Smiley days ... :)

Coming home from my Saturday afternoon ashtanga class it was evening, getting dark, and when I arrived at the gate at the bottom of my drive there was a wallaby sitting halfway up the drive! It just sat there looking at me as I opened the gate, and only hopped off to the side after I drove in ... Made me smile - one of the things I love about living in a semi-rural area!

I'm smiling a lot at the moment! I'm feeling so much better than I was, and yes, my cough is definitely getting better. (Although people who are around me at the shala when I'm doing sun salutes/downdog may not necessarily agree!) Health (good health that is!) really has an affect on your sense of wellbeing ...

And also - I am going to be going part-time (4 days a week) from next year! I'm so excited! My boss said "Are you sure you want to do this?" when I asked him! Is the pope a catholic?!?!! (I didn't say that to him, but ... !) This is something that my mother was always wanting me to do, but I could never afford it. Now I can (or will) - thank you Mum! Ever since I moved jobs and campuses, all the travelling (1 hour each way) has meant my work day has been incredibly long, and I've had very little energy to do anything during the weekday evenings. Now things are going to change! I always knew that this time would be a period of change - and this is the start ...  (And another very big smile!)

I didn't mean it that way, but in retrospect the title of my last post (Life goes on) could sound a bit down, or negative ... So it's good to be able to write a really smiley post!!

Life goes on ...

Life goes on ... my yoga practice is coming back together, slowly but surely. Still only managing 3-4 practices a week at the moment but hopefully that will expand over the next few weeks/months. I'm not going to sweat it - I remember how surprised I was to discover that I had somehow ended up with a 5-6 day a week practice without me realising it! So that should come in its own time - when the planets align!  And as we're going through a spell of unseasonably hot spring weather (even for sunny Queensland, Australia!) I don't always feel like walking across campus in the midday sun to the space where I can do a lunchtime practice ⟨grin⟩

Still enjoying my Sunday morning yoga practices with Helen. Sometimes other friends join in, sometimes it's just us. Last Sunday Helen brought out a DVD that we used to use way back when we did Friday lunchtime yoga sessions at the University about 3-4 years ago. Really nice - set in a subtropical garden in Byron Bay - or so I've always thought! Anyway, it was lovely to see it again, and catch a few hints as I did my own ashtanga practice!

My health is inching its way back to normal. Still coughing but less, and I no longer feel like I'm operating at 80% or less!

Choir rehearsals for The Messiah started again this week. I was really reluctant to make the (rather large) effort required to get to rehearsal, but of course am really glad I did! To be honest I don't even know if I'll be able to sing in the concert - that all depends on how my cough is going then. There's nowhere to hide when you're part of a large choir sitting on the 'stage' in the Cathedral when you're not standing and singing your heart out! But even if I can't sing in the actual performance, I just love singing it and it's wonderful to be part of the choir going through all the choruses again ... Do hope I'll be able to sing though ... :)

yoga practice re-started

IT's been a long weekend here, which was wonderful. Time to laze around, time to be in the moment, time to do some yoga again. I started off by going to a vinyasa class at work on Friday lunchtime, and then on Saturday I went back to my normal class. I cannot begin to think how long it has been since I was there ... but it was so good to be back and practicing again, even though a reduced, shortened practice. Lots of adjustment/alignment in Parsvottanasana ... a lot to think about there!

Then on Monday I went to my friend Helen's in the morning and we did a yoga practice. And - wow! I was so stiff. I could hardly get my hands to the floor in the sun salutes! Really showed me I had just been playing at yoga practice in the past few weeks, if that's what happens after one shortened practice at the shala. It is, as the saying goes, 'all good'!!

Apart from that I didn't do very much at all ... went to the library, wrote a few emails, made a few phone calls. Made some bread. I've kind of given up on sourdough (making) for the moment, and tried a 'no-knead' recipe from one of Bill Granger's books (Bill's Basics). It turned out quite nice, though I think I should have left it in a bit longer.

September update

Well, I don't know that I have anything much to say that's interesting. But it has been over a month since I last posted so I really should ...

Had a really lovely 10 days or so when 3 friends from the UK and Portugal, and one from Byron Bay came to stay for a wonderful 5-day event with our meditation teacher, Maharaji. Mind you - it was lovely, but I was sick the whole time they were here (still am) and so had to get them to do all the cooking etc. I just managed to be one of the two drivers to and from the convention site each day, and then to drag myself across the countryside there to collapse in different locations to listen ... And then collapse into bed as soon as I'd eaten dinner!

So, why am I sick?!! I had thought I was getting better the week before they came, but it just all hit me again as I rushed too and fro from the airport collecting international visitors! I'm sure there must be some connection to my mother's death, and the really difficult few months I've had. I have seen both the 'coughing' doctor and my haematologist and it appears I just have to wait for the coughing to hopefully go away/die down. The antibiotics I have been taking for ages no longer work much (surprise surprise!), and the only other antibiotic I could take, I can't as it's implicated in the haemalytic anaemia I had earlier in the year!!

It has actually made me realise that I really need to take things into my own hands here. The partner of one of my English friends is a homeopath and we ended up skyping (or trying - ended using the 'normal' phone line!). She sent me some remedies which I started taking last week, and even though I find it hard to see how homeopathy can work, I do feel they have made a difference. And if it's a placebo effect, well why should I care?! I'm going to investigate further on the complementary side of medicine to see what help I can get, before I go back to those doctors near the end of October ...

