Shopping for Groceries without Jake, or Following the Path I Have Chosen

Wednesdays are my no-yoga-class days, when the 7 hours Jake is at school (and I'm not) stretch ahead of me like a pint of Ben & Jerry's waiting to be eaten without interruption. I imagine productivity the likes of which have never before been seen in a middle-of-the-week frenzy to do all the things that didn't get done last weekend and that I don't want to have to do this one. Inevitably, it turns out I can't quite eat that whole pint, although I do get to consume a few big chunks of something delicious along the way.

Yesterday I ticked off the items on my list with great zeal. YogaMamaMe posting. Check. Finish draft of arbitration brief. Check. And then, gloriously, a full two hours on a sunny day to go to Target and the grocery store before picking Jake up. It was like the last day of school when the bell rings at 12:30 and time is suddenly timeless and you feel young and sunny oh so relaxed.

That is, until I drove by Jake's school on my way to Target.

I hadn't planned on the drive-by. Usually I head to the interstate by the street one block to the west. But this time, since I was headed east, I thought I'd drive in that direction. Which I quickly realized was not the least bit more efficient than taking the western route to the interstate, as it required a bit of snaking through narrow hilly streets. Now that I am a mother, I believe one should drive slowly through neighborhoods, even if the streets are neither narrow nor hilly.

But I wasn't in any hurry. Instead, I reveled in the feel of a sun-warmed car interior and the fact that I managed to bring my iPod along for a change. Plus, I realized as I drew near, I was going right by Jake's school and the kids were likely to be outside playing.

Why is it that it is so much more fun to watch my son play when I don't have to play with him? At his school the time slips away as I grin at him babbling about the squirrel out the window or dancing to his favorite song. ("What Kind of Cat Are You?" for the record.) But at home we are both easily distracted -- me by the lack of anyone with whom to chat about how cute he is and him by the lack of teacher to show off to.

So I crept by in the car, searching through the short people until I spotted him on the porch, his back turned to the street, his head bent over something plainly very important. I smiled like an insane woman -- which, I suppose, we all are when we spot our child, unaware of us, being a little person -- and grabbed my cell phone.

"I just drove by Jake's school and I needed to tell you how much I love him," I yelled at Mike as I pulled the car around the corner and headed for Target in earnest. "I wish I could take him grocery shopping with me, but I know he's having a better time at school."

"I'm sure he'd be thrilled to go grocery shopping too," Mike said innocently. I didn't hear the rest of our conversation because I was too busy freaking out.

Why, I wondered, was I wasting my Jake-free time doing something I could do with Jake? Should I go and get him out of school? Isn't the only justification for sending him there that I need to get important work done and if I try to get on the computer when he is around he will either cry or, given the chance, bang on the computer until it freezes up and crashes? Do I have any right to leave him there, playing with his friends, when he could be with me?

And so it went. By the time I got to the grocery store I was twitching with annoyance at myself. Forget the lovely, sunshine-y day. Forget the glory of not being in a huge rush for a change. Forget how much easier it is to negotiate the aisles of a grocery store when you do not have a 15-month-old in the cart grabbing at the shelves as we pass.

I wanted a child in my cart. I felt naked without one.

Have you ever noticed how many children there are in grocery carts at 3:00 on a Wednesday afternoon? Probably a whole lot more when you are feeling like a terrible mother for leaving yours at school instead of having him with you.

I smiled conspiratorially at the mothers I passed, as if to say, "I'm in the club. Just going undercover today."

I promised myself when I got home I could read a whole chapter of Look Homeward, Angel uninterrupted -- so as to prove that I was doing something I couldn't do without leaving Jake at school.

And when I got home . . . I whined to my neighbors about going grocery shopping without Jake.

"You mean you did something for you?" laughed the newly-mother-of-two. I noted that she was allowing another neighbor to hold her one-month-old for well over two minutes without breaking a sweat. Impressive.

"Of course he has a better time at school," her partner said reassuringly. "Our daughter didn't want to go to school today and we said, 'What, you want to sit at home and be bored with us?'"

It sounded so simple when they put it that way.

"Enjoy it," said the baby-holding neighbor with a reassuring pat on my arm. She has several grown children, so either she knows what she's talking about or she has forgotten what it's like. Either way, I was happy to hear it.

I talked with them until I was late to pick up Jake. I figured they were as good as a chapter of Look Homeward, Angel. Plus, I knew if I stopped chatting the guilt would come rushing back and prove too distracting to let me read for 10 minutes anyhow.


Following the Path You Have Chosen

I've always been good at regret. "Should've, could've," I find myself muttering far too often in an effort to get the "I made the wrong choice" monkey off my back.

This kind of thinking, I believe, is a product of our minds telling us it is possible to control the world. If we make the right choices, the thinking goes, everything will be smooth and easy and we will live untroubled lives. Anything that goes wrong -- the pain that is part of life -- is our fault. If only we had chosen differently, it wouldn't have happened.

I'm doing it right now. "If only I hadn't . . ." Just testing the theory, mind you, but once I start down the path the pangs of regret start rising. Even when I know I don't control what happens, it's so easy to blame myself for the choices I made.

We don't control what happens to us.

It's that simple. And that hard to truly accept.

