Three weeks ago, I started taking belly dance lessons at the yoga studio where I did my teacher training.  They've had belly dance there for awhile, and I often got to watch the beginning of the class when I was leaving yoga, and thought it looked like fun.  It was just too much to try during teacher training, so I waited.  This session worked out for me, so I signed up, just for fun.  I have tried to have no expectations.  I have no dreams of performing or  teaching belly dance, or anything like that.  This is just for me.  My one goal for the ten weeks is to be able to shake my hips, and have something actually shake. 

After tonight's lesson, I am feeling pretty good.  My hips are actually starting to move.  This is amazing to me.  I have some friends who have what I call "swivel hips".  Those are the hips that seem to just slide from side to side and up and down with no effort.  These are people who can dance to salsa music.  My hips are whatever the opposite of swivel hips is.  Static hips, maybe?  So when I pushed my hip out today and I could actually see it move, I wanted to cry with joy.  If they are starting to move after three weeks, maybe after ten I will be able to shake them.  If I can, look out, I'll be hitting the dance floor.

We also worked on chest lifts today.  Chest lifts may be my downfall.  I can do them just fine.  We lift our chest in yoga all the time, opening across the heart.  I can't do them as fast as my teacher yet, but I'll get it.  The problem is that I lift my chest, and nobody will ever notice.  When the other women lift their chests, they get to show off their cleavage.  I have no cleavage.  At 40 years old, and after two kids, I'm still an A cup.  I don't bother with things like push-up bras, because there's nothing to push up.  I will have to resign myself to knowing I am lifting my chest and nobody can see it.  One day I may have to stuff some socks in there, just to see what it would look like.

The great thing about this belly dance class is the other women in the group.  Everyone is just doing whatever they can do.  Nobody cares what anyone else is doing, we just do our thing together.  Our teacher says women who belly dance together become a tribe.  I can see why.  We are sharing in something that is ultimately feminine.  Belly dancing started as a means for women to strengthen their child birth muscles.  It is a true expression of female power.  Women who dance together bond in something that can never be shared with men.  All the men can do is watch, which I suspect is okay with most men anyway.

For the next seven weeks, I'll be dancing with my tribe on Thursday nights.  At the end, if my hips shake, I may buy myself one of those jingly hip scarves to celebrate.  I'll keep you posted.

I just got back from an amazing weekend away.  I spent the weekend at Ananda Ashram in New York State.  Jai Uttal held a kirtan workshop there, and I am a kirtan junkie.  An entire weekend of kirtan, just two hours from home, was too good to pass up, so I left my husband with the kids and headed north after work on Friday.

I need to point out that a couple of years ago I wouldn't have even thought about going someplace I'd never been before, especially on my own.  I definitely wouldn't have accepted dorm-style housing, where I had to share a room with four or five perfect strangers.  If I had gone, I would have spent the weekend avoiding contact with anyone, not talking, because I would have felt that I didn't fit in with anyone and I had no idea what I was doing I couldn't even say hi to these people who knew what was going on.  So much has changed for me.  I wasn't freaked out at all.  I drove up there with a feeling of absolute peace, knowing I would find my way and everything would be fine when I got there.  I introduced myself to my roommates, who turned out to be interesting women and not all that different from me.  I never once felt out of place.  I am still amazed at what I am able to do, now that I've gotten over myself.

The workshop opened Friday night with a kirtan.  Kirtan, for those who don't know, is call and response singing of Sanskrit mantras.  I love kirtan, and Jai Uttal is a master.  He builds the song up until everyone is clapping or dancing or just swaying in their seats, and then brings us down gently.  Then he starts again with another chant.  The energy in the room starts vibrating.  It's a wild thing to experience. 

When it was over, I went to bed and tried to sleep.  Sleeping is difficult when your whole body is buzzing.  I'm pretty sure I was awake all night, but when the sun came up I headed for the morning yoga class, full of energy.  I love the kirtan high.

The rest of the weekend was divided between yoga, meditation, and more kirtan.  The workshop part was kirtan with some extra talking in between the chants.  Jai and his tabla player, Daniel Paul, are cool guys, very down to earth and authentic.  I could listen to Jai talk about kirtan, his views on spirituality, and music for hours.  Actually, I did listen to him talk for hours.  When this morning's kirtan workshop ended, nobody moved until the last note had completely faded away.  If it wasn't for my stomach growling, reminding me that it was lunch time, I'd probably still be sitting there.

