Space

Or rather...thank you for living with my silence.

I was away last week, working towards a 10 year goal to become a trained as a hot yoga instructor.

This has been a lingering dream of mine since my friend Leah showed up when I was pregnant with T, puking my brains out daily. She had recently returned from a Bikram yoga teacher training. I had never practiced yoga and I associated it largely with cross-legged Indian dudes. It never occurred to me to practice it, let alone that it could be something that could provide relief from my nausea. At that point, seven months into my pregnancy and still puking daily, I was willing to try anything. Leah worked my stiff, bloated frame into several poses, and amazingly, I felt better for days after.

I vowed to figure out what this was all about. Soon after T was born, I registered for a class locally. It was slow, boring, glorified stretching. Still, it felt good enough that I kept going. There was little else in town for options and so I eventually quit, choosing a higher intensity workout.

When I moved to Bellingham a few years later, my boyfriend encouraged and encouraged me to go check out the multitude of studios in town. Fear won out for several weeks until finally, after driving past this one several times, I made way up the stairs. After the very first class I was: sweaty, worked, tired, elated and full of endorphins. I was also completely hooked.

When I left Bellingham two years ago, there were many, many things I knew I'd miss, but my biggest concern was, what will I do without my yoga family? My daily classes/detox?

Given that there was no studio within two and a half hours of my home, I acquiesced, signed up for kick boxing. I found myself immediately immersed into a community that I related to, but for very different reasons. Again, I was hooked.

A year later, things changed. I am not sure what changed, exactly, but I lost my fire for the classes, racing season was fast approaching and I dedicated myself solely to saddle time. Still, something was missing. I knew it was my yoga practice, and yet, I was never dedicated enough to do it at home.

Each city I visit with a studio, I'd visit. I have driven the two and a half hours to get my yoga fix.
Finally, I came to the conclusion, that if someone was not going to bring yoga to me, I was going to have to have a part in creating it here.

When I signed up for the Baptiste Teacher Training, it was largely out of logistical necessity. I had never practiced his signature vinyasa flow prior to my arriving at Bootcamp. I showed up any way, perfectly and as I was meant to: open. Ready to practice.

The journey was transformative in nearly every way. I cannot wait to get back on my mat. I have my fire back. More photos insights, stories and anecdotes will follow, but today I dig out, and root my feet back firmly in this frozen tundra I call home.

In the meantime, this was the view from my room/hut/whatever you call it:

35 Things. 35 Years.

35 things that 35 years taught me, in no particular order:

1. One can travel to exotic and romantic locations and one can also live in said locations, but when the revelation is made that the very best people actually live in an ugly ass grey flat plain in the middle of nowhere, one must pack up and move very close to those people so as to allow one's child to experience these people as often as humanly possible. One must still continue to travel to said exotic and romantic locations, however, or one will turn into a crazed lunatic.

2. You are the best mother/father your child will ever know. You are the worst mother/father your child will ever know. If you forget this for a second, you have forgotten everything.

3. Tears from laughter taste so much better than tears from sadness, yet they come from the same place.

4. 35 years of life, nor 15 years of knowing a person, does not make one more adept or qualified at spotting a liar. What that kind of time might make one more adept at, however, is brushing one's self off and allowing trust to creep back in.

5. We are gifted with children with multiple qualities and characteristics that are our precise opposite. This is meant to drive us batshit crazy.

6. One can learn a lot from dogs. For example, the dog who pisses on everything in sight is much like the man who does so: suspect, and up to something self serving that has absolutely nothing to do with relieving one's self of toxins.

7. There are very few problems in this world that cannot be wholly solved by one of the following means: stretching, dancing, laughing, hugging, pedaling, running.

8. You can take every healthy cell away from a child, strip his bone marrow, and put him quite literally in his death bed and he will still fight like hell to live. He will also never, not ONCE, ask the inevitable question: WHY ME? Yet if you take away a man's Sportscenter, or a woman's morning coffee, he/she will ponder this very question. They will also ponder this WHY ME? question at a flat tire, changing weather patterns, in love, in the midst of a breakup, and in approximately one million other scenarios. That kid? Not once.

9. Asking WHY ME? is generally not a helpful question to ask. Ever.

10. The man who laments to people that you hate and avoid fighting/have no idea how to fight will more than likely also be the man who teaches you how to fight.

