Yoga and me

I first started taking kundalini yoga in 1980. Not really any conscious decision that it was the flavour of yoga that was the best, but that was the style they were teaching at U of Oregon at the time and I needed a P.E. class I could survive. Someone told me asthmatics benefitted from yoga. It turned out, by the way, that kundalini is about the best type of yoga for asthmatics because of the emphasis on breath control. It strengthened my lungs quite well.

I walked away from practicing it a few years later -- during the bloodbath at the Golden Temple. I played around with hatha yoga a few times since then, but it wasn't the same.

Among the presents I got myself this Solstice were a couple of kundalini yoga dvds. So I sat down with Mantra Girl yesterday and had a session. Oy! I am way out of shape. I am so sore!!! I couldn't even do one of the moves.....

I will have to practice -- get up early at least a couple of times a week. Anything that hurts this much has got to be good for me....
Urk....

Services

I realized that I hadn't shared this with you. Dad's obit was written by my mom and is better than anything I could have done myself.

The funeral was attended by 200+ people, family, friends, former coworkers. The first speaker was state Sen. Jackie Winters, David's old friend, who gave a tremendously warm and personal tribute. When my little sister gave her speech about what her daddy taught her, there was not a dry eye in the house. She talked about how he tried to teach her to play poker. She realized he wasn't teaching her to gamble, rather he was teaching her that there are times that you said what was on your mind, and times you kept your thoughts to yourself, and other wise lessons.

One of the highlights was when my mother got up and introduced a special song. When Dad thought he was dying months ago, he called for mom and wanted to borrow her cell phone. He called his sister and started singing a song and wanted her to help him recall it. It was a song their mother sang to them. Mom took the few words they had and Googled and came up with a hit -- "Will the Angels Let Me Play?" The song was written in 1905. She then told the story about how, when David was a boy, there were few places a little black boy could play. Later on, his high school baseball team won the pennant. The reward was to go to Jantzen beach, a local amusement park. They played on all the equipment and then were going to swim in the pool (Jantzen -- famous for swimwear). They wouldn't allow blacks in the pool. The whole team refused to swim if David couldn't swim. So then, Marilyn Keller, the soloist, sang "when I get to heaven will the Angels let me play/ because I am to little will they think I'm in the way..." . Wow.

We adjorned to mom's house, where there was way too much food and too many people. I am now exhausted and in need of alone time. I smell of about a dozen kinds of perfume from all the hugs I got. I did get to catch up with people I haven't seen in decades.

My part? My mom chose me to chauffeur her to and from the funeral home because she knew I would be calm and collected. I didn't disappoint.