The Awkward Pose

Front Row Challenge

Posted on 03/24/2013 by paulefallon

Twice a year, March and November, Bikram Yoga Boston holds a thirty day challenge – thirty classes in thirty days – to raise money for Dana Farber Cancer Center and to entice people to do more yoga. Although the ultimate goal is thirty classes in thirty days, less frequent practitioners are encouraged to create more realistic challenges; perhaps coming twice a week instead of once, five times a week instead of three. But what challenge exists for a zealot like me, since I already practice every day when I am in town.

On Saturday morning of challenge day two, the hot room is crowded and I wind up placing my mat in the front row. I dislike being in the front row. I tell others it’s because I can see only parts of me in the mirror, but in truth I don’t like the front row because it is hotter and the air is still; the ceiling fans barely make an impression on the bodies strung tight against the mirror. The front row is the scene of my greatest struggles. The only time I was so faint I had to escape the room, I was in the front row; the only time I was so hot I had to move my position mid-class, I was in the front row.

All of these trials race through my mind as I arrange my mat and towels. My body looms large so close to the mirror, my middle aged defects reflect back at me, brutally large. As I warm-up I realize what my March challenge needs to be: thirty days of class in the front row.

The month is more than half over and I have claimed the front row every day. The first few days I mourned passing my preferred spot under the fan. Midway through class, when some teachers accelerate the fans to provide a dose of relief, I bemoaned how little breeze swept over me. But I also realized that when I practice under the fan, I continually gauge the air movement. It is a welcome distraction but a distraction nonetheless. In the first row the fan is irrelevant and I have one less obstruction to my meditation.

The true virtue of practicing in the front row is focus. Although it is difficult to see my entire body in one view, I can concentrate on a particular point (that dreaded knee that will never lock) with laser sharpness. In the last month every one of my postures has improved, the balance postures most of all.

I am confident that I will remain in the front row for the remainder of my challenge. The real question is whether I will drift back under the fan when the challenge is over, or adopt the front row as my new normal. Only time will tell. The point of a challenge is to stretch my practice. Day after day in the front row I have lost all discomfort being there. I can choose that line if I want, I can slip back under the fan, or I can select an entirely different perspective in the hot room. For when we best our fears, however insignificant they may be, we grow stronger. We have more good choices available to us, which provide us more paths to pursue our goals.

Posted in Yoga | Tagged 30 day challenge, Bikram yoga, Bikram Yoga Boston, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, yoga | 2 Comments

Saint Patrick’s Day Musings

Posted on 03/17/2013 by paulefallon

My father loved Saint Patrick’s Day, though as befitted his Black Irish smoldering good looks and erratic temperament, I don’t recall ever celebrating it in any obvious way. No parades, no crowds, no corned beef and cabbage; Saint Paddy’s was day to drink whiskey with more purpose than other days.

Jack Fallon died in 1992, or maybe it was 1993; I can never remember the year. He died in February, that much I recall. It was cold and grey and the drive from Boston to Hackettstown, NJ was long each way.

I left about four in the morning to drive to the funeral so that I would be there by ten; plenty of time to have lunch with two of my three brothers, my sister, and my father’s widow Lani. After lunch there were a few awkward hours hanging about the small apartment where they lived, going to the funeral home, settling accounts, wondering who else might show up.

A few people wandered in for the late afternoon service. I read a piece I wrote about my father, something about baseball, which he loved. I sang Judy Collins’ anthem, My Father, which I love. It was raw at the cemetery; bitter winds came off the side of the hill where he laid to rest on a hillside with a better view than life ever afforded him. We ate another meal in another restaurant with a group of ten or so, and then we went back to his place, Lani’s place now, for a few more hours of beer and recollection.

I had a long drive back that night, but I did not feel in a rush. I had to pick up my young children at seven the next morning. Their mother and I were on brittle terms, not yet divorced. Neither of us dared to ask for or bestow any flexibility on our child care arrangements; both playing perfect parents-in-exile while under the microscope of the legal system. Burying my father four states away did not seem adequate excuse for being tardy to pick up my children before their mother went to work.

