Colleen Leonardi

Spending Time Doing Things

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Spending Time Doing Things is the name of the 1986 solo by one of my mentors and favorite choreographers, Bebe Miller. When I first learned of the solo, it's the title that stuck with me---spending time doing things. So simple yet so packed with meaning. What time? What things? And what kind of doing? Aren't we always spending time doing things? This holiday, as I spend time with family and friends by the fire, over dinner, in the living room having a wandering conversation until midnight, spending time doing things has continued to come to mind. I think it's because I feel like I'm truly spending time doing things.

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Maybe it's because I have more time and more things to do. Maybe. And yes, you could very well say the things I have to do---driving, cooking, talking, walking, sleeping---are the same things I tend to do anyway in a normal day. But somehow over the holidays they're not the same. To me, during this time of year, the time I spend doing things is different. I attribute it to the concentration of spirit around me, the level of energy circulating in the room. The ease with which time unfolds {if you've made room for time to unfold}, like time should. The way things to do seems appealing {again, if you're doing things you like to do}, not like a task or a chore. Cooking feels even more pleasurable and sleeping even more welcome and sweet {if you can fall asleep like a rock, which I know can be hard over the holidays, too}.

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And there is something else. Having the time to wander in talk and thought has allowed me to see things doing things a little bit more. Do you know what I mean? I tend to anthropomorphize things in the world. An empty cup looks lonely to me. A clean-made bed looks proud and at peace with itself. Two trees standing side-by-side look like loyal friends. Anthropomorphizing---seeing human form and personality in things. Walking around the day after Christmas with hardly anyone around on the street, the world seemed so quiet. Things spoke to me a bit more.

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Like this giant evergreen decorated with red bows and bulbs---feeling so dignified and pretty with its ornaments, but also kind of lonely.

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Or these basketball hoops, in a stand-off, or perhaps admiring each other's long legs.

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Or these trees, looking out over the fence, enjoying the view while shading their friend the white fence (the white fence has delicate skin, it does}.

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Or this long, wooden fence, protecting its smaller kin---the brown, bare branches behind it---from wind or rain or tall dogs looking for a place to pee.

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And then there is me, finding endless amusement in taking photos of myself as I peer into Christmas bulbs.

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And then there is the actual solo by Miller, which I haven't seen but hear is stupendously simple in gesture and move. So elegant and profound. And I trust it is. Not simply from what I know of Miller's work, but what the phrase spending time doing things suggests. For it alludes to the dailiness of being and seeing and doing. And I think that dailiness, when you start to tap into it, is tremendously elegant and profound. So here's to finding some time to do some things now and then as we step in 2012 with eyes and arms wide open.

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It's the Little, Foolish Things

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All year long I've cycled through saying no to things. I've had to say yes sometimes to say no, but ultimately I end up saying: "I just can't." I think some folks now think I don't follow through on things or don't come through on things, and there is not much I can do about that. It's all made me consider the question: What happens when you begin to privately carve out the space for yourself that you need, both creatively and spiritually? I've found you start to listen for the little things, look for the little things, live for the little things more and more.

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Little things like the way the light unfolds in your kitchen on a Sunday afternoon, the way an orange smells on your palm after you put it down, the methodical steps necessary to bake a cake and how slowing down for a cake feels so nice, or the contours of almonds once chopped before slipping themselves into batter.

These little things struck me last Saturday when I baked one of my favorite cakes: Orange Polenta Cake. I wrote about it here earlier this year in this post: A Physical Prayer. One spring day my yoga teacher, Linda Oshins, and her yoga class struck me as special. Linda talked about yoga as a physical prayer, and I thought that so elegant and apt. I wrote about how yoga and cooking, both, seem like physical prayers to me.

And then on Saturday, as the sun broke into the kitchen and I whipped orange peel into buttery cornmeal, I thought: "How funny that I'm making this cake again for Linda, now, after writing about it a year ago after one of Linda's classes."

A physical prayer answered.

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I also used a white cornmeal flour given to me by a dear friend for my birthday almost a year ago. The cornmeal has been resting in my freezer, and I felt this occasion as good as any to use it. Unwinding the twine, pealing back the brown bag, I was awash in memories of my friend---her kindness, how she found the flour, and the moment she gave it to me over tea, an unremarkable moment like any other.

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As I cooked and read through my recipe, I found a fault. Has that ever happened to you? You're happily plodding along, so proud of yourself for cooking something like a cake, and then you read the recipe you wrote, reconfigured for yourself in your own words, and it doesn't make sense? It doesn't match up? I laughed at myself and felt foolish. {Baking brings out the best of your inner fool.}

Feeling foolish, though, is one of those little things that tickles you, if you let it. And I think you best let foolishness in by having the time to see it and reflect on it. After making the cake and having a successful dinner and enjoying the sweetness of the orange and polenta with vanilla ice cram, I was reminded of foolishness when, days later, I read a blog post by a fellow writer, Fiona Robyn, about being "an extremely foolish human being."

