National Grammar Day

March 4 is National Grammar (not grammer) Day!

What are your plans for fighting the forces of grammatical evil and terrorism that assault us every day at threat level red?

May I suggest a few things:

Visit the National Grammar Day website. You'll see a playlist of songs called Bad Grammar Hall of Fame. Guess who's (that's who's not whose!) featured? Bob Dylan's Lay, Lady, Lay. Come on. You know why that's wrong. Right? :-)

Join SPOGG! Yeah, did you know there was a Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar? America rocks.

SPOGG's website is for people who crave good, clean English — sentences cast well and punctuated correctly. It's about clarity. And who knows how many of the world's huge problems could be solved if we had a little more of that?

Indeed.

Understand that travel is challenging for those of us who care about English usage. I consider myself a Defender of the English Language. A DEL! :-)

Billboards, newspapers and advertisements constantly present incorrect statements. We DELs do understand that English is evolving. We understand that the rules of 19th century textbooks no longer apply. We can even, from time to time, accept text talk in a paper for one of our English classes (but only if we're really in a good mood!)

Here are some things that haven't changed:

your and you're

I want your wardrobe.
You're a stuck up grammar snob.

it's and its

It's going to snow today.
Pick up the shovel by its handle.

(I was on the PBS site yesterday, and they misused its. PBS! I had to close out the browser window and weep.)

would have and could have

Never should thou write would of or could of. If that was right, then the contraction would be would'f. Yeah. Goofy.

CDs for plural, not CD's

If it were CD's, the writer would mean belonging to the CD. Example: I love that CD's artwork. In this sentence, the word artwork is referring back to the CD, indicating that it belongs to (possessive) the CD.

Example: Will you go stock the CDs? Here, we mean more than one CD. No apostrophe.

And while I'm on the apostrophe: Whoever told you that you add an apostrophe whenever you encounter a word ending in s is wrong. Wrong. So wrong.

Example: Cat's for sale.

This could be right, if the author was intending to say: The cat is for sale. But more than likely, the author meant more than one cat was for sale. This, in principle (not principal) is silly because everyone knows there are more than enough free cats in the world.

balled and bawled

I never knew the confusion around this one until I started teaching and my sweet eighteen year olds wrote stories in which the female protagonist is crying (balling). Makes you laugh on a Saturday afternoon.

These are my pet peeves. Every card carrying member of SPOGG has his or her (that's his or her, not their because the subject is singular not plural) own grammar-nazi tendencies. If you're one of our students, beware and be wary. We do have a sense of humor. And we understand there are simple typographical errors. And yes, we understand that sentence fragments and run-ons sometimes contribute to style, especially in creative writing.

But trust me. If you don't know how to use the language, you'll never be able to use the language in an original way. You'll always imitate. Understand how to construct a variety of sentences with modifiers in the right place. For example:

Slipping on the banana peel, her purse flew out of Susie's hand. Wrong! (And funny. Here's where our sense of humor comes in handy!)

Susie's purse flew out of her hand after she slipped on the banana peel. Right! And not as funny.

Creative writing doesn't mean cultivating a blatant disregard for the rules of punctuation. Creative writing doesn't give you free reign (not rain) to use and abuse sentence structures and commas. (May I one (not won) day meet the curriculum developer who taught a boatload of students to put (not putt) commas wherever a student feels a need for a pause. It won't (not wont) be pretty.)

This is your language. Bend it. Play with it. Love it. Few things are more amazing than a human's ability to use language to communicate. But when we don't follow the basic rules of grammar, we don't communicate as well as we could. And then we're (not were) left with Bushisms. Don't we know where that got us?

Happy Grammar Day! Your nation needs you!

Limbo

Nothing's more fun than realizing you're smack dab in the middle of the very place and space you talk to your students about all the time. On the one hand, it validates your discussion. On the other hand, it really just plain sucks.

I've started four different novels in the last three months, none of which seem to be going anywhere. I do know enough to know that I need to keep following them, but the honest truth is that I am extremely lonely when I'm not living with a bunch of characters. I feel incomplete. I feel like I'm searching for the rest of me.

