Stilling My Body and Mind

   A few months ago, I ordered a foam roller from Amazon.com.  I had first used a foam roller during the physical therapy aspect of my chronic pain group.  Turns out that when people are in pain, they have a tendency to curl up and assume a fetal-like position.  And while curling up in this way may seem self-soothing or self-protecting, it’s really an unnatural position for a body to be in.  Which means while my body is in pain, I’m making it worse when I’m all curled up.

   The foam roller is not comfortable.  It’s hard and unforgiving.  But the longer I’m using it, the more I’m getting used to it.  I started off trying to lie on it for 3 minutes at a time.  The other night, I had a personal best of 11 minutes.  

   I lie on the foam roller, eyes closed, and facing away from my bedroom clock.  I don’t want to be tempted to steal glances, checking to see how many minutes I’ve accomplished so far.

   While I’m on the foam roller, that’s all I’m doing.  No music.  No reading.  Just breathing.  I’m even trying not to think -- which isn’t easy for me at all.  But when I feel my mind wandering, I try to bring it back to my breathing.  Focusing on what I’m feeling or hearing at the moment.  

   Using a foam roller is supposed to increase blood flow, help you stretch muscles, improve range of motion, and decrease pain.  I don’t know if it’s doing that or not.  But I do know that the foam roller is getting me to do something I’m generally not good at -- being still and doing nothing.  

   And I see that as an unmistakable benefit and a healthy way for me to wind down at the end of a day.

MomsLA posts

Dear Readers:

For about a year, MomsLA was publishing one of my essays each week.  Now, the publication schedule is a bit more irregular, but I'm happy to say I'm still a regular contributing writer.  Therefore, when MomsLA does post one of my essays, I will post a link to the article here.

As always, thank you for reading.

This essay was published yesterday:  http://momsla.com/growing-dreams-fear/

This essay was published today:  http://momsla.com/moms-oscar/

The Here and Now

“Perhaps we never appreciate the here and now until it is challenged...”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh Gift from the Sea

   If I’m honest, I would say I wasn’t enjoying the last few years of my teaching career the way I had.  The first year or two were exhausting.  I was teaching with an emergency credential, which means I’d teach during the day and take classes at night to earn my full credential.  I was learning how to teach as I was doing it.  And objectively speaking, I know I was a better teacher at the end of my career than I was at the beginning of my career.

   But teaching had changed.  I was being judged by test scores.  Not by the fact that previously violent students were no longer violent.  Not by the fact that non-readers were now readers.  Not by the fact that kids were taking an interest in their school, cleaning up messes they hadn’t made.  No, my worth as a teacher was being based on how well my students bubbled in a multiple-choice test.

   Yet, I never would have left my teaching career if I didn’t have to.  I would have stuck it out.  Because that’s what I thought I was supposed to do.  I asked for this career.  I signed up voluntarily, and there were parts I absolutely loved and whole-heartedly miss.  

   But, not working has provided me with the opportunity to have another way of spending my days.  For instance, most Friday mornings I volunteer in my son’s first grade classroom.  It’s a slightly odd, uncomfortable feeling, being on the other side of the desk.  I do it for my son who asked me to volunteer like some of the other parents.  I do it for his teacher because I know how exhausting this job is.  

   On one recent Friday, I volunteered, and then took myself to a nearby park.  I drank a coffee, read a book, did some writing.  I breathed deeply, marveled at the trees, listened to the nearby fountain.  I walked a few laps.  I felt peaceful.  

   It was then that I realized how I used to spend my Friday mornings with my fifth-grade students.  Testing them on their week’s spelling and vocabulary words.  Testing them on the week’s reading selection.  Testing them on the states and capitals they were learning.  A lot of testing for them, a lot of papers to grade for me. 

   When I was teaching, my energies went to my students, my son, my husband, and myself (in that order).  I didn’t value myself enough to slow down, to do things that made me happy, to stop putting everyone else’s well-being before my own.