11. When Midwest people don't know what to talk about, they will inevitably talk about the weather. 99.9998% of the time, this will involve bitching. They will get very uncomfortable and resist eye contact if at minus 20 wind chill, you talk (instead of bitching) about the lovely sun reflecting off the ice covered trees. Likewise, if a geographic study were conducted of who would show up and deed your family should something tragic occur, I would put my money on the Midwest person 99.9998% of the time. The others, they'd ask what they could do..but the Midwesterner..he'd show up.

12. Adults over complicate things in order to avoid the truth. Ask a kid the answer to a very important question you are pondering. The kid will respond with some derivative of: what is most important? or what do you want? Ironically, it rarely ever occurs to the kid, that they are the most important.

13. Most cliches are cliches because there is some element of truth to them.

14. Happiness and love are very alike in the sense that neither of them are defined by dramatic fireworks shooting out of one's ass and ears and every other orifice as many people might hope or believe. Happiness and love both creep up on you and are a mosaic of moments. They are not the OMG butterflies that almost come out your throat high you get from flying half off your seat on the descent on a roller coaster...nor the subsequent feeling of gravity bearing down on your every cell in your ass at the bottom of said huge hill. If happiness and love look to you like dramatic fireworks shooting out of one's ass, or this roller coaster ride...you are confused.

15. Some people are confused their whole life. They don't care to be un-confused and it's not your job to change them. Leave them be. Likewise, some people have crafted their entire story to be a victim and they don't plan on being an "un-victim" any time soon. Leave them be too. Actually if you find yourself in the business of changing people, your best first (and last) stop should be you.

16. When someone makes you their enemy they are usually radically too busy hating you to stop and ponder that you are very likely a lot more similar than you are different. That is why you are so hate-able.

17. Mirrors are a bitch sometimes.

18. There are approximately one bazillion categories into which we can put people (man/woman, gay/straight, loser/winner, nice/asshole, athlete/klutz). The one category that I have found the most useful, however, is this: abundant versus scarcity. Abundant people are nice to have around. Scarcity people are not so nice to have around.

19. Breathing is the most overlooked and yet imperative survival mechanism we have been given. If you want to learn something about nearly every situation you're in, check your breath. If you want to change something about nearly every situation you're in, take a breath.

20. The single best component of social media is the Facebook birthday notification system. You should wish everyone a happy birthday on their day because it’s easy and you can. You will understand what I mean when you are loving every single second of all those wishes on your birthday.

21. When looking at all the birthday wishes one receives on Facebook on your day, it is easy to morbidly ponder what a kickass party it might be if you died and they all showed up at your funeral. It is also easy to ponder how insanely jealous you’d be if you missed said party. Deciding to stick around therefore becomes a selfish act you are willing and adamant about carrying out, even if only for one of these micro parties at a time.

22. We all dance on the fringes of insanity.

23. The truth is NEVER black or white. But there ARE approximately a bazillion shades of grey.

24. 99% of human beings would rather not have a difficult conversation. 99% of said humans will also avoid having that conversation. In doing so, they will impress their will upon the situation in the hope that the difficult conversation will go away, diminish or ultimately it will need never happen. A great percentage, when pressed will even lie to avoid having said conversation. These people are called ex-boyfriends. Or soon to be ex-boyfriends. They are also 99% human, although you think they are the devil in those moments of withholding.

25. The truth eventually surfaces. Always. If your people are among the 350 million people who use Facebook, it will probably surface sooner than you desire.

26. Guilt eats people from the inside out. There is a LOT of guilt bred into people of German and Irish descent, in particular those who live around the Midwest.

27. Contrary to popular belief, you will not stop getting zits after your teenage years.

28. Home baked cookies are the best, but there are times when all you need in this entire world is a double stuffed Oreo. Or three.

29. The amount you are able to love a person is directly proportional to the amount that person loves themselves. This is also true for the lover.

30. One person might not be able to singlehandedly create an earthquake, but one person can surely rattle a fault line and create exponential movement. Some of the biggest earthquakes involve only a microscopic shift.