The one downside to the weekend was the heat.  Jai and Daniel live in California and Hawaii, respectively, and they were complaining about the heat.  96 degrees is abnormally high for early June in the Northeast.  Saturday night we all slept without blankets, laying down and not moving so we wouldn't start sweating again.  While air conditioning the ashram would be wrong, I'm sure, I couldn't help wishing for it last night.  Luckily I was exhausted by the time we went to bed, and I slept despite the heat.

Kirtan was awesome, but the most profound part for me was the meditation.  The ashram has morning and evening meditations.  They are always the same.  There is chanting, maybe a reading, then silent meditation, followed by more chanting.  I have never been good at silent meditation.  I always talk myself out of sitting.  I fidget, adjust my position, decide I'm uncomfortable, then shift so I am leaning back on the wall and promptly fall asleep.  I didn't want to do that in front of people.  So I just sat.  I think, by forcing myself to just sit until they went back to chanting, I might have gotten the whole meditation thing.  I won't say that I was able to clear my mind for the whole time.  Thoughts came.  Some were plans, some memories, some just fantasies.  I let the thoughts be, and found that they left again.  When I stopped trying to make my mind clear, I had brief moments of silence.  Maybe they were only a second or two, but I'll take what I can get.  This morning, when they announced after the opening chants that we would be sitting in silence for 25 minutes, I had a moment of panic.  25 minutes sounds like a long time, and I had to tell myself that all I could do was try.  25 minutes actually went pretty fast.  My mind wasn't clear.  I felt myself smile a couple of times when I thought about kirtan or something my kids did last week.  Eventually it got quieter.  Maybe five seconds this time.  It doesn't sound like much, but I'm proud of my progress. 

When it was time to leave, I will admit to dragging my feet a bit.  I can understand the man I had lunch with who came to the ashram five years ago and hasn't found a good reason to leave yet.  I felt so peaceful, so complete, I wanted to stay forever.  But I remembered words I had heard the night before during the readings, about being a spiritual being in the real world.  We can't live in isolation, without regard for family and livelihood.  We need to live in the world.  So I and my bliss got into the car.

During my drive, I listended to part of the audiobook Eat, Pray, Love.  As I pulled into the driveway, the author was talking about eating the best pizza in the world in Naples, Italy.  As soon as she started discussing pizza, I realized that I really wanted some of that myself.  The food at the ashram was good, but vegan, and I was missing cheese. 

Now I am sitting here digesting my pizza and cooling in the air conditioning, which is another kind of bliss.

Today someone asked me what I was going to say to my daughter about sex, because my daughter is getting close to the age where boys are probably going to start hanging around.  My answer was simple - get on some kind of birth control before the first time and sleep with at least one musician before you get married. 

When my friend stopped laughing enough that she could talk again, she said, "I think you've lost out on the mother of the year nomination again this year."

I said that I wished my mother had given me that advice, for so many reasons.  My mother gave me mixed messages.  She said that sex was good, but I shouldn't have it.  Or something like that.

My advice for my daughter comes from my experience.  If I had been on birth control, I could have avoided terminating an unplanned and ill-timed pregnancy.  It took me a number of years to get past the associated guilt and regret, although looking back now I know it was the best decision I could make at the time.  I have forgiven myself, and asked forgiveness of the soul who missed his chance on earth.

Once the first boy calls, my daughter will take a trip to the doctor.  If at all possible, I will spare her having to make a decision like I did.

Then there's musicians.  If there is any genetic predisposition towards that sort of thing, then my daughter will be attracted to musicians - drummers in particular.  My first big crush in the sixth grade was a guy named Marty who played the drums in the school band.  Most of my infatuations with musicians were nothing more than that, but there were two with whom I've had actual relationships.  It is very telling that I cannot remember the names of all the men I dated and/or slept with when I was younger, but I remember Marty from the sixth grade.  And Todd, the saxophone player.  And Rick, the next drummer to come into my life, and who is the reason for my second piece of advice.

In my early twenties, I had a short marriage to a nice man to whom I had no business being married.  I was in no way ready to settle down, but I got caught up in romance and wedding plans and said "I do" even though I didn't.  A year into the marriage it was already on rocky ground.  Then Rick came drumming along, in a local bar band, and my apparently ingrained attraction to musicians kicked in when Rick made the fateful mistake of smiling at me.  After that, I started going out without my husband, following the band around wherever they were playing.  Rick noticed me, and talked to me, and eventually there was a one night stand.  After that, the marriage collapsed into ruin.  Rick, as it turned out, was only interested in me because it was exciting to steal other men's women.  I left my husband, and Rick moved on to the next married woman he could find.  I moved away.

