Brain fog

And suddenly, just now, as I begin to write this spontaneous blog to losen up a block I suffer from lately, I remember the muscle whose name I've been trying to think of all day. I got as far as it has to do with the lumbar spine. Not the multifidi, which are everywhere. Always afraid of mother's Alzheimers history, forgetting hits hard. Plus, I've been feeling depressed. 

Last night at the New Orleans meets Zofingen Jazz Festival, I projected my anxiety onto the seasoned musicians on stage as they masterfully played their instruments. What is art? I tried to ponder. Great effort over time, repetition ten-thousand times... So what does it mean to philosophize? If philosophy is the art of perception.... yadda, yadda, yadda. My mind just didnt't wanna. I had such a hard time letting myself go into the music all night. Was I artless? If the world were to end indeed, I entertained my fears instead, would the musicians play like the band on the Titanic as it sank? Lover reminded me that humans are but a millisecond of this Earth Planet's life and what a joy to experience being human given such odds. Really? I thought to myself feeling stubbornly gloomy inside. Point is, it will end. Could the recent earthquke catastrophe in Venezuela have stirred up some subconscious trauma from my childhood in Mexico City and its terrible earth quake of 1985, which caused immense destruction? But what I remember isn't that bad... mother being thrown from wall to wall in the hallway coming to check on us... mother holding us wrapped in a big towel or blanket in the middle of the hallway as the eight-story-building shakes... building toy brick buildings and crashing them onto toy cars and dolls, playing that superheros fly in to save everyone, probably superman and superwoman...

Anyway, I didn't work today since the school year is basically over. So, I was able to go to the only weekly morning yoga class at the local gym for a change. My glutes were messed up from all the walking and standing and semi-dancing between crowds of people on the uneven cobble stone plazas in front of the festival stages downtown, where the Middle Ages have been structurally preserved with great care. Is it just gluteus maximus or also ... ??? I could not remember the name of the muscle and it killed me. Too much German, too little anatomy and yoga study. The German yoga names are often strange. My multi-lingual brain is structured in a certain way, I concluded. Specific areas organize each language. My yoga and anatomy knowledge is bound largely to English. But the brain is now especially stimulated by the Swiss and German environment and even some French - completely different areas! - while at the same time neglecting the reinforcement of yoga and anatomy. How am I supposed to recall a certain muscle out of the blue? Even if I used the word a lot at some point. I also remember conssciously repressing it months ago. An athletic student of mine walked in complaining about back pain, I saw her posture, I had an impulse to tell her about those muscles in the lower back that .... stop. You're a substitute English teacher, I thought, and, frankly, this fourteen-year-old girl doesn't care. Then I wondered, did I taint my scarce anatomical knowledge forever with such self-oppression?

However, I must also blame the severe iron deficiency the Swiss doctor uncovered last week, with a value of 4.9 of 15. Less than a third of the norm! Now I know why I've been in a state of chronic fatigue for years. It's not just peri-menopause. The doctor prescribed iron pills and I've been making a point of eating more beef though horse meat and blood sausage would be better, but I can't. It will take at least 3 months to get my iron back up, the doctor said, maybe a year. I'll notice when I start having more energy. It must be all that heavy bleeding. After menopause, he assured me, I won't have that problem anymore. When he suggested that I might put a net on my uterus, which he referred to as an "elegant" solution, in order to reduce the bleeding or take contraceptive pills, I told him I was done doing things to my femininity. The body clearly thinks it can bleed a lot. It clearly also needs iron. Is that why middle aged women died in past times? Well, the doctor said that you can't die from iron deficiency, which is the only upside. Because both body and mind lose what little energy they have fast.

So, I hoped that yoga class might trigger the yoga knowledge part of the brain. Asana and viynasa did re-align the body. Pigeon position helped the gluteal area. I walked out in better shape than I'd had walked in in. What I appreciate the most about asana is the way it gives me a check on the state of the body as it awakens muscles, joints, fascia and nerves. All the daily moving this Swiss lifestyle requires plus new workouts and exercises have strengthened and reshaped the body in meaningful ways that I wasn't aware of until I put the body through a systematic yogasana practice in class under the guidance of a seasoned teacher, who understands body mechanics. I noticed my body switch on the memory of other yoga teachers I've had who understand anatomy and movement. The biggest difference I noticed with being in class as opposed to making attempts to practice on my own, was the ability to steer my attention with singular focus on my breath and body - as opposed to having to think of what position to get into or how to structure my practice or all the to-dos that surround me at home. Help is underrated. But I still refused to check an anatomy book or the internet. I stubbornly insist on my brain to recall what I know must still be there. Maybe the mind takes longer to go through an ever expanding cognitive library of organic data stored biologically and asymmetrically over the course of several decades and counting. Must make the brain work.

Luckily, yoga also shows up randomly in public places, like the cobble stone ground of the town plaza or the chaise-lounge by the pool, where I make up new asanas - if I can recall the right words...

QUADRATUS LUMBORUM