In the last three months, I've reworked a proposal for Shambhala once again. This proposal, tentatively called The Writing Warrior, has made it off my editor's desk up to the grand poobah of acquisitions. This means nothing. I've been here before. I've rewritten a novel originally intended as literary fiction for the YA market. I completed a memoir and now am going back through it to take out what doesn't fit. I have proposed a creative writing textbook to Pearson/Longman and wrote a sample section over winter break. The book is now with the senior editor in its peer review journey.

Lots of work. Lots of stuck-age. Stoppage. Blockage. Lots of waiting. Editors are losing their jobs. Publishing houses are restructuring. Bookstores are closing. Lots of work piled up at the train station. Nowhere near enough trains leaving.

I received an anonymous postcard this week. I've gotten a few of these over the last year or so. The postmark is Vermont. I don't know anyone in Vermont, so I'm kind of excited to have a secret Vermont admirer. The postcard said: If your train doesn't pull into the station, go out and find it. Very appropriate for the past few months. Of course, the next logical question is: Go where? Go west, young (ahem, middle aged woman) go west? Go east? Go north, south, inside, outside, upside down, underneath ... ah, so many prepositions. So little time. But the gist is -- move. Everything else may be held up at the station, but all those things are never in my control. It's just a bit easier to believe in the illusion of control when the world is in a bit better shape.

I feel like I'm putting myself on hold -- waiting to hear from Shambhala, from Pearson/Longman, from Simon & Schuster. I am unable to settle into any project because if another one hits, I'll have to leave the one I start and focus on that one. It's a mind-trip. It's not real. None of it. Not the possibility of success. Not the possibility of no success. All that matters is the work. All that matters is the work. One more time: All that matters is the work.

And speaking of blockage, stoppage, and stuck-age, this week one of my kitties experienced a terrible thing. I'll not go into it here, other than to say it involves many things not mentioned in polite company, including ... oral medication.

Ever tried to give a cat oral medication? It's a bit like trying to get a train to leave the station that's not moving. It's a bit like trying to force the world to notice your novels. It's a bit like ... yeah ... trying to make something happen when the time isn't right.



Steps to giving a cat oral medication:

- Timing is everything. Sneak up on her when she's asleep if at all possible.
- Hide the syringe behind your back while calmly tricking her into believing you just came by to say hello.
- Prepare for a 6.5 pound sleeping ball of fur to suddenly have enough force to leap to the moon if necessary.
- Hold the scruff of the neck firmly while bringing the hidden syringe forward toward the lips.
- This will work once. Then she'll know you're coming. She'll know the smell of the medication. She'll recognize the syringe. And no matter how sick she is, she's moving out of your way.
- In one quick motion, inject all the medication into her mouth before she can remove your fingers with her teeth.
- Have towel ready to mop up the medication she spits back at you.
- Tell her in a few days it'll be over and she can return to her normal life.

Sound at all like trying to get a book published. Yeah. Thought so.



I'll leave you with this vlog from Jackson Pearce. She manages to tie bathing a cat into shelving a novel.



May your medications, bathing, and waiting go down smoothly this week.

Laraine's Economic Stimulus Package Plan

I love clothes.

Seriously.

Not in the "yeah, I gotta wear something so it might as well match" kind of way.

In the "my body is a canvas and everything I put on it is an artistic expression" kind of way.

Seriously.

I might pull this off better if I were 5'10" and a size two, but hey, the artist works with the materials at hand. I get really excited when I find a unique item of clothing. Really excited. It's like finding a dinosaur fossil. If you were interested in finding dinosaur fossils. Which, if you ask me, is nowhere near as exciting as finding one of a kind purple and yellow pants with tassles. I don't need Prada and Gucci. I just need funky. (And please, nothing beige. Ever.)

Clothes are my hobby. I don't drink. Don't smoke. Don't go clubbing. (As if you could in Prescott). I don't go out for lavish dinners. I don't fuel up my private jet to go to Italy for the weekend (though if the possibility arose...) I buy clothes. I don't like to wear the same outfit twice ... ever. Not that I won't wear something twice -- just not in the same way.