So, knowing that there is likely to be at least one musician in my daughter's life, I recommend  that she get it out of the way before she marries somebody.  If her marriage ends, it should be because they have amicably agreed that it isn't right for them, not because one night she doesn't come home until eight the next morning smelling like cigarettes and sex, with hair styled in what I like to call the "just been fucked" look.  The divorce proceedings will go better that way. 

In case you were wondering, I have not really gotten over the whole musician infatuation thing.  I love my husband dearly, and have developed some self-control as I've aged, so I would never repeat my earlier transgressions.  I've told my husband all about my musician addiction, and he is happy to let me go to kirtans or drumming circles or whatever, because he knows what kind of mood I will come home in and that mood always works out well for him.  I still work up some nice fantasies about some of the musicians I see.  I tell my husband that it is unfortunate for him in my fantasies, because, since I will never divorce him, I am forced to kill him off by disease or accident so that my fantasy self is free to pursue the musician.  Luckily, my sweet husband thinks this is funny.

This morning I biked 30 miles in the American Diabetes Association's Tour de Cure, a fundraising event for diabetes research and awareness campaigns.  This is the second year I've done the ride, as part of the team from my son's preschool.  We ride through some nice neighborhoods and past pretty scenery, which almost makes me forget about the hills.  Well, except that one I've had to walk up both years.  That one I will never forget.  It's fun on the way down, though.

I was very proud of myself for finishing the 30 miles in a respectable time, because I hadn't trained at all this year.  All spring the weather has been cold and rainy, until last week when we got blistering heat.  There were very few chances to ride, so I rode once, for a mile.  Last year my husband and I were doing 15 miles every weekend.  I wasn't sure how I well I would do today, but I went just hoping to finish, and I did.  I'm not even particularly sore, which surprises me.  I guess all the yoga has helped me stay in shape.  All I am is tired, and a good night's sleep should take care of that.

The ride is the kind of thing I would only do for a good cause like the ADA.  Some of the bike racers use events like this for practice.  I have no interest in racing.  I just like to know that I exerted myself a bit more than normal to benefit a charity.  I figure I'm building some good karma. 

Now I'm going to bed, early.  Hot yoga is at 10:00 a.m.

My friend gave me a copy of the audiobook Eat, Pray, Love on CD.  I'd listened to it on the drive to and from the ashram, and I've been listening to it in the car since then, driving around town.  It's an awesome book, and I'm only half way into Pray.  I love her writing style.  It's full of descriptions and metaphors that really make you understand the way things are where she is.

I am finding, however, that she will say something that makes me think, and then my mind goes off and I realize I've just missed a bunch of the story.  Then I switch to the radio and find a good song to think to.  It's going to take me forever to listen to the whole book at this rate.  I would love another ride to the ashram so I can listen to more at once, but I don't think I can run away from home again for a month or two, at least.  My husband is sweet, but he'll only take so much of that. 

Instead of a whole weekend stuck with the kids, he just gets the little one Saturday night.  My daughter and I are going to New York City for a kirtan with Krishna Das.  It was one of those things that just fell into place.  I'd been on Krishna Das' website not all that long ago, and there weren't any dates in the area.  Then, when I got back from the ashram, I was wishing for more kirtan.  It's hard to come off it cold turkey.  I was checking all my favorites, and there was Krishna Das with dates in New York.  My daughter said she would go with me, although she asked if she could bring her iPod in case she didn't like the music.  Little does she know she can get a contact high just sitting in the room. 

In Eat, Pray, Love, she's been talking about chanting and the power of the Sanskrit mantras.  I believe her, and I am really looking forward to experiencing it again.  If you ever get the chance to experience one of Krishna Das' kirtans, go.  His deep voice will vibrate right through you.

This was an exciting, and kind of sad, week for my family.  Thursday evening my daughter graduated from middle school, and Friday night my son graduated from preschool.  In the fall, my daughter will start high school.  There is only one more graduation for her before she is off to college.  My little one will go to kindergarten in September, riding the bus for the first time to public school.  He is no longer a baby. 

