Yoga is difficult for the one whose mind is not subdued.~Bhagavad Gita

This week I felt good enough to go to a yoga class. (I go to Tosa Yoga on North Ave.) It felt incredible. I couldn't do all the positions, or do the rest of them as deeply as I'd been learning to, but it still felt good.

I went on a day different than my usual class, so I didn't know anyone there. It soon became evident that the woman next to me was pretty new to yoga. And she didn't like it. It was an altogether odd feeling to be so immersed in the pleasure of an experience, only to hear someone at the same time declare they hated it.

I love the awareness of body that yoga offers. To me, it just feels healthy. To feel muscles often abused or ignored respond slowly is invigorating. It's similar to sex. Sex can be exercise, repeating motions, focusing on the end result. Or it can be yoga, focused, aware, unhurried, encompassing all the body. I'm sure there are more things sex can be, but that's not what this posting is about.

At the end of the class, as we did our shavasna, I imagined the stress leaving my body, and fell into a peaceful meditation. Suddenly next to me I heard a growl. 'This is NOT relaxing!' I am still befuddled at the polar extreme between myself and the other student. And I still wish for her a less tense experience.

Regardless, I'm grateful to be in this class. And I hope to continue to be.

Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.~Mark Twain

I found that to be very true last week.

Matt & I joined Weight Watchers eight weeks ago. We started exercising again, he running 20 miles a week, me doing a little bit of everything. Walking, workout videos, weights, stretching, yoga. At the gym in DeKalb years ago, the guys there called me 'Gumby'; I was pretty flexible, and loved how it felt.

With the weight loss and the increased activity, we both have been feeling better in general. I've often goaded Matt to stretch more, though. He may be younger than me, but that means I should be able to offer him the wisdom of my years. Right? :)

Last Wednesday, after feeding J we played together on the living room rug. I had my workout clothes on; I was psyched to do a combo weights/cardio workout from The Firm. J got a little cranky as nap time neared, so I started to get up, carrying him. My lower back popped. I was blinded. A million 'I wish I'd have known's' to those who have had back problems.

I managed to inch over to the couch and lay J on it. Once there, I realized I had no idea why I wanted to get there. I could barely move. Ten minutes later I'd gotten J into his crib. I emailed Matt about my mishap(he's so rarely at his desk but always has his Treo), saying I'd call the doctor & let him know how I was. Two minutes later I emailed 'Please call me'. I knew I couldn't get J out of his crib, much less drive myself to the doctor.

Five days later, I'm much better. I'm not even taking the muscle relaxers anymore, just Aleve. I've walked twice. I may even try to work out again tomorrow.

The kicker is that I've focused so much on stretching & yoga to make sure I avoided all injuries. Matt does a few hamstring stretches a week. And who got hurt? It's Murphy's Law...

If you think dogs can't count, try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket and then giving Fido only two of them.~Phil Pastoret

Our dog Churchill was not allowed upstairs the first two years we had him. It gave the cats a place to escape. It helped that Churchill is afraid of stairs.

Once J came, we figured it'd give Churchill a whole nother layer of house to explore and find some companionship it. Now he only goes up when we call. He seems glad to be there, but just as glad to go back down.

Two nights ago, in the middle of the night, I heard the floor boards creak. I looked in the doorway to see if A was coming to us; maybe she'd had a bad dream. I saw no one, though. A few seconds later, I heard the familiar jingle of Churchill's collar. "What are you doing up here,Churchill?!" came from me. "Go downstairs!" I finished. I heard the jingle disappear down the hall.

A few moments later, I heard something else. A beep every three minutes or so, that was guaranteed to irratate my sleep. I asked Matt to go check it out.

Turns out the smoke detector in the hall leading to J's room had a battery running low. As Matt came back upstairs, he found Churchill-laying in Arcadia's doorway, facing out. Protecting her, perhaps?

He's not come up since. We sincerely wonder if he knew that sound wasn't right, and was either warning us or was ready to protect us.

Either way, what a pooch!

You can tell it's spring in Milwaukee when you can see curb.~from a morning broadcast on WLUM last week

As every soul in Milwaukee is probably thinking, it's so good to see the white of winter disappear. Not only can we see curb, we can see grass as well.

What a difference that makes to me. It means hope, hope that the world will erupt in green soon, hope that before long we'll be outside more than in, hope that my isolation will end.

My Polish ancestors supposedly settled in Milwaukee as the area reminded them of their homeland. And it is beautiful. I love to drive through the Wisconsin countryside more than any other state. (Virginia is second.) But as far as the climate goes-my Polish DNA must end there. I am not cut out for these long, bitter winters. My French DNA must be dominant there.