This has resulted in problems. At one time my credit card debt looked more like the national debt. At one time I bought everything I could to avoid dealing with my own personal crap. But those times are past, and now I buy clothes like a painter buys acrylics. (Really, it's not my fault that being a writer requires such a minimal investment). Clothing (of the non-beige variety) makes my heart dance.

This results in new problems. Namely, what industries am I supporting by buying clothing? What are their work policies? What kinds of fabrics are being used? Are they sustainable? Are the dyes used in the clothing environmentally friendly? Were those buttons put on by slave hands? What is a diva attempting to be conscious to do?

I've come to a few conclusions (um...rationalizations...)

1) Buy bamboo, organic cotton, organic soy, or hemp clothing as much as possible.

2) Buy clothing from distributors or designers who contribute their profits to causes I support and/or create their clothing in sweat-shop free environments. Examples of such places: jonano, earth creations, and avatar clothing. There are many more. These are just some of my favorite places.

3) Support locally owned businesses for clothing. Prescott only has a few of these left, and unfortunately, they're not funky enough for me. They're more prairie-cowgirl in stiletto fashion. But they must work for someone. I have found some places in Northern Arizona -- Fool on the Hill and Magpie's in Jerome. Animus and Rainbow's End and Sundara in Flagstaff. Come on Prescott! Your destiny awaits.

4) Buy from individual people making individual funky clothes. How do you do this in a rural conservative environment? Enter your favorite series of tubes known as the Internet. Here's a site for you: Etsy. Etsy is more than clothes. It's jewelry. Pottery. Scarves. Kitsch. Recycled and upcycled items. All handmade by women all over the world. Seriously.

Here are some of the way cool things I have purchased:



Way funky upcycled sweater from katwise.




Beyond Yoga pants in organic cotton from herbandevi.






Patchwork Om Pants from sewingsmyfavorite.




Belly dance pants from avantgarbe.



I could go on and on. Here are the coolest things about Etsy. You correspond with the individual seller. They often can custom make the item to your actual body size. Think on that. Your actual body size. Often they'll hem something for free. The prices range from about ten dollars to over three hundred (I haven't bought anything in the high end range -- most of what I buy there falls between $30 and $50 bucks). Last time I strolled through Dillard's I couldn't buy much for $50. The seller is the designer, so she's totally jazzed about her work, and she's totally jazzed that you love it. She'll write you notes thanking you for purchasing from her store. She'll say that your purchase helped her to be able to remain a stay at home mom. She'll say that your purchase allowed her to pay an unexpected medical bill. She'll ask you about your own life, work, hobbies. You'll order a scarf and hoodie and the designer will embroider "Flow. Love. Breathe. Write." on the inside pocket as a special surprise for you. She'll send you a follow up e-mail to make sure everything fit and that you love it.

I don't understand the numbers of our national debt. I don't understand the math of the credit crisis, the mortgage collapse, the 30% loss of the stock market in 18 months. I do understand that right now, I am lucky enough to have a job. I can use the money that I earn to help an individual, or I can hoard it, or I can go to Target.

I do all of these things, lest you think I have achieved enlightenment. :-) Haven't. But I do my best to keep my spending at an individual level. Restaurants and coffee shops in town which are owned locally. Clothing designers who live everywhere, but who all are making art, one piece at a time, one customer at a time, trying to bring more color and funk to the world.

Check out the Etsy site. It's good folk.

And today, wear something funky. If every news report is going to talk about the impending doom of the universe, we might as well listen to it wearing burgundy velvet and a handmade purple scarf.

Interconnectedness

It was a precarious time. Tenth grade. We were in our second house in Phoenix, and our final house as a family. I was making my way through high school in a dark blue trench coat and very tight Levi's (yes, there was a pre-lycra day). I thought I was very fat with a 27" waist. Many of the girls had 21 and 22" waists. You could tell because Levi's always stamped your waist size right on the back of the jeans on the little canvas-colored tag. A 21" waist and a 34" inseam was ideal. Alas.

