Writing and yoga and how it started on a diving board
I'll be in MA in November - want to join me?
When I was six, I learned how to tell a good story by sitting on the diving board of my grandmother's swimming pool.
Every night, Gramma would swim laps before bed. Her best friend would come over, and as the two of them slowly sliced through the water, I told stories. I was obsessed with a stone owl statue that stood guard over her garden, and I chronicled his adventures with the toads, butterflies, and squirrels.
As I perched on the edge, the diving board bounced just slightly as I dangled my toes in the water and played with story arc and character development.
I learned about suspense and foreshadowing.
I learned how to utilize supporting characters to bring out the essence of your hero and how to use humor to illuminate an essential truth.
After the swim, Gramma would critique the story as she toweled off, telling me the parts that worked and when the plot had gotten lost. She never coddled me and never gave praise when it wasn't due. I'd nod thoughtfully as I considered how to refine the owl's story for tomorrow night's swim.
My Gramma knew how to use words. She had been one of those gutsy young broads of the late 1940s, working long hours as an editor at the place she reverentially referred to as "The Paper."
She lived at the YWCA and wondered if the fellas in the newsroom were saying she looked tired when they told her she had "bedroom eyes." One day, with shaky hands, she marched into her boss's office and demanded to be paid on par with those men. After that, they respected her more and started offering her cigarettes. She tucked them away in her purse, saying she'd smoke them later. She didn't like cigarettes, but her boyfriend did, and the man who would become my grandfather couldn't afford to buy his own.
While I did not inherit her impeccable spelling skills, her love of words traveled through the bloodline and directly into my heart.
In so many ways, she made me a writer.
But she also made me a yoga teacher.
About ten years ago, she suffered a stroke. By then, I’d been a devoted yoga student for a while, and she asked me to teach her. She was confined to her bed, so I sat beside her, and we did simple yoga postures and breathing exercises.
Sun breaths, spinal twists, heart openers.
I wasn’t a teacher; I tripped over my instructions as I tried to copy what my favorite instructors had done. But I loved sharing the practice that had saved me from my anxiety and depression and chronic back pain. And it worked — the yoga made her more physically comfortable and helped her sleep. Breath came more easily. She felt less trapped inside her failing body.
The last time I saw her, we did yoga together.
Sun breaths, spinal twists, heart openers.
My Gramma left me a bit of money when she died.
“Find the best yoga school there is. Get certified and go take care of other people who think they are too broken, and it’s too late, and they can’t do it. You’re damn good at this, Miss Mouse.”
I cried and whimpered that I didn’t want to be a fucking yoga teacher and that she should just stay alive forever.
Of course, one of those was a lie, and the other was impossible. So, the year after she died, I walked into Kripalu for the first time and picked up my yoga teacher training binder.
I lived there for a month, and they taught me how to weave a yoga class into a story. They taught me how to build intensity, flow with the emotional needs of the room, and create integration to allow students the space to make the practice their own.
I learned Sanskrit, yogic theory, anatomy, nutrition, meditation, and Ayurveda.
My Gramma gave me writing and yoga, two practices that continue to get me through my hardest days. I’ll forever be grateful.
And now I get to return to Kripalu and share everything I’ve learned from so many incredible teachers.
I’m so damn lucky.
I’ll be in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, from November 8 to 10 for an in-person mindfulness program. I get to share everything I learned about writing and yoga — at my Gramma’s pool and in my Kripalu training and during all the decades in between.
I’d love for you to join me.
How To Survive in a Challenging World: A Yoga And Writing Workshop
Here’s what else is happening:
What I’m reading
All Fours — A can’t-put-it-down novel about desire and creative freedom in midlife, with the kind of sex scenes that make me feel like I should be reading it under a blanket with a flashlight rather than on the Amtrack in Washington, DC, waiting for them to switch out the engine to diesel. Can a novel be both hot and culturally important? Why, yes, yes, it can.
What I’m listening to
A fantastic podcast about the ways we look at our various relationships. I’m a big fan of Chosen Family, but I’ve often found the terms limiting and unsatisfying. Someone is your partner, or your friend, or your best friend — which feels awkward to use past the age of fourteen. I enjoyed this deep dive into the ways we can rethink our relationships with Rhaina Cohen, the author of The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life With Friendship at the Center.
What I got to do in NYC
I got to make this video outside the Plaza.
I was invited to a gala in NYC (oh la la) for the Federal Enforcement Homeland Security Foundation. They care for federal agents in times of crisis and they are wondeful friends of my nonprofit, Mission Flexible. This means I got to put on a formal onesie (I’m obsessed with this look) and talk to strangers who turned out to be lovely and interesting people.
Thank you for reading, friends. I’m so grateful to you.
Much love,
~Lisa