Still, I lingered. After all, my father would only die once. Finally, about 10 p.m., I left. Five miles along Interstate 80 east towards New York traffic came to a complete halt. We sat for four hours in the middle of the night for a reason I will never know. A pitch black, raw February night, clear as the Ezra Brooks bourbon I poured my father every day growing up. Everyone said I would be a priest, but they prepared me to be a bar tender.

As suddenly as the cars stopped, they began to move again. I reached the GW Bridge around 3 a.m. and had been awake a full 24 hours before I entered Connecticut. I pulled into my driveway at 6:45, washed my face and picked up my children.

I remember so much about my father dying. I just can’t remember the year. That’s how it is with some people. Our relationships are so complex, our idiosyncrasies so integrated into out habits, that the details obliterate the larger picture. Twenty years on, more or less, I remember all these fragments. What eludes me is what we meant to one another and how we loved each other, yet how little we knew each other. That is why the details cling so dear to me, and that is why Saint Patrick’s Day, that most Irish of holidays, is such a contradiction. All the carousing is a bluff, for we Irish are a solitary people. We call it a holiday, but for some of us, like my father, what we savor is the gloom.

Posted in Personal | Tagged Black Irish, Ezra Brooks, gloom, Judy Collins, My Father, Saint Patrick's Day | 3 Comments

Wake to the Magic of BoCo

Posted on 03/10/2013 by paulefallon

Despite the wet snow on the ground, spring is upon us, which means a bounty of extraordinary performance experiences at The Boston Conservatory. This weekend’s Thoroughly Modern Millie, their major musical, rivaled the production I saw on Broadway. Every voice was terrific, every tap step sharp. Millie, played by the understudy, began the show with anxious wonder that actually fit the part well, but by the second act she was as confident and endearing as any Millie ought to be.

Beside the main stage productions, there are moving piano master’s recitals, student thesis productions in the Zack Box, and the incredible showcases for freshman, seniors and graduate students; a chance for every one of these talented performers can shine.

Not everything presented at BoCo is as accessible as Thoroughly Modern Millie. The Dance Division under the direction of Cathy Young grows more capable and confident every year, and they tackle complex works. Ballet is an art form that I need help in appreciating, so when my daughter Abby and I attended Winter. Dance! we stopped into the President’s reception beforehand to sample the terrific desserts and to hear Cathy Young introduce that evenings dances. She described Wake a world premiere choreographed by Robert Moses, as a series of moving images that evoke every meaning of the word.

As the lights came up on the group of sixteen women in depression era peasant dresses obscured behind a scrim, I sensed the dawn, albeit not a very cheerful one. They roused from sleep and once the men in work clothes and suspenders arrived things perked up; everyone displayed ‘excited latent possibilities’ and then ‘aroused conscious interest’ in each other, phrases I pulled directly from Merriam-Webster’s additional definitions of the term ‘wake’.

In the second movement a projected image of water slithering beneath the shadow of a large tree formed the backdrop for reverie. It reminded me that each of us forms a wake, initiated by our actions. It trails behind us in a distorted reflection. It can merge seamlessly with others or cause turbulence. Our wake is the aftermath that flows from whatever we do. Once unleashed, we cannot control its impact.

Finally, of course, we have the wake, the formal standing over the dead, keeping watch to ensure safe passage from this world to the next. The women moved graciously over the men as they landed, one by one, in a row of silent corpses. Towards the end they jerked, sudden and quick, before reclining into eternal slumber. Was it their souls rising out of their bodies to some eternal reward, or the last gasp of a life yet fulfilled? Wake did not offer us the answer. Instead, it prompted a riddle from me. ‘What single word describes something we do every day, then trails behind us, and stands above us after we die?

Whether you seek to contemplate the riddles of life or just want the thrill of incredible tapping feet, get yourself to The Boston Conservatory this spring and let these gifted performers move you. They are awake with energy and talent. Every way that they touch us nourishes and enriches.

Note: You can subscribe to a weekly calender of Boston Conservatory events at http://www.bostonconservatory.edu. Enjoy!

Posted in Personal | Tagged ballet, BoCo, Cathy Young, Robert Moses, The Boston Conservatory, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Wake | 1 Comment

Island within Island

Posted on 03/03/2013 by paulefallon

Islands are sanctuaries. We are drawn to their simple clarity. Their geographic confines liberate our psyche. We envision life on an island as purer and more satisfying.

