stiffness is not in the mind

It is in my body.

A wise man once said, "No good six-day-week goes unpunished."

And so it is. I had a raucous six-day practice week last week, and then yesterday the mat seemed like an alien being, laying on my back porch, taunting me with its quiet invitation to practice, knowing I would never take it. Knowing that my body looked bent and felt worse. And by bent, i don't mean in the bendy way. I mean, gnarled.

Instead of practicing, I transplanted some flowers into my back garden beds, dahlias that were overgrowing their pots, petunias that had gone leggy and needed a boxwood to climb or ar least a nice bed of soil to stretch out on, sunflowers that are too thirsty to live anymore in containers on the steps. I like my perennials so much better. Except for my beloved zinnias, I hereby vow to never waste my time on annuals and tender bulbs again. What a colasal waste of time.

Live and learn.

Ah. But those zinnias. Last year, I bought a small pot of them and watched them go steroidal over the course of the summer. This year, I wised up: what idiot can't grow an annual from seed? I mean, seriously, annuals are intended to grow from seed, to sprout, bloom, set more seed and die all in a summer. If that is not a virtual Darwinian guarantee of success, then I don't know what is.

My zinnias are just zipping and zooming, approaching three feet tall with multiple blooming shoots and bright pink flowers. I loves me my zinnias.

Also loving my Limelight hydrangea which seems to glow in the moonlight, my blue campanula and my pink petite bee balm, as well as my dwarf shastas. None of these will require replanting next year. All are perennial and will simply pop up again when it's time.

Winning the Most Appreciated award is my one little hosta, which I did not plant. The previous owners must have - silly them, deer regard hostas the way my children regard pop tarts: irresistable and easy to get their grubby little hands on. But this particular hosta popped up this year in a small previously neglected bed by my outside dining room table, which bed I have planted with the equivalent of liver and onions as far as the deer are concerned: butterfly bush, foxglove, jacob's ladder, flowering dogwood and pee-gee hydrangea. So the deer have been passing it by, and yesterday, lo and behold, the Miracle Hosta had bloomed: one tall purple lily-like shoot.

Look at me diverting attention from my piss-poor practice. I struggled through the whole thing. It was a mess of vrittis and cringes and whomping myself through my legs in jump throughs. No grace, no sweetness, no twist to the spine. I mean, I DID everything, yeah, but it felt like the first year again. Bound, but muscling myself in. Even now, my lower back aches.

I did my own Kapo, and then I went into the other room to finish with my friend, EVP. Not her real initials, but she knows who she is...we did a lot of chatting, and I did a lot of criminal R and D. I mean, the ashtanga was obviously not happening, so why not stretch and pave the way to better days in the future?

And i hope tomorrow is one of those. Better days in the future, that is.

Here's hoping.

YC