Grateful for Visits from Sons

I will be missing yoga class today; but for a great reason. My two youngest sons are heading "home" for the weekend. I'll be cooking up a storm, feeding them up and sending them off with leftovers. I am grateful that they make the effort to come to visit. Youngest has far to travel. He lives up in Somerville, MA. #3 lives in NYC and comes home every 4 - 6 weeks.

Yoga Nidra

I am so grateful to Patrice, one of my yoga teachers who offered a Yoga Nidra series at the studio where I take most of my classes. Originally, they were started as a once a month series. I think I slept through most of the first few I took. My husband jokingly referred to these sessions as my $25 naps! But I enjoyed them and I was honestly sorry when I had to miss one. Some months back, the owner of the studio scheduled Yoga Nidra as a weekly class. Readers, I am hooked. 

I don't fall asleep anymore and yet, I leave the class feeling rejuvenated. Yoga Nidra is a state of deep relaxation. You are not sleeping and yet, you are not awake. 

Oops! Nearly another year...

...has passed since posting. Yikes. It's the day after Thanksgiving and I'm recovering. Yesterday started before dawn. It was a marathon of cooking for an early afternoon dinner. This was in deference to traveling relatives who wanted to get on the road early. What a whirlwind! But it was lovely.

I have much to be grateful for and I do try to reflect on that at least once during each day but yesterday for sure. Today would've been my father's 88th birthday. We always celebrated his birthday on Thanksgiving, so I'm never really sure which day it is but my sister-in-law, who is amazing about keeping track of birthdays and anniversaries, mentioned it yesterday.

Earlier this month, on the 16th, I was thinking of my sister, Liza, who would've been 60. She died a month or so after I started cancer treatment and about six weeks shy of her 56th birthday. I think about her at least once daily. She was my best friend. 

2016 is Coming to a Close

So, 2016 is nearly over and what a year it has been. While I have made a habit of being grateful every day, I have not put that gratitude to writing. In fact, it has been over five months since I have. 

My last post was written in late July after having clear scans. In the fall, my oncologist moved me to six months between check-ups. Woot! In late January, I will mark three and a half years of being cancer-free. 

I am practicing yoga nearly daily. It hurts when I have to miss a day in class. I do mini-practices at home but it's not the same - intensity, energy, anything. 

Three of four of the sons came home for Christmas. The one who couldn't, visited for a week in October. My oldest is ending his marriage. My youngest seems to be on his way. Transitions are interesting.

Hanukkah started on Christmas Eve this year. Since we celebrate both, we needed to figure out how to do that this year. When they overlap, it's hard but when the first night falls on Christmas Eve, well, negotiations happened. 

I turned 60 this year. My baby sis turned 50, my eldest son, 40, my second son 30, my only niece 20. I also found out that an Irish cousin turned 70. Big year for our extended family.

I am grateful for it all. 

Scanxiety

So, I "celebrated" an anniversary of sorts over the weekend and spent four hours at the Breast Center getting a bone density scan, breast ultrasound and 3D mammogram. Three years ago on July 24, I went for a routine mammogram and walked out with a breast cancer diagnosis.

I feel great except for a worsening lymphedema. Even though my markers were negative at my last oncologist's visit in May, I still approach these yearly scans with some trepidation. Especially as, being at the 3-year mark, I am closer to that magic 5-year mark. For some reason, at these anniversaries, I mourn my the loss of my arrogant, healthy self for a while.

With some ambivalence, I took to FB with my worries and received lots of "positive thoughts" and virtual hugs. It helped, especially from those friends who have been through it. They understand in ways that cancer-free folks do not. I even learned a new word - scanxiety - from a new FB friend. I love it. 

Today, I am grateful
     for my health,
     for my friends,
     for my health insurance,
     for my hospital, which provides this valuable service,
    and even for scanxiety.

Keeping an Open Mind

I'm on vacation at our beach house this week and that means a change in my yoga studio. I started practicing yoga at this studio while on vacation, hm-m, six or so years ago? Eventually, my vacation yoga practice turned into a twice a week practice with one of my sisters in her basement studio. Yoga practice dropped to nothing through chemotherapy but I asked my patient navigator for a studio recommendation since I already had lymphedema and needed a place that catered to recovery. 

She recommended yoga studio in Teaneck and when my query email was answered warmly and almost immediately, I knew I was in good hands. After one class, I found a home and began to devote myself to practice 3 - 4 times weekly. By June, I felt strong enough to up my practice to 6 - 7 times weekly and for the past two years, I have maintained a nearly daily yoga practice.

I am also in a different studio. If you had told me that I would eventually stop practicing there, I would've told you that you were nuts. When I read in an article somewhere that it is actually good for your yoga practice to switch teachers and studios regularly, I scoffed. I was so comfortable there I never dreamed of leaving. 

That is not to say that my yoga was automatic or in a rut. But there was a certain comfort level in the space, in the teachers and in the other participants. I added a second studio for the two days a week studio one didn't have a class for me. 

And found a different energy in studio two. This studio was still dedicated to living a yogic life and not at all competitive or demanding - just different. I liked it and was content to split my time between studios one and two. But then, I got stronger and was ready for different challenges. I'd show up at class and be raring to go but most of my classmates were tired or had injuries and wanted/ needed less. I began to look at other classes at studio two and tried them out. Gradually, I found myself going to more classes at studio two and fewer and fewer at studio one. Since January, I have been practicing seven days a week at studio two.

I am happy there. The owner is very flexible and open to trying new things. He added a Yin class, which I tried and loved. He tried a Yoga Nidra workshop that was so well-received that there's going to be one a month for the next five or six months. Even so, thoughts of trying someplace new occasionally flit through my mind.

My vacation studio has a small core of the same teachers but each year, there are always a band of new teachers to try. This morning's gentle yoga class was taught by someone new to me. She said that we were going to practice Kundalini Yoga and we started practice with a long set of Breath of Fire, a prana that I don't do particularly well, nor do I enjoy it. We also held poses for a really long time lending a sort of Yin quality to the class. Then, I had to do 26 Frog poses and started sweating. I was pleasantly surprised by both the vigor and meditative quality of the class. 

I like to think that I am open-minded but am often not. Regular yoga practice has help remind me to try to be open-minded. Regular yoga practice has taught me that the poses and breaths I enjoy least are probably the ones I need most. 

I am very lucky. 

Oh my, a month and almost a half

Oh dear. I have been so, so remiss in recording my gratitudes! I really wanted to write something daily. I have not. So it is. That is not to say I have not been grateful for something nearly every day. I am. 

I have been meditating more and paying attention to setting intentions. Today, I wanted to spend the day and resist complaining. I did. It was a good day.