Speaking of spring, spring break begins for us tomorrow. Saturday we'll attend a family class in karate. (Have fun imagining my lack of coordination Saturday afternoon.) Next week we'll go to Lake Geneva for a night. A hotel on Lake Delavan had a great spring break special for a two bedroom, two bath suite. With the full kitchen, we'll eat in mostly, swim a lot, and get away for pretty cheap. J's first time swimming-it ought to be fun.

And it's time for spring cleaning, which I've already begun. Time to put the pass-on's on the newly visible curb...

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.~Winston Churchill

Yesterday there was a hearing in court for J. Once again we found that the papers for him hadn't been filed. We'd been told they'd be filed by the end of December, then the middle of February, and now this. I'd volunteer to strap J in a harness on me and fill out forms or make copies or do whatever to help get this done, if it would be taken seriously.

Some good came of the hearing, though. The judge officially ruled that adoption was the plan for J. He also recommended the papers be filed as quickly as possible, bless him. A supervisor has them; they could be filed by today, even. I know enough, though, to not to get my hopes up too high.

On the note of legal issues, we're in the middle of submitting a request for more time with A. These two issues are my heart's purest prayers. It seems to be hard to make either happen. All this loops back to my previous posting on prayer. Still not a lot of luck on that front, either. I go through the motions; the routine itself offers some comfort. I still search.

It's so odd to aspire to something you have little to no control over. What a frustrating position to be in! Is that how my children feel? (Or will feel, in J's case.)

So the most important efforts of my life to this point show no success. Is that failure? If I can find a way to continue enthusiasm, then maybe not.

Wish us success...

Somehow destiny comes into play. These children end up with you and you end up with them. It's something quite magical.-Nicole Kidman, adoptive parent

Yesterday was magical.

We've had J for five months. We went through '100 Nights of No Sleep'. We've watched his reflux ravage him, from once an hour to once or twice a day. We've changed over 1,000 diapers. We've fed him over 3,000 ounces of preemie formula. We've kissed him at least 10,000 times.

The adoption is still stalled. We have court later this week, but since nothing else has been done, nothing else will be done.

But yesterday, in my heart, he became my son. Not my foster son. Not my adoptive son. But my son.

We were sitting in the den, he on my lap. As I ate a nectarine, I slowly scraped tiny tastes for him to savor. He'd look up at me intermittantly, content, serene, sweet.

Nothing special. No fireworks, no parades, no trumpets. But everything changed, deepened, intensified.

I could adopt a dozen children, love them, fight for them, spend my life being their mother. All with the hopes that this feeling would bloom.

Isn't it sweet that it did?

Racism isn't born, folks, it's taught. I have a two-year-old son. You know what he hates? Naps! End of list. ~Dennis Leary

I had the most unnerving experience last night. I believe I was the subject of racism.

I'm white. I'm a woman. I'm an American of Polish and French descent. You might need to know that before you read ahead.

I pulled into a parking space at Buffalo Wild Wings. There was a car on my left; none on my right. My mini-van needed to be straightened out, so I put the car in reverse.

The passenger in the car on my left started to open the door. I stopped backing out; ripping off their car door didn't sound like much fun to me. The woman closed the door, then rolled down her window to throw out some garbage. (We can tackle littering in some future blog, but not today.)

So I straightened my car. As I took the keys out of the ignition, the driver leaned towards the passenger window and started yelling something at me. I couldn't hear, so started to roll down my window. This was just in time to hear, '..., you prejudiced white bitch!'.

I got out of the car then. I've pissed plenty of people off in my day, and not always on purpose, but did not have a clue what I'd done. So I asked, 'What did I do?' (I can be pretty smooth sometimes.)

She answered, 'You heard me, you honky white bitch!. Then she slowly drove away, throwing daggers at me with her eyes. Ouch. OUCH.

My husband and friend Sue have reminded me there's nothing I can do now, and even then, I couldn't have changed her perception of me. I understand that.

But that doens't mean I don't want to. I want to bridge gaps, not create chasms. I'm the not-very-bright person who was shocked to hear some whites wouldn't vote for Obama because he's black. I refused to go to Junior prom because I wasn't allowed to go with a black male friend. Extended family hid my keys in Indiana to stop me from going to protest a KKK rally.

My son is part black.

The sadness is that I could tell all of this to the women I encountered last night, and it wouldn't do any good. What they accused me of, they practiced-live and on me.

To anyone ready to pounce on me for this, I am fully aware that this is how millions of blacks, Hispanics, Jews, etc., have experienced for millenia, and often much more violently. I can think of no sentence to type that will accurately express my sorrow, sympathy, repulsion at the horror, and solidarity I feel.

But it sure is different when it happens to you, you don't know why, and you can't reason with the racist standing next to you.

God help me find more ways to bridge these gaps. Oops-I almost prayed...