Poopy Mango Babywipes and the First Day of Christmas

Winter this year seems so long that I no longer remember whether or not Christmas happened.  And yet, how could I have forgotten?  Christmas this year was an epic event.  The Boatman and I and the Big Black Dog drove all the way to Ontario, and back. 
 
But first we had to have a fake Christmas Eve and Christmas with the Boatman’s family.  Fake Christmas Eve dinner was on the 21^st of December at the restaurant the Bicycle Thief.  Our handsome waiter sat me and the Boatman and his siblings down at a booth.  The waiter  looked familiar.  Apparently, so did I.
 
“I think I remember you from Montreal,” he said.
 
“Oh really,” I said.
 
“Yes, we went to a couple of the same parties.”

“Oh really,” I said again.  Being a pretty cheap drunk back in the day, all those parties were a blur of vodka-based drinks, inviting people to free private classes, some mouth-to-mouth contact, and extensive oversharing.  I had another look at our waiter and began to remember.  Dark, almost black hair.  Piecing light blue eyes.  Yes, I could remember.  His name was Pavel and I’d had a huge crush on him.  I think I’d tried to find him on Facebook and pined after his silhouetted profile for two and a half days before deciding that I had absolutely no chance. 

The Boatman and I ordered elaborately titled martinis.  We had over 3000 km of driving and 4 Christmas dinners ahead of us.  This was no time for restraint.  Pavel returned with our drinks.

“Now I remember the party we met at.  Mae West’s birthday.  You know Mae, from the BC crowd.  You did all these contact improv moves.”  (Mae West's name has been generously changed for her privacy)

“What’s contact improv?” asked the Boatman.  Until that moment, I’d forgotten, but now I recalled.  Since taking a first-year dance elective called “Body and the Imagination,” I’d been obsessed with contact improv and insisted that people join me in my passion at every drunken experience during my undergrad.  My move of choice involved getting some guy (or several) to hold me by the waist and lift me up as I jumped and reached for the ceiling, spreading my arms and legs like a kid making a snow angel.  When it came to selecting contact improv partners, I was relentless, uninhibited, and perhaps not all that discriminative either. 

“That sounds like fun,” said the Boatman. “People must have really liked you.”

“I guess,” I said.
 
With a little more digging, remnants of Mae West’s birth came to me.   I had just completed 108 sun salutations for a fundraiser at Darby’s yoga studio.  Before arriving at the party I’d consumed beer and a burrito with some friends.  After so many sun salutations, the beer had gone straight to my head.  Mae’s party had a Valley Girl theme, whatever that means.  I had no costume, but tried to compensate with my exuberance and contact improv moves. 

At the Bicycle Thief, Pavel came back and asked how our martinis were. The Boatman and I agreed that the martinis were excellent.  Pavel was a very attentive waiter.  Attentive and talkative.

“So what brought you to Halifax?” he asked.
 
“This guy right here,” I said, pointing to the Boatman.

“Oh really? Me too. I’m here for a girl.  And how long have you been together?” he asked, as though he was expecting me to answer not very long.

Just over a year and a half,” I said, relieved my answer was not more pathetic. 

“Oh wow.”  He seemed impressed. 

The Boatman’s parents arrived and the Boatman’s mother ordered a bottle of white wine for she and I to share.  Everyone ordered delicious and sophisticated dishes.  Pavel had something to say about each and every one of them.  I realized that besides moving to Halifax for a love interest, we didn’t have very much in common.   My ability to comment elaborately on any sort of menu item is extremely limited. I told the Boatman that now I remembered making out with three people at that party.  The first was a nineteen-year-old girl.  At the time, I'd been twenty-four.  We were taking a pee break from the contact improv.  Girls like to pee together.  The girl was pretty and French, and her name was Valérie.  My mother’s name is Valerie too, but Valerie in English. 

While she was washing her hands, Valérie told me that she was bisexual.  I must have already peed and washed my hands. 

“Well, that’s very interesting,” I said. I can’t remember if we were speaking French or English.  Probably English.  When I’m drunk, I like to talk really fast and this is much easier in English.  “Would you like to kiss me?” I asked.  We embraced and made out for a good ten seconds.  It was fun.  “Wow,” I said.  “I’ve never done that before.”
 
“I don’t believe you,” she said.  But it was the truth.
 
We left the bathroom and I followed her around for a little while to see if she wanted to cuddle, but she seemed busy with her nineteen-year old friends.  Oh well. You have to try these things out when you’re young.  I left Valérie and wandered around the party looking for some other excitement.
 
Some guy was leaving and so I kissed him good-bye.
 
