EVERYTHING CHANGES

Yes, 
    I’ve been moving this body for over 6 decades, starting when I began dancing lessons at 2 ½ yrs old; bones barely formed.
    Always gyrating my tiny hips to any beat, cartwheeling in parks and hallways, tap-dancing up and down wooden stairs on stages all over New Jersey, coming up on tippy-toe in ballet shoes, jumping into a high “Pony-Kick” and coming straight down into a split at 16, as a cheerleader; and then discovering Modern Dance and Yoga in college. My body never stops moving.    
     I can be spotted doing performance art and contact improvisation in the Bart station in San Francisco; and rehearsing nude at The Legion of Honor in SF for our dance troupe, “Players of San Francisco”.
 
    Later into my 20’s, I’m dancing and groovin’ the night away on tall sparkly high heels, at the coolest nightspots on earth; Studio 54, The Mudd Club, Helena’s in LA, Club Lingerie, On the Rox, a very private club on Sunset Blvd... and many other, happening in the moment locales. 
Put on the music, add sprinkles of beautiful people, artists, actors, and movers and shakers of the time; and I’ll show up and dance for hours anywhere; my 24 yr old body twirling as the kaleidoscopic sights and sounds of the decade soak into my brain and memory. Helena’s (Helena Kallianiotes) gruff voice is in the earpiece of my phone. “Hey Darlene, I want you to come to my club tonight and dance…” She’d order without much chitchat. I’m already sliding into something revealing and dancible..

       I love to dance.

     Best part for me; catching the rhythms of the music…and riding them over and over again; sometimes until dawn. 
   The wave of the disco, and being seen is all rolled up into one big heart-racing, body-pumping, platform shoe stompin, thrill ride.

   Practicing doubles at Bikram’s Yoga College of India, standing between Shirley MacLaine and Raquel Welch, I am younger and more fit than they are, I think as we begin yoga practice in my narcissistic blossom of youth. 

    Attending every yoga class L.A. had to offer through the 70’s and 80’s, I strut into life with blind confidence, all shiny and just about perfect in health, beauty, and body…

   “Those were the daze my friend, we thought they’d never end; we’d sing and dance forever and a day….”

   Participating in advanced aerobics alongside famous athletes, skinny show biz beauties, aspiring trophy wives; I embrace aerobics and weight training for an edge on life, growing lean and lithe weighing in at 106 lbs at 32 yrs old. I dance in Lionel Richie’s All Night Long music video; a shoot that takes about 20 hrs, and does last all night long!

   Sixteen years ago this month, Inner Fire Yoga, the first Bikram Studio in Madison, Wisconsin opens. I am teaching 10-14 classes a week at 51 years old, beginning a full time job teaching yoga: doing what I love! I am still doing what I LOVE now, teaching still every single day!


     Each decade takes a bit out of the body for sure. Some days I just wish I could feel the kind of muscle strength I once boasted.
 
     This year, 2017-18, I spend limping about, and for a brief period, forced to use a cane to walk.
.   Depression and despair overwhelmed me a year ago, when 3 different medical professionals inform me I need a total hip replacement; ASAP. 
   “You are bone against bone …” they each say studying my x-rays… (and to add insult to injury) “Your lumbar is also critically degenerated, stage 5 of 5.” 
    One says, “It’s amazing you can walk at all.” 
    I step out into the cool autumn air and walk to my car thinking, “Shit, my life is over.”
   Hmm, wheelchair bound, eating to soothe, I gain 10 lbs., and live on Ibuprofen and hydrocodone in a puddle of self-pity. Then I gain another 8 lbs. because, well, who cares. 

    Standing Bow Pulling posture is un-doable; can’t reach down to put my palm around my ankle on the right side; much compromising my hot Bikram practice. My Power Flow is less powerful, consistently skipping the flip dogsand ungodly push-ups. Yin affords me blocks and blankets to rest into postures keeping the joints as juicy as I can. Walking is a chore, and running impossible.

    I do bike, and take a dangerous (have nothing to lose) 5-hour bike ride through Rome traffic just this May, wind in my sails... horns honking; and, I can still swirl these hips in circles and do the Warrior poses. Fuck it, I am not giving up my hip yet!

