mood, then Kava must be the antidote. T took one look at the veins bulging in my forehead and put the kettle on. "Will Kava make him stop annoying me?" I demanded. "No, but it will make it so you really don't care that he's annoying." Good enough. The kids are still whining away in the other room trying to work out the elusive intricacies of Lego Indiana Jones, but T was right. I can't seem to muster up the irritation to care. I remember once reading an article by the wise Erma Bombeck in which she painted a charming picture of herself wearing a Valium necklace. In the midst of familial chaos she would sit, serenely licking away at her "candy necklace". I'm pretty sure I won't be able to find (or be able to pay for) such a precious piece of jewelry, but that's okay. I've got a steaming cup of Kava and for now that's close enough.

Fall is here, ring the bell
Back to school, hear the yell...

It is finally, finally fall. Even though it's the end of October and nearly Halloween. This is alternately my most and least favorite time of year. Every year at my house Fall is signaled by the cataclysmic thud of walnuts falling on our tin roof gazebo (often dropped by industrious squirrels). When the walnuts begin to drop I know it's time to hunker down and begin the process of readying myself for winter. I want to bake bread and and eat soup and put an environmentally-friendly fire log in the fireplace. I want to wear sweaters and chenille socks and sleep in flannel pajamas. But this is California and the weather is getting weirder and weirder. Don't believe in global warming? Then someone explain to me why this time ten years ago I was bundling up my fairy princess baby in fleece hats for our trip to the pumpkin patch and yesterday we went in t-shirts and sweated the whole time. October in Sonoma County is a frustrating leap from sun to shade, and then back again.

Bella B had a soccer game yesterday and I couldn't get comfortable! Too chilly in the shade but when I stood in the sun I felt like a skewered hot dog. The sun feels closer and I resign myself to sweaty, shivery discomfort for essentially the entire month of October. The good news is that even as I moan and groan the bells of fall begin to chime a little louder. When the dining room window is open I can hear the crackly shells of dead leaves skitter down the street and I look forward to next weekend. Halloween! Too much candy, clammy costumes made of non-breathable fabric, and then the trick-or-treating. It doesn't seem to matter how hot the day was, by Halloween night the weather has changed and it's always freezing.


We do have one fall tradition that I love enough to mention. Every year since Bella B was six my rock star husband (still working on his pseudonym) sits on the edge of her bed on the eve of her first day of school and sings the "back to school" song. She watches solemnly as he strums and I stand just behind, sniffling over the fact that my baby is another year older. That, more than anything, signals to me that it's fall. We may still be hitting the pool and slathering on the sunscreen but I know change is in the air and I wait for it, one abnormally warm day sliding into the next, until 80 degree weather is a distant memory and I can-finally!-feel in sync with the seasons again. Maybe that's the problem with starting school in August. We want it to be fall. But it's not! It's really just the peak of summer. So sad we're so distanced from our seasons. Anyone can see just how much by visiting Joann's crafts which is, at this very moment, stocking Christmas decorations.

It makes me grouchy, but I know we're getting close. The sun is hot on my shoulders as I write this and it's only a matter of days before I find myself dressed in chenille socks, wrestling a pot roast into my crock pot. That crisp fall day is just around the corner. I can hear it through my window and those skittering leaves never lie.