Then I saw that Pavel and his friend were leaving. 

“Oh you’re leaving,” I exclaimed. 

“Yah, we’ve gotta go,” said Pavel.
 
“Can we make out first?” I asked.  Only Pavel’s friend said yes.  So I made out with Pavel’s friend in front of Pavel and then they both left.
 
That night I slept over at the party on the couch alone. I think the best way for me to conclude this story is with the pictures of me and the Big Black Dog naked in the shower.  It was the night after our fake Christmas Day with the Boatman’s family, and before we would leave to drive to Ontario in the morning. All day all I could think was, “There’s not going to be time.”  On Fake Christmas morning, I unwrapped more presents than I’d seen since I believed in Santa Claus, and worried about the hundreds of things we had to do before leaving at the asscrack of dawn the next morning.   One of them was washing the Big Black Dog and his poopy anus. The week before, he’d alternated diarrhea with constipation and now he smelled terrible.  The 18-hour drive would have been torture.  At ten o’clock that night I tried spraying him with some no-rinse pet shampoo concoction.  I wiped his anus with baby wipes. 

The Boatman walked into the bedroom and said, “it smells like poopy mango baby wipes.”  My efforts hadn’t worked.  There wasn’t any time, but I dragged him into the shower anyways and now you can see us both naked. 

The End.

Eliot takes bath before his long journey.

Eliot wants out.

Life is frustrating and unfair.

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Sacred Fire
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Snow Day

My career as a kept woman seems like a lifetime ago. 
 


This is the dress I became a kept woman in

When I first thought of the the word “miscarriage” as “missed the carriage,” and pictured the baby on its way out and into one of those fancy prams before it fell on the sidewalk, I thought that I was very clever.

Last Tuesday, it started to snow in the middle of the night.  I woke up at 4 something to do my yoga practice and I didn’t notice anything on the ground.  While I was practicing, I still didn’t notice any snow falling down.  

At 6:35, I noticed a message on my phone from my co-worker.  I was delighted surprised to learn that the school board had cancelled school and we had the whole day off. 

What an excellent opportunity to catch up on my writing and translation studies.  Instead I killed the day napping, sneezing, and masturbating on the internet.  I had a mediocre cold, due to the fact that the children I work with have a great deal of snot inside of them.  They sneeze a lot, and as Eco-Yogini accurately points out in this wonderful Green Phone Booth Post about pre-schoolers and their parents, it is unrealistic for young children to figure out how to sneeze into their elbows.  They have only had elbows and sneezes for a limited amount of time.  Our expectations are too high. 
 
Anyways, the most interesting part of my Snow Day was possibly my nap.  It was the deepest nap in the world, the kind that you stir from only briefly and think, “How do I ever manage to be awake?”  I thought that I would sleep forever.  Towards the end, I remembered dreaming that I was masturbating with a plastic pink coat hanger.  When it occurred to me during my dream that I might try to get on with my day and do something else, I had the distinct thought, “But how will I ever manage to do anything else?”  In case you are wondering, my technique did not involve the hanger’s pointy end, or any sort of penetration.  Still, when I told the Boatman about my afternoon, he invented a new word in honour of the coat hanger experience: "Masturbortion."

And my great big nap he called, “Napsturbation.” 
 

Pink Plastic Coat Hanger

The night before the snow day, I dreamed I miscarried a delicate pink baby fetus.  It was in the shape of a perfect miniature baby which I’m pretty sure doesn’t  happen when you actually miscarry.  Then the contours of the pink baby crumbled like thin frail pieces of pink plastic that revealed the baby’s hollow centre.  A little plasticky spine had also be miscarried/urinated out, but the spine was separate from the rest of the baby.  It wasn’t on the inside.  I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works either.  The outside of the baby disintegrated entirely, and I was sad because then the only proof of my miscarriage that I could show the Boatman was the unconvincing plasticky spine which resembled a child’s toy.  (Or in the Montessori world, a child’s work material...)  No one would ever believe there’d been a baby inside of me.  In any case, I awoke before I could show the Boatman our broken, unborn child. 



Pink Plastic Fetus.  This one is all in one piece.  The one from my dream was not

I told him about it and he wasn’t that disappointed.  He is still luxuriating in his newly invented words.

This morning I woke up and recalled no dreams.  And I’m pretty sure I’m not pregnant.  

The End.





A pink baby carriage, not to be missed.
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Locks and Keys

When I was growing up, my mother used to lose her keys constantly.  She would cry and say, “I’m such an idiot.”  My father was never very sympathetic about it.  One night, when I was around seven years old, my mother had a new gig directing a choir in town that was thirty minutes away from our house.  After dinner, she was getting ready to leave, but she could not find her keys.
 

