Category Archives: Uncategorized

Mar13

Think You’re Too Fat, Ugly, and Stupid to do Yoga? Yeah, Me Too. Come join me!

Posted on March 13, 2014 by marybrat

Jennie, Mark, MB at Wallace Lake – first try at SUP

Every Body is Beautiful (Doing Yoga)

On social media recently, a big popular yoga studio in my city posted a picture of a woman in a headstand, with a caption something like, “Danielle, practicing in the sunlight wearing the new (insert big name controversial expensive-yoga-wear designer name here) scoop tank in lavender!” Despite all of my attempts to keep any negativity at bay, I have to admit to being instantly annoyed that the woman and the sunlight and the asana all ended up being linked to an uber-expensive spandex garment. The reason for my angst wasn’t just the commercialism—who doesn’t love fashion and fun, even taking into consideration the yoga precept of non-attachment? (Yoga is more than just poses or exercise, but that’s another story.) Instead, what bothered me about it was the exclusivity it portrayed. While I’m sure it was unintended, the post proliferated an illusion that certain people have about yoga, an illusion that it is for rich, skinny, attractive, in-shape, popular people. I myself used to hold that same mistaken idea in my head when I thought about yoga. That it was exclusive, elitist, mean-girl, cheerleader. You can’t just walk into a yoga studio!

Concurrently, the other week, NBC’s Today show coined the hashtag #LoveYourSelfie, and showed interview clips from the hosts about their own body imperfections. Hoda Kotb said, “I was heavy, and then I lost weight, but I don’t ever feel like the girl who lost weight.” I’ve been overweight as well, and I can corroborate Hoda’s sentiments—you never feel like you’re a thin girl, only the same old imperfect one who is somehow fooling everyone. It is this kind of mentality that keeps so many people away from yoga studios, when yoga is exactly what they need, for body, mind, and spirit. I want everyone to know that yoga is more than doing poses with beautiful people in a sun-filled room. You don’t have to own the gear; you don’t have to look the part; you don’t have to diet and exercise before you get there.

Because, truth be told, every body is beautiful doing yoga, wherever it is being done. I made that observation at my practice last weekend, when young and old, fat and thin, male and female showed up to practice together. Because of what had been on my mind, I looked around a little more that day than usual. That woman from the mini-van who doesn’t feel sexy in her “mom” jeans looks as graceful as Dorothy Hamill gliding along in the 1976 Olympics when she does a balancing half-moon (Arda Chandrasana). A 57-year old woman looks like a girl again, hearkening the pink ballerina twirling in a music jewelry box, during dancer pose (Natarajasana). The one who feels so soft and saddle-baggy in the hips looks perfectly put together with that famous “fearful symmetry,” the sun lighting up her passive upturned face while creating the beautiful right angles in triangle pose (Trikonasana). The sparkle of a wedding ring is magnified on chapped, wide-spread hands during a clumsy attempt at crow pose (Bakasana). Everyone can finally see the pointy front of their own hip bones in reverse plank (Purvottanasa). Teen girls look like Baby from Dirty Dancing in a simple toe stand (Padangustasana), arms overhead, calves flexed. Husbands look vulnerable, their usual strength tested by the unusual patience required by asanas. The scrawny and lanky eventually look like the most sinuous and stealthy python, breath and muscles churning through the planks of Surya Namaskara. A pedicure never looked better than on a foot in a d’orsay flex, leveraging Warrior III. And hey, girl behind me? Your fresh haircut actually looks even better when your head hangs upside down in a forward fold! In Balasana (child’s pose), every big old angry driver, every shrill-screaming mother, every bossy executive looks exactly the same as the grieving daughter or the unemployed college graduate or the triathlon trainee: humbled, buckled, almost fetal. And every single one beautiful.

