{"id":523,"date":"2011-02-20T14:52:02","date_gmt":"2011-02-20T19:52:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.katrinakenison.com\/?p=523"},"modified":"2011-02-20T14:52:02","modified_gmt":"2011-02-20T19:52:02","slug":"first-day-of-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/first-day-of-school\/","title":{"rendered":"First day of school"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I have had it only a few times, a sudden sense of arriving at my own front door, of being home without even knowing that I\u2019d been away.\u00a0 I felt it twelve years ago, when I first unrolled a yoga mat in the back corner of the Baron Baptiste Power Yoga Studio in Cambridge.\u00a0 Never mind that the room was heated to 102 degrees and I\u2019d dressed, unwittingly, in sweatpants and a heavy, long-sleeved shirt.\u00a0 Never mind that I couldn\u2019t bend over and come any where close to touching my toes, that I had no idea what a downward-dog was, that my body felt so ungainly and awkward and disconnected from my brain (not to mention my heart) that I spent most of the class sweating desperately and watching everyone else flow through a series of poses that looked at once impossible, and impossibly lovely, to me.\u00a0 I did what I could (which wasn\u2019t much) and knew, the way we sometimes do know these things, that I\u2019d finally arrived at a place I\u2019d been seeking all my life.<\/p>\n

There was a part of me even then that dreamed of full immersion.\u00a0 Sometimes, I fantasized about what it might be like to study deeply, to practice for more than an hour and a half a couple of times a week, perhaps even to one day teach this practice I loved so much to others.\u00a0 And always the ever-ready critic in my brain responded with all the reasons why that would never happen:\u00a0 It was too late.\u00a0 I already had a job, a well-paid sedentary one that required me to be at my desk every day. My kids and husband needed me. I\u2019ve never been athletic and never will be. No matter how many years I spend on a yoga mat, I won\u2019t have a \u201cyoga body.\u201d I can\u2019t do a handstand. I\u2019m too shy. Too uncoordinated.\u00a0 Too old.<\/p>\n

Twelve years later, and I\u2019m even older than I was then.\u00a0 But I\u2019m also sensing that it\u2019s time to attend more closely to my soul\u2019s deepest longings, rather than to that inner voice that tells me what I\u2019m not and can never be.\u00a0 The truth is, my children no longer need me day in and day out, the way they once did, and my husband is quite able to take care of himself.\u00a0 I don\u2019t get paid to edit books on someone else\u2019s schedule anymore.\u00a0 And a yoga body is not the goal or the point of what I do on my yoga mat (although I certainly appreciate every little bit of core strength I manage to acquire).\u00a0 The reasons I practice, the reasons I keep a mat spread on the floor between my kitchen and living room, have more to do with learning than with doing.\u00a0 I practice yoga because I clench my jaw till my teeth ache, and tuning in to my breath is a gentle, necessary lesson in letting go.\u00a0 I practice because so often I fail at being the wife, the mother, the friend I yearn to be, and learning to accept myself as I am on my yoga mat helps me accept who I am in the world.\u00a0 I practice because I tend toward judgment, and yoga softens my rough edges.\u00a0 I practice because I get so easily lost in worry or regret or plans that I miss the beauty right under my nose, and yoga is a lovely wake up call, my own daily reminder to be fully present in the moment\u2013by-moment experience of being alive.<\/p>\n

Early this morning, I threw all of my doubts and fears and nerves and excitement into the car, along with my yoga mat and duffel bag, and drove to the Kripalu Center in Western Massachusetts.\u00a0 For the next month, I\u2019ll live in a dorm room here with a bunch of other aspiring teachers and practice yoga two to eight hours a day.\u00a0 All afternoon yesterday, as I vacuumed and dusted, watered plants and changed the beds, I fought back tears, wondering if I\u2019d been nuts to think I could do this, and how I could possibly have imagined that being away from my home and family for such a long time was a good idea.\u00a0\u00a0 Every insecurity that\u2019s ever plagued me came roaring back:\u00a0 the embarrassment of showing up for the first day of first grade with a lunch box that was horribly wrong; third grade \u2013 the wrong stockings; eighth grade \u2013 the wrong friends; tenth grade \u2013 the wrong everything.\u00a0 It\u2019s been years since I\u2019ve endured the butterflies in the stomach that always marked the first day of school —\u00a0 but today is the first day of school all over again, and those butterflies knew just where to find me.<\/p>\n

Funny, how I almost had myself convinced that I\u2019d constructed a solid, reasonably confident\u00a0 grown-up self —\u00a0 and then all it took was the anticipation of a single step out of my\u00a0 own well-established comfort zone to bring me right back in touch with the uncertain child I once was.<\/p>\n

\u201cNervous?\u201d my own son Jack asked me at breakfast this morning.\u00a0 \u201cVery,\u201d\u00a0 I admitted, \u201cbut in a good way. \u00a0And grateful, too.\u201d\u00a0 As a girl, I took refuge in books and the world of my imagination.\u00a0 Since I didn\u2019t quite fit in, I mostly opted out, choosing solitude and stories over socializing and physical activity, both of which were too scary to deal with.\u00a0 So much easier to disappear than to negotiate the complicated social hierarchy of my more with-it peers or to risk embarrassment in gym class.\u00a0 I was the master of the independent study, the sick note, the excused absence.\u00a0 Given that I also managed to get through four years of college without spending a single night with a room mate, setting foot in the gym, or donning a pair of sneakers, what I\u2019m about to do now does seem a little radical. Or, maybe I\u2019m just finally ready to show up \u2013 not only on my yoga mat, not only for my family and my friends, but also for the beautiful, challenging privilege of finding out who I am, who I might, even yet, turn out to be.<\/p>\n

(Internet is limited at Kripalu, and my schedule these next four weeks will be intense.\u00a0 I\u2019m a rusty student, with a fat textbook to read and lots of homework to do.\u00a0 So. . .while I hope to continue with a weekly blog post, I may be a little less connected here so that I can be a little more connected with matters of breath, spirit, and awareness. )<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have had it only a few times, a sudden sense of arriving at my own front door, of being home without even knowing that I\u2019d been away.\u00a0 I felt it twelve years ago, when I first unrolled a yoga mat in the back corner of the Baron Baptiste Power Yoga Studio in Cambridge.\u00a0 Never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,25,39,40,43,14,16],"tags":[139,176,256,372,410,479],"class_list":{"0":"post-523","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-change","8":"category-courage","9":"category-midlife","10":"category-mindfulness","11":"category-practice","12":"category-soul-work","13":"category-yoga","14":"tag-courage-2","15":"tag-fear-2","16":"tag-kripalu","17":"tag-showing-up","18":"tag-teacher-training","19":"tag-yoga-2","20":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/600x600.png?fit=600%2C600","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}