Friday, October 25, 2013

Cry Baby

Emotional release.

I'm so good at it. Always have been. I was a cry baby as a baby, and I was a cry baby as a girl, and now I am a cry baby woman.

Especially now. 

People don't even notice when I cry anymore because I do it so much. Especially lately. 


Here's the deal: Some people are really emotional, and some are not. So deal with it. I don't understand people who don't cry, and they don't understand me. Yet it is this mix of these two kinds of people that makes the world go 'round.

For an already cry baby, pregnancy hasn't helped. Someone could tell me about a bad haircut they once had, and I would have a tear. A friend could break off a piece of her cookie for me, and the faucet would be running.

Things move me way too much. And you know what? I'm okay with it. At least I can feel. I'm okay with being human. An extremely sensitive human. A human with an alien-like sense of emotion. 

Finally. I am entitled. I don't feel weird about the fact that I cry during sonograms. There's a tissue box there for a reason. When I saw this baby, my cry baby came out. The technician just smiled at me. 
She's seen it before. 
For once, I'm not crying or laughing at very inopportune moments. It makes sense now. 
The perfect excuse.


What a cute face. Looks like Will. Already putting baby pictures up. Lord have mercy.

If you don't feel like letting your emotions fly around like a hurricane in public, 
there are a few great yoga poses for private release. Unless you're in a studio full of people. 
But it's probably going to be as acceptable to cry in the studio as it is in the sonogram room. 
It certainly is in my classes.

Courtesy of myyogaonline.com
Frog. Mandukasana. 

A lot of negative emotion is often stored in the hips. Women especially do this. When you push this energy away, refuse to feel it--it must go somewhere. It is usually pushed down into the container of the hips, usually the widest area of the body. 

The first time I did this pose for over 5 minutes, I cried like a baby. Surprised? Neither am I. I felt like a fairy when I was done with frog. Light as a feather. 

The wisest people in the world say that real strength is letting yourself feel, letting yourself cry. Strength does not look like someone biting their lower lip, remaining calm. I think strength looks like a wild woman, crying her eyes out, howling and moving, having the courage to feel what she's feeling. 

I love being a cry baby. I respect other cry babies too. 
Expressly,
Liza Jane

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Keep Your Heart Young

Don't go growin' old,
Before your time has come,
You can't take back,
What you have done,
You've got to keep,
Your heart young.

Man, life is a loaded gun. If you're really really busy, like most everybody, it will almost always happen that you forget to laugh, forget to have fun. Unless you're busy having fun, which I have been there before. That also can be unhealthy, depending on what kind of fun you're having. But for the most part lately, I have not been busy having fun.

So I have been listening to this Brandi Carlisle song between fender-benders, errands and work. Playing it really loud, as if I was trying to get it into my conscious from my sub-conscious. Get it in there, already.

Though I am interested and very glad about all the stuff I am doing. It definitely engages me, teaches me. However. I need something else--things are getting way too serious.

I need to write. I need to dance. Man, I need to dance. But most of all, I need to have fun, to laugh. But where the heck do you find the time for that when you're swamped? You literally live in a swamp, and you are swamped with tons of stuff going on. All caused by you. By me.
I have asked for all of this in one way or another. It's all enriching my life. But dang it, this girl needs some balance.

And I am going to get it. One way or another. Even if I only have time to watch a damn Seinfeld episode. I know there is one out there I haven't seen. And I will find it.

In the meantime, when the going gets tough, the yoga gets going.


USTRASANA. Camel pose. Should have posted this on Wednesday. Oh me.

Anyway, I'm not saying that yoga is always the answer. I honestly think I need more than just yoga at this point. In fact, just writing this is making me feel lighter. I kept away for a little too long, and I apologize to both of us. I need this funky, little spitfire nothing of a blog.

 But back to the pint, this pose makes me feel like I can fly. I have to go deeper every time for this feeling, though. Which is a fabulous challenge.

I almost always teach this pose in my classes, especially in morning classes, because it is such an energy-inducing pose. Or I should say energy-awakening. I smile at the students who look tortured, who keep coming back up, who won't let go of their necks, who hate this pose as much as I did when I start doing Bikram yoga. It takes a lot of courage. A lot of emotions are freed, and sometimes it feels like nausea. Sometimes you get dizzy. But if you take the time to walk through that and let it go afterwards, you will be different every time you do this pose. And we always pause after this one, either to accept and let go of negative energy or to enjoy the freed, positive energy. 

Breathing deeply in Camel causes the oxygenated blood to rush back into the heart when you come out of the pose. This is literally keeping the heart young. Fresh, oxygenated blood rejuvenating your heart, all the organs right there in the backbend. I love this pose. I needed this pose, and that's why I hated it.

Yeah, I know I need more than a camel pose. I need to ride a freaking camel. I need to have fun. I've got some things coming up. I might even have a date tomorrow night.

I know that what brought Will and I together was fun. We are two of the most fun-loving people I know. Though love bonded us, it's true that fun brought us together. We need it. It's important for our relationship. When things start getting all business all the time, it's time to back that truck up.

He's looking at this while I write so I wanted to write something he'd be embarrassed about, but secretly really, really like. Got ya, baby! 
It's time for some fun. It's time to find the time.

So there. I've given you two ways to keep the heart young. Literally and figuratively. 

Heartily,
Liza Jane

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Pick a Bale of Cotton

Oh, the life of a farmer. The ups and downs. The hopes and dreams. The weather and climate.

Oh but it's so beautiful, that cotton. I even love the smell of it, which could very well be the defoliating chemicals, but I don't care. It's cotton. The fabric of our lives.