My life in Haiti is simpler than my life in the United States. When I arrive on Hispaniola I feel unencumbered. I rarely use the telephone; I check email but once a day. My mind wanders Haiti’s hilly contours. Daydreaming is not merely tolerated, it is encouraged. After all, I am on an island.

However, after eighteen visits I have developed responsibilities in Haiti. I have work and a semblance of schedule. The work is satisfying, except when it’s frustrating; the poverty motivates me, except when it numbs me. From my earliest visits I have developed a habit; whenever Haiti’s challenges overwhelm me, I pause and look out over the sea. There, floating on the horizon is La Gonave, rising out of the mist, a place imbued with peace and calm; beautiful in its simplicity. From a distance La Gonave’s serenity offers me solace.

Lex and Renee Edme, founders of the school we are building, carry long memories. Last summer two ideas came over me and I sent them an email request. I asked if we could inscribe Luke 6:48 somewhere on the new school (He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.). I also asked them if we could visit La Gonave. Lex was born on the island and has a boat that could take us there, on a rare day when neither work nor church beckoned. I mentioned these wishes only once, but in the fall, as the school’s walls rose, Renee pointed to the surface above the front door. “This is where your Bible verse will go.” Then, on the final day of my last scheduled trip, Lex announced that we would go to La Gonave.

The view of La Gonave from the hill above town or along the beach is one of god’s most beguiling creations. On clear days the island stands in bold relief against a crystalline sky and the smooth sea. When the weather is cloudy, it billows among its cumulus neighbors. On hazy days it merges with the muted blue-green of sea and sky, an ethereal realm of imagination more than any actual place of rock and soil and root.

I know that La Gonave is poor, so poor that men leave for months on end to be day laborers in Grand Goave. I know that La Gonave is awash in voodoo and mysticism; the natives crowned the Marine sent to patrol the island during last century’s American occupation as the ‘white king’ in fulfillment of an ancient myth. I know that La Gonave is a poorer, simpler version of Haiti, yet it had become my Bali Hai and I was compelled to visit.

The boat ride from Grand Goave to Au Pac takes about an hour. Unfortunately for the first twenty minutes we motor past the garbage from the river floating on the bay. Eventually the water turns ultramarine, the swells rise, the cross currents press against our hull and my dream island slowly grows. Tiny squares appear in coves along the shore, other structures emerge along the ridge line. Steep hills littered with scrub trees connect the parallel habitations. Everything comes into focus. Lex slows the boat to a crawl. His navigator stands at the bow, eyeballs the bottom and hand signals us through the narrow channel that leads to the small pier in the center of the village. Lex points out the school on a coral rock outcropping to the east; we have brought clothes and pencils and paper and cartons of energy biscuits. When we tie up, villagers line the dock. They brigade our supplies to the narrow sandy beach.

Au Pac fulfills every fantasy of an island paradise. The shallows of the cove are perfectly clear, fish squiggle among the wavy sea grass, clusters of clams cling to the coral bottom. Thousands of conch shells in subtle pinks and oranges form a berm between the water and the sand. We parade our goods up to the school where twenty-five or so children sit in pews and recite the numbers on the chalk board. Lex’s arrival upends the lesson. In minutes the entire village arrives. While Lex distributes his bounty I linger in the shady breeze outside. Powchino, a painfully thin local man with a pocketful of English at his disposal, appoints himself my guide. He tells me of the fish they catch in their wooden junks morning and night to ship to Port-au-Prince. He shows me the oblong sponges they collect with snorkeling gear and sell for $15 a kilo to a fragrance concern in Miami, though I cannot quite understand their purpose. He tells me of his brothers and sisters, his parents on the island, his own madame and two children.

After all of our cartons are empty we parade the length of town, a single path with shacks on either side, the sea to the south and marshes to the north. The houses are no more than six inches above sea level. At every storm the citizens scamper into the mountains, the sea washes through their world and then they return. There is no electricity to short circuit, no upholstered furniture to mildew, nothing that can’t survive a good salt water wash. It seems odd to me that they don’t build their houses on the slope, but it is their life and they choose to live it tight to the sea.