   But now, I spend my Fridays at a different pace.  It’s not so clear-cut as to say that one way is better than another.  My new lifestyle also involves a lot of physical pain -- it’s the price I pay for less stressful days, and the only reason I am no longer teaching.

   But at the same time, this new schedule has given me the opportunity to re-invent myself in a way and take care of myself and my family in a way I couldn’t have done before.

“We are now ready for a true appreciation of the value of the here and the now and the individual.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh Gift from the Sea

Gathering Material

“Writers write about things that other people don’t pay much attention to.”

- Natalie Goldberg

   I’ve always been described as quiet.  I’m quiet because I’m observing the people and things around me.  I’m noticing and taking note.  Some may call it people watching.  Perhaps, others would call it staring.  Jane Yolen in her book Take Joy wrote, “ I never turn off my writer’s head.”

   I agree.  I am constantly feeling inspired to write personal essays.  I’m surrounded by writing topics.  Some of these subjects are rather serious -- dealing with a chronic medical condition, parenting a mixed-race child.  

   Other topics are much lighter.  I realize that several of my previous blog posts serve as proof that I do indeed write about things that many others wouldn’t even pay attention to.

   For example:

• Just a few weeks ago, I wrote about the absence of plastic bags in my life.  http://wendykennar.blogspot.com/2015/01/pining-for-plastic-bags-that-is.html
• I’ve written about some of the DVDs I watch and why.  http://wendykennar.blogspot.com/2014/08/mamma-mia-and-me.html
• There’s my frustration at words not being used correctly.  http://wendykennar.blogspot.com/2014/08/mamma-mia-and-me.html
• My delight at owning my car for ten years.  http://wendykennar.blogspot.com/2013/12/happys-anniversary.html
• The adjectives that describe coffee can also be used to describe me.  http://wendykennar.blogspot.com/2013/05/coffee-tea-and-me.html

   When I was younger, I was shy.  Now, I’m gathering material.

Our Not-for-Coffee Coffee Table

              Our coffee table is now referred to as “the brown table.”  We bought our coffee table more than ten years ago at Ikea.  In our first apartment, it sat in front of our futon.  We put our feet up on it while we watched movies together.  We sat on the floor and ate dinner at the coffee table while watching the Lakers in the Playoffs. 

   We moved into our town home, and the coffee table still welcomed our feet as we read through the Sunday Los Angeles Times.  I displayed “coffee table books,” turning to a new page each morning so we could marvel at photographs of Paris.

   Before Ryan was born, we bought an expandable “bumper” for our coffee table.  This soft, squishy covering wrapped around the edges of the table and would protect our son from the four pointy corners of the table.

   As Ryan has grown, our coffee table’s purpose has also evolved.  It’s usually holding some of our son’s books, but instead of soft, fabric-covered, baby-friendly books, our coffee table now has beginning chapter books and nonfiction books about the solar system on it.

   For a while, my son’s small red chair was perfectly sized to place right along side the coffee table to create a make-shift desk for him.  He would color and practice writing.  He would cut and create.  Now his legs have grown, and he has his own homework desk to work at.

   The coffee table is the over-flow station for projects in-progress.  A frame that hasn’t been completely painted yet.  A book that we haven’t finished reading yet.  A collection of word searches that hasn’t been finished yet.  

   And then there are the toys that don’t seem to fit anywhere else.  For a while, we had a large Winnie the Pooh snow globe on the coffee table until the music stopped playing.  Now there’s my son’s toy cash register complete with scanner, microphone, and small toy food items available for me to purchase. 

   I can think of no other piece of furniture that has been a part of our family for so long, changing to meet our family’s changing needs.  For in its newest role, our coffee table has become our son’s illicit stage as he spontaneously channels his inner Michael Jackson and attempts a mini-moonwalk.

  Any visitor to our home can see that our coffee table isn’t new; our rich cherry brown table has some noticeable nicks and scratches on it.  I think of those marks as hard-earned battle scars, evidence of its wear and tear and durability.