Your shirt may come up in the back, and your lower back is sexy. Your sweat is a glow, not a damp stain. Your face, devoid of makeup for a change, is the translucent ruddy blush of a fresh peach. The tomboy becomes graceful, the frail attain gravitas. Skin that is stretched over muscle stretched over bones in extension becomes taut again during reaching poses. You, with the bandana around your head, you do look like a rock star. You are beside a guru with a hemp bracelet and an OM tattoo. You each look like a commercial on television, the perfect silhouette of a person who has climbed a mountain, a fierce warrior against a setting sun. You look exactly the way you dream of. Fully you, fulfilling your potential, all in your own body. Whether lithe, angular, Rubenesque…even the oldest and plumpest, seated peacefully, looks like serene Buddha. Every body is beautiful doing yoga.

So please, find a place to practice yoga that suits you, even if that’s at home with a video at first. You can wear an old concert t-shirt, and you can borrow a mat. But please try. You may think at your age, or your weight, or with your abilities, that the only way your kids will ever see you upside down is if they get a look at your mortgage statement. But believe me, and the friends who practice with me in a humble studio on Saturdays: one beautiful pose will lead to another, and you won’t even believe the things you can do. Yes, you!

Jan10

On setting goals: my post on mindbodygreen.com

Posted on January 10, 2014 by marybrat

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A New Year without goal-setting?

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-12207/why-i-started-rocking-at-life-when-i-stopped-setting-goals.html

Uh-oh. It’s a new year. A new year, with all of its bright, shining potential. We’ve all been bombarded with advice about resolutions, fresh starts, and how to make things achievable. Most gurus recommend goal-setting as an important part of making changes that stick.

I, for one, have some of the same goals that so many others do: getting into better shape, restoring good habits which have waned, and checking new things off of my aging bucket-list. I lost my dad this past summer after a few years of his illness, and the love and support (read: ham and cookie baskets) which my family received began a long downslide for me.

It was the fall and winter of gluttony, sloth, and laziness. Plus cocktails. While there is a time to mourn, there is also a time to dance. Kevin Bacon said so in the original Footloose, and I believe him.

So, like many, I approached this new year as an opportunity to set and achieve all sorts of goals. I’ve gained weight, taken a weeks-long break from yoga, the freezing cold temperatures have prevented me from outdoor walks, and finally finishing college took up my creative writing time. I set out my lined paper and pen and planner and began to formulate the hard-lined goals for success: dietary restrictions…yoga class times…scheduled writing commitments.

But part of planning the year ahead successfully is looking at the years gone by reflectively. What had I accomplished in 2013? For that matter, what have I accomplished since I last made actual, written down new-year’s resolutions? That’s been a few years.

Well, I graduated from college at age 44 with top honors. I did Stand-Up Paddleboard yoga on a little lake, then a Great Lake, and then the Gulf of Mexico (that one with my best friend of 30 years). I learned to stand on my head. I forged a few really valuable new friendships. A website published my essay. I “took up” tennis. I tried vegetarianism. I volunteered at an animal shelter. I went to church more. I wrote to a person in prison. I bonded with my mom and sisters.

The past few years have been the richest in my life, and today I realized that I made all of that progress without goals. Shhh, don’t tell the goal-oriented people that! Being goal-oriented leads to success—all the job descriptions say so. I’m not going to refute that logic, but I made the greatest progress in my own life when I specifically did not set goals.

And it all started with yoga.

I did not start yoga because I was interested in weight loss, strength, exercise, socialization, or self-improvement. I began yoga to help me relax for an hour from anxiety, because both of my parents had health issues at that time. I went in to each yoga class with zero expectations for myself as far as poses, not caring what I could or could not do, not watching what anyone else could or could not do. It just felt good to be there, to stretch, to hear humble positive words. It was only in hindsight that I could see that yoga made me lose weight.

Yoga gave me physical strength. Yoga gave me the confidence to have the courage to even try to stand on my head, or get out on a body of water on a paddleboard. (I am not a swimmer.) It made me more mindful of my eating, my friendships, my possessions, my thoughts. It gave me an hour’s escape and a day’s worth of peace. I learned patience and appreciation for transition, enabling me to process the ending of my dad’s life. Yoga introduced me to new ideas, new people, and through those, ample fodder for creative writing. I talk, write about, and attempt to share yoga all the time.