After two hours we have seen what there is to see. We climb back on our boat, I palm Powchino a twenty for his guidance and we shove off. We enjoy cokes and chicken salad from our cooler; it would have been rude to eat in Au Pac where we saw no crops growing or evidence of any food once our biscuits were devoured. The sea is mid-day calm, the cross current peters out, as smooth as vintage dimpled glass, as ancient as the village we left behind. The island of Hispaniola lay ahead, but it does not offer the comforting mirage that La Gonave presents from afar. Haiti rises high; the peninsula wraps around Grand Goave’s wide cove like monster claws. Compared to La Gonave, Haiti is complicated.

No adventure in Haiti is worth its salt without a hiccup, and sure enough we have watery gas in our outboard; it takes over two hours to sputter home. I do not mind. I sit in the bow and let my feet dangle in the direction of home. I think about Powchino and his parents and children, day in and day out in that village connected to the rest of the world by nothing more than a tenuous channel, no vehicles, no stores, no clinic, no tele-anything. Au Pac is beautiful in daylight, it would be glorious on a starry night, but how tedious it would be day after day, and night after night. Even after visiting, I cannot really understand how the residents pass their time. They exist on an island within an island; they lead a life of abject poverty and abject purity, a life we fantasize about when our world pulses with stress; yet it is a pristine fantasy few of us could bear to live.

Au Pac Village, La Gonave

Au Pac from the Shore

Au Pac Street

Posted in Haiti | Tagged Au Pac, Grand Goave, Haiti, islands, La Gonave | 5 Comments

Perfect Yoga

Posted on 02/24/2013 by paulefallon

There is no such thing as perfect yoga; there is always room for improvement in any posture.

All yoga is perfect; each pose reflects our mind and body at its moment of execution.

These two dichotomies ripple through my mind in every yoga practice. I strive to make my postures deeper, stronger, more precise, yet I accept the limits of my being and how my body varies day to day. If I languor in lax acceptance, I may feel fine in the hot room but enjoy fewer benefits over the course of my day. If I press too hard, I distort the continuum of practice and risk injury. If I accept every posture as ‘the best I can do right now’ I set a very low bar, but if I define perfect yoga as the ultimate expression of every pose, it is so daunting I am not motivated to improve.

About six months ago I developed the notion that perfect yoga, for me, would be to execute all 26 postures to my best ability. That sounds easier than it is. In almost every class I sustain one or two poses to my maximum ability; it is not unusual to extend a pose to a new threshold. But there are always other postures where I fall short. I fall out or miss full height or depth. In theory I can achieve ‘perfect yoga’ because I have achieved each of its constituent parts at least once, but realistically, stringing my 26 best poses together in one sequence is an unlikely feat.

My crux for a perfect yoga practice is standing head to knee followed by standing bow; eight balancing poses in a row. It is rare for me to execute them all at my fullest depth without falling out at least once. I began to pay very close attention to how I do them. I realized that holding in my abdomen truly helps me balance in head to knee, and envisioning my standing leg sturdy as an elephant grounds me in standing bow. Week in and week out I focused; still every time I faltered; until one day two weeks ago, when I didn’t. I held each balance the full time at full depth. I was so excited on the eighth pose I could barely concentrate, but I threw the idea of a perfect series out of my mind and focused on that posture in that moment. Then I nailed it.

Since then I have fully executed those eight poses half a dozen times. I can foresee a time when it is the rule, not the exception, that I can maintain them. However, that does not mean that I have had six perfect classes, for there are the other 24 poses, and keeping them all at maximum ability is an ongoing challenge. In the past week my head got closer to the floor in separate standing hands to feet, my full locust got higher. The standard for prefect yoga gets harder with every class. I hit a plateau, and another rise emerges, beckoning me to pursue new heights.

Posted in Yoga | Tagged Bikram, Bikram yoga, Bikram Yoga Boston, yoga | 5 Comments

Zero Dark Thirty

Posted on 02/15/2013 by paulefallon

On a brilliant after-snow Sunday, my friend Chuck and I hit the streets to grab a burger and a late afternoon movie. Since I have seen virtually nothing, while he, being fully wired to popular culture, has seen ‘em all, I yielded the movie choice to him and he selected Zero Dark Thirty. I am not a war movie buff, but The Hurt Locker was terrific and the buzz about Zero Dark Thirty is uniformly high, so I looked forward to seeing something of quality outside my usual range.