"Drink me" plus keys

“I’m such a stupid idiot,” she said.

“You have to learn to put them back in one place,” my father said.

“Please can I borrow your keys?” she begged him.

“No,” he said.  “You have to learn to keep them in one place.” 

My mother search the house some more.  Soon she was frantic, pulling out drawers and sliding books and other objects off of tables.

“Please!” she said to my father.  “I’m going to be late.”

“You have to learn to keep them in one place.”

“My mother started crying.  In my family, the women, they don’t cry softly.  They wail.  And the wailing is contagious. Once my mother started wailing, my sister would join in.  That night, my mother and my sister wailed on one side of the living room while my dad stood across from them, shaking his head.  I sat a bit off to the side.  I did not contract the wailing until later in life. That evening, I did not wail because I did not want my dad to think I was a stupid idiot.  Instead I clenched my jaw and bit my lip and scrunched up my face.  My mother and my sister were short and tiny, tinier than me even though I was the youngest.  They made up one team.  The Tiny Wailers.  My dad was the other team, the Big Tall Mean Man.  I was too large and too tall to be part of the Tiny Wailers’ Team.  But I wasn’t quite big enough to be part of the Big Tall Mean Man team.  Plus I didn’t think that my dad was that mean.  Not always. 

A couple of weeks ago, I started working at a Montessori school.  I speak French to the three to six year old children while they take activities off of wooden shelve and “do their work.”  One of their jobs is called “Locks and Keys.”  There are three small padlocks and three small keys of three different sizes.  All the locks are closed when the children take them out.  The children have to match the keys with the locks and unlock them.  Then they can link the locks and the keys in the chain and then unlock them again.  They can do this for as long as they want.  They have to be careful not to drop the keys on the floor.  When they are done, they have to put the locks back where they found them.  In one place.


Locks and Keys, for the Montessori Children

 Next to the three to six year old class, the toddlers take things off of shelves and they do their work.  Most of them are less than two years old.  They are terrible at putting things back in one place.  And they are too small to fit tiny keys into tiny locks.  It would be a choking hazard.  My first day on the job, the toddler teacher had a car problem, so I got to hang out with the almost two-year-olds.  They were very upset that their mothers were not there.  One of them cried so hard he threw up.

“Mama, Mama,” he wailed all morning.  Just like in my family, the wailing was contagious.  Once one child started, another joined in.  Soon there were five almost-two-year olds wailing at the top of their lungs.  I was not Mama and so there was nothing I could do.  There was wailing all morning.  At lunch time, my co-worker gave me the keys to her car where she’d forgotten her tea.  Now her head was pounding from the wailing and the caffeine withdrawal.  But the tea could not cure the Mommy Withdrawal.  Except for naptime, the children continued to scream and cry and wail all day long.

At 5 PM, I ran out the door to catch my bus.  I would have to re-evaluate the effectiveness of the withdrawal method. There was no way I could manage a two-year-old person for an entire year.  A couple of stops later, I saw that my co-worker had left a message on my phone.  I still had the keys to her car.  They were in my pocket.  I walked back and another co-worker drove me home.  As the days go by, I am growing to really like my co-workers. 

But that night I fell asleep to sound of children wailing.  And it has been a bad couple of weeks for keys.  I can’t find one of the keys to the yoga studio that I’m not teaching at much anymore.  I have the key to the door at the bottom of the stairs, but the not the top.  Or vice versa. 

Part two and a half of the bad keys phase:  On Tuesday at 6:50 a.m., I radiated through the house getting ready to leave for work.  This jobs entails waking up around 4:15 for a 4:40ish start to yoga practice.  I leave the house around seven o’clock.  As fate would have it, I don't find it that difficult.  It seems that I was made to wake up early.  Although by Friday, the truck of fatigue starts to hit me, most mornings I am obnoxiously cheerful. The Boatman often makes fun of me as he drools on his pillow.

“Bye babe, I love you,” I yelled on Tuesday morning as I grabbed my keys.  “I love you!” I repeated.

“Bye, love you” he mumbled. 

At 11:30, we took the children outside for playtime.  That’s when I usually peak at my cell phone for the time and for text messages.   Four missed calls from the Boatman.  “Did I have his keys?” he’d asked.  He’d looked everywhere.  His dad had to drive him to work.  I looked in my pocket.  I had two sets of keys.

Every time something happens with my keys, I remember that night in the living room.  My mother and my sister wailing on one side and my father on the other.  In the end, my father relented and lent my mother her keys.  But first he tied them to a frying pan with a piece of string. 