In it, Fiona includes this fantastic quote:

"I must learn to love the fool in me - the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my fool." ~Theodore I. Rubin

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I don't think I would have had the lightness, the pause in me to see the value of that quote had I not spent a year of saying no. And now, as I look back over the year and prepare for 2012 there are many more foolish things I can account for.

But I love my fool. I really, really do.

And I love the little things.

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P.S. :: If you love little things, too, and want to write a little thing each day for the month of January, join me for 'A River of Stones' on Writing Our Way Home. Folks from all over the world will be writing one thing they notice everyday and writing it down. Step into the river. Click here to learn more.

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Get Ground

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Winter means air to me. The light softens, the sun sets sooner, everything is more blue and almost incandescent around the edges. It's the air, though, with its sharp lightness as it slips down my throat when I walk that reminds me---ahh, it's wintertime. And I love the winter air. I really do. It makes me swift and easy in my gestures, my walks outside---sprightly, buoyant, really. The holidays, too, take me for a spirited ride with all of the emphasis on stuff. Stuff. Even the word feels unpleasant, short, unfulfilling. Stuff.

I found stuff when I journeyed down into our basement the other night and found leftover bulbs from the spring. What a pleasant surprise it was as I rolled them around in the palm of my hand an noticed little green sprouts out the top. After some research, I realized there is nothing much I can do with them unless they're cold-treated. I suppose I could plant them in the ground now with some mulch and wait for them to sprout in springtime.

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But I'll admit: Even though the word stuff, and all it suggests, leaves me feeling materialistic, I became attached to the idea of having this 'stuff' of the bulbs planted, positioned, and growing strong in my home for the holiday. So when I realized I couldn't do anything with these little babies right now, I went to the garden store and bought a few paperwhites for $.79 each.

Because it wasn't just the idea of something beautiful growing in my home {besides my houseplants, which I hope will not be offended by this}. It was the desire in me to get ground. Winter air is nice and all, but I do miss the ground---soil, sun, earth, dirt, worms.

And not just literally. Once could say metaphorically, too. In my yoga class this week and next, I'm focusing on getting grounded in your practice to help ground you through the holidays. When I wrote this in my description and then talked about it in class, I had one of those moments where I thought, "What do I really mean by getting grounded? How does one get grounded?"

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And I know for every single one of us it's different. For some during the holidays, getting grounded is getting stuff. For some, it's getting little and giving small tokens of gratitude and affection to one another. In yoga, for some it's a series of standing poses to ground down through the legs. For others, it's hip openers and breathing practices. Well, you get the drift.

For me, getting grounded was literally getting some ground. With my paperwhites and some rocks, pots and potting soil, I dug in. I put the paperwhites in with the rocks and re-potted two beloved house plants given to me by my brother all the way from Astoria Park in Queens.

What helps you get ground?

May you find some for yourself this holiday, even if it's just a little bit of earth, like these little paperwhites preparing to deliver some crazy kind of natural splendor one winter day soon.

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P.S.: Many thanks for Corey & Kate for the beautiful cutting board given to me and my husband in honor of our marriage, which we celebrate this Sunday! Five years in the making, C+E. xo

A Dance Is a Meditation

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Spinning softly, speeding up I come to call the ground home. Light bends in, light bends out. Wrist leads arm to make a shape. A shape. A known thing. I want to know the known thing more so I move it. I breathe in it. I twist in it. What is this shape? I add a layer of fright to it. I walk around the room with spider hands on tip toes. Possibly scary. Possibly not.

Like a photographer who wants to know the thing she sees. Like an actor who wants to know the character they play. I want to know this known shape more. And then I don't. I leave it, let it fall away. The room opens up. The light bends in. Toes lead now to stand.

Running swiftly, jumping quickly I come to call the air home. Breath moves in. Breath moves out. And I see. I see out the room. Back leads now as I wind my spine. Thighs lead now. My body a road on which I travel, a window through which I see a dreamscape, a thoughtscape.

I dance to understand. I dance to unknow all I think I know. I dance to shed. I dance to see and not see. I dance to disappear. And then sometimes I invite people to my dances to share what I'm seeing and how I'm disappearing. I don't dance to express. I don't dance to communicate. I don't dance to politicize. I don't dance to entertain. I don't dance to dance. I don't dance to be a dancer.

I dance to meditate. I dance to be. To let the world move through me and then out of me. To bring all of what I think I know into the room to unlearn it all, over and over again. To be open again. To be unknown again. To be free and then not free. To dance the dance of being human.

My dance is my meditation.

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"However beautifully we carry out an asana, however flexible our body may be, if we do not achieve the integration of body, breath, and mind we can hardly claim that what we are doing is yoga. What is yoga after all? It is something that we experience inside, deep within our being. Yoga is not an external experience. In yoga we try in every action to be as attentive as possible to everything we do. Yoga is different from dance or theatre. In yoga we are not creating something for others to look at. As we perform the various asanas we observe what we are doing and how we are doing it. We do it only for ourselves. We are both observer and what is observed at the same time. If we do not pay attention to ourselves in our practice, then we cannot call it yoga."