We were in a bizarre place. Phoenix. I was still looking for a neighborhood. I was still looking for friends to walk to school with or walk home from. I was looking for trees. When I got my driver's license, my friend J and I drove up to Prescott for the day to see trees. It's possible Phoenix could have worked for me if it had been lush with trees. If huge eucalyptus branches hung over buildings. If oak trees that had seen the Civil War lined the streets. If autumn brought not a dip below 100 degrees, but a wash of colored leaves instead. But that is not Phoenix.

Another friend, C, got it. She was a woman of horses and lived off of Bell Road in the middle of nowhere which is now Arrowhead Mall - one of the most congested areas of Phoenix. I talked to her about the trees and she understood. I read books on druids and fairies and nature-based religions. I read The Autobiography of a Yogi. I read about astral-travel and Hinduism, and I knew that not only had I left North Carolina and the path that life would have taken me, but I knew I had left the Christian path that had been laid out for me. There was too much else out there to think about. There were too many other ways of viewing the world that all seemed to have the same center with different accessories and rituals. Someone may want to paint their living room mauve and green and someone else may want a pure white room, but it's the same room. The paint is the accessory. The space is neutral. That space is God, to me. That's Tao.

I learned at 15 that I really can't group. I can't join. I can't do community in the way that so many people seem to thrive in. I can't say, yes my way is right and your way is wrong, and I certainly can't say I know the first thing about the nature of God or Goddess, except that because I do understand the shortcomings of language, and I understand that language is only a label -- a symbol -- of the thing it is describing, not the thing itself -- I understand that all the names of God are only symbols of something we may feel but can't yet articulate.

There's no shame in having no language. The shame comes when the language becomes the thing -- the way, the truth and the light, so to speak. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God" (John 1:1). Interesting grammar. If the Word was with God and was God, then the Word being discussed in the book of John is not the dualistic language we work with here on earth. It's a way of communicating in which that which describes the experience is the experience. We aren't there yet on this planet. Saying the word "shower" doesn't give you the feeling and experience of taking a shower. But maybe we can get there one day. Maybe that's where we're heading as our consciousnesses evolve. If we do get there, we'll truly be walking in the words of Rumi:

There is a field beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing.
I'll meet you there.

Tenth grade. I missed trees. Eleventh grade. I missed trees. Twelfth grade I missed trees. Still, today, I miss trees. I told my parents at the dinner table in the tenth grade, "I used to be a tree." They were worried. I held a tiny gold pine cone charm in my hand. I wore it around my neck for years. I missed my earth.

In eighth grade, I was forced into a confirmation ceremony at our church that I did not believe in. I told my parents they could make me go and say the words but I didn't believe them. The house rule was I had to get confirmed and then I could decide about church. I've never looked back on the door I closed to that church. And, I still don't believe those words I was forced to say in 1981, and I still feel no compelling need to join a group of any faith. Something about joining anything gives me the creeps. I tried to join groups in college -- the National Organization of Women, the ACLU, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Amnesty International -- but I never got beyond one meeting. I just loathe groups.

I do, however, love individuals. A lot. I like meeting people underneath their faiths and beliefs and labels. I try (sometimes with more success than others) to see underneath the labels the person has given themselves and find the actual person. I try to do this in my classrooms. I try to find where we're connected rather than where we're separated.

I was a tree. I may be a tree again. When I die, I want the cheapest pine box. I want to be underneath a big tree with roots that stretch for miles, and I want my flesh to be food for that tree. And when that tree dies, it will become food for other creatures. And so it goes. Everything connected and dependent on everything else.

"I am large! I contain multitudes!" proclaims Walt Whitman.

Indeed. Let's start there.

for my students at Kripalu, January 2009

I arrived at Kripalu in a snowstorm. My driver met me with a hug, a bottle of water, and a fruit bar. My luggage showed up, although it was wet from sitting in a blizzard on the tarmac in Chicago. My driver, like many of the hearty northeasterners I met last week, was undeterred by the weather. You just do what you do.

