Today, Sophie had had enough. “Luc, all you want to do is war. I’m sick of war. You love war too much!”

Luc rolled his eyes. “I do not love war. I love PLAYING war.”

My ears perked up.

“If there was a real war,” Luc went on, building up a lego robot, “I would run away. If there was a war in our country, I would move. Playing war is fun. Real war is stupid.”

I swear to god, that’s what he said. I mean, how wise is that? My kid needs to sit down with some world leaders and explain this whole War vs Playing War thing to them, don’t you think? What a great distinction to make.

Sophie, on the other hand, was unimpressed. “Fine,” she said, “but I want to play Yard Sale.”

Battle vs Commerce. The timeless conflict.

Of course, none of these fetish items are required to write a novel. But it was nice anyway, like playing pretend. You have to have the right hat and maybe a hook or at the very least a bandana to play Pirate. I needed a chai and a legal tablet to play Writer, and I needed to play Writer in order to help myself remember how to Write.

It was great! Like [smacks forehead], oh yeah! I like doing this! A lot! Writing makes me happy!

I have had to relearn this so many times, it’s embarrassing. I just forget. I get distracted, I work on the publishing side, I get busy, and I start getting depressed. Why do I write? Why do I bother? I start moping and feeling pitiful and I FORGET that it’s all because I’m not writing. Basically, if I don’t write, I get symptoms. And they aren’t pretty. Writing keeps depression at bay. I don’t know why, it just is. Graphomania perhaps?

But whatever. I’m back! I’m doing it! 1000 words a day, the old mantra, taken down from the shelf and dusted off.

As a terrific champagne bottle smash against the hull of SS Novel 2012, I got a lovely, lovely fan letter yesterday from a reader of Toby Streams the Universe who had really liked the book and the characters and wanted to tell me so. That was EXTREMELY PLEASANT.

Anyway, I back in the familiar confusion and craziness of making shit up. Inventing something out of nothing. Fun! Hard. Fun! Hard.

I showed this to Sophie because Sophie has been working on her handstand for years, every night, for fun, starting with cartwheels when she was four. Basically she hops up into a handstand over and over and over and tryies to stay up as long as she can. Ms. Smyth has slow-mo control and I thought Sophie would like it for that and for the beauty of the move, and she did. But, Sophie discovered, control requires a lot more strength than her usual momentum approach. “I can’t lift my feet off the ground like that,” she said. “They just won’t lift.”

I know the feeling.

A couple of days later I ran across David Garrigues video on how to “float” which is what an ashtangi calls moving through the Sury’s, the Sun Salutations, with that same slow-mo control that makes it look like they are doing the whole thing in a low gravitational field, like, possibly, on the moon. In the vid, David suggests this rocking back and forth thing, from feet to hands, to develop bandha/core strength. I tried it and sure enough, my abs were sore the next day. Hmmm.

David Garrigues presents Asana Kitchen: How to Float from David Garrigues on Vimeo.

But, thought I, this motion, this in-control lifting the feet up off the ground, this is the same as the start for Sophie’s handstand—so I showed her that video, too, and we both got up and tried it, liked it, and decided to do it regularly. Me for my pathetic jump backs and her for her press-to-handstand quest. So, every night for a week now we’ve done Mr. Garrigues’s abs-killer rocking thing until we groan.

And then, since I’m down there on the floor on my mat, and the Boy Crew (that would be Paul and Luc) are usually watching something on tv, or possibly playing Legos or Star Wars or Lego Starwars, hey, why not do a little yin yoga hip openers? Because lots of poses would be more fun if I could do a more comfortable lotus. Sophie likes lotus, so she does that with me. And after that, draping myself over a folding chair for some passive supported back bending is a nice way to finish it off…. So of course Sophie has to do a few drop backs.

We’re not talking a deep, meditative, focused practice, I know that. It’s purely physical, kind of extracurricular to the Real Practice. But always fun to practice with Sophie. And it’s more engaged that I usually tend to be in the evenings when often all I want to do is read a book. I sometimes feel guilty about that. There will plenty of time to read books when my kids are grown! The books will wait. My kids, however, are growing up at the speed of light. Better to spend the time with them now, while I still can.

Speaking of kids, Sophie is THE huge motivator in all this, I have to admit, because she WILL learn that press-to-handstand, nothing in the ‘Verse can stop her, and she practices every night. She shames me into it.