But it’s time for me to walk the talk and listen to what I say. I can’t go into yoga in 2014 to lose pounds, gain arm definition, or train for the next athletic endeavor or writing project. All that I have been taught by yoga and my mentor, Jane, is that yoga will find in each of us what we need, and help us to fill it ourselves. Yoga can tell us, we don’t need to tell it. That’s how we take yoga off the mat and into the world; not by setting the path, but by following it.

Photo Credit: Stocksy.com

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com

Jul29

Hap Harral Eulogy: “People Are More Important Than Things”

Posted on July 29, 2013 by marybrat

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Hap Harral
Our dad’s name is Hap, and what a wonderful place that is to start. He was nicknamed as a child for being happy…what better one-word description could there be for a person or his life? It makes you consider what you would be called if you were restricted to only one word.
Even as an adult, Hap refused to be anything but happy. He was happy with what God gave him. He was happy to share what God gave him.
He had and made a happy marriage with our mom, Dolores, starting with a blind date for the new year 1959. From nothing, these two created one fabulous-looking family (If I do say so myself!)
They began very deliberately with Coleen, for whom they had prayed so fervently for so many years. Then came Judy, named in gratitude for the intercession of St. Jude with achieving this growing family. And then there was me…and for some reason they stopped praying for more children.
This family grew up at St. Bartholomew Parish and school. We took $2 bets from the nuns to the Kentucky Derby each year, and once when Dolores couldn’t fulfill her playground duty, she sent Hap instead. As I recall, he broke up a fight on the boys’ side of the playground by telling the participants that they fought like girls.
This family, alongside our neighbors, laughed and cried and argued and loved through holidays, vacations, good times and bad…generic beer, CB radios, nicknames (he even nicknamed our Suburban the “yellow looney bin,” and I know one girl who will forever miss hearing herself called “Bag O’Lions.”)
Once we were grown, Hap really enjoyed his sons-in-law and finally having more male companionship. Some of us were generous in that regard, and provided more than one…
But he loved nothing and no one like he loved his grandkids:
Coleen and Neal started us off with Katie. I can still hear my dad’s voice calling out, “it’s a girl!!” at 4:30 that morning. He nicknamed her “Bird,” and carried her around on his shoulders, singing a painful rendition of “Here We Go Loop de Loo.” He taught her to say “Pooooor Happy” and “Albuquerque” and “Carlos Baerrrrrga!”
And Hap was Happy.
And speaking of baseball, Judy and Brian gave us Zack…and he, somehow, came out a whole lot like Hap. He talked incessantly about baseball: statistics, players, scores, and re-enacted exciting plays in the backyard. We pitched so many balls to that child that we put a lawn chair on the imaginary pitcher’s mound. The two of them had more intellectual conversations than the rest of us were equipped to participate in.
And Hap was Happy.
And then, Rachel Lemon was born. Our family was shocked and devastated to learn that she was terribly sick, and God took her back a few days later. And all Hap could say was “it should’ve been me. I would have taken her place.” And the thing is, he really would have. Now, he can see her again, and she can call him Happy. And yes, they will know each other.
So when we most needed to be picked up, Judy and Brian gave us Matthew. If Zack had come out thinking like Hap, Matthew certainly came out looking like him! No one who knows Hap can see Matt – his feet, his hands, his chest, his bulldog strength – and not see Hap. Our dad claimed Matthew as his baby, and was so pleased with this sweet, smiley child that he always said, “I just hope I live long enough to see how that kid turns out.”
And Hap was Happy.
But already he could see and was so proud of how each of you three kids has turned out. You all treat people the way he always did.
Which brings me to a story:
When I was about 14 or so, our dad had a Winnebago camper. And he LOVED it. Not unusual – many people have a Winnebago for summer vacations… Not our dad: he also drove his Winnebago to the office every day.
A friend of our family asked my dad if he could borrow the Winnebago for a day trip. They had company in from out of the country and wanted to visit a water park for the day. I was invited to go along, because it was my good friend’s family. We had a wonderful day.
Until the ride home when, stopping for gas, my friend’s dad plowed into the gas pump, ripping the side panel of the Winnebago.
I was distraught. My dad had very few possessions that mattered to him at all, but this weird vehicle was his baby. I was so scared about what his reaction would be. We rode the rest of the way home in total silence.
When we arrived, my friend’s dad went in first to break the news to Hap. Before I knew it, they were both coming outside to sit and open a beer together.
Later, alone with Hap, I said: “Dad, aren’t you mad”?
He answered, “listen, I knew something like this would happen. I had a feeling about it this morning, and I know how difficult an adjustment it can be to drive that vehicle.”
That irritated me, so I looked at him like he was an idiot, and said, “if you KNEW it would get damaged, WHY would you let anyone borrow it?”
He looked at ME like I was the idiot – and he said:
“Because people
are more important
than things.”
That was my dad’s philosophy of life in a nutshell.
And so, with that in mind, we have spent these past two weeks, and indeed these past two years realizing we have nothing to regret, thanks to our dad, who didn’t ever wait for the money, the time, or the weather to do the important things in life. He made us (and himself) a great life:
He loved our mother
He gave us our faith
He served his country
He traveled the world
He made a hole in one
He prayed at the Vatican
He bowled a 300 game
He golfed St. Andrews in Scotland
He saw his granddaughter graduate from college
How can we be anything but grateful?
I want to applaud our strong, beautiful mother who has literally not left Hap’s side, and my big sisters who have taken care of me, and each other, and their children throughout this challenging time.
My husband Jeff who has done everything my dad could have wanted him to, and more, to step in and be the man of the commune: I know my dad didn’t worry about me because of you.
And Brian…the original. You’ve always been here in our family, since we were the ages that your kids are now. The greatest dad in the world thought you were about the greatest dad in the world.
All of you have raised these kids as gifts to the world, and made dad so proud of you. They are his legacy.
Katie, Zack and Matt – May you someday know the same joy that you gave this man. He was simply never happier than when he was marveling at you.