I immediately called the Boatman’s keys, as the bigger kids slid down the hills and the little kids wailed at my feet, calling for their mothers.

“I’m so sorry babe,” I said to his voice mail.  “I’ll pick you up from work.”  Probably he would never talk to me again.

I texted him with profuse apologies and the promise to pick him up for work.

It’s okay, babe, he wrote back.  I can get a ride home. 

And that was all.  No frying pans.  No wailing. And when you pick the children up and point at the sky where the moon is supposed to be, sometimes they stop screaming.  

The End.

This post was supposed to have an Alice in Wonderland reference, but it got cut.  I love Alice in Wonderland. When Alice in Wonderland gets to the bottom of the rabbit hole, she finds herself in a curious corridor full of locked doors.  She wants to go through a tiny door behind a curtain that leads to a beautiful garden.  On a glass table in the curious hallway, she finds a key. The key opens the tiny door to the garden, but Alice is too big to fit through.  She closes the door and goes back to the table where but the door is so tiny that she cannot fit through.  She is way too big.  Back at the glass table she finds a bottle labelled “Drink me.”  Maybe she was thinking, “What the hell, it’s wonderland.” In any case, whatever was in the bottle made her shrink so that she could fit through the door to the garden.  Too bad she’d left the key on the glass table and the door was locked.  Now she was back where she started, but smaller.  So she starts to cry a little before seeing a cake that says “EAT ME” and eating it.  Then she grows to nine feet tall and she can reach the key again, but the door is nine feet below.  So she starts to cry a whole bunch and her tears make an ocean that all of the animals swim in.  I thought that this was interesting.  Being the wrong size to fit through the door and/or not being able to find your keys. Plus eating and drinking things to solve your problems.  I like that part. Interesting.  Curious.  

End of abridged section.



Alice looks at door behind curtain.
 
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The Boatman and the Maxi Pad

I haven’t worn a Maxi Pad in over a decade.  Almost a decade and a half.  I hate Maxi Pads.  They make you feel like you’re wearing a diaper.  You walk around positive that the whole world can see the little bulge between your crotch, and the sweat that seeps out on either side of your underwear, and that they can smell the smell that comes from… 

When I was 12 years old, I competed in a provincial swim meet in Brantford, Ontario.  The morning before we left, I looked at the brown streaky patterns on my underwear and figured I had more extensive skid marks than usual.  I used to get so nervous before swim meets.  I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep at night and when I finally did, I’d dream that I was late for my race, and I’d lost my goggles and when I finally dove in after everyone else I’d forget what stroke I was supposed to be doing and I’d put my feet on the bottom and get disqualified.  Once, not in a dream, right before my race, I was standing behind the blocks and I puked gobs of orange juice into my hand.  I walked to the garbage, flung the orange gobs off of my hands, and then squatted down at the side of the pool to rinse them off in the water. The whistle blew and I stood on the blocks. I can't remember if I came in first or second, but I did win some sort of medal.

The morning before provincials, I figured that my nerves were just coming out the other end.   I threw out my underwear, got dressed, walked to the swimming pool that was down the street from me, and hopped on the bus to Brantford.  We stopped at the Tim Horton's/Wendy's rest station along the 401, Then I went to the bathroom and I discovered that the streaks had multiplied, and transformed into a brighter shade of red and they were coming from a different hole than I’d originally thought. 

For a loonie, I bought my first Maxi Pad in the restroom pad dispenser.  It was two inches thick and eight inches long.  All the way to Brantford, I looked out the window and thought of all the women in the world who had to wear Maxi Pads.  I did not feel happy to join the club.

At the hotel room before the swim meet started, the chaperone did her best to explain the logistics of a tampon, using her thumb and index finger as a hole and getting her daughter to insert through in two easy steps. 

I did not understand how there could be so much room up there.  For the tampon, and for other things.  In the bathroom, I made about a dozen attempts.  I limped out into the hotel room with my feet far apart. It felt like there was a knife up my crotch.  There was no way I could do breaststroke kick.  All my races seemed like a long shot.

Everyone knows that you can’t wear a Maxi Pad underneath a bathing suit.  And certainly, you can’t go into the water with one.  Of course I didn’t do that.  Instead I paced around the pool deck with a towel around my waist, praying that a massacre wouldn’t start dripping past my groins.  I jumped into the warm-up pool frequently, since my chaperone had said that for some reason periods didn’t flow while you were in the water.  While waiting behind the blocks for races, I would hope that the official wouldn’t take too long to blow the whistle, and that once we were on the blocks, he wouldn’t take too long to fire the gun.

