Sorry America, I've got nothing but LOVE for this imperfect body of mine.

Well, we did it! Together with 5 of my best girlfriends on Saturday, we all made it across the finish line of a 1/2 marathon to celebrate one of our 40th birthdays (mine's not for another year, phew),  despite our many old lady ailments and challenges.

I rowed crew with these girls in highschool (not all pictured above, but go Pacific!), so we are not new to early mornings, tough training sessions and high stake workouts. My girls bring lots of humor everywhere we go so really, anything is fun, see?

(Will my best friend forgive me for posting that?)


My training didn't go very well, I found running post stroke to be challenging, and after one successful short run without pain I was never able to duplicate it. Despite this, I somehow managed to run a good part of the 13 .1 miles. I surprised myself. I delighted myself. And when I came home, I scared myself because walking was hard again. Terrific pain in my right hip and left knee. Ut-oh, what had I done?

But I gave myself one full recover day  (Sunday) where all I did was a slow 5 min walk with my dog, and then today (Monday) I went back to my hardest yoga class with Sharron Lape. It surprised and amazed me that I had lost nothing. There wasn't anything I couldn't do today, it was all still there. Though I did put a towel behind my knee in double-pigeon. That's nothing. Hanumanasana (splits, which require lots of hamstring openness) were the same after the race. Back bend was awesome, handstand was solid. Lunges, standing splits, trikonasana, prassarita (forward straddle), badakonasana  (butterfly) - all there.

I guess I was carrying around this fear that if I tried to run a 1/2 marathon, there would be some terrible price to pay. But it didn't happen. I was careful. And I'm fit and healthy even though I'm a stroke survivor and not a very good runner. Yeeeehaw! I'm alive! I can do things that are hard for fully-abled people my age!

Ok, so in Yoga class tonight, as I was stretching and breathing and shocked at how good my body feels . It just feels so good to be in this body and in every shape and posture I felt beautiful, and it suddenly came to me.

I have nothing but deep love for this imperfect body of mine. 

No, it's not that I grew washboard abs overnight,  became a size 2 or I now suddenly meet an external ideal. Last I checked I don't have a thyroid which means the scale doesn't move very easily, I'm still ridiculously (!) curvy, and shortish. From certain angles I'm pretty sure I  appear to have more than one chin. But I'm ready to admit it. I can no longer deny it.

I am head over heals in love with this 39 year old body I'm in. 

Anything less than this magical appreciation feels false and like spitting in the face of divine grace. It's a miracle I can walk with a closed artery in my brain, but to run 1/2 marathons, take one day off and practice yoga like nothing happened? That's amazing.  My body is utterly perfect. And it's mine (for now, until it's time to let it go). Maybe some of this love I  feel comes from my inner knowledge of how temporary life (youth, health, activity) is?

I was raised in a culture where women bond with each other by insulting themselves. Sorry America, but I'm done. I hope my friends will still love me. I hope you won't find me too arrogant when you see me strutting down the street like a 5 ft 4 supermodel.   I no longer have the energy to loath my stomach, or wish my arms were bonier. How trivial those goals are compared to a living miracle. Gratitude is all I have left when it comes to this miraculous collections of cells I call home.

"Thank you" and "I love you"  are the only messages I'm sending to the mirror.

[I even checked in the mirror after class to make sure I really feel this way, and I do.]

I'm done hating. I get it. This IS perfection. You feel me?

How to define a good day

If there is any ONE thing that came out of the experience of surviving strokes and paralysis as a young person  and the losses associated with any serious medical challenges, for me, IT IS THIS:

~Any day where you wake up alive and breathing to find you can walk, talk, go to the bathroom on your own and in general use your body 

IS A GOOD DAY~

This one realization has helped me to be so much happier every single day, maybe even exponentially happier on the deepest level than I was pre-stroke. There is so much that can be added onto this for many of us; things like unlimited clean water, food, shelter, clothing for warmth and comfort, soft beds, and then onto the the really major conveniences like automobiles, phones, and washing machines.And some of us are lucky enough to have family and love and good  friends in our lives.  It's overwhelming.  Honestly, it brings me to tears, every time I really let it in. 

~Let it in~

When I do get depressed or overwhelmed (and of course I do), a quick meditation where I start by naming what I have and I really go through it..it just instantly stops that bullshit voice in my mind that wants to convince me that I don't have enough or that there is some catastrophe in my life. How absurd.  The bankruptcy was a great example of a fake problem. What does a medical bankruptcy really mean when you have clothes, family, food, love and you wake up alive with a healing body and a real shot a living? The answer is it means nothing. It's one of those pretend problems. It's really only a piece of paper. 

So people, and yoga teachers like myself even, talk a lot about gratitude. For me this isn't a buzz word ladened with some first-world guilt, and a sense of obligation to be "grateful" for my blessings. For me, this idea of gratitude is a straight shot into the deep well of beauty that being alive can be if you let it. 

It's so hard to wake up. I am stubborn and willful and it took some really challenging days for me to wake up  to what a good day really is. But now I know it's simple, and that knowledge is a gift.