Bird song

After a scattered day with too much multi-tasking and too little focus, last night I was glad to finally get to the yoga studio where I teach three times a week. I started the class as I always do with a seated meditation. After all the mind-chatter of the day, I needed it as much as my students. I'm always struck by the contrast between the initial chit-chat when I walk in the door, and then the quiet at the end of the meditation. By the time I ask my students to bring their hands in prayer at their heart and remind themselves of why they came to class that day, why they chose to show up on the mat that evening, there's a remarkable shift in the energy of the room. There's a quiet, but it's more than that. It's a stillness. It's a stillness at the very core of each person in the room.

I officially started meditating in the spring of 2008. I began with two minutes, twice a day. I set up a little altar in the spare bedroom, and sat on a pillow I snagged from the bed. I set my alarm clock, and then closed my eyes and rested my hands on my knees as I had seen in photos. My mind raced. Every itch came alive. My foot fell asleep. My mind-chatter told me I was a failure. The next week I increased the torture to three minutes, twice a day. The next week I quit.

Later that spring I read Eat, Pray, Love, and celebrated when the author Elizabeth Gilbert wrote for three long pages about the uselessness of her own attempts. And then, one night, she had a break-through. I tried again.

On a beautiful Saturday morning, I went with my then-husband to the rickety building where his band rehearsed. While the boys were rocking out inside, I wandered outside and found an old thrown away couch to sit on. The sky was blue and the sun cast a cooling shadow of a wall across the couch.  In the background, there was the faint rhythm of music as the bass rumbled and the drums smacked. The birds were singing from the tree tops. I sat cross-legged on the couch and closed my eyes. I listened to the birds. I felt the sunshine. I heard a car drive past. I listened to my breath. I relaxed my brow and a vision of buckets of water came to my mind, tipping, spilling, righting, filling, tipping, and spilling again. I found complete stillness, and was filled with joy. There was no other place I longed to be.

I don't know how long I sat on that couch. At some point, other cars pulled into the lot behind the wall, and other bands began unloading their trunks. Cigarette smoke wafted in, and voices. I let them all come and go, and when I had my fill, I opened my eyes and stretched.

The best way I know to come to complete presence is to listen. In last night's yoga class, I talked my class through the sounds of the cars on the busy road one story below us, the sounds of all of us breathing together, my voice, their hearts beating in their chests. Without attachment, the sounds become like instruments in an orchestra, each taking their own melody, their own sonic space, to create a landscape of the moment.

Despite the fact that I am a musician, I never listen to music while I run. I think about things, and when my mind is quiet enough, I just listen. Today was a day of listening. The birds were full of song when I started out. The wind was not as strong as Monday, and my breath mingled with it. The rusty autumn leaves skidded over the asphalt. A dog barked, and then another. There was a train whistle that blew, and then blew again. The gardeners were out with leaf-blowers, the worst invention ever. There was a protest outside the hospital, and the picketers were chanting, and then cheered as I ran by.

A few times I worked on my speed, and then my ears shut down. I've been only a little dismayed at my slowed pace these past few weeks, but it would be nice if I could manage a steady nine-minute mile. Last year I was running closer to eight-and-a-half. I've resigned myself to not getting that pace in time for the half marathon in one month - mostly right now I am concerned about distance - but for my second half marathon of the spring, I'd like to have some speed. Mostly, I'd like to feel as if I am not dragging. It is hard to pull a body for 13 miles, but the longer it takes, the harder it is. The faster I am, the easier it is on my body, so today I worked a few speed intervals.

But for long stretches in between, all I did was listen to the birds. Sometimes you need a pillow to sit on. Sometimes you just need the birds.

TODAY'S RUN: 
Setting:
January 16, 2013.
Los Angeles, CA
Mid-afternoon
Temperature in the high 60's

Walk/Run:
4.96 miles
43:39
average pace: 8:47 per mile