I met my class for the first time last Sunday evening. They came from everywhere. They were open and willing and brave, brave, brave. One wanted to love again. One wanted to start writing again. One wanted to find her voice. All wanted to show up and do the hard work of writing and healing.

Authentic truth without judgment is always clean. It may sting, but it doesn't wound. Truth without judgment heals. Learning to listen to yourself without judgment is the first step. My class stepped up. I taught them to shake. They stood, breathed (3 parts - belly, chest, collarbone) and began to shake. They shook for five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. They shook fiercely and they shook gently. They stomped the floor. They laughed. They turned inward as they shook things loose, and then they wrote and on the buoy of breath returned from their journeys. They could leave the sadness, the traumas, the wounds because they inhaled fully and exhaled fully. We worked on complete exhales. Let it all go. All of it. When you can breathe fully, you can live fully. They wrote with startling clarity of wounds of decades ago and wounds of last week. They wrote of hopes, memories, and connections. They just wrote, and they wrote real because they had moved into their cells. We shook it out. Ate mindfully. Slowly. Wrote some more. Shook it out. Stretched. Wrote some more. Day after day after day.

They lightened. They found voices and stories and feelings. Not because of me. Because of them. Because of their bodies and their movement and their breathing. Because they learned to look inside for their teacher, not outside themselves. Because they embraced sacred listening.

Kripalu provided a container. Three organic meals a day. Yoga three times a day. Kirtan, drumming, dancing in the evenings. Indescribable views of the Berkshires. Kripalu provided a foundation for them to push up against, arms to hold them, and doors to let them go. Kripalu is alive, and my wish for my students is that they don't return to their "regular" lives. We come to places like Kripalu to remember what it is like to live authentically. We come to remember what it is like to listen with compassion to our inner voices. We come to detach from the noises and distractions. We come to remember what it feels like to be light. It's not an either/or choice. Retreat or real life. Take the embodiment of the retreat into your lives. There is no separation but that which you create. Stay with the breath. Laugh often. Listen within first. When you trust yourselves, you will no longer have doubts about the next step to take.

I left Kripalu in bright sunlight and -5 degrees. When I arrived nine hours later in Phoenix, it was 75 degrees at midnight. I made it back home to Prescott the following afternoon. It's been warm and sunny. No swirling snow or ice crystals in the air. My students are, as all my students are, a part of my body now, a part of my story.

Remember the verse from the Tao we talked about all week:

When the guest comes, make hot tea.
When the guest leaves, throw it out.

And this, from yesterday's breathtaking (or breath filling) inaugural poem by Elizabeth Alexander:

We encounter each other in words, Words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; Words to consider, reconsider.

May your words always build bridges and connections, and may you continue to walk and write with balance and breath.

Jai Bhagwan

Dear Laraine, Love Laraine

Dear Laraine,

I am writing to you from Kripalu. I thought I would take the time to give you some helpful hints for your trip here. I hope they haven't arrived too late. It is very different here, and no matter how much you think you are prepared, you will likely not be.

Here are some new terms:

1) De-ice. This is both a noun and a verb. It is a common action in many airports that are not in Arizona. De-icing a plane sounds like a huge thunderstorm is happening on the plane. De-icing smells like papaya and it is green like monster snot. The pilot will come on the speaker and say, "We are deicing the plane now and getting some ice protection. It will smell like papaya. Do not be alarmed. I know you can't see out the window because of all the white stuff outside that is blowing around, but you don't need to worry. I've done this before." You will not, at the time, appreciate the trademark humor of Southwest Airlines.

2) Gluten-free. You've seen the little stickers in the store. You already try to eat a large number of foods that are gluten-free, but you have yet to make the complete gluten-free plunge. You will find that you will soon be hungry enough to take this gluten-free plunge and you will stop reading the labels for the food and just start putting them in the little black Buddha bowls they give you so you won't take large portions. You will dream of cheese, but it will pass.