One of humankinds’ most bewitching attributes is our ability to simultaneously love and loathe something. From Zero Dark Thirty’s opening scenes I hated the interrogations but I loved watching Jessica Chastain; I disliked the grainy quality but I loved how it well it conjured my Middle East experience of Kuwait. I found the story hard to follow, until I was completely in its thrall and hung on every word.

I particularly disliked the film’s neutral point of view, presenting the United States decision and tactics to eliminate Bin-Laden without moral context. Regular readers of The Awkward Pose will recall that I wrote a very-much minority opinion of the US expedition into Pakistan to kill Osama Bin-Laden (Nation of Laws, May 15, 2011). My opinion has not changed; countering terrorism with terrorism is wrong. Though we all learn in kindergarten that two wrongs do not make a right, we forget it when filled with anger and rage and revenge; and no one fills Americans with more anger and rage than Bin-Laden.

Yet, I came to appreciate the film’s neutral point of view as one of its most positive aspects. Director Bigelow has to make us believe that the film is unbiased, so that when we see Obama, our sitting President, declaiming excessive torture in a television clip shortly after the movie audience has witnessed its effectiveness in routing out bad guys, we are conflicted between the world as it is and the world we want to believe in.

From there, my love/hate relationship with Zero Dark Thirty only grew thornier. The more I fell for Jessica Chastain, the more I wanted her back story, yet we are given no clues why this beautiful, capable, woman spends nearly a decade single-mindedly chasing Bin-Laden. We want a back story, because we want her to have a higher purpose, but Ms. Bigelow always champions action over motivation. Perhaps it doesn’t matter why Jessica Chastain is such an unlikely spy; the only thing that matters is that she is very determined and had the odds not fallen in her favor, the movie could have been called Black Hawk Down 2.

Ultimately what won me over to Zero Dark Thirty is an obtuse sort of patriotism. Not the militarist patriotism that we stuck it to Al-Qaeda, but the more subtle, meaningful patriotism that we live in a country where this movie can be made and presented. That citizens can spend a snowy afternoon in a theater and watch their current President’s judgment implicitly chastised without fear of reprisal on any front. That is a hallmark of our democracy.

The United States cannot hold itself above others in the actions we undertake in the name of defense and security, though they are probably not much different than others countries do or would do if they had our resources. But there are few, if any, countries on earth that accommodate the open range of discussion and debate that we enjoy. By the end of the movie I had no choice but to appreciate Zero Dark Thirty. Not because I liked the outcome or thought it was the best picture of the year, but because I live in a country where Zero Dark Thirty can be made and watched and debated.

Posted in United States | Tagged Black Hawk Down, Jessica Chastain, Katherine Bigelow, Obama, Osama Bin-Laden, Pakistan, Zero Dark Thirty | 2 Comments

Winter Storm Warning – Make Mine a Double

Posted on 02/08/2013 by paulefallon

The first wintry gusts are sweeping down my street. The weatherman’s frenzied exclamations prompted most businesses to close by noon today. The MBTA will stop running at 3:30 pm. The governor has declared a state of emergency; the National Guard has been deployed, all cars must be off the roads by four, and non-essential employees must stay home. I love the term ‘non-essential’, a litmus test of our self-esteem. Who wants to consider themselves superfluous, especially when the going is about to get tough?

How do we prepare for a winter storm? Most locals react by emptying grocery store shelves. Depending on our social-economic proclivities, we can tangle with the police officer directing traffic at Market Basket’s snarled parking lot, stand in register lines five deep as Star Market clerks scan items with their customary lethargy; grab a bunch of the dwindling 19 cent bananas at Trader Joe’s, where more customers only augment the cheerful chaos; or shoulder among the put-out clientele at Whole Foods who simply must have fresh oysters, lemon aioli, and an apricot glazed tort to compensate for the storm’s inconvenience.