31. People love to hear their name second to only one other thing: being asked for help.

32. Babies make everything better. Until they shit. Or puke.

33. Happiness is not at all like a box of chocolates, it’s more like a pie. You can construct the slices of what makes happiness to be any kind of pie you want, but to think that they will always taste good in the combinations you chose is ludicrous. Likewise, to think that there will never be a piece missing is ignorant. And while it is wholly possible to have your pie and eat it too it is much tastier shared.

34. Life is tragically short and it is often the greatest, most powerful lights that are extinguished first.

35. The world would be forever changed if every choice we made for only one day came from love instead of fear.

Here's hoping I am gifted an additional 35 healthy, happy years.

AND FINALLY....35.1.because i can....

35.1 In all circumstances, strive for 100% presence.
It's harder than you think.
It changes everything.

35.

*pretty trees, huh? they are in my yard. and yes, this photo is totally irrelevant because all relevant photos had to be burned to protect the guilty. press on. keep reading. and no, that is not a pile of fresh dog shit you see in my lawn. i promise. with all my fingers crossed.

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon my 35th year on earth.

I'll admit it, 35 years kind of snuck up on me; not unlike the lady in Target Sunday who ran over my foot with her motorized scooter.

As for the celebration that welcomed my 35 years, and Keri's 31 years respectively, it was actually fairly epic, as far as birthday celebrations go.

The party included a bus ride, to relive my middle school days, when, well...I rode a bus. It included a little live music, or 'twang, as the one of two bands says about themselves.

It included a bunch of my favorite people in this entire world, who just so happen to live within a stone's throw of me. And it of course, included some grey goose, (or geese?) which of course, is not to be confused with the goose that flies, or shits, but is another kind of goose entirely, that I suppose arguably does shit, just in an entirely different way.

It included dancing. A LOT of dancing.

It included acrobats. And back flips. And pole dancers. Black lights and green-ish tinted teeth, a guy who claimed he brought his woman straight to the bus from Trinoble, and one of the world's greatest bad mitten players. Okay, I made the bad mitten part up, it just sounded good. All told, bad mitten players or not, it was a darned good time.

It also included my kid, picking out for me a gift all on his own that makes me giggle a little every time I use them: dishes. Because as T said: well, you needed them because...we always run out. Or more specifically as T later clarified: BOWLS, I got you bowls because that is all I really use and there are never any left!

There was also dinner with the family that was darned good and even more caloric and Midwest portion plentiful and it also involved a Giggling Goat. In case you didn't get the memo, I have a little thing for goats.

And perhaps most importantly there was included in my 35th celebration a very, very long nap the day following the aforementioned bus adventure in which I held my head in agony and muttered, "Dorothy, we're not in Kansas any more."

Fact is, we never were in Kansas to begin with, but at that particular moment, I had much bigger troubles than geographic relevance.

Do Good Have Fun: CRANKSGIVING

Just a friendly reminder that Cranksgiving is THIS weekend.

Last year it snowed sideways. I still managed to meet a bunch of amazing people, laugh myself silly, kick Keely's arse in the bestest sunglasses competition AND show up at Mars Cafe with a tall boy in my rack, a smile on my face, and food falling out of my messenger bag all over the road.

As always, there will be some great schwag giveaways from Chrome, Yankee Doodle Tattoo and others...plus there are free t-shirts for (most) all participants. Oh yeah, and a bike.

Even if you don't want to ride, stop by, have a beer, say hello.

Annnnd....if you have something you'd like to donate...contact me.

My Baby Kills Big Bird

My brother and brother-in-law took T and his (boy) cousins hunting yesterday.

From what I understand, it took my kid approximately 2.5 seconds to fall into a creek. Okay, that might be stretching it a bit, but he did, at some point, fall into a creek. He also watched my brother 'murder' a bird that didn't quite die the first time, and "got a little blood on my hands but it didn't quite matter because I already had a lot of dirt on them, momma."

He loved every minute of the man time, watching the dogs work, and I think, is finally ready to acquiesce; add some proper Carharts and hiking boots to his wardrobe. His swanky Nike Airs are a special shade of brown, smell of manure, and the sweatpants and hoodie he wore are largely retired. For hunting purposes at least.

My favorite of the 57 stories I've heard thus far is about how he "held the heart of a pheasant right in the palm of my hand." T described in intricate detail the size, chambers, and such. I was impressed with my brother that he took the time to give a biology lesson during the gutting process.

