More Fevered Musings

Still sick. Sick blogging might be my equivalent of drunk dialing right now. Not advisable but here we go!!

So I'm supposed to assist a class for my final obligation before certification this weekend, and I get to give a little talk to open up the class, and here are my sentimental and feverish thoughts about it right now:

A yoga teacher this week said, "every stage of a pose is a pose." I loved this. Sometimes we feel like we aren't doing it quite right, and forget to feel the immediacy and beauty of our present version of ourselves. Bent knees in downdog? That's a downdog. Knees down in plank? That's a plank. Wherever you are, you're doing it.

This reminded me of waitressing, which I did for a long time. If I count the summer country club lunch counter and catering in high school, I did it for about 12 years. And then about six years total of full time, adult waitressing. Fun money as a teenager, rent money in college, and life money after college and before law school.

I really liked doing it once I got the hang of it. Clearly I liked it or I would have quit, just like I've quit a million other jobs that weren't right for me. Waitressing always stuck. Because I like it. Also it's the best money for the time. But here's the thing - I never really let myself like it. It was always part of the mythology of my temporary self; it was something I was doing on the way to doing something else, or just to make money while I supported my "real" life. I had some nasty upper middle bourgeois ideology crap in my head that made me think what I was doing could never be treated as adequate for me. I didn't really let myself like it until someone else pointed out to me that I could, legitimately, really like it. A woman came into the restaurant one night, right at year 6 of adult waitressing, and told me how much she liked waitressing when she was younger. She had done it pretty seriously - an American woman server in fancy restaurants in Paris in the 1960s-70s - she was no joke (she was no joke about anything, though - she was also an accomplished mime and attorney at the Department of Justice). Anyway, it really hit home, the fact that she, this super sharp and credible person, said that she liked waitressing - and not in that stupid nostalgic way that forgetful and oblivious people think college and childhood were great, but with a real sense of ownership, she proclaimed unambiguously her love of waitressing. This prompted a pretty astounding revelation for me. Her confidence was all the credibility her life needed. Suddenly I knew that I could give myself permission to love my life just the way it was. I wasn't really ready to actually do it, I mean, I still went to law school and everything, but that's another story. But it was there, this idea that I could own my life joyfully, even though it didn't look like it was supposed to look.

So then, flash forward 5+ years. Every stage of a pose is a pose. There is no need to postpone your life, or think of your real Self as something that will come together "later." Every expectation and feeling of inadequacy and insecurity, once shed, can reveal to you a pose, or life, that you already love, and can relish, and feel the immediacy and import of if you let yourself do it - even if it doesn't look like it's "supposed" to look. Love, love, love, love, love your life, especially when it doesn't look like it's "supposed" to look. It might be that all you have to do is give yourself permission.

A little simplistic, I know, but it's the fever talking. Love!!!