Others, prospective recruits for survivalist meet-ups, collect email weather alerts issued by area cities and towns and replay recorded messages from NStar until they have memorized all the 1-800 disaster numbers. They know what to do in event of a power outage or encountering a downed power line. Forget the old fashioned idea notion of having a few candles on hand, these folks review the maintenance instructions of their generators, check fuel and exhaust lines, and make sure they have plenty of gasoline to rev up their snow blower.

As for me, I began considering myself non-essential years ago; I always have work to do but rarely have work that has to be done that day. I don’t go near a grocery store before a storm, which I consider to be nature’s nudge to clear out my freezer. I have a trusty snow shovel and many candles; any storm aid that requires gasoline only squelches the romance.

Last night, I prepared for the storm by attending a reading by Susan Cain, (Quiet) at the Harvard Book Store and then lingering with a friend over an Italian soda at the Algiers Café. This morning I woke early and knowing that, should the storm shut me in for a few days, I will miss yoga more than bananas or oysters or a generator or anything ‘essential’, I decided to do a double.

I have done a handful of back-to-back yoga classes in the past few years; perhaps the only thing better than 90 minutes in the hot room is 180 minutes in the hot room. The first class should be just like any other daily practice, but it is not. Committing to the studio for several hours throws a leisurely cast over the entire experience. I am at greater ease and, as often happens with yoga, the less conscious I am about my practice, the deeper it goes.

The second class is very different. I turn Gumby during the warm-up; already loose from the inside out. During half-moon I am ravenously hungry; I always practice on an empty stomach and haven’t eaten a thing yet. But the hunger dissipates and I appreciate my hollowness when I wrap myself into eagle. I am dizzier than usual, class has a dream-like quality, my limbs so loose they seem disassociated from my body. The sense of order that usually accompanies the Bikram postures evaporates. Everything is more acute the second time around; I bend deeper and stretch further. My mind wanders far afield while I remain hyper-aware of my particular position in each particular moment. Class slips by fast, even as time itself is suspended.

I cycle home as the first fine snow litters the sky. My mind is at ease, my legs spin, my body floats above the pavement. If the storm peters out I will practice again tomorrow. If it turns out to be as ferocious as predicted, I am fully prepared to withstand the blizzard.

Posted in Yoga | Tagged Algiers Cafe, Bikram, Harvard Book Store, National Guard, non-essential employees, Quiet, Susan Cain, winter storm warning, yoga | 2 Comments

Pumping Up Larchwood

Posted on 02/03/2013 by paulefallon

The bulldozer has arrived at my favorite house in Larchwood; they are digging the foundation extension, tearing off the roof, gutting the interior plaster. A simple cottage with fairy tale proportions is expanding. It held out a long time, nearly a hundred years. Given its tiny lot and modest frontage I dreamed that maybe it could slip beneath the radar of house explosions in that neighborhood, but progress and real estate brokers leave no stone unturned in a place as desirable as Larchwood, so it was inevitable that someone with deeper pockets than me would be captivated by the cottage, purchase it and improve it beyond recognition. That is the fate of houses in Larchwood, a charming neighborhood that has evolved from stability to affluence, though the more affluent it becomes, the less charm it retains.

I know Larchwood well. I ride my bike through it every day; it is my preferred destination for an evening walk. While much of Cambridge contains orderly rows of two and three family houses, like nearby Aberdeen Street; or equally orderly rows of mansions, like nearby Brattle Street, Larchwood is unique among Cambridge neighborhoods. When it was carved out of the 38 acre Samuel Grey estate in 1915, it was the last sizable parcel left in the city. Henry Hubbard, a protégé of Frederick Law Olmstead, laid the enclave out according to garden city principles in vogue at the time. Larchwood has narrow curving streets, petit sidewalks, and shallow front yards. The original houses are all different and all solid, but they are not immense. Larchwood is Cambridge’s answer to Forest Hills; a model train town come to life; a Halloween trick-or-treater’s dream come true where upscale houses sit really close together.

As the twentieth century wound down and Cambridge’s wealth triggered up, professors made more money consulting than teaching and quaint houses proximate to Harvard appreciated. But 2000 square foot miniaturized Georgian Colonials and half-timber Tudors lack sizzle. People wanting ‘signature houses’ started popping out the backs and the sides and sometimes even the tops of these gentle homes. When I moved to Cambridge in the early 90’s my favorite house was a gable front cottage inhabited by an eccentric MIT professor I knew from the 70’s. Upon his death, the new owner augmented the simple dwelling in every direction. The former cottage now sports a turret, a side wing, a back wing and a very unfortunate garage. After that cottage inflated beyond recognition, I turned my fantasies to its more homely cousin around the corner.