And yoga? Well, apart from some Sun Salutes 2 weeks ago, nothing! I'm hoping I might be up to doing some lunchtime yoga during the week. But today it's really hot and didn't feel like dragging myself across campus! It's supposed to be the beginning of Spring for goodness sake, not full summer! Luckily the weather forecast says it will go down to the mid-twenties from tomorrow ... although still no rain! Had to buy some water in last week after all those visitors!!

Shoulderstand - I wish!

I saw a post this morning via Elephant Journal - 10 Reasons to do Shoulderstand every day ... And right now I am just thinking - I wish!! I really wish I could do shoulderstand. I wish I could do any yoga!

I had decided that I would do Sunday yoga with my friend Helen as my re-entry into yoga practice after many weeks of not being able to do any because of various back injuries (one following the other etc etc!!) My right shoulder had been feeling heaps better for days (in fact I had hardly felt it for days) and my right hip issue was completely forgotten. Of course I still have the awful awful cough which I knew would be exacerbated by downdog (or any kind of inversion) but I was completely ready to make a start on a limited practice. So ... I managed to get through 3 Sun Salute As (with many many stops for coughing!), and then did a restricted version of the standing poses (leaving out the parivritti variations). But by the time I got to the seated poses I was feeling niggles in my shoulder - and even my hip made an appearance! So I just did a few lying down poses like supta hasta pandangustasana. But my shoulder was complaining more loudly, to the extent that I had to do savasana lying on my left side ...

And now, 2 days later it is still an issue off and on, much like it had been ... sigh!! It's actually hard to think of yoga poses that don't involve your shoulders in some way. When I see my osteopath again tomorrow she will no doubt tell me off - last time I saw her she said I could only do 'restorative' yoga.

All this trying to get back to yoga was/is of course part of trying to get my life back to normal. To some extent it is working, though I have to admit to a certain amount of putting stuff to one side, not confronting things. But there's definitely a few things that I can't put off too much longer, like writing to people in the UK who may not have heard the news about Mum.  Heigh ho ... !

Actually, action is going to be forced on me as in two and a half weeks 3 friends from Europe are arriving to stay for 10 days (and there'll be a 4th Aussie friend staying too!) - our meditation teacher is doing a 5-day event at Amaroo which is going to be soo wonderful! And anyway - I'll really need to have made a start on all these letters etc. before then, otherwise it'll be 2 months late ...

Everything is different

It's difficult to know how to start this. I guess I'll just have to come straight out and say it. My mother died just under 3 weeks ago - on Wednesday 18th July. In theory it wasn't unexpected. Her doctor had told me (and her) that her time was very limited. But there's such a world of difference between 'knowing' that sort of thing in theory, even talking openly and freely about it both with the doctor and my mother. And being faced with the reality, the absence ...

I'd actually been down with her the week before, having received a phonecall from her summoning me down on the Sunday. And then as all seemed relatively well, and because I had doctor's appointments etc the following week, I flew back home on the following Sunday. I was actually with my doctor when I got the phonecall on Wednesday morning to let me know she had gone.

I went back down the following day, and began (with the help of my wonderful brother-in-law and nephew Peter) the task of organising the funeral (cremation) service, the memorial service, the order of service, etc. etc. etc. All in a complete daze - not really knowing what I was supposed to be doing. Thank god for the support of family and my Mum's many friends in the district. And of Sylvia, the wonderful wonderful neighbour and friend, without whom Mum's life would have been so much more difficult. It was her who helped me go through Mum's clothes, tidy up her room so that other relatives would feel OK about staying there for the memorial service, etc. etc.

My other (equally wonderful!) nephew, Jo and wife Emma arrived back from London for the memorial service, which was a truly lovely event. Over 200 people whose lives she had touched crammed into the local Anglican church, and in the church hall afterwards for 'refreshments'.

And now ... I'm back home in Brisbane (as of last week), and back at work as of this week. Still kind of bewildered - wondering if that really happened: surely she's still at home in Bowral, waiting for me to ring and have a laugh about things with her ... I guess this is 'normal', and it will take months to come into focus / reality for me ...

I am OK - but I don't have any parents any more and it feels really strange / on the edge ... (but, I hasten to add, not of anything I'm going to fall into any time soon!!!)

Yoga - respect your body?!

You know how people (yoga teachers, bloggers, writers) are always saying things like 'respect your body' - 'it's not how bendy you are' etc etc etc?!! Well, I have to say I don't think I've reached those exalted, detached heights at all!!

After a horrendous few weeks of illness, caring for other people who are sick, culminating in virtually no yoga for the past couple of weeks and then damaging my back helping support someone (without thinking about what I was doing!) - I find myself unable to go further than my knees in uttanasana (standing forward bend), and hardly able to get to the floor to do downdog, etc etc. And I HATE it!! Last Tuesday I started to do a first yoga practice in what seemed like living memory (! OK, exaggeration, but ... !) and found one of my wrists giving way in downdog and I collapsed on the floor!

Saw my osteopath on Thursday and she did say I should attempt to do some yoga - just not to do anything that hurt me! So today I went to a friend's to do yoga together. And - well the only good thing about it was the actual fact of having attempted to do some yoga again! There was so much I couldn't do at all, or could only do in an extremely limited fashion!

Just have to hope and pray that my 2nd visit to the osteopath tomorrow morning will get my back onto the road to recovery! Since I've been back from NSW and back at work (Thursday) I've been parking my car completely illegally in the carpark of the Uni vet school clinic that is right next door to the building where I'm working at the moment. Couldn't imagine being able to do the 15 minute walk up from my normal (legal) carpark, and decided if I got a fine I'd just pay it. Luckily I didn't so far - I'm now wondering if I'll have to continue doing this next week ... sigh!