Thoughts From Annie

Happy 4th of July! One of my favorite childhood memories is spending Independence Day in my mom’s hometown of Algonac, Michigan. In Algonac, the week leading up to the 4th was always the “Pickerel Tournament,” which consisted of a very rickety but fun carnival and an ongoing fishing tournament,which I completely ignored. The big finale for the week was always the 4th of July parade…

We had the wonderful pleasure of hosting a family of robins on our family room overhang this month. It began when we saw the mother robin frantically putting together nests in four potential sites, scattering a huge pile of sticks and shiny threads on our patio. She apparently decided against someone’s old birthday balloon because she left it dangling in front of our window. She did finally settle on the “best” location, the one closest to our kitchen window…

I was lying in bed one morning last week with the clatter of heavy rain on the roof above my head and the sweet coziness of a warm comforter, when I realized that it was already 6:15, and the Wednesday morning sitting meditation was beginning at the studio in 15 minutes. At that point it was really too late to get to sitting on time, but I considered, very briefly, leaping out of bed, throwing on some clothes, and racing over…

Spring has arrived! How wonderful to see the daffodils blooming and to feel the sun on our faces again. And at the same time, we had more tragedy than usual this past month: the terrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and, closer to home, the tragedy in our local yoga community at Lululemon in Bethesda. How can we reconcile the beauty and excitement of spring with the horror and suffering of events like these?

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of visiting my family in Michigan. While I’m there, I always try to have a sandwich at Olga’s Kitchen restaurant. I grew up eating Olga’s delicious pita bread sandwiches when there was just one location in downtown Birmingham. They then spread throughout the state, and when I moved to DC in the mid-80’s, there were even two locations in the DC area, and we ate there as often as we could…

Happy February! I hope that you have endured the freezing temperatures and ice this past month, and have been staying warm with your yoga practice. After the death of our 12-year-old chocolate Lab about a month ago, our 11-year-old Standard Poodle started acting strangely. Our dogs had been together for nearly 11 years. In 2000, when we brought home Gus, an 8-week-old poodle, he met Coco, who was 18 months old at that time.

Happy New Year! I hope that all of you enjoyed your holiday, and got at least a little extra time off and rest. I enjoyed having my kids at home, and hanging around the house more. I also had the opportunity to watch a few movies, and one that I particularly enjoyed was Despicable Me. It was a hilarious animated movie about a self-satisfied villain who adopts three adorable little girls…

Last week, several days before our Thanksgiving feast, I happened to be in a local store, and was surprised to see a lot of Christmas decorations and displays. Well, I wasn’t completely surprised, having watched this trend toward seasonal overlap growing over the last few years. What was surprising, though was that the Christmas displays helped illuminate some teachings I heard from Rod Stryker, Cyndi Lee, and Sean Johnson…

Can you believe that it is already November? The fall seems to be going so quickly, and Thanksgiving is only a couple of weeks away. Thanksgiving has been one of my favorite holidays for many years, especially when we traveled to Michigan to enjoy Thanksgiving with family. I think that one of the reasons I liked it so much was that all we did was arrive and enjoy…

One of the joys of having older children is that we learn so much from them. This summer, one of my daughters read an inspiring book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide and recommended that I read it also. Reading that book started me on a journey toward a deeper understanding of some of the most painful and difficult issues we face today, including the sex trafficking of young women around the world…