Over the intervening twenty years more than half the houses in Larchwood have grown. Some additions are well conceived, a few are awful. Cumulatively the garden aspect of the neighborhood has declined; bigger buildings mean less green space. I am thankful that the neighborhood is protected from tear-downs, which puts at least some restraints on construction zeal, but I wonder why people buy nicely proportioned homes and then twist them beyond recognition. Does the diminishing American family really need more than 2,000 square feet, when most of the time we occupy no more space than the tiny bubble surrounding us and our electronic device? Does every new owner need to make an imprint on his structure, even when the result is regressive? Our credit cards itch until we scratch them to their limit; we add on, and on, and on, because we can.

I was sad but not surprised to see the forces of progress obliterate the little cottage I admired. I fantasized about one day moving out of my own house (which is sizable yet retains the same footprint it was born with 115 years ago) and retiring to that modest two story rectangle with its tiny attic window. The cottage invited rest and repose. It seemed the perfect house for nestling into a long book on a winter afternoon and reading in the faint daylight until lapsing into eternal sleep; I could imagine no more pleasant setting for my last breath. But now the house will be big and fresh and I will have to find a new end of life fantasy; it would never do to slip peacefully away in a house so full of bumps and pops.

People love Larchwood because it induces visions of grace and community and simplicity. But the cost of entry is so high, that once landed there, people cannot leave simplicity alone.

Posted in United States | Tagged Cambridge, Frederick Law Olmstead, Henry Hubbard, Larchwood | 4 Comments

Winter Yoga

Posted on 01/27/2013 by paulefallon

On clear, cold winter mornings the pre-dawn air is thin, the paving salts have turned the blacktop silver grey. I pedal deliberately, the only bicycle amid few automobiles. I coast over every bridge and through every turn, dangling my right leg just over the surface, on vigilant watch for demon black ice. I see no one. The beacon light of the Bikram Studio glows along JFK Street. As I mount the stairs I wonder if perhaps I might be the only yogi alert on this frigid January morning. Of course I am wrong. There a dozen, no twenty, no more than twenty disciples arrayed along the black lines of the studio, soaking in the heat.

I savor these ‘one hundred degree difference’ days when the thermometer registers single digits out of doors and triple digits within. This is class 884 – my yoga diary has disintegrated into a simple calendar chit that registers attendance. Heather is our teacher, she has taught Wednesday mornings in Harvard Square forever; bone thin with huge red hair, a recent husband, and a pair of dogs. She is a terrific teacher with the right mix of purpose and humor, heat and humidity. I take my favorite spot, just to her right under the center fan. Heather corrects me often, but I never mind her improvements. I have a bit of a crush on her, which is ridiculous given my usual lack of interest in skinny people or redheads or, girls. My crush is just another element of silliness in a world that is torpid inside and freezing without, where I flex with sweaty abandon while the rest of the world creaks to rise.

You might think that after so many classes one more hardly matters; that I am as flexible as I am going to get; that another half-moon plus or minus isn’t going to make a morsel of difference. I should feel good about being able to rest my head on the floor in fixed firm but should accept that my forehead will never touch the carpet in standing hand to feet. But that way of thinking would be wrong, because even after 883 classes, change occurs within me every class, every day. Most changes are tiny; my eagle pose keeps getting lower and lower, though I would need a caliper to measure it. Some changes are ephemeral; one morning four months ago I actually touched my head to my standing knee but have not been able to replicate that feat again. Occasionally wholesale change sweeps over my practice and I establish a new normal.

This winter my yoga flowed to a new plateau. Somewhere around class 846 my lower back opened up and it has stayed loose for weeks. As a result a whole group of poses became deeper and stronger. My knees finally locked into standing head to feet, my torso held firm in triangle, I gained height in cobra, and my elbows hit the floor beside my knees in the final floor stretch. One day my fingers struggled to clench my toes in a sit-up, the next day my palms flew beyond, cupped my digits and I grabbed my instep. It was bizarre and sudden but appears to be lasting.