Oh well, any reason to get on the mat is a good reason if it works, right? Only if I’m practicing can the yoga to do its transformational magic.

I started Ashtanga at 38, after six years of pregnancy, babies, nursing and no exercise. I was stiff as a board, had zero backwards range of motion, could barely sit cross-legged on the floor and my back hurt all the time. But I remembered a time, an eon before, when I did a stint of Iyengar yoga in my twenties. What a difference twenty years makes! But in the comparison, I think the number one difference in yoga after 40 isn’t the lack of bendiness, although there is that (lord help me, there is that). In my opinion, the biggest difference between 20 and 40 is recovery time. It just takes longer to bounce back, either from an intense practice session, but also, and especially, from an injury.

I damaged my hamstring attachment (the classic yogi pain-in-the-butt injury) last year and I still feel it sometimes. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m babying that right sit-bone for the rest of my life. Stupid! I was muscling my way into forward bends, forehead to the shins, just like I had in my twenties—bad lady! Ouch! Followed by endless recovery that never seems to be truly complete. I remember bouncing back from injuries like nothing in my twenties. Boing! Oh, how I miss that!

So the big take-away for me from that has been DON’T GET HURT. EVER. It’s Claudia’s #1: Go Slow. Go at 50% capacity. Actually move more slowly, too, no jerking, no sudden shifts. Ease into each posture and then ease back out again. If anything twings, even a little, back off, modify, do an easier version of the pose. Don’t ignore any ouch, no matter how small. And for goodness sake, NO HEROIC EFFORTS. In my twenties, blasting it out in an all-or-nothing practice was fun, like extreme sports, woo hoo! But no more. One blown knee, one hurt neck, and it has become apparent to me that I might lose the practice altogether. Plus, healing means scar tissue and scar tissue means permanent loss of flexibility and strength in that area. It takes for freaking ever, now, just to get back to something like normal, but after injury, normal isn’t the same normal as it was. After 40, I simply must be more careful with my body.

Which brings me to my second biggest post-40 difference: Diet matters more. One of the biggest things I’ve found that helps with recovery time, for me, is diet. High quality nutrition in easy to digest form (raw fruits and veggies) has made a huge difference in recovery, energy levels, and I don’t know what to call it—brightness during practice. There is also the fact that I could process a bunch of crazy food and substances a lot faster in my twenties and not be hit so hard, foods that leave me groggy, chubby, dull, and weak now. Really, practice the day after an all veggie day, or better yet, an all raw day VS. practice the day after an indulgence day is like black and white, it’s so clear, there is no question in my mind about this. Diet is a huge part in having the energy to practice, at any age, but I really believe it matters a heck of a lot more the older I get. Plus, practice while feeling dull and zombie-like is no fun, and the older I get, the longer the effects of bad food last.

A side effect of improving and veggifying my diet: dropping the extra pounds that seem to come with being over 40—which makes practice easier from a simple physics perspective. I have less to lift and I can twist deeper without those tummy rolls. Being tiny was easier in my 20s. I’m working against the hormonal tide now to stay small. Going all veggie has helped.

I asked David Williams, who is now in his sixties, what his current practice is and he said Primary, plus a daily swim in the Pacific ocean. David is, of course, one of the few people in the world who has done all six Ashtanga series, so I was curious when he had started cutting out the advanced asana. He said in his fifties. I’ve heard that number from a few sources, that you can add to your practice only up to a point, somewhere in your fifties, and then, inevitably, you’re going to start slowing down and doing less. So, maybe I’ve got another decade to add whatever asana might be added. If I was in my twenties, I’d have thirty more years, not just ten. That’s a huge difference in 20 and 40 right there. Sob! Good thing yoga isn’t really about the asana.

But here’s something that being over 40 gives me that I didn’t have in my twenties. Mental stamina. Dedication. Lack of flibbertygibbet flights of fancy flitting from this thing to that thing. Maybe it’s just sheer stubbornness. But I wanted to have a daily practice in my twenties and I just couldn’t get it together to do that. Whereas now I can. Maturity isn’t all about being stiff and grumpy. Kudos to the twenty-somethings who ARE able to do this practice every day! I couldn’t, when I was that young.

No, I did NOT turn into a proselytizing nut-case, but I kind of was one on the inside, a little bit. Just a little.

