good posture

I could probably use a trip to Guro Rocky's chiropractor, yet this is the best posture I've had in a long time. I strained my neck yesterday morning, I think from being jerked awake by the early morning phone call.

Ironically, the strained neck prevents me from having bad posture, since I need to properly balance and align my heavy head on my shoulders as to not strain the muscles. The good posture is both straining and strengthening my back as the muscles realign themselves to the new configuration. This all seems to be less of an injury and more of a healing process. Been practicing getting my muscles to relax and not fight. We often think that pain is caused by a weak muscle, but it's often also caused by a muscle that doesn't relax when it really should. Stop fighting the healing process.

Having had bad posture for so long, my body considers the bad posture the norm, and this whole good posture thing something completely out of whack. So, I'm trying to teach my body to change the norm, but bodies are stubborn and change is difficult (because we resist it), thus the pain in my neck. It's like a fighter who has fought for so long, they do not know how to live without fighting. And what is my body to think about if it's not thinking about holding this knot in my body. Practically an identity crisis!

Much of the family is making its way to Las Vegas as I speak with the viewing on Sunday and Monday. Most of them will stay for an hour at the viewing then make their way back home. I will be flying in and out on Monday, since I have an employer who is quite understanding and flexible about these things, and it still allows me to make the very critical weekend rehearsals for the show.

I was chatting with another cousin who has PCN tomorrow but will be missing the show to drive down. She told me that the first thing she thought of when she heard the news was, "what about pcn?" She was calling from PCN practice even though she wasn't going to perform tomorrow. She said it felt better to be there than to be at home. Better to be in class and in practice around the people she felt close to, the people she felt were like family.

I woke up this morning thinking that maybe I should go on Sunday instead, but with no flights on Sunday, I'd have to fly out Saturday night and return Monday morning. By going on Monday, I'd be missing most of the family and the healing process of group mourning. I got scared. Wasn't sure if I could go up to the casket, with just the handful there. Felt guilty about not being there with the rest of the family. Then I felt anxious about missing a key rehearsal for the show. But what I really think it is, is I kind of feel guilty for living.

Most of the funerals I have gone to were for people who had lived long life or people who had suffered a long time. It's much easier to reconcile our need to know "why", easy to believe that they are in a better place. I want to believe my cousin learned what he needed to learn in this life. I want to believe that his time had come. He was done.

I could, I suppose, go on Sunday, find a late flight Saturday evening, come back Monday morning. Miss setting the lights for the show. But, I'm going to honest, I feel like if I go on Sunday, I'm going to be stressed and anxious over what's going on in rehearsal. And I'm not going to really be where I need to be.

My student's grandmother passed away last week. They emailed about missing class. I replied, don't worry about class, "Be where you need to be, be where you are needed." The student showed up to class that evening. I didn't think I'd be taking my own advise so soon. (My cousin was actually the third death that had happened within 2 degrees of separation from me in the last week.) For my own sanity, I need to go to rehearsal, I need to go to kali seminar on Sunday morning. I know it seems crazy. And even my younger cousin tells me, "we should all be together." But I'd be really lying to myself right now, if I didn't say, that I need to do the things that I planned to do this weekend, because I need to keep living. That there's something very reassuring in looking at the calendar and knowing what day it is.

There will still be family there Monday, the ones who live in Vegas. I can be in a space and mind to be there for him, his parents, his siblings, for me to really sit there and pray with the wholeness of body and mind without the distractions. Learn to pray the rosary on my own.

Ten years I've been studying kali. Each day coming to terms with death. That death is an inevitability. That until it is your time to be called, you keep going. Does it make death less painful? no. Does it make you miss the departed less? no. But it does teach me, how to keep on living. How to let go, how to mourn, and how to heal. It's not an easy thing.

As I sit here writing this, my body figets, trying to find it's way back to the way things once were. Then when it hits the strain, it realizes that there is no going back, he's not coming back. It's going to have to learn to stop fighting. It's going to have to learn how to sit up straight, how to keep living.

Live like you were dying
Tim McGraw

He said I was in my early forties
with a lot of life before me
when a moment came that stopped me on a dime
and I spent most of the next days
looking at the x-rays
Talking bout the options
and talking bout sweet time
I asked him when it sank in
that this might really be the real end
how?s it hit you when you get that kinda news
man what?d you do

and he said
I went sky diving
I went Rocky Mountain climbing
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named fumanchu
and I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter
and I gave forgiveness I?d been denying
and he said someday I hope you get the chance
to live like you were dying.

He said I was finally the husband
that most the time I wasn?t
and I became a friend a friend would like to have
and all the sudden going fishin
wasn?t such an imposition
and I went three times that year I lost my dad
well I finally read the good book
and I took a good long hard look
at what I?d do if I could do it all again

and then
I went sky diving
I went Rocky Mountain climbing
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named fumanchu
and I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter
and I gave forgiveness I?d been denying
and he said someday I hope you get the chance
to live like you were dying.

Like tomorrow was a gift and you got eternity to think about
what?d you do with it what did you do with it
what did I do with it
what would I do with it?

Sky diving
I went Rocky Mountain climbing
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named fumanchu
and then I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter
and I watched an eagle as it was flying
and he said someday I hope you get the chance
to live like you were dying.
To live like you were dying
To live like you were dying
To live like you were dying
To live like you were dying