A penny for your thoughts

To those of you who read my blog regularly (and thank you for that by the way) it is no secret that I love my husband dearly. He is a good man, a great dad and we get along famously. There are times however when I realize that Paul and I are polar opposites in so many ways.

He gets up early with a smile on his face; I stay in bed as long as I possibly can and grumble until the first jolt of caffeine hits my system. He loves the outdoors and Canadian winters; I think the indoors is highly under-rated and shiver from October until May. Paul thinks that footwear is designed for comfort and ankle support; I think that comfort is a secondary concern at best and that all of his boots and shoes should be burned for being so ugly.

Sometimes when I see him sitting quietly I'll ask him, "what are you thinking?" and he says "nothing". Wow! really? nothing? I cannot imagine what that's like. Some people have claimed that it's a "male thing" but I don't agree. I think that everyone is hard-wired differently. I am sure there are plenty of women who are able to quiet their minds and plenty of men who have minds that race a million miles an hour.

Paul and I can be having a lovely chat and after a five-second pause I will turn the conversation on its ear. We start talking about cars, I ask him if he bought eggs at the grocery store. "How the heck did you get to that?" he used to ask. A few times I tried to explain how my mind ended up moving from point A to point B and he just shook his head. He rarely asks anymore.

"Well, we were talking about how you liked the blue car in front of us and you asked if we should get something similar when our lease was up. That car has a bumper sticker on it that says Washington. I have always wanted to go to Washington but never got the chance. I have also really wanted to go to Europe but we haven't got there yet either. You used to live in Europe -- in Germany. We both like German food and I was thinking of making spaetzle some time next week. The recipe I use calls for eggs but we only have one left because I had and omelet yesterday which was yummy which made me think that maybe I could make omelets for brunch tomorrow morning. But, I won't be able to unless you picked up eggs. See... it makes perfect sense."

"You thought about all of that in 5 seconds?!"

"Yup!"

"Your mind is a very scary place, isn't it?"

It took a few years but I have learned to accept that Paul may indeed be sitting there thinking about absolutely nothing and he has discovered that my mind spins like a top for about eighteen hours a day. I think it is one of the reasons why people find it surprising that I teach yoga. 'Yoga seems so calm and peaceful,' they explain. 'And you're.... well.... '

There have been plenty of times when I struggle with yoga. There are days when my mind is going like a whirling Dervish and I wonder if it would not make more sense to go for a run with my iPod on full blast to settle down. Most often those are the days when yoga does me the most good. Focusing on my breath and on my alignment leaves little room for my mind to take a detour. I am not going to lie and say that I'm always successful. There have been plenty of mornings on my mat when I'm in Triangle position and I realized that mind is somewhere else completely: "what am I going to make the kids for supper? There is karate tonight and Mondays always mean a lot of homework so I need something quick but there is nothing defrosted and we don't have a microwave so I am going to have to get to the grocery store and, oh, I don't have enough gas in my car..."

One of my first yoga teachers told me that I had crazy monkey mind and that yoga would help me learn to quiet my thoughts and focus on the here and now. The image of a monkey jumping from branch to branch resonated with me so clearly that this instructor became one of my favorites. I learned so much from him because he understood my struggle. For me, yoga needed to start with the mind. I would often catch him out of the corner of my eye as he tapped his temple to remind me to focus. Nine times out of ten he was right and I had become distracted from what I was doing.

Ten years later I wonder what went on his mind. Was he able to find peace and quiet with his thoughts? Or, was he more like me and was that why he understood me so well? Maybe he was like Paul, calm of mind and married to someone with crazy monkey mind.