T also told me about the pheasant's balls, which could have been easily confused with his liver, but they couldn't be sure which part was which. They're teeny tiny little bird balls, he said.

Apparently they are also very difficult to differentiate from a liver.

Veteran's Day Prayer

I spend disproportionate amount of my time thinking about war.

I've researched my grandfathers' service and the wars they took part in. I read my Grandpa's log from the Navy. I lived in Germany, walked through Hitler's hideaways, visited concentration camps. I wept at the bags of hair, fillings, shoes and glasses at Dachau and the stench of death at Auchwitz/Birkenau.

In the wake of 9.11 I spent endless days reading everything I could get my hands on to understand the conflicts that plagued the areas in those places where we went to war. As they waged on, and the articles became books, I read those too.

It occurs to me daily, that my son does not recall a single minute of his life when our country was not at war. I know that somehow, this affects his reality, or more appropriately is his reality, but longer term, I wonder how it will play out in his world view. Because his daily existence is largely safe and protected, will he grow up crass and with a disproportionate view of what this word, war, means?

Likely.

And now, as my son reaches that pivotal age where he will begin to formulate a plan for his future, eventually make his own choices about how that will play out, I ponder what I'd do, as his mother if he chose to serve our country, fight our war.

For now, I know my first cousins choosing so is quite enough.

One: off to basic training and back to school.
Another: off to basic training and now in Korea.
Both: futures uncertain.

I watch their updates and pictures flash across Facebook and to me, they are still babies: the kids I chased around my Grandparents' farm, tied up with their own socks, tickled until they peed and threw effortlessly over my shoulder in a game of hide and seek.

They still are, in a lot of ways those babies, and yet they are among the thousands we send out in masses with this message of supporting and fighting to protect our freedoms: speech, movement, trade, our every means of existence really.

My cousins are in a lot of ways, much like my son; ignorant to how bad things could be, ignorant also to how lucky we as Americans are, and yet, they signed up to serve our country for reasons each their own: to live out a family legacy, to find a path, an assured future. It is admirable and admittedly for me, difficult to wrap my mind around, at times.

15 years ago when I was close to their ages, I chose to spend the better part of two years traveling Europe with reckless abandon, and later much of the United States, mostly alone and yet wholly ignorant to the idea that something quite awful could go very, very wrong at any given moment. Yet despite my hindsight view of multiple moments where things could have gone very, very wrong, they never did.

I always attributed that orb of safety that seemed to surround me to my great judgement at the time but years later I know that to be far from truth. In all my innocent, naive thought processes: it never even occurred to me that something could go wrong and likely therefore it never did.

My prayer for my cousins, and every one who serves on this Veteran's Day is this:

That they do not lose all of their sweet innocence as they leave boys, and come back largely men.

That their experiences enlighten them, such that they may enlighten others, about the wisdom that comes from living outside the United States.

That they can pass along their learning first hand just how blessed and lucky we surely are, as Americans.

And most importantly I pray this:

That against all odds they can maintain a piece of that blissful ignorance, the frame of mind that nothing could possibly go wrong...so nothing will in fact go wrong.

Gratitude and Explanation

This blog was supposed to be all about biking. I started it to keep my proverbial pen moving in the face of a job change that no longer required much writing. Its purpose was two-pronged: a way to keep track of my two wheeled adventures, training, and workouts while educating me on a new (to me) social tool.

Originally, the blog was locked down and only I had access. That lasted a few months, until I realized that another alisondoyle dominated the search engines and there was really no reason for the thing to "hide."

Then, for a long time (in the online sense), the blog had open access. I still did nothing to optimize the writing, used few if any labels and wrote about whatever struck me. I also purposely never hooked up any analytics, so as to gift myself this daily idea that I should and could write whatever I felt.

I recognize that some of my readers could care less about riding bikes, others could care less about my reading lists, others could care less about my kid and still others, would rather jump off a very high cliff than read about my floundering love life, or my trials as a single mother.

And yet, bless each and every one of you that have, you've kept coming back here.

Thank you from the bottom of my ten times larger than my head heart.