~~T. K. V. Desikachar from The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice

On Being Helpful

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How do you walk the path of being helpful in this world? I ask because I've been wondering myself recently. It started when a dear, old friend told me a story he often tells me. The short of it is: A fellow colleague and therapist once confided in my friend about how he is helpful to clients. He explained it as, "Getting up beside the person and walking along with them, through the sadness, confusion, despair---whatever it might be."

My dear, old friend likes to tell me this little story often because it's worth telling, again and again. I think it's worth sharing many times over because it's a difficult concept to practice, honestly and compassionately---walking up beside the person and holding their hand to experience the grief, anger, rage they might be feeling. To let them know they are not alone. {It's such a cliche! But it is true, no?}

I'm not very good at this, I'll confess. It's hard to remove the impulse to help by solving, and replace it with the higher instinct of acceptance. These November and December days have brought with them an opportunity to practice this with one of my most precious friends. As the sky clouds over and it rains more, depression sets in for a lot of us. But it has set in pretty hard for him.

At first, I would talk to him on the phone and ask a ton of questions: "Have you called your doctor? Have you talked to your Mom? How is the medication going?" And while I instinctively knew it wasn't helpful based on the the tone of his voice and shortness of his answers, I insisted in each conversation on asking him these questions, trying to set him right. My husband finally said to me, "Maybe he doesn't want that, Babe. Maybe he just wants you to listen and accept it for him."

Oh boy. That was hard to accept myself! Because at the end of the day I rely on my friend for comfort, laughter, and good advice. I really need him to be healthy and happy, I really want him to be healthy and happy, because it informs and nourishes my health and happiness. When a man is down, we're all down a little bit more because of it. And I was having trouble being down with him.

But I listened to my wise husband, and started to walk beside my friend in all his confusion, fear, and despair. We now walk, to the movies, to get coffee, to the park on a sunny day. We walk and talk and accept. And in the accepting, I swallow some of his depression. I feel like by doing so I let him know, "You are not alone. It's okay. We each suffer, but we can all digest this stuff, whatever sadness is made of. Here, I'll have some, too." It reminds me of when I didn't want to eat sardines when I was little and my Dad would devour them to show me they're edible. They taste good. {I still don't really like sardines, but they are good for you.}

So here's to being helpful. I offer it only to, perhaps, make a place for you to consider the question and your own experience of it. You know how to be helpful on your own. I believe that wholeheartedly.

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"With the privatization and isolation of the dark emotions, they lose a great deal of their redemptive power. We learn little of what they have to teach us in the larger scheme of things. We don't learn that emotions are ways of knowing, informing us not only about a private, traumatic past but also about a troubled collective present or a threatened global future. We ignore the sacred dimension of the dark emotions, treating them as irrational and dangerous. When we hurt, we think of therapy, not community involvement, political action, or spiritual service."

~~Miriam Greenspan from Healing Through Dark Emotions

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5 Things I've Learned from Teaching Yoga to Kids

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I always feel so blessed when I have the opportunity to work with kids. Over the last year and a half, I've been teaching yoga to children in the public schools. I love it. I wanted to share some of what I've noticed and why I love working with these amazing, inspiring children!!

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| Chances to rest rock: I often start with savasana (corpse pose) to give the kids a chance to chill out. They ask me to turn off all the lights even. We do savasana again at the end of class, too. Now, they beg me for savasana all the time. "Can we do a long savasana for the whole class?"

| Balancing is about falling: Kids move all the time. (I think it's awesome.) When we do tree pose or eagle pose, they move so much they fall. They fall and fall again and laugh their heads off. It's beautiful to see because they are finding their way. They're not afraid to fall. And they know what falling feels like. So once they focus their attention and find a balance for themselves they know the other end of the pose. And they know how to get back into it, if they want to. (I'm convinced some of the kids just love the balancing poses because it's an excuse to fall.)

| Kids get stressed out, too: Sometimes I ask them what stresses them out. They all quickly raise their hands up and tell me in a very clear and candid way. What is remarkable is that they also have solutions for the stressors. When I ask them what they to to de-stress, each kid has a very specific answer. I'll never forget it---one girl talked about how she imagines herself floating in the ocean looking up at the stars. Brilliant.

Kids get stressed out just like adults.

| It's all about space: I'm dedicated to giving each child a mat so they each have their own space to work and focus. This is soooooo important for them. They need to know they deserve a mat, all unto themselves. It's sort of like Virginia Woolf declaring women need a room of one's own to write. The kids love cleaning their mat, spreading out like a giant starfish on it, and standing strong in warrior the long way, knowing they can be as big as they want to be.

| Don't judge a pose by its cover: I'll teach the kids a pose that I think is hard, like bow pose. I'll show it to them and say, "Ok, this is going to be hard but we're going to try it." We try it, and when we're done I ask: "So was that hard for you?"

"No, that was easy."

I've found that what I think is hard can be easy for them. And what I think is easy can be hard for them. It simply reconfirms what I already know but can so easily forget---don't judge a pose by its cover. Know your body, go for it, and be honest with yourself afterwards.

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Yoga rocks. Kids know why.

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