Yoga and things

I was rushing out of Huff, and Carla stopped me: "Hey, where are you going to, Grace?" "I'm going to Yoga." I don't know if I should feel bad or good or proud or guilty at 2:00 pm on Wednesday. Shouldn't I stay in office and do some work? Anyway, my honesty has already blunted any possibility of making up another answer. Carla replied with excitement: "Oh, I'll join in you guys sometime. I need some PEACE."

Why people always associate doing yoga with looking for peace? It seems even my yoga teacher thinks so too. She tells us to empty our thoughts, imagining they are green leaves floating on a clear stream that you can't touch or change them but let freely them flow. But for me, every time after my body is twisted, stretched and "tortured" to a certain extent, at first my mind may turn blank yet soon, endless thoughts would flood in. Those thoughts are quite intuitive, oftentimes bringing me to some remote part of my heart and memory that I wouldn't be able to reach and rationalize in the conscious time. They are not logical and consistent, but the imageries there are so clear and truthful. The library building in my undergraduate school, butterfly on the green grass, friend I've lost contact for a long time, Daddy, my little red skirt,3-year-old me,etc and etc. I am surrounded by those moments of memories, and I'm swimming in there. The past, full of pains and mistakes, is no longer fierce and fearful. In this gentle and perhaps "peaceful" mood, I feel I'm able to embrace and smiling at the history.

Unfortunately at this moment, the teacher would often say "Once your mind catch any thought, imagine the word 'on'in your brain. Let the word swirl." But I just want the thoughts control me and overwhelm me that I'm able to visit feelings and images I will only have in my dream, which however would dissolve once they meet the air of real life. I guess I can never do really well in yoga because my mind is never clear and as a reflection of that, my body is not perfectly balanced.

My Yoga teacher is Jenn Allen. She is a really nice patient lady. Every time after practice, she would tell us to sit and bow, murmuring to the ground, ourselves and everybody: "Shanti,shanti,shanti." (which means "thanks" in Indian, I'm not sure if my spelling is right.) So humble.

Shanti,shanti,shanti.

Becoming Jane

I went to see the movie while I was sick on a pleasant fall Sunday afternoon. To be honest, I was expecting it to be an easy hollywood love story. I was not completely wrong but there was something in there that touched me. Why did I wanna see it in the first place? Perhaps because I'm addicted to Jane Austin that I wanted to see how they portrayed her. Perhaps because I am a woman and I want to be a writer that I have strong empathy on such a woman and such a life. Perhaps, I don't know, maybe I have read a lot about how Jane writes about others, yet I have no idea how Jane is going to be created by others.

The girl they picked was, however, too beautiful and too shining to be Jane in my mind. As according to my memories of the readings about Jane, she was rather plain and hardly attracted any handsome guy's attention. I think it's perhaps why the female protagonists in her novels are usually not the prettiest,but with a brave, stubborn and passionate heart.

The movie basically told about how a tragic love story happened to Jane actually inspired her to write Pride and Prejudice. And therefore, the character of Jane in the movie holds a lot of similarity with Lizzy. She is playful, intelligent, stubborn, less passionate perhaps, more strongly tied to her family. She doesn't fall in love with rich and plain gentleman; she loves man with a humorous and distinguished character. The story was like a parallel to pride and prejudice; it's just the novel was deeply romanticized and idealized by Jane while interestingly, Jane's life story was romanticized by the movie.

I don't like the ending of the movie. It is too perfect and cliche. After so many years of painful sacrifice, they met each other again occasionally, looking deep into each other with complex feelings. If is as if time didn't really distant them and their hearts have always been together. What if it didn't happen in that way? What if they didn't see each other after she left him forever? What if they, like many real cases in life, forgot each other in the years after?

Lives in Jane's movie is, of course, full of oppression and struggle. Scarce choice as a woman, and perhaps as a man as well. You either choose to live with money without dignity or the vice versa. I'm not sure living in a modern society, if we have more choices or not. Nor do I know about what would people choose in life. It is my feeling that a modern life provides us more coping strategies, such as watching games, playing games, socializing with different people, that we don't have to face such sharp question. And that develops inertia within us - numbness crams into every space of the heart. Those love struggles only happens in Jane Austin's times, doesn't it?