i am writing this in lieu of bingeing and purging

i weighed myself today for the first time in a long time.

mind you, weighing myself on a scale is a very dangerous activity.  it almost immediately triggers eating disordered thought patterns and behavior.  i was triggered way before i stepped onto that cold, digitally merciless metal square from Hell, however.

i went to Golden Gate Park to help my corporate yoga client, lucy Activewear, shoot photos for their website.  lucy makes clothing and accessories for yoga, running and cross training.  i was there as a consultant, to make sure the models were doing actual yoga poses, not just jutting their hips out and pointing long skinny limbs in all different directions.

these models weren't waifs, but only one really looked like she was athletic.  one of them actually admitted that she doesn't work out. (it was actually really entertaining watching them try to do pushups).  i'm disappointed that even activewear companies don't use "real" women to model their products.  but i didn't really expect anything different.

i don't have a classic "yoga body."  i'm not a dancer, i'm not super-lean.  even after 30 days or veganism, i still have meat on my bones.  i often feel like a yoga fraud because i'm not wiry and slender and able to bend into crazy poses.  it's tough for me to not compare myself to yoga "celebrities" and to want to have the yoga "look" that's advertised in the media.  i think classic "yoga-bodied" people do not comprise a wide percentage of the American population, but that is what is shown in magazines, on DVDs and in the movies.

i have to constantly remind myself why i practice and teach yoga.  the students i teach are not super-lean super athletes either.  they are stressed, overweight, underweight, injured, weak in places, stiff in others.  they are seeking a better quality of life.  they want to remove suffering and the only way to do that it to practice non attachment and compassion.  if a tight yoga butt is one of the byproducts of such a practice, great.  but for that to be the goal is not definitive of the heart of yoga.

i'm 5'7" and i weigh 160 pounds.  160!  i can't believe it.  it seems like a grotesque number.  it is the amount i weighed my senior year of high school, the year i fell into a deep depression and began my almost-lethal dance with my eating disorder.  is this full circle?  is the universe testing me?  will i choose the same path i did 12 years ago, or will I use what i've learned to break through self-destructive patterns and free myself from 12 more years of suffering?

i suppose only time will tell.

cheese/sentimentality/thinkin' about stuff

we carry so much baggage with us, the weight of our parents' stories and their parents' stories...traumas and past lives and expectations and pressures.  we change and shift and shrug.  we become stronger and we break open.

yes. ten years ago i was--not a different person--a different version of myself: the ghost of a stone sculpture not yet articulated in sensuous curves and sharp-edged hollows.  i was a dream and a spark of what i am now...and right now, i am a spark of what i will become.

do we ever really get to reach our highest form?  yes.  maybe not while we are alive, but we are born with this perfection, this blazing joyful soul that becomes veiled as we age and learn and become burdened with knowledge and avoidance--and we return to that state in death.  i suppose select few make that transition while in human form: these are the Buddhas and Jesus Christs and Mohammeds and Mother Theresas, the anonymous ones who drag dying brothers to safety and who spend their days feeding and bathing the sick.  But most of us are trying to flip the Rubix cube while we are half-blind and roaring for affection and recognition.

i am no expert in love, though i know that i crave it and need it as much as i need water to keep my body running smoothly, as i crave pieces of dark chocolate on a select few days out of every month.  i know that love has many masks...and that love unmasked is more powerful than the weapons our government spends billions on every week.  i know that i can convince myself that i have it, that i am in it--or that i don't have it and won't ever know it, not truly.

the truth is that i am looking for the freedom that comes from pairing with a person who can look me in the eye as i lay down my burden of stories.  i need a best friend who will cherish me and call me out on my shit.  someone who is imperfect and adept like a chameleon, shifting to fit a mood, a mode of communication, a moment when i am glorious and frightening.  i need a lover who can undress me, and a confidante who can hold me when my mother dies--a partner who will have my back when i'm faced with a gang of demons ready to bludgeon me to death with their stinking fear, and a companion who will play Twister with me while Tom Waits, followed by Radiohead, followed by BB King, followed by Mozart plays on and on and on...

in return, i will offer every bit of who i am.  i will be lovely and sexy and honest and jealous.  i will cry and kiss and soothe with my fingertips.  i will complain and apologize and praise and bless.  i will be there, even when i am not.  i, too will be imperfect, and i will try so hard.  and i will back off and run away, but i will always come back.  and when our paths part, i will still love you.  and when we meet up again, i will not love you less. 

feminism ain't about equality, it's about reprieve

amendment 
written by ani difranco

wouldn't it be nice if
we had an amendment
to give civil rights to
women
to once and for all just
really lay it down from
the point of view of
women
i know what you're thinkin'
that's just redundant
chicks got it good now
they can almost be president
but it's worker against worker
time and time again
'cause the rich use certain issues as a tool
and when i say we need the ERA it ain't 'cause i'm a fool
it's 'cause without it, nobody can get away with anything cool

you don't have to go far, like
just over to Canada
to feel a heightened sense of "live-and-let-live"
what is it about Americans, like so many pitbulls
trained to attack and never give
we gotta put down abortion
put it down in the books for good
as central to the civil rights
of women
make diversity legal
make it finally understood
to the civil rights of
women
and if you don't like abortion
don't have an abortion
and teach your children
how they can avoid them
but don't treat all women
like they are your children
compassion has many faces, many names
and if men can kill and be decorated instead of blamed
than a woman called upon to mother can choose to refrain

and contrary to eons
of old-time religion
your body's your only
true dominion
Nature is not here to serve you
or at any cost to preserve you
that's just some preacher man's
old-time opinion
life is sacred
life is also profane
a women's life it must be hers to name
let an amendment
put this brutal game to rest
trust that women will still take you to their breast
trust that women will always do their best
trust that differences make us stronger, not less

in this amendment shall be
"family structures shall be free"
we'll have the right to civil union
it takes unions of all kinds
unions of hearts and minds
to give society communion
let's do more than tolerate
let gay and straight resonate
and emanate all that is human
with equal rights and
equal protection
intolerance finally
ruined
and then there's the kids' rights
they'll naturally be on board
the funnel through which
women's lives are poured
our family is so big
we're all so very small
let a web of relationship
be laid over it all
over the strata of power piled up to the sky
over the illusion of autonomy on which it relies
over any absolute that nature does not supply

and the birthing woman shall regain her place
in a circle of women in a sacred space
turn off the machines
put away the knives
this amendment shall deliver from bondage
midwives