Seriously, it really does make up the fabric of our life, especially right now. My husband's head is spinning. He's jumping down, turning around, and picking those bales of cotton. And I'm waiting here, smiling and being supportive, while doing all the other million things I'm trying to do with my life. 
It's a busy time for us. 
Thank goodness I'm hitting that peak that all the former pregnant ladies keep telling me about. 

Moon over cotton. Looks like a painting.


As happy as a farmer at harvest time...
All that hard work finally paying off--there is no better feeling. 

Meanwhile, I'm walking around, wearing a cotton nightgown, barefoot and pregnant. 
And for some reason, craving pecans. 
Weird craving, but maybe not that weird, since I can go out there to see if any have fallen. 

We're country folks, and I love it! 

(Okay, I'll be honest--it's pralines I crave, okay? Or cinnamon sugar pecans. You happy?) 
If you're getting some hard work done right now, know the feeling of having it done, of the payoff. 
The harvest.

That's all there is to say this Saturday morning. That's all folks. 

Softly,
Liza Jane

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Famous in a Small Town

I love these small towns around me. I actually don't live in one. I live outside of about 5, including Jackson, which I also consider a small town. But I'm in the center, like a nucleus with the town electrons out in the perimeter (sorry, nutrition school is getting to me). 

New country (most of it) just makes me sad. I won't get into it, and a few songs out there are really good. But most of it just pop fluff. Except Miranda Lambert.

I went through a huge Miranda Lambert phase that's still going on. It never ended. I knew her before she got big. She sang a song a while back about living in a small town, watching your back and behavior because everyone knows who you are and is noticing what you're doing. That was when the current affair was just heating up. I was belting this song in my boyfriend's truck, and Will looked at me like "you have no idea."

I didn't. Until I got here. Nashville is a big small-town, and you run into people wherever you go, but it's definitely got more privacy.

Especially if you're a movie star. Especially if you're a big one like Morgan Freeman. 

Courtesy of people.com
For instance, I lived in Nashville for a long-ass time. Nicole Kidman lived in my best friend's neighborhood. Faith Hill's kids went to the school down the road from mine. Reese Witherspoon's parents live down the street from my mom's house. I never saw one. Except for Vince Young one time at my apartment building. He left Nashville shortly after. That was it.

In a place like Greenwood, Mississippi, you can bet everyone knows Morgan Freeman ate at Giardina's. Especially if I'm the one who saw it. I'm like the Paul Reviere of movie stars. 

What happened was it was just he and I on Howard Street downtown. It was like a face-off. He was coming out of the restaurant, and I was going in. He looked at me. I realized it was Morgan Freeman and started blushing immediately. We smiled at each other. Then I looked away, made a funny face and burst out laughing. Hard. When I got to the door, he said something like, "Aren't you peculiar?" I actually have no idea what he said because there was some kind of ringing in my ears or I was thinking too loud maybe. Then I said, "I'm a fan, and thasss amina goodyeh" (like Will in his sleep). Anyway, I'm honored to say that Morgan Freeman thinks I'm weird.

Now I don't know if I've told you I work at the bookstore in Greenwood, Turnrow Book Company between my yoga classes. I was telling them about the Morgan incident. Then there proceeded to be a Morgan Freeman accent-off. My Morgan Freeman sounds like a bitter, old woman. Then in walks a movie star. she was talking to everyone, and then I thought "Dang, she looks familiar. And has the most flawless skin." 

Later that day, eating lunch at the bookstore, a man sits next to me and starts talking to me about a moving being filmed in town. Apparently, James Franco is hanging out here now. Making a movie based on one of Faulkner's books. That explains the nice Hollywood actress rolling in and out.

So then I'm standing there, and they ask a woman to sign some books. Apparently, she is the poet laureate of the United States. "The best living poet walking the earth," as Ben put it. As someone who loves the written word and hopes to write one, this blew my mind. 
She actually introduced herself to me.

Then I'm discussing Shannon McNally with Jamie. He says, "Oh yeah she played at your neighbor's house this summer while you were gone in Bali." What? Bacon powder? She's one of my favorites. I mean, I know she's from Holly Springs, but damn. Across the lake. My lake. My neighborhood. At one of my three neighbor's house. Shannon McNally. Filmed something for Showtime. Sang. 
Private concert deal. I really can't complain that I was on the other side of the world, but dang it.


And when I asked someone else about it, they said, "Oh yeah, that Showtime thing at the Thompsons?" Very nonchalantly. Like, don't you know stuff like that happens here all the time? What!

So now I'm thinking the Delta is the hub of the universe. There are famous people all over. Talented people all over. The most talented people in the world right here in my towns, in my Delta. This is the place to be. Forget Nashville with its bright lights. 
I've got real stars (get the play on words?)

Miranda's point was that everyone is famous in small towns. Who needs privacy? Especially when you're rubbing elbows with awesome writers and musicians and actors. Sure, you can't go to the store in your pajamas. It's not exactly down the road from me, anyway. Sure, you can't be in a bad mood and ignore everyone. You just end up talking to people about it, anyway. It's nice. 
This whole place has it figured out. 

I like it that people are starting to know me, figure out who I am. They're famous to me too. Not that I'm Morgan Freeman or anything (I mean, how A-list can we get? He's been in half of all the movies out there, for goodness sakes. Really, think about it. One of your favorite movies has MF in it).
It's a small town thing. 

It's not a nosy thing, no sir. It's a community thing. People care about each other. You'd think it was a gossip situation, but it's a connection situation. Everyone is connected, and the smaller the town, the tighter the bonds. 

And the more relaxed the famous people. 

Famously, 
Liza Jane