    I begin to study all about THR, and hear good things for the most part; but a nagging resistance talks to me behind all the testimonials. I decide to take it into my own hands and also to find someone who is as abhorrent to this “amputation of the thigh bone … metal and screw-on” replacement as I am. Just the thought of a metal shaft being inserted into my thigh bone marrow drains the blood out of my head. 

     I love my body and all of its myriad sensations. I love to feel the flow of lymph and blood and fluids, and even more, to direct it. I inhale light and space and exhale tensions. I love micro movements, and I nerdily study fascial connections like a cat studying the movements of a mouse. I decide I am not ready for the saw to come near to my thigh bone.

    In Sicily, I walk 139 miles and defy my prognosis. It is the Sicilian sun, the air, the language and the joi de viethat moves me along each day. This bucket listtrip throws “reality” and the doctors to the wind.
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     Today I complete six weeks of vigilance; a 7-day fast and liver detox, and a gifted doctor of chiropractic who sees twisted vertebrae, and scoliosis that might be treatable. He goes at it with all his knowledge and skill; and I make guided changes and improvements. CBD oil, supplements, softer exercise like swimming, and I’m walking again. I feel better and way happier. I think I can put off what is probably inevitable for another few years. I hope so.

    Now I add Collagen powder to nutrition dense shakes, eat a more restricted diet to reduce inflammation, and experiment with cleanses. Voila! I’m not limping on most days. 
     Odd thing, my both parents grew up eating canned vegetables, white bread, sodium laden Campbell’s soups, boxed corn flakes, hot dogs and spam. The most exercise my mother ever got in her entire life was to vacuum. 
    They ate fat and grease and processed foods. Each lived to be almost 90, cancer and hospital-visit free. It wasn’t until her 80’s that my mom ever complained of back pain. She too had stage 5 lumbar degeneration, but she was 84 already. Dad never had any pain in his hips or back. Go figure…. I remember them very vital and traveling; even taking care of my baby, and then child into their late 70’s and 80’s.
 
       Turning 67 is both old and yet, not old yet.

    I feel it, but my mind imagines sailing in the Mediterranean, running on beaches in Fiji, getting an apartment in Amsterdam, and dancing at clubs to new sounds. I imagine Standing Bow for one full minute, and maybe even Standing Head to Knee, on both sides...

   Pay attention to what your body is telling you. I felt this coming on for years and did not get help. I pushed through the pain and now am undoing much; starting again; slowly. 

    I teach 2-3 yoga classes each and every day. I still travel to train teachers and present master classes, workshops and retreats; most times without an assistant. I’m a more compassionate, ‘understanding of body issues’ teacher now. I say, with pride, maybe a better yoga teacher even though my physical prowess is half, or a third of what it was. Meditation and pranayama are far more interesting to me than Hanuman asana, or a flat stomach, yoga butt, and, ha ha, thick hair and eyelashes. 

    Aging is a bitch of sorts, no doubt, and it’s also an incredible gift. Ya gotta accept that we’re all moving in that direction. One can’t see it from youth, but in age there really is wisdom, and the stark realization of just how brief life is, and just how vain and foolhardy youth is. 
Everything changes; Ancitta.
 
    The principles of yoga make more sense than ever, and the “Middle Way” of Buddhism guides me when I begin to fret. 
   One day I will become dust. Yes, dust; perhaps in the air of some new dance club in Beijing or NYC or LA 200 years from now. Poof! One generation follows another, swiftly go they.. 

    My grandmother is the flamboyant flapper ( I hear,) my mother doing the cha- cha- cha looking like Marilyn Monroe, me under the disco ball and stardust, and youth at death metal mosh pits; life goes on.

       Death is a constant reminder to remember to LIVE!
 
    Keep moving; mentally, physically, geographically, and emotionally. Interact, breathe, be kind, love, give, have fun, take risks, have a glass of wine.    Trust your inner voice.
     “You are never too old, too sick or too weak to start again.” 

      Especially when I know I am privileged enough to get a new hip when that time does come; and it will. 

I am so grateful … so grateful.
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NAMASTE
Dar