So, anyway, Paul, hearing my thoughts on this, did his amazing instantaneous manifestation thing and found a used Champion juicer for $20 bucks at a yard sale. The four of us crowded around that bad boy, taking turns feeding stuff into it, like, “here, stick this frozen banana in!”, “what about oranges and kale?”, “what else is in the crisper?”, and “can you juice corn?” (No.) The frozen banana was AWESOME, like soft serve ice-cream. The kids liked carrot and apple, which truly was amazing. We even tried some of the green juice that Joe in Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead lived off of: kale, cuke, celery, lemon, ginger, and apple. Bright green, a little like grassy ginger-ale. It was okay. Not as good as the frozen banana. But man, I’m sold. Fresh juice is terrific. Who would have thought?

But this old juicer is a behemoth. I live in a yurt, okay? I’ve got about eighteen square inches of counter space and no kitchen cabinets. The Champion takes up all the space I’ve got and I’ve got no place to store it. Plus, it’s kind of rusty where the auger slides on which makes it super hard to put together and take apart… It ain’t ideal. In fact, its primary selling point is that it’s here. The best juicer is the one you’ve got, right? But still. I’ve been casting longing glances over other juicer alternatives….

And MAN, juicers have a lot of hype attached to them. It’s hard to imagine this kind of hyperbole and snake-oil vibe surrounding, say, a toaster. I guess anything that someone sells via infomercial is automatically going to be artificially pumped up. Anything associated with weight loss, especially. Makes it hard for a girl to hack through the weeds to find a decent juicer—I mean, I’d love it if the dang thing cures cancer, makes all who touch it multi-orgasmic, and does the dishes for me, don’t get me wrong. But basically, I just want to drink some juice.

A while back, I heard this guy, John Kohler, speak about how he had turned his tiny suburban lot into a bounty of intensive food-producing gardens and started a little youtube gardening show about it. He seemed cool and was on fire about growing your own stuff in a tiny amount of space, re-mineralizing the soil with rock dust, and self-watering raised beds.

Look, here he is walking through his garden, showing off about a million different kinds of vegetables and fruits all crammed into this tiny, property-line to property-line space:

Isn’t that cool? So, anyway, I’m clicking around, looking for juicer info and I stumble upon Mr. Kohler again, and it turns out he isn’t just a gardener, he sells juicers, too. And when he isn’t youtubing about gardening, he does all these little vids comparing different juicers, doing reviews, etc. Nice. He had some cred with me already because of the gardening thing, so I tooled around his juicer site a bit and he likes this juicer which has a small footprint and does greens (not all do), so yay, looks great. But the price tag! Oy!

Enter my amazon points card. I run everything through that card and I get gift certificates to amazon every month as a result. Woo hoo! Our last points-cashed-in freebie was a Playstation 3 for Christmas. Score! So, I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Kohler, I’d like to buy a juicer from you, but you see, I’ve got a hundred bucks already saved up in the form of amazon points. And I feel kind of guilty about this because I looked through your vids and used your research…. Plus my very generous mother just kicked in several thousand $$$ towards part of Luc’s broken-arm hospital bill (YAY, THANKS MOM! You’re keeping the wolf at the door away, you rock!) so when I pay that amount off today (using the amazon credit card) that will be another hundred dollars of amazon money and I’ll be almost to that sparkling new juicer….

So yeah, Juice Party at the yurt, and you’re all invited! Like, soon. Maybe by my birthday, 41 fast approaching. I’m telling you, I’m going to have health just exploding out of me with a golden wattage that is BLINDING. I’ll probably even levitate. You watch. Maybe I’ll even set up a little stand outside the museum and feed juice to the sickly-looking North Carolinians. They need it.

But it doesn’t.  In fact, the only option for listening to the Most Excellent Jim Dale reading the HP books is to purchase them as CDs (how antediluvian!) or to download them from itunes for $35-50 each book.  Shocking!

Luckily, the libraries in our two nearest towns seem to have copies of the books on CD.  Unfortunately, the only CD player we have (besides the computers themselves which do not have good sound for such a thing) is in the car.  And, as the car is older than my audible.com membership, the CD player is a bit dodgy, to say the least.  We’ve been checking out the disks of each book from both libraries, hoping that if disk 3 from library A is too scratched for our player to read it, the same disk from library B will work.  It’s absurd, but oh well.  You do what you have to.