3) Airport shutdown. This will not happen to you on the way to Kripalu, but it almost will in Chicago. Chicago is prepared for this. You are not, and you have difficulty trusting that anyone can do anything in snowy weather, especially fly an airplane. As you board your flight in Chicago for Albany, the storm will be just about squarely over the city. Southwest (trademark humor again), will tell you to hurry up and board and don't stand in the aisle and put your things away quickly because they're about to shut down the airport and you know you don't want to get stuck here so go go go. You will imagine the earth beneath your feet and you will pretend that you are not in a white out.

4) White out. Just like it sounds. You don't know weather can do this, but it can, and it really is white, and you really can't see anything, and people are relatively unconcerned about it.

5) - 5 degrees. This is not, actually, just like it sounds. You have been cold at 40 degrees. You think cold is like heat. Anything over 95 degrees feels about the same. You figure anything below 35 degrees will feel about the same. This is absolutely not true, and it is a dangerous assumption to make. - 5 degrees feels like knives.

6) Wind chill. OK,so you've never lived in a place where wind chill happened. It sounds very dramatic on the weather channel. -5 degrees feels like knives. -5 degrees with a windchill factor of -25 feels like machetes. It takes longer to get chopped to bits with knives. One or two hacks with a machete will take care of it. Pay attention to the wind chill factor. When the guest sitting next to you in the lounge says she's from Canada and today is COLD, take note.

7) The sun is not the sun you think it is. It will be very disconcerting for you. You have grown up and lived places where the sun is warm. Whenever the sun comes out, it warms up. So, when the snow stops and there is a day with sun, you are programmed to believe -- ah! It's going to be 45 today and glorious. No. It is not. It may be glorious, but it will not be 45. Here's the very strange thing: Sometimes it's colder when the sun is out than when there are clouds in the sky.

8) A dry snow. You know how you like to tell people from Florida that Arizona has a dry heat? Well, the northeast has dry snows. I still do not understand this, but I will tell you that you cannot put enough lotion on. Your skin will feel like a lizard's, and your hair will become scarecrow like. You will wonder how there can be 18" of snow outside and no moisture in the air, but it is true. Your towel will dry faster in Massachusetts than in Arizona. This is especially disconcerting.

9) You cannot just step outside "for a minute" to take a picture without putting on many items of clothing, including a hat, gloves, and a scarf. There is no such thing as "for a minute" when it is -5 degrees. You will spend hours drinking steaming ginger tea to try and heat your core back up.

10) Jackets, scarves, and gloves. There is nothing made that is warm enough for you. You are a child of the south and a resident of the southwest. Your body does not understand this weather. No coat is enough. No gloves are enough. You need to just stay inside where it is a beautiful 70 degrees and walk around in bare feet and look at the crazy people cross country skiing.

11) Snow does not melt. The snow that you are used to goes away in two or three days. This snow does not go away. Apparently ever. Ever.

12) Ice crystals. When it is -5 degrees there are ice crystals hanging in the air. You can't see them but you can feel them. They feel like tiny toothpicks on your skin. I don't understand what this is, but if the very oxygen is freezing, you have no business being outside in it.

13) Icicles. You will suddenly understand how someone can get killed by an icicle. They hang from everything and they are very heavy and when they crack and fall it sounds like a glacier moved.

14) Snow plows look like Wall-E. They begin at 5 a.m. and they circle round and round the building. The headlights are up top because the plow is at the base. They push and lift snow. They dump snow. They push and lift snow. They dump snow. This is what they do and they are at peace with it.

15) Cars get snowed in and iced in, resulting in an interesting phenomenon for the owner of the car. Apparently everyone carries a snow shovel in their car. Nice people at Kripalu have ice picks. They can be summoned to help you pick out your vehicle. No one should have to do this.

16) Wind. This is not the wind you know. This is not the monsoon wind, not the crazy March wind, not the ill wind that blows no good. This is Rudolph wind (from the original claymation show). This is abominable snowman wind. This is wind that travels through the walls and around the four-paned windows and into your bones. You will understand why people from cold climates moved to Phoenix.

Keep these things in mind, and you will have a wonderful trip. Stay inside. Drink hot tea. Drink lots of water. Remember that the sun is cold (Chant it: Sun is cold. Sun is cold. Sun is cold). You will be well.

