the yoga kitchen: day six

Wow. A daily hot yoga practice is no small commitment. By the time I get home, it’s after 7:00, and I’m crazy hungry. 

This week has gone pretty smoothly, thanks in no small part to two things: my rice cooker and a fantastic cookbook, Refresh. Its Rice Bowls and Noodle Bowls became staples in my diet during my triathlon years, and this fall, as I’ve taken up a more regular hot yoga practice, I’ve returned to it for quick and healthy dinners.

Right after getting home, I load up the rice cooker with some brown basmati rice. Then I wash and chop some leafy greens—I try to rotate kale, bok choy, swiss chard, spinach—and maybe some broccoli, which I’ll steam in the basket that sits on top of the rice cooker. In a skillet, I’ll sauté some tofu or tempeh.

The whole process takes about a half an hour. I dump it all in a bowl and top it off with a sauce I prepared on the weekend. This week it was a tahini sauce, but the book includes recipes for a Thai peanut sauce, a coconut curry, and a miso gravy, too. They’re all delicious.

For any other 30-day challengers, or other hot yoga devotees, how do you do it?

That was just me trying to flirt with you.

That’s what he said.

He flirted with me. Flirted. With me. Meeeeeeeee!

Seriously, he did—in a totally respectable, happily married kind of way, of course. But it was flirting. He even said so.

When Lynne and I walked into the Picador, a dark, concrete cavern of a space, the paltry number of chairs they provide were already taken. It’s more of a stand up and rock-out kind of venue (there are better places in town for a folksy pop musician to play), so we decided to sit at the bar, even though it was as far from the stage as you can get. ‘Cause, you know, we’re old ladies not hipsters.

After his first song, Griffin launched into this description of a scene in the first Batman movie, “where they’re having dinner at this long table, you know, and Michael Keaton is sitting across from Kim Basinger, and it takes like twenty minutes to pass the salt. You know the scene?  Well, there are a couple of girls sitting at the bar back there, and this kind of feels like that scene. I’m trying to sing to these girls at the bar and this place just feels really big. And empty.”

Some serious blushing and giggling ensued, but once we pulled ourselves together, we decided the only thing to do at that point was pick up our bar stools and move them closer to the stage. I realized there were fewer than twenty people in the audience. Griffin had us all pull our seats closer to the stage, joking all the while about this, in fact, being a closed show for which they only released twelve tickets. I seriously can’t believe so few people showed up to hear this amazing musician! What’s wrong with you, Iowa City?!

And then he played. And told stories.  We asked questions, made requests, laughed at his jokes. It’s hard to play for such a small crowd, I think. But it was lovely.  I had come hoping to hear some of the louder bluesy tunes—the ones I crank up and dance around to in my kitchen—but he mostly stuck with the quieter, sweet songs (largely, I imagine, because he didn’t have a band with him). He did pull off a rockin’ cover of Folsom Prison Blues, though, and that made me dance a bit (albeit in my chair).

When the show was over, I went up to him to thank him for playing (and to encourage him to come back to Iowa City, despite the small turnout).

“You were one of the girls at the bar, right?”

I melted. Melt-ed.

“Yeah…” And then, well then, in my typical Dorky McDorkDork fashion, I babbled. Something about there being no more chairs and me being an old lady and needing to sit for a show and babble babble babble babble.”

“That was just me trying to flirt with you.”

I honestly have no idea what I said after that. I probably babbled nonsensically some more. The next thing I remember is walking home with Lynne, um, well, pretty much squealing. Giddy.

It made my night. Hell, it made my week! My month! Because, let’s face it, this has been a doozy of a year in the romance department. I mean, people, I took a beating. A heartbreak of a beating. And then I took another one. Well, the next one was more like a slap in the face. But still… So close on the heels of the Big One. Oi vey. It was rough.

So, some hottie heartthrob of a rockstar throwing a little onstage flirtation my way… It was golden. And it reminded me how much I love a good crush.

A true crush, I think, it unattainable by nature. And that’s the beauty of it. It’s safe. The risk is low, but the payoff, the payoff for even the smallest gesture, is huge. A smile can make you giddy for hours. Being singled out by a super-cute rock star? Whooo-Weeee!

Like I said. A helluva night.

day three: tonight

4:30 pm: dash home from work, grab yoga stuff from the dryer, pack a cute “going out” outfit, and head to the studio

5:30-6:45 pm: sweat. reach. balance. high plank to low plank to up dog to downward dog. breathe. push it to the limit in a Baptiste-stlye power yoga class

6:45 pm: shower. try to stop sweating. put on cute “going out” outfit

7:30 pm: meet a girlfriend for dinner to talk about a writing project.  literary nonfiction or a novel? it’s a big question.

9:00 pm: head over the GRIFFIN HOUSE show. stare dreamily. listen. maybe dance a little, like a child of the 80s.

note: if you don’t hear from me again, it’s because my sexy post-yoga glow enticed that hunk-o-burnin’ love to propose we run off together to a tropical island. and i said yes.

it’s going to be a helluva night, eh?

day one: we begin with the lying on the floor part of it

My friend Lynne and I used to joke around all the time that the main reason we were going to yoga was for the “lying on the floor part” that would come at the end of class.  I’ve always taken my savasana very seriously. It’s my rest, my meditation, my time for my body to absorb all the benefits of my yoga practice.  Lately, however, I’ve had this problem: I start crying in savasana.  Nothing too noticeable, mind you; I’m not breaking down into sobs or anything that dramatic.  But I cry.

You see, at the beginning, when we first take to our mats, on our backs, legs long, arms wide, I give the weight of myself to gravity. The ground supports me as I just sink deeper and deeper into it.  And in my mind, I’m on that mountain, that high rocky ledge where I once spent a couple of hours—an amazing couple of hours.  I can feel the tiny crags and pebbles jabbing into my back, but I’m comfortable. Just lying there, relaxed. And I look up and there are hawks circling in the sky. And as I watch them dip and glide, I get the sense of being light, pulled upward, with the hawks.  An upward force in addition to the downward force—not in opposition but in balance.  And I’m so completely present and happy and loved. I’m connected with the earth—stretched to my fullest self between the ground and the sky.

It’s lovely.

But sometimes, on my mat, little details creep in.  All of sudden I remember the bony hip my head rests on, heavy in the deep curve of a pelvic bone. And I remember the hand on my stomach. And then I just start to cry a little bit. It’s been like this since April.

So much of yoga is about letting go. And sometimes, when I get annoyed with myself for the crying, I consider letting go of this moment, this memory. It would be easy to banish it—to train my mind to use another image in my savasana. After nine transatlantic moves, I’m awfully good at letting go—of people, of places, of painful memories. Leave them behind.

But this one memory—I don’t want to let it go. And I’m not talking about some stubborn inability to move on, either. It’s not about the boy. This is a moment I should be able to carry with me. I shouldn’t have to give that one up. The challenge, the real challenge, I think, is in finding a way to keep it with me. To hold on to that sense of peace and wonder and contentment and let myself go back there from time to time without it wrecking me.

That’s what I’m searching for as I embark on this journey, my first 30-day hot yoga challenge. I’ll share the journey here and enjoy the good company of friends who are traveling with me along the way.