We’re half-way through this one. It’s marvelous.

Suddenly riding in the car is a delight!  We can’t wait to have to go somewhere.  Thirty minute drive to run an errand?  Terrific!  An hour each way?  Fantastic!  Listening to Jim Dale read Harry Potter is so riveting and enjoyable that going somewhere in the car has become one of our Most Favorite times of the day.

I know I’m late to the party and probably everyone already knows how stellar Mr. Dale’s performance is (he won a Grammy for it, I think), but just in case you’ve not listened to these books, let me tell you, Mr. Dale is a marvel.  There must be a hundred characters in the series and each has a distinct voice.  I’m serious!  Emotions are conveyed, words are clear, Mr. Dale hits every sentence just outstandingly well. We have cried, laughed out loud, jumped with surprise—and we already know the stories!

Mr. Dale, how do you do it?

Rowling’s books themselves are, of course, top notch literature, if you ask me.  I’m convinced they’ll be around in hundreds of years, if we’re still alive and reading books (or implanting them into our brains or whatever) because they are just that good.  But wow, Mr. Dale really performs them masterfully.  If you haven’t already, I highly recommend going to the library and checking out a copy of Sorcerer’s Stone just to see what I’m talking about.  But don’t go to audible.com.  You’ll be disappointed.

But enough about that.

On another, but still Harry-related, note, several people have asked how it went, watching all the movies with a six and nearly-eight year old.  So, I’ll tell you, Luc did have a few moments that disturbed him.  But I’ll bet you a hundred bucks they aren’t the moments you’d think.

Luc was, for example, very upset that the basilisk dies at the end of Chamber of Secrets.  That’s right, the big terrifying snake-creature that is trying to kill Harry?  It didn’t scare Luc, but the fact that Harry kills it (in self-defense!) upset my little guy.  “But I liked the snake!  He was cute!” he said, face all scrunched up. So we had to make up a different ending where the basilisk loses some teeth (because the venom is important later in the story) but is actually released into the wild by Dumbledore where it can live free and not be trapped in the pipes of an old castle any more.  So there was that.

And there was parseltongue, which Luc really doesn’t like the sound of.  Whenever anyone spoke parseltongue, Luc covered his ears.  This was in any of the movies, not just Chamber of Secrets where it is featured it so heavily.  Spooky, hissy, talking: not okay with Luc.

He also didn’t like it when anyone got cut, for example, when Harry gets cut in the graveyard at the end of Goblet of Fire to put his blood in the cauldron to bring the Big V back to life, or when Dumbledore cuts his own hand to open the passageway in Half-Blood Prince.    Luc was very concerned about these wounds and wanted to know if Madam Pomfrey had band-aids and whether the characters would be okay.  Cutting.  Not okay with Luc.

But the real diving-for-the-covers-to-hide moments: Luc HATES it when anyone kisses.  Ha!  That’s right.  Luc hides his face when there are any moments of awkward attraction between boys and girls.  I find this hilarious, I have to admit, but Luc says, “It isn’t funny!” and so I try to pretend I’m not laughing.   I mean, I don’t laugh, but I don’t know how convincing I am.  “They’re just kissing, it’s okay!” I say.  We’re talking chaste stuff in HP!   Poor Harry!  He leans in for a little snog with Cho and Luc yells out, “I hate this part! Fast forward!” Sophie rolls her eyes.  Poor Harry never gets any action with Luc around.

In comparison, I thought for sure the skeleton-like people that crawl out of the water to get Harry in Half-Blood Prince would be too scary and I fast-forwarded, much to Luc’s annoyance.  But on a second viewing, he insisted he watch the whole scene undisturbed by his mother, and he was fine.  “They just look like bones with skin over it,” he said, “Like the Thestrals.  Those aren’t scary.  Even Luna isn’t scared of them.”  Hmm, okay, well how about being upset by Dumbledore’s death?  “He had to die.  It was like Obi Wan having to die in Star Wars.  The old teacher guy always dies.”

Well.  You can’t argue with that.

So, there you have it.  You never know what is really troublesome to someone else.   Assume nothing!

I do wonder if either Sophie or Luc will lose interest in the audiobooks as we progress through them.  The later books are pretty involved.  We’ll see.  I think I’ll have to listen to them by myself whether the kids want to or not.  Jim Dale has me hooked.  Again.