Ten Breaths

Yesterday, I had my toenails painted by a former Tibetan monk. And he told me the secret to a less stressful life.

That sounds like a zippy opening for a chick-lit novel, doesn't it? But it is, in fact, what happened to me yesterday afternoon. The funniest thing is that I'm still marveling at how my life can surprise me. I somehow had the idea that I knew where the surprises in my life would come from---and isn't that the dumbest thing you've ever heard? They wouldn't be surprises if I knew which corner of the sky to look for them in. They wouldn't be unexpected if I could anticipate the moment they would happen. And yet, I'd grown comfortable with my "surprises" happening on days like Christmas, when I finally open the gifts I have carefully been avoiding knowing too much about. Or surprise! I won the snowflake I had been actively bidding on in the Robert's Snow auction. Surprise me! I might say to the sushi chef, knowing full well that he would put delectable, fresh sashimi on my plate.

So, I deserved what I got when I took my toes into that salon. I deserved the slightly confused, weird feeling I got when a man instead of a woman walked out to say he'd be giving me my pedicure. I deserved the first fifteen minutes of watching him, tensely and critically, to see if he could handle the delicate job of smoothing my exercise-roughened feet. It wasn't until I mentioned that I did yoga that who he was emerged.

He told me that he did yoga, too. That he had studied metaphysics as a Tibetan monk for eighteen years. That he had come to the US to be part of a Buddhist community that had since moved. That he had had several other jobs, including caring for Alzheimer patients and preparing sushi for Whole Foods. He told me, when I asked, that the traditional Tibetan diet doesn't include small animals, like chicken or fish, because each animal's life is considered equal to every other, so it's more ethical to kill one large animal, like a yak, which can feed an entire village.

He also shared with me a quick tip for stress relief: Ten Breaths. No special breath, he warned. That's too tiring. And don't think that more than ten is better...more is just intimidating, and you won't do it. Just STOP what you are doing, count ten of your normal breaths, and then resume your life. Repeat, if you need to. He said it was like rebooting your computer, running one program to quiet all the other ones that had become locked up.

This guy wasn't a guru. He did kind of ramble. I wondered why he had left the Buddhist community. But I can tell you that he surprised me. Every time I look at my freshly painted toenails, I think:


Ten toes.
Ten breaths.
Can it really be that simple?

Did one thing lead to another?

Quickly: Last Friday, many of you left juicy lines of original poetry in the comments section for anyone to pick up and use. I'm re-printing them here, in case some readers missed them, and to say: Hey! Did anyone create anything out of these or was it just fun to read them all, like flipping through a gourmet food catalog?

jama: "this poem is eating you..."

jules:
"There is a picture of us
as children
(without any sorrow)"

Kelly Fineman: "Brown is the new black," she said.

Liz in Ink: "As if it were crude or flawed"

Susan: "Zeno and friends went out to play,"

TadMack: "Three Uncles went to Vietnam,"

Mary Witzl: "He moves with studied elegance
and practiced, conscious style"

Katie Alender:
"Today is a shirt
That does not fit."

Laura Salas: "Surrender to the river"

And mine: "She had the knack of folding paper so that it reflected light..."

Poetry Friday: One thing leads to another

I started with this quote:

"Poetry has never been written with the intention of making young people irritated, bored, anxious or humiliated, and yet the consequence of the test and exam system often does just that." -Michael Rosen in The Guardian

...and I followed it to the entire article: Michael Rosen's suggestions for a poetry-friendly classroom

...which reminded me of these oft-quoted lines from a Billy Collins poem:

"But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it."

(Full text here: Introduction to Poetry)

...and then I found this at his website:

...instructions on how to read poems on your iPod. (Yes, that's read, not listen.) You can store up to 1000 poems!

I think "young people" (and old) might have fun with this. And I don't think it would be torturing the poems too much. What do you think? Anybody tried this?

...but there's more. I Googled "poem in my pocket" to find some low-tech ways of carrying poems around, which led me to an alternate universe:

Poetry Thursday

It looks like this blogging project ended in August, but the archives are stuffed with good ideas and great links. Check out their "(completely and totally optional) ideas" category for inspirations like these: "the one with all the rules, Part II" where the players leave an original line of poetry in the comment section and the other players choose one and write a poem from it! Cool, huh?

So, in the spirit of one thing leads to another: leave a line of an original poem in the comments here, and if you wish, take one away to play with. (If you do write a poem using one of the lines for a future Poetry Friday, it would be nice to link back to the person whose line inspired it.)

I'll start you off with a line that I love, but have never been able to use in a poem:

She had the knack of folding paper so that it reflected light...

Poetry Friday is hosted this week by whimsy.