It would be presumptuous to speak for my dad.

Luckily, I’m not above being presumptuous!
He would tell you all that he really enjoyed you: childhood friends like Al, clients, bowlers, Holy Name society guys, the old office gang, the Florida friends…
He’d tell us all, of course, to “Be Happy” –

To go on vacation; to take the dog with you.
To drive a trailer up the side of a mountain–and take the neighbors with you.
To get the electric blue Subaru or the old yellow Porsche 2-seater, not the beige Buick.
(My apologies to all of you beige Buick owners.)
To take your wife on your business convention trips if you want to, even if no one else does;
When you get there, wear shorts to the meetings!
Drive a gaggle of Catholic school cheerleaders to Florida in that same famous Winnebago, and manage to be passing a church just as Mass is starting.
Go ahead and tip the developmentally disabled girl who picks up your tray at Wendy’s. It will make her day.
Take the “country road,” as John Denver would say. You can get almost anywhere from Pearl Road or the Parkway, right?
Once, our dad was driving us home from somewhere in his used Chrysler LeBaron convertible, with the top down of course, through a REALLY bad neighborhood. We said, “dad, can’t we take the highway like normal people?”
He said, “You think these people who live here don’t love their kids too!?”
He loved veering off the beaten path.
He’d tell you:
To take care of each other
To say your prayers
To remember that God is a baseball fan, so if you want to get to Heaven, you better pay homage to the right sport!
And today, he wouldn’t say goodbye, would he? He never used that word.
He’d say,
“So long! Have fun!”
He approached every new experience with joyful expectation and wonder. If your car broke down, or you had to go to the ER, or your flight was diverted, he’d say something like “but LOOK at the people you got to meet!”
I know that’s how he’d approach this new experience as well. Because as the hymn says, from first Corinthians,