Let it sink into your bones. Believe it. For example:

Even if I hadn't chosen to read Look Homeward, Angel while Jake was brandishing the windshield scraper on the front porch after we got home last night, he would have taken a tumble down the cement steps. Maybe not last night, but eventually. Because children fall.

Even if I hadn't chosen to pin him to the diaper table this morning in a moment of sheer frustration over his refusal to let me change his diaper, he would have cried about having his diaper changed. Because children cry. And he would have forgiven me a minute later -- although it was still awfully nice holding him in my arms and apologizing anyhow.

It's not that it doesn't matter what we choose. All our choices lead us somewhere, no question. I'm not suggesting that life is predestined and you are doomed to your fate no matter how you approach it. We get choices, we make choices, we reap the goodness we put into them.

What we get to choose is a path. What happens on that path -- not much choice there. Sure, making good choices -- to keep our children healthy, to shower them with love, to show kindness and patience to our partners, to open our hearts to people who need our help -- makes a difference. That's karma, which is not really where I'm going here (a path I choose to pursue some other time in some other post).

My point here is simply that I made a choice yesterday. Beating myself up over whether I should have chosen differently -- if a better mother would have picked her child up from school and taken him grocery shopping with her -- doesn't make me a better mother. It makes me a wreck.

We make choices all day long, and lingering over whether they were the right ones keeps us mired in the past instead of present in the moment. Make the choices you think are best, make them from your heart, then move on. Doubling back isn't going fix anything.

Because it's not really about the specific choices we make, the actions we undertake every minute of every day. It's the path they send us on, the unrolling now in which we are challenged to live.


Trust Your Heart in Viparita Virabhadrasana (Reverse Warrior Pose)

This is all sounding a bit abstract to me, and perhaps worrisome to you. Is she saying it doesn't matter what choices I make? What if I choose not to respond when my baby cries? Is she saying that's okay?

First of all, it might be okay, in some circumstances. Like when it's the middle of the night and you think he's just crying momentarily as he tries to roll over while tangled up in his sleep sack. For example. As long as you are making the choice with love and mother instinct, then, yes, it is okay.

Which is my point. Follow your heart, make your choice, and don't look back. It's life, and as long as we live it with love, we're doing the best we can.

Viparita Virabhadrasana (Reverse Warrior)

Here's the pose that says what I'm so inarticulately trying to say. As you practice it, be aware of the transitions -- you start in a strong, upright Warrior II pose, balanced between past and future, strongly in the now. From there, you open your heart and lean back with trust. No second-guessing, just feeling the beauty of the moment and how you become even stronger for trusting your heart.

1) Stand facing the side of your mat with your feet wide apart, toes facing the same direction as your face. Lift your arms to the side and see if your wrists are roughly above your ankles -- this helps you find the proper position for your feet. (Advanced students may want to enter this pose from Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward Facing Dog).)

2) With your hands on your hips, turn your right toe out to face the front of the mat. Turn your left foot in the same general direction, at about a 45 degree angle (if you drew a line from your left toes, it would intersect the side of the mat somewhere even with your right shoulder). I like to trace an invisible line from the heel of my front/right foot to the arch of my back/left foot for proper alignment.

3) Keeping your hands on your hips, root the outer edge of your back/left foot into the floor and, keeping your weight anchored there, let your right/front knee bend. Think of your right quadricep (thigh) stretching toward your hip.

4) Use your hands on your hips as a reminder not to throw your weight forward. Your hips should sit directly between your feet and your pelvis should remain level. The intention here is for your right/front knee to bend to a right angle directly over the ankle, but too often when we move there we dump our weight forward, over the right leg. Think of the knee over the ankle as the direction in which you are headed, but not at the expense of throwing yourself too quickly forward -- as if leaping into the future instead of living in the moment.

5) Allow your tailbone to release down and your navel to draw in toward your spine and up toward your heart. As your heart lifts, let your arms unfold to the sides so there is a straight line between them. Turn your palms down, feel the line of energy traveling strongly through your arms, and turn your head to gaze over your right/front fingertips.

6) There is a strong tendency in this pose to lean the body forward over the right leg. Resist it by anchoring firmly in the outer edge of your left/back foot, keeping your left leg and left arm strong, and letting your heart lift.

7) Be strongly in the pose for a few breaths, on your path, in the moment, a proud warrior.

8) When you are ready, let your heart sing and lift you into a slight backbend. Reach your left/back hand down your back leg for support and reach your right arm up and over your right ear, palm facing down as your right arm reaches for the back of the room. Turn your gaze toward the ceiling and keep your neck long.

9) Once again strengthen your back leg and feel the energy from the spot you have chosen travel up your leg, through your spine, and out the crown of your head. Let your left arm on your leg support you, but let the lift come from your heart.

10) Take another breath and trust the pose. Trust the path you have chosen. Face obstacles with all the strength and beauty of this pose.

11) When you are ready, lift your body back up to Warrior II, mindfully straighten your front/right leg, turn both feet to face the side of your mat, and repeat on the other side.

Oh yeah -- always repeating on the other side when you thought you were done. Just like life, you don't get a break just because you performed beautifully. But accepting that there is more work to be done and approaching it with grace and beauty brings the balance that come with doing this pose on both sides.

And, by the way, I'm not as tied up in knots as I probably sound over going grocery shopping without Jake. Though it sure would have been fun to have him with me.