Mix of Awesomeness

The other day, in response to this post, my college friend Melyssa (mother of twins and native of Calaveras County, CA, home of the Celebrated Jumping Frogs in the Mark Twain story) asked me about the contents of my playlist called "Mix of Awesomeness." So:

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So, yes, the Mix of Awesomeness is totally random and eclectic, but that's what iPods are for, right? Oh, and there is overlap between this mix and the mix I shared in my other post, including my power song, Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road," which Josie commented on. My spin instructor sometimes plays that song when we do a really hard hill at the end, because it's the perfect combination of comforting and motivational. It's the song that gives you a hug and a little kick in the ass at the same time.

In other exercise news, today I began Life Attempt #57 to enjoy yoga. Let me give you a brief history of my yoga experiences, since you asked.

First I did yoga a couple of times at 24-Hour Fitness with my stepdad. Since I only went twice and I was just trying to get a feel for it, I didn't really form an opinion one way or the other about yoga.

My next, longer, attempt at yoga was when I took it with my old teaching partner at the local Senior Center. (No, it wasn't like an old folks' home or anything. It was just like a community center where they held various functions, most of which were, I guess, for seniors. But yoga was open to all ages.) I was 24 at the time and really dealing with my first struggles with depression and anxiety. Everybody said yoga would be great for me, but I just never really got into it. A big part of the problem, if you can call this a "problem," was that I was single at the time and yoga was really cutting into my lying-around-doing-nothing time. Oh, dumb little 24-year-old Shannon, if only you knew. The end relaxation part of the class, which seemed to last forever, felt particularly pointless. Like, why am I lying on the floor of a drafty community center when I could just go home and lie in my bed?

When I got massively shit-slammed with depression after Nathan was born, I thought maybe I would give yoga another try. Since I was faced with the demands of motherhood and working full-time back then, I decided maybe I could squeeze in more time for yoga if I had a DVD I could do at home. I ordered this DVD called Life-Force Yoga to Beat the Blues. It was okay, but a little too spiritual and chanting-based for my taste. I felt dumb sitting in my living room chanting. Even Leia was looking at me funny.

I wasn't motivated to do the yoga DVD at home enough, because I have a hard time working out at home when there's all kinds of other stuff I could be doing at home. So about a year and half ago, I decided to try another yoga class. Unfortunately, the yoga class I chose was at the gym, and so understandably it was a little bit more of an exercise-oriented yoga. Vinyasa yoga, they call it. This yoga was less about relaxation and more about strengthening your core. Generally speaking, I hate all mention of the word core at the gym. And I know that the gym's yoga was a good workout (if the level of sweat it generated was any indication), but I preferred to get my workouts elsewhere. I wanted yoga to be about relaxation. I wanted yoga to be something I looked forward to, not dreaded like some of the other exercise classes I was taking during that same period of my life.

So, anyway, yoga was on hiatus for like a year, and then a couple of weeks ago I decided to give it another shot. I'm still looking for that elusive sense of balance and inner peace that yoga promises. So, I picked a yoga class out of the park district catalog. They offer various forms of yoga, but I picked this one because it coincides with Nathan's preschool and is in the exact same location at the exact same time I drop him off. Oh and also, bonus, it said you had to be at least 30 years old to be in the class, so I knew it would be more of an older crowd.

I know it's too soon to tell, but I think this yoga might be the best of my 57 attempts. (And yes, I know, this is really only like my fifth attempt. I just like the number 57.) The poses were appropriately challenging, and I really, truly felt relaxed at the end. I liked how the instructor didn't talk about the God of This and the Goddess of That, because I have no problem with anybody's religion, but I have enough to worry about trying to stay in the pose without having to worry about whether or not the Goddess of Light is sending a love ray of radiance straight into my heart center. The teacher kept it more on the secular level of let go of what is bothering you, we are all connected kind of stuff. And that relaxation part at the end, the one I couldn't wait to be done with at my old class? I was seriously thinking, please, don't ever let this end.

Ahh, how times have changed.

Lest you think I'm now on some sort of higher spiritual plane, let me share with you that a couple of days ago I got a pedicure just because I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to become One With the Universe at yoga while looking at my hideous toenails. And I took this picture in the car afterward:


Yep, that's snow. I got a pedicure during a snowstorm, because that's how committed I am to toenail upkeep. It's the Snodicure!

Oh, and just to make this post enough of a mix (of awesomeness), I'll just talk about my show here at the end. It's super fun! Except I'm having a hard time with my jokes because the only people watching me at rehearsal are kids, and they don't find me funny. And now I'm feeling insecure and thinking maybe I'm not as funny as I thought I was.

Except I'm one with the universe now and superficial earthly things like comedy don't matter. Or something.