It took me about eight months to figure out how to use a tampon without feel like I was stabbing my own uterus.  Although you’re not supposed to let tampons clog yourself overnight, once I figured them out, I renounced Maxi Pads right away.

A decade later, I began to bask in the wonders of the diva cup. It’s a silicon cup that you stick up there and it will catch your blood almost all day.  Minimal pollution for the world, less cost for you. And it’s interesting because you get a glimpse of your fertility all at once, before you dump and flush it down the toilet. The set-up is pretty good, but the other night towards the end of my monthly happy bleeding time, I complained to the Boatman that I was tired of sticking my fingers up myself to insert a blood capturing contraption.  He innocently suggested that I use one of the Maxi Pads that a house guest from the summer had left under the bathroom sink.

“No, no, no, no, no!” I proclaimed.

“How bad can it be?” asked the Boatman.  And he procured a Maxi Pad from the package.  After unwrapping it and removing the paper strip on the back, he stuck the pad into his boxers.

"It's not so bad," he said.  "I kind of like it." And then he went to bed. 

A couple of days later, I heard the Boatman laughing in our basement laundry room. 

“What is it?” I asked.  He came upstairs, bringing with him the Maxi Pad that he’d absentmindedly thrown in the washer, and then into the dryer with his boxers. 

 Here are the exquisite photos.

Boatman and Maxi Pad.

Forearm and Maxi Pad.

I wonder if we could use the Maxi Pad again.

The End.

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"A broken body is not a broken spirit"

Ever since I knew they existed I have been terrified of spinal cord injuries.  Having been active my entire life, I cannot imagine ever not being able to move or feel any part of my body.  One of the most traumatizing events that ever happened to me was someone else’s spinal cord injury.   I was 21.  It happened towards the end of my second year living and working at a l’Arche home, where people with and without intellectual disabilities shared their lives together.  At L'Arche, there was only one woman who had a physical disability as well as an intellectual disability.  Her name was Isabelle, and I’ve written about her a few times before.  Isabelle didn’t have a spinal cord injury, but she was born with cerebral palsy, a condition that comes in all sorts of manifestations.  For Isabelle, it meant that she was mostly paralyzed and needed help eating and changing her clothes and brushing her teeth.  She always sat in her wheelchair or lay on her bed with her hands held out to the side, her fists clenched and her  forearms forming 45 degree angles with the sides of her body.  Sometimes she said, “aaaa-aaa-aaa,” and often she laughed and smiled looked up with her eyes.  Looking up with her eyes meant “Yes.”  Looking down to the right-hand corner of her eyes meant, “No.”  She hardly ever said no.  Most of the time she was smiling and laughing and looking up. 

Isabelle at the river

It was easy to make Isabelle laugh and smile and look up more.  I knew all of her favourite songs.  I think everyone thought they did, though we were always singing different songs to her. Her very favourite was the ABC’s but she also liked Puff the Magic Dragon, Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” James Taylor, the Beatles, Christmas carols all year round, and anything about Jesus.  Isabelle also liked it when you talked about her friends.

 Her favourite friend’s name was a like magic word.  If you talked about Elizabeth*, Isabelle would squeal and laugh, squeeze her hands close to her sides and look up with her eyes, over and over again.  "Yes, Yes Yes."  Elizabeth was a teacher at the Montreal School for the Blind where Isabelle went to school.  For around thirty years, she’d taught children like Isabelle, taking them swimming, singing them songs, reading to them, and helping them to communicate and gain as much independence as possible.  Though Isabelle had been in her class a number of years back, Elizabeth made the effort to keep in touch, stopping by Isabelle’s classroom regularly and organizing visits to Isabelle’s home.  During her visits, she’d drink tea and eat cake, take Isabelle for walks and read her poems. Elizabeth also recorded Isabelle tapes of her reading stories and poems.   She had a soft voice and lovely British accent.

“Hi Isabelle,” the tapes would begin.  “It’s Elizabeth.  I’m going to read you some poems.”  Isabelle loved Elizabeth's voice and she loved everything that rhymed.  One of her favourite Elizabeth tapes had Elizabeth reading William Blake’s songs of innocence and experience.  At the lines, “Tyger Tyger Burning Bright, in the forests of the night,” Isabelle would crack into joyful hysterics. 

Back when I used to live in the home, Isabelle cried about once a year, when all her friends went home from her birthday party.  All we needed to do to make her feel better was put on the Elizabeth tape. 

