501

There is a 500th post, and it was up for a short while, but I had to temporarily take it down: the news on it, which is good news, incredibly happy news, has to be kept hush-hush until the formal announcement occurs. The contract is in the mail sort of thing. But if I keep quiet until I can re-post my humble 500, this blog will have to wait until October. And beautiful things are happening.

For instance, this past Friday I went to a reading at The Soap Factory, an art gallery in the midst of old flour mills, of the poets Steve Healey and Gillian Conoley. Beforehand, I was able to go to dinner with two of my favorite people, Colleen and Meryl, and I had forgotten how delightfully good it can be to be in the company of women who understand you, not just because they too write and love poems, but because they've been with you through two years of strange changes, and will continue to watch and support through many more. I feel so much less lonely when I am with them. The next morning, Colleen hosted us in a round of Alchemy: poetry and yoga. One cannot imagine what a perfect combination this could be, and as I moved slowly about my mat, adjusting my pregnancy girth for child's pose, learning to accept my hips as different entities than they were six months ago, I began to feel more connected with the life inside of me, imagining the way she moved as I moved and how peaceful that must be.

Tonight, my dear friend Emily and I will be attending our first Blooma Yoga session. It is yoga designed exclusively for the prenatal woman or they also host sessions of Mommy + Me type yoga.

My body has gone through so many amazing things in the past five months or so. From the multiple-daily trips to the bathroom to the restless legs to the strange numbness in my left hand, there have been low points, and I've learned to maneuver myself back up out of so many places, with my stomach a strange collaborator with gravity. I am learning to live with myself more whale-like, and I am in awe over what I hear this body will do come January. Prenatal yoga should help me get closer to grace when moving through those motions. And as evidenced in the recent past, I certainly can use all the help I can get when it comes to getting by without so many bruises. Sometimes walking, for me, is a contact sport.