Love,
Laraine

On Fear and Flying

Is anything more counterintuitive than boarding a metal tube with 300 strangers and shooting yourself 30,000 feet in the air at 800 mph? Maybe sailing around the world in a single mast sailboat, or climbing to the top of Mt. Everest with only an apple, but not much else. I'm preparing to go to Kripalu this weekend to teach for a week on Writing Begins with the Breath. Kripalu is located in Lennox, Massachusetts. There will be snow (see pictures above of Kripalu in winter). There will be cold. Really cold. Last week it was cold in Prescott. It was 45. The folks at Kripalu have not been really helpful when it comes to winter fears. "Dress warmly!" they said. Whatever. What does that mean to a person who has spent her entire 40 years in a warm climate? It means wear socks. Did you know there are different kinds of socks that do different things? Gloves too. Did you know the cute ones (socks or gloves) don't really do anything? Yeah. Sigh. But I digress.

I am afraid to fly. I don't know when this started. I used to be excited to fly, but sometime in the last decade, I've gotten really skeptical about our ability to do this. Math is likely involved in the success of air travel. I want to be at Kripalu, but I don't want to fly to get there. All week I've been going through all the possible disaster scenarios. Chuckling bitterly at the ridiculousness of putting on a seatbelt only to die in flames upon impact. Wondering just what that little oxygen mask is capable of doing. I know flying is the safest way to travel (but I don't understand why.) Keith keeps saying to me, "NBA. Think about how often the NBA travels." I think about how much Barack traveled during the campaign. How much Clinton and Stacy travel for What Not to Wear. How many pilots and flight attendants have long careers flying five days a week. Doesn't matter. My teacher, Cain, says no one can die before their time. I'm still on the fence with that one.

In yoga tonight, I thought about (besides the fear of a fiery death) why I don't like to fly. The first thing that popped in my head was the lack of control over the aircraft. We were doing hip openers when I laughed at myself. Yes, I have no control over the aircraft. But I also have no control over my car (which feels so much safer to me, though I know the odds of an accident on the drive to Phoenix are greater than falling out of the sky). I have no control over anything. What I have when I drive is the illusion of control, and that illusion, at least for me, is stripped when I board an airplane. Flying makes me stare into that abyss while collectively agreeing that it is possible to travel in a tube safely at 30,000 feet. Of course, if I follow this thread, I have to recognize that the pilot has no control either, which is less than comforting, so I'll stop now and say that I am getting on the plane Saturday morning and I am flying into the great white north where apparently it's OK to put big flat snowshoes on your feet and go walking for fun. My contact at Kripalu told me cheerfully, "Make sure you make time for snowshoe hiking!" Ah, she doesn't know me. I don't make time for hiking on flat surfaces when it's 68-72 degrees. But she meant well, and I'll take pictures of people having "fun".

But, since I am getting on this plane, and it does run counter to my intuition, I thought I'd post a list of the things I will miss when I die (which hopefully will not be on an airplane in the next ten days).

Note to Cain: If I die this weekend and it is NOT my time, I'm coming back to haunt you something fierce.

When you think about what you'll miss, you naturally move into a place of gratitude for what you've experienced and what you have. I think that's a pretty fine place to be in when you board the metal tube. Here, in no particular order, is my list.

- honeysuckle
- Carolina pulled pork BBQ
- sleeping with cats
- watching a student have a breakthrough (or a breakdown, which usually leads to a breakthrough)
- listening to my characters
- kick ass really beautiful sentences
- the way my mother looks when she's asleep in front of the TV
- the sound of an acoustic guitar
- old-time gospel music sung by African-American soloists
- the blues
- autumn
- the smell of Keith's neck
- crying at the end of a novel
- discovering something new
- the full moon rise
- Wrightsville Beach
- the MUNI in San Francisco
- office supplies (especially pens and notebooks)
- coffee
- Warrior 2 pose
- sunflowers
- putting together awesome outfits!
- velvet
- the way my teeth feel under my tongue
- color!
- pine cones
- my Mac computer
- the New York Times Book Review
- touching -- human skin to human skin
- tomorrow