I live and intimately understand messaging strategy, optimization strategies, and target audiences and yet, I do not want to fall to some preconceived notion that I somehow "need" or "owe it to my community" to write about a specific topic of relevance to one group. Admittedly, this is also a front for my saying that for a very long time, my scattered posts, relevance and lack of optimization was me hiding, vulnerable and afraid.

I was also too scared to find out who was (or wasn't reading) this thing.

Eventually, I recognized that my imagination is typically far worse than any reality, so very recently with the help of a friend, I started monitoring the blog's traffic. It was a HUGE step for me and it has been humbling beyond measure.

It is for that reason that I feel compelled to share with you that it is of up most importance to me to keep writing, at any cost, and I am determined to not allow outside influences drive what spills from my heart onto my keyboard.

That said, I cannot tell you enough, those of you who do come out from lurk-dom from time to time to email, comment, even call...what it means to me. Each and every one of them; they are better than a thousand dark chocolate peanut butter cups and more powerful than my dog's farts.

So, as this thing continues, I can promise you loosely this: when I am feeling raw and vacant I might review books. When my kid says something funny, I will use space as a means for recording that. When an asshole motorist tries to run me off the road, I will verbally lash out against him. And when my heart breaks as it surely will again, this space will become a cleansing agent more powerful than my Swiffer and Clorox Handi Wipes combined.

Here's the shocking part: during all this obsessing and scattered writing people actually began reading the thing. I'd mention to a friend that I'd written about a topic on my blog. My sister convinced me I should perhaps list the thing on my Facebook page. Eventually, I also listed it on my Twitter. My courage grew and thus, my audience grew.

One heartfelt email from you turned into another and then another, each with their own story; some inspired, some sharing their own adventures, demons. Others thanked me for helping them with a new (to them) author, and some simply mentioned that they hoped I'd keep writing. In each an every one of these letters, comments, I found myself lamenting at the courage of the person who stuck themselves out on a line to say whatever they've said, whatever they'd shared.

And so, taking from your lead(s), I resolved to do better at commenting on other peoples' blogs. More emails, comments followed.

I was overjoyed. I was also scared shitless. I am still overjoyed. I am STILL scared shitless.

Initially, "What if's" suddenly became a part of my daily existence: What if my kid's dad read the thing? What if he used it to make me look bad? What if my parents read? What if I pissed someone off? What if my ex- boyfriend read? What if I didn't give someone enough space and another person too much? What if I was perceived differently than I see myself because of the topics I choose on any given day?

Each of these things have become reality.

And yet, sometimes, while I have been silenced for weeks at a time, and I am ever careful about my filter, I continue to find solace here.

This is merely a slice of me, and yet it it is wholly my space, my lamentations, my observations.

Yes, I am careful. There is much that I would love to write about here, in particular about my son, about being a single mom to him for ten plus years, about my journey from there to here, but I feel at this time, for various reasons, that I cannot. I am aware that my writing is slanted because of that, and contains a selfish bend. While this is something I presume could be judged, I hope that people know that it is from necessity, not narcissism.

In the past couple weeks two fellow single mom bloggers who I have follow religiously have been ambushed by members of their own family for the reasons I mention above. In both cases they share about their dating, children, and ex- struggles in a far more open dialog than I do here. I have watched their comments over time as they are cheered, and then as they are chastised by men, women, for their choices, what they share.

Through them, and also through my own readers, I have gained perspective and a great deal of respect for the power of this space. I have also learned that with sharing comes responsibility, vulnerability and a sense for others that they can more readily attack.

I vow, with these other mothers to not succumb to this fear, and keep writing. I also vow to keep sharing, laughing, lamenting, and loving; to remain respectful to those people who touch my family, because the world is small and flat and time is liquid. To never, knowingly, write from a place of fear.

My challenge to each of you who pop on to this site to read, zone out, or whatever you do here, is to please, please continue to pass along the sweet goodness that your comments and positive support brings: on my blog, others blogs, twitter and anywhere you see fit.

The more we ALL are encouraged to share what lies in the cobbled spaces of our hearts, our silly minds, the better off we ALL will be.

They say it is the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, but I can assure you, each and every one of you who have spoken bravely, quietly, and positively as a result of this space: you have touched me in a way for which there simply are no words.

It is only because by your sweet words that I am encouraged to further share mine.