Daylight arrives about the time I leave the studio; crisp and bright though still bitter cold. I pedal quickly along Brattle Street. Traffic is heavy, women with impeccable makeup and patrician men grip their coffee mugs while navigating their Lexus’ and Mercedes’ and Lincoln’s out of Cambridge’s privileged driveways. I nod to them; partly because a savvy cyclist wants to ensure that bleary-eyed people motoring tons of steel notice him, but also because I am in such a cheerful disposition, and they’ve got some bending and stretching to do before they can catch up with me.

Posted in Yoga | Tagged Bikram yoga, Brattle Street, Harvard Square, winter, yoga | Leave a comment

Adopted by an Orphan

Posted on 01/22/2013 by paulefallon

This is another essay published in conjunction with the third anniversary of the Haiti earthquake. This appeared in the Boston Globe Magazine on January 20, 2013 under the title ‘The Boy Who Adopted Me’.

I reach down; a small black hand places a pair of nails in mine. We are building temporary houses after the Haiti earthquake, wooden frames covered with plastic, held taut by flat-head nails with concave washers. Our crew, American volunteers and local Haitians, erects a tin-roofed house in two hours. The boy under my shadow proves useful and reliable; whenever I drop my hand another nail appears.

We hike to the next site; my helper clutches the nail bucket. “Dieunison” he responds when I ask his name. “Over there” he answers when I inquire where he lives. Gestures and smiles communicate better than my Creole or his English.

Over the next week we build dozens of houses. Dieunison finds me every morning; I never have to bend over for a nail. I give him water and snack bars, fair wages for an eight year old Haitian. We hug before I fly home.

The first January after the quake I return to stake an orphanage I designed, five months later to lay out a school. Each time Jenison stands along the highway as if he hasn’t moved since I left. He wraps his skinny legs around my waist. I am his blan, he is my Haitian.

The second January after the quake I scratch a mid-life itch, quit my job and volunteer to supervise construction in Haiti two weeks every month. On my first trip back Dieunison’s eyes tear as he tells me his mother died, then he throws back his head yowling like a goat; I can’t decide if he’s joking or masking grief. Every month his life twists. He lives with his aunt Michelle in a compound of lean-tos and simmering stew. She ships him to Port-au-Prince when she can no longer feed him. I search for him frantically until one afternoon his thin figure appears outside our shanty. I shower him with food and questions; Dieunison’s eyes dazzle at the chicken leg on top of his rice. We find him a place to live, clothes, a bed, but once I return to the States, he flees. We forced too much too fast on a boy used to being on his own. Dieunison becomes a phantom, sightings are reported but he never shows his face to me. Locals say, “Forget him, he is a street kid”, but Dieunison chose me; I cannot give up on him.

“Are you the man who loves Dieunison?” A boy I have never seen approaches me. Dieurie is Dieunison’s half-brother; they live with a new assortment of relations. Dieurie is more mature, he cajoles Dieunison to reappear. The boys frequent the construction site, enjoy hot lunches, and agree to attend school. My next trip brings cash for tuition, uniforms, books, meals and ‘consideration’ for teachers willing to accept eleven-year-old’s in second grade. The boys go AWOL at our first school meeting. “Nothing is free”, I lecture when they show up later, guilty and sheepish, “you want meals and clothes; you must attend school.” I banish them from two days’ lunch.

The third January post-quake arrives with the orphanage complete; my regular visits to Haiti are finished. Dieunison and Dieurie have been in school three months. They are filling out, sometimes they cannot finish the food on their plates. They contemplate the leftovers with dismay; getting what you wish for can be disturbing. When I explain that my next visit is far off Dieunison pleads to stow in my suitcase. But they are Haitian, they belong here. I want to give them opportunities, not steal them away.

Construction is an intense activity that ends abruptly. But Dieunison has tethered me to Haiti for the long haul. It will take years for these boys to graduate, but if they do their part, I will do mine. Time does not factor when a boy hands you a nail and stakes a claim on your heart.

Posted in Haiti | Tagged Boston Globe Magazine, Grand Goave, Hait, Haiti earthquake | 5 Comments