One Wednesday evening in the spring, I biked back to the home in pouring rain at the end of my day off.  Nathalie, my Francophone house leader was washing the dishes in the kitchen. “Quick,”  she said. “ Read the letter on the fridge.  I don’t know what it means.  It’s about Elizabeth.”  In my soaking wet clothes, I ran to the fridge. Over five years later, I have the letter memorized. 
 
On Saturday afternoon Elizabeth Freeman went for a bike ride and somehow crashed.  She endured several jaw fractures, but more important, was injured to the spine.  She has already had several operations and although it is too soon to make a prognosis, she may have done permanent damage.

For weeks, this letter was all that I thought about.  Why would this happen to someone who had devoted her life to empowering children who use wheelchairs?  Why would she have to be in a wheelchair too?  It was too absurd, too ironic.  I was devastated for Elizabeth, but also terrified for the fate of my own spine.  I rode my bike every day. It was just a matter of time before I would become injured to the spine too. 

 A month or so later, Isabelle was graduating from her school, since all the students graduated the year of their 22^nd birthday.  We’d prepared cake and a thank you song for all of the teachers.  It rhymed and was to the tune of "Puff the magic dragon."  The teachers were touched and delighted.  Isabelle had been a big star at the school.

Still at the rehabilitation hospital, Elizabeth hadn’t been able to make it.  But she made Isabelle a tape for Isabelle to listen to at her party.  I have the words of the tape memorized too.

 “Hi Isabelle,” she said.  You could still hear her British accent, but her voice was a bit muffled.  As soon as she heard her voice, Isabelle started smiling and looking up.  “If I sound a little funny, it’s because my jaw is stuck together with wires and an elastic band.  As you know a little while ago, I had a bad, bad bicycle accident.  I was riding long and my bicycle hit a bump.  I went flying over the handlebars and landed on my back.”  Matter of factly, she went on to say that she couldn’t feel or move her legs.

“So like you Isabelle, I have a wheelchair.  And the people here use a lift to get me out of my bed and into my wheelchair.  It was scary at first, but I’ll get used to it.” She said that her arms got tired from pushing herself in her wheelchair, but that too she’d get used to.  Then Elizabeth said that she was sorry she couldn’t make it to Isabelle’s good-bye party, and that they’d have to get together sometime soon.  Isabelle laughed and looked up.

“Yes, Isabelle,” Elizabeth said. “Some day when it’s really nice outside we’ll get together and we’ll go for a walk.  I don’t know how, but we’ll manage some way.” 

Since that party, Isabelle and I have had several visits with Elizabeth.  She’s truly a delightful woman. At one point there was hope that the swelling in her spine would go down and allow for more movement and sensation, but that window of possibility has probably passed. 

“Of course, I would love to walk,” she said to me.  “But I know that people can have valuable and enjoyable lives in a wheelchair.”  Then she looked over at Isabelle.  “Right Isabelle.”  And Isabelle laughed and said yes with her eyes. 

A couple of times, Isabelle, Elizabeth and I went swimming.  Elizabeth was lowered into the water on the chair lift first.   Isabelle went next and I waited to catch her in the water.  Before her accident, Elizabeth had taken children like Isabelle swimming so many times.  She would have loved to help Isabelle swim again.  But how could she if she couldn’t make her feet touch the bottom? Elizabeth didn’t complain, but I just thought of all the other people in the world who would never think of taking Isabelle swimming.  It wasn’t fair. To this day, I might be less accepting of the whole ordeal than Elizabeth is.

After I moved out of the house for people with disabilities, I started to practice Ashtanga yoga every day.  Although having the opportunity to practice was a total grace, I remember feeling immensely conflicted about it.  Headstands, backbends, all this was meant to take me deeper into myself.  But how could they be that important when other people couldn’t walk?  How could these postures relieve my suffering when wonderful, giving people like Elizabeth were stuck in wheelchairs for the rest of their lives?  What will happen when I fall off my bike and everything goes to shit? 

Over five years after beginning a daily yoga practice, I try to be grateful for my life and my body as it is right now.  Despite this, I often feel frustrated by my body’s trivial limitations, and terrified that all of its abilities will be taken away.  And I feel guilty for feeling all this, because it seems shallow and not very spiritual. 

Yesterday, I came across this beautiful TED talk by Janine Shepherd, an Olympic hopeful who was severely injured during a training bike ride.  

 
I highly recommend that you watch Janine’s magnificent story.  Her talk is called, “A broken body is not a broken spirit.”  It's a really good reminder.
 
The End.

*Name has been changed for privacy.  If you meet Isabelle and would like to know the real magic word, let me know and I'll tell you.

Isabelle looking angelic.
A broken body is not a broken spirit. And what does broken mean anyways.
 
Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go by Erica J. Schmidt
 
Erin Ball, My Favourite Acrobat
Not Separate From All That Is
My Life's Purpose
What People Really Need 

 

Three Outstanding Gifts to Purchase Your Loved Ones on Black Friday

If you are going shopping on Black Friday, my first advice to you is do not get killed at Walmart. Now that that's out of the way, I will tell you what you should buy.

Nearly a month ago, I reached the auspicious age of 27.  This is a multiple of 108 and the total of 3 cubed and I am very happy about it.  I was also very happy about the thoughtful and generous gifts that the Boatman presented me with.  27 years old, more than a decade into my yoga career, and I am not beyond presents.  Oh well.  I'm okay with that.

Here are the gifts from the Boatman.

Item One:  Prestigious Literature

 
The featured book is called "I Heart Female Orgasm."  It is an extraordinary orgasm guide by Dorian Solot and Marshall Miller, a couple who have experienced and inspired many female orgasms all across America and in their own bedroom.  As you see in the picture, the pages have astounded and blown me away.  Here's a link where you can buy it: HEARTING FEMALE ORGASM  Dan Savage once said that God didn't put an exclamation point at the end of the Female Orgasm.  Well, sometimes he or she does, and sometimes he or she doesn't.  This book helps us learn how and why.

Item Number Two:  A toy. 

This toy was made by "California Exotic Novelties."  Maybe you can guess what it is and give yourself a prize.  The Boatman bought it at Halifax's excellent sexual merchandise and book store Venus Envy, located on 1598 Barrington Street.  A couple months ago, I tried to sign up for a workshop there on the Extraordinary Female Orgasm, but not enough people signed up!  Sad.  And yet the fallatio workshop was full.  Figures.  Well, maybe next time.

Item Number Three:  More Prestigious Literature

This captivating book is called, "What's your poo telling you," and it's written by Josh Richman and Anish Seth, M.D.  The Boatman has never dated anyone as fascinated with poo as I am.  He knew I would love this book and he was right.  On the front cover, the authors promise "Loads of facts about your health."  And They honour this promise and I have no complaints.  Each short chapter holds a wealth of information about the myriad variations of scatological formations that you may witness before flushing.  Following a compelling description, Dr. Stool weighs in on the potential causes of your poop situation be it a Monster Poo, Rambo Poo, a Sneak Attack, Déjà Poo, Soft Serve, Number Three, Camouflage Poo, or Many Many More.
 
Here's Dr. Stool's website

Perhaps you've heard the yogis say that the optimal stool should float, and that a sinking stool contains toxins.  Well, Dr. Stool suggests that the reasons for floating are Gas and Fat.  So maybe the sinkers aren't so bad.  That's a relief.

Ashtangis planning on going to Mysore might benefit from this book as their innards adapt to the new and exciting climate.  Just a thought.

And on that note, I'll leave you with a nice excerpt from "What's Your Poo Telling You?"

It's possible that if you've already been to India, you'll be able to relate to this type of Poop: Number Three.
 
Also known as Butt Piss, Liquid Poo, The Runs, Oil Spill, Hershey Squirts....  And let's save the other synonyms for when you buy the book!
 
Here's the Low-Down from page 40:

"Number Three 

Although you know that you need to sit down for this rear deposit, Number Threes come in a liquid form and have little to no texture.  When passing one, you feel as if you are urinating from the wrong side.  A Number Three is often a violent discharge, sometimes with very little warning, and may often be accompanied by tremendous gaseous emissions.  As you feel its sudden onset, your sense of relief that you made it to the toilet in time is quickly replaced by the ill feeling associated with the release of a Number Three.  The explosiveness is so severe that it often results in brown splatter hitting the underside of the toilet seat.  At times, the splatter is so great that you have to wipe remnant off your butt cheeks when you are finished. Number Threes are not pleasant." 

Well said, as far as I'm concerned.  Get your own copy of WIYPTY and read Dr. Stool's eloquent explanation of Number Threes.  In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving to the American folks, and it wouldn't hurt to Look Before you Flush!

The End.

Thank you so much to my love the Boatman for these delightful gifts.

What's Your Poo Telling You?

Twitter: @mypelvicfloor  

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook 

$2.99 Self-Help Book, I Let Go

 

Spiritual Beard, Secular Vagina

Three Ways to Make the World a Better Place

Why I am different from Margaret Atwood

No One Could Have Given More: In Loving Memory of John T. Smith

I just attended the funeral of a lovely man named John Smith.  Despite his extremely common name, John was an extraordinary person who I met while I was teaching and practicing at the local yoga shala. He died quite unexpectedly at age 59, of a brief and sudden illness.   