The two graduation ceremonies were very different.  Middle schoolers are very serious.  Well, they are very seriously bored with graduation ceremonies.  The ceremony was a series of speeches by school administration and the class' overachievers.  My daughter didn't give a speech, because there wasn't a category for her greatest achievement, which was learning enough French to be able to shop for clothes in a mall in Montreal.  The only  part of the ceremony which I found moving was the performance by the chorus.  They sang Five for Fighting's song "100 Years".  As soon as they sang "Fifteen, there's still time for you..." I was crying.

The middle schoolers fidited quietly in their seats during the ceremony, then got up and filed out of the gym through a receiving line of teachers.  They  didn't smile or joke around.  They are too concerned about what someone else might think, and they don't want to mess up their hair.  It's sad to see all those personalities hidden under masks of conformity.  My prayer for each of them is that their individual lights find a way to shine again before long.

The pre-kindergarten graduation was different.  The preschool borrowed the theater at a local college, which meant we sat in cushioned seats instead of bleachers, which for me was the biggest improvement over the night before.  The kids took the stage and performed a series of songs and stories that they've been practicing for weeks, and did it flawlessly.  Even the little girl who cried from the moment she stepped on the stage until the moment she left managed to get through her lines.  Then the kids donned caps and gowns and, one at a time, made their way across the stage to receive their diplomas, shake hands with their teachers, and give the school's owner a high-five.  After they received their diploma, they lined up along the back of the stage.  That's when the fun started.

My son doesn't stand still, ever, so while the other kids stood and held their diplomas, my little angel was playing with his cap, using rolled diploma as a megaphone to yell in the ear of the kid next to him, and using the slippery satin gown as a sit-and-spin.  As the remainder of the kids received their diplomas, my husband and I were watching our son and laughing so hard that my sides ached and tears were running down my face.  The teacher monitoring the action at the back of the stage put his cap back on three times, and finally took it away.  My prayers last night went out to the poor kindergarten teacher who has to deal with him.  I hope she gets plenty of rest this summer.

Last week was a kick-ass week, in every sense of the phrase.  I took part in a 5-day Bryan Kest-style power yoga intensive.  I was at the studio at six a.m. every morning for a two hour yoga class in a very hot, very crowded room.  It was awesome.  We worked on advanced asanas I never see in any other classes, and, once my thighs stopped burning, I felt great.  Until Friday, but I'll get to that.

Work was crazy, which was annoying because it's not supposed to be crazy in June.  June is our quiet month, before it gets crazy in July.  I didn't appreciate the preview.

On top of that, I taught three yoga classes this week, including a level III vinyasa class.  I've never taught at that level before, so it was a bit scary, but I did okay.  It was practice so I can sub for my teacher when she is on vacation this summer.  The vinyasa class was Thursday night.  Friday morning, I woke up with a sore throat.

My husband has been working very long hours, due to a big system conversion scheduled for July 1st.  I haven't seen much of him over the past four weeks, and last week was the worst.  The only night he was home at a reasonable time was Tuesday night.  He was asleep before I got home from teaching, because he had a nasty cold.  Being the giving person that he is, he shared this cold with me and the kids.   I'll have to thank him when I start talking to him again.

Friday morning I dragged myself out of bed, with my sore throat and a low-grade fever, and made it to the last day of the yoga intensive.  It was probably my best practice of the week.  Apparently having a fever in a hot room really loosened up my muscles, because I have never been as open as I was on Friday.  Then I dragged myself to work, where the rest of the usual cold symptoms kicked in, and I alternately worked and blew my nose until five, when I went home and fell asleep.

Saturday's agenda was scrapped in favor of more sleeping.  By then the kids had the cold as well.  While my husband worked still more hours, we napped.  This morning I had to teach.  Luckily the Sunday morning class is very gentle, and we did a series of twists to wring this disease out of me.  My voice was hoarse, and at times gave out completely, so it was a quiet, meditative class.  One of the women said she found my scratchy voice very soothing, but I suspect she was just being nice.

My plan for this afternoon is to take another nap.  I am totally and completely wiped out.  I should get on my mat and continue the twists I started in class.  I should also eat some good food and drink some herb tea, but instead I downed an entire box of Girl Scout cookies and a pint of chocolate fudge Rice Dream (that's ice cream for the lactose intolerant).  Why do my healthy habits all disappear when I need them most?  My husband, who is home for a change, has gone out to buy some real food, since I didn't get it that yesterday.  While he's gone, the kids and I are going to make some orange Jell-O....for the vitamin C.....really......