The church where the funeral was held was absolutely packed.  John clearly touched many many people.  

When they played the hymns, you could hardly hear anyone singing because everyone was crying. 

At the yoga studio, John practiced in the far left-hand corner, next to the window.  In warm, or at least reasonably uncatastrophic weather, he took his bike, which he also took on treks across a number of countries, along with his dear wife.  Whenever I subbed Mysore, I would arrive on my own bike at the very last minute.

“You don’t know what quarter to six means, do you?” he’d joke.  Then he would watch in feigned annoyance as I struggled to unlock the door.  John greeted everyone with a bright face and sincere interest.  

No one was spared from the teasing, but I don’t think anyone wanted to be. One day as I unrolled my mat in the Mysore room, John turned to me and pointed to the name that was printed on my yoga mat.

“Good thing your name’s there!” he said with a big smile. “Otherwise we wouldn’t know who you were!”
 
I started to say something back, but then Seth the instructor said, “Sssshh!” from across the room.  Over the years, it seemed that John caused many of us to be “Ssshhed” many times.  Probably none of us minded. 
 
Besides being a yogi and avid cyclist, John was a dedicated practitioner of karate and tai chi.  In the evenings, he would often do more than one karate class.  Some mornings, he would hobble in, favouring one side of his body or the other.
 
“You alright, John?” I’d ask.

“Oh yah,” he’d say.  “Just a little sore.”  Some years back, John had had hip replacements in both hips.  This never seemed to hold him back.  It was refreshing to see John practice.  He was delighted at what he was able to do, while maintaining true equanimity when faced with his limitations.  Due to his enthusiastic cycling and karate endeavours, his teacher Seth used to recommend that he do an intense psoas stretch before beginning his practice. 

Once, Seth had been away for a while and I noticed that John hadn’t done the psoas stretch for a couple of days. 

“So how about the psoas stretch?” I asked.

“Oh yah, better do that,” he said.  He grabbed a chair, bent one knee and slid his foot and shin against the wall.  For thirty seconds on each side he clutched the chair, grimacing in pure agony.  Then he stood up and continued his practice.  When others spoke of their struggles with various postures, John would shake his head, smile and say, “I don’t care.  I can do Baddha Konasana.”  No matter what he was talking about, there was always that twinkle in his eye, as though he was witnessing some sort of miracle. 
 

Baddha Konasana: John took great pride and delight in being able to do the pose, despite two hip replacements!

Every once in awhile, his replacement hips would pop out of place, usually in Trikonasana (triangle pose).

“Oh well,” he’d say.  “They’re not mine.  Can’t feel a thing.”

Listening to the tributes at the funeral, it seemed as though John was not someone who held back or did things moderately.  He gave everything had to every endeavour he took on:  family, friendships, yoga, work, karate, travel, cooking, chutney and jam...  For lack of a less cheesy sentence, it was very sad, but also very inspirational.

As a friend put it at the reception, “It makes you want to try harder.” 

Once John brought me a little jar of strawberry jam and it was absolutely delicious.   He was always trading chutneys and curry with other yoga practitioners.  I think that John was able to thoroughly demonstrate that where love and generosity are involved, there’s no need to hold back.  I hope to be able to truly remember this. 

Although I don’t know John’s family, I wanted to give them a card to express my gratitude for John’s presence in my life, and to offer my condolences.  It took me a long time to choose the card.  In the end I picked out  one with a picture of a silhouetted person on a sunsetted beach and her golden retriever.  Below the picture were the words, “No one could have possibly given...”

Inside the card was the word, “More.”

I thought that this message really captured John.  This morning before the funeral, as I was filling out the card, I turned it over and looked at the back.  There were the words, “Pet condolence greetings.”  The card company had created a line of Pet Sympathy Greeting Cards, to console people who had lost their dogs, and cats, and goldfish and guinea pigs.  I had purchased a pet sympathy card in memory of my friend John, a vibrant and remarkable human being.  Shoot. 

At first I thought that I wouldn’t use the card, and that I would just write something in the funeral home’s online guest book.  Then I realized that the words were actually right.  And John always took immense pleasure in catching and making fun of me in one of my typical socially awkward mishaps. 

So I thought I’d give John that satisfaction and I filled out the condolences card meant for the death of a pet.

Dear John, I do believe that nobody could have given more than you. I wish that I could see you one more time.  Though this is not to be, I will do my best to try harder and to give more.  I will think of you during my practice, and during my days.

Love, Erica.

 

Dog Friend in Gokarna, February 2016