Stolen Runs

Sunday afternoon, I snuck in a few ski runs with my teenaged daughter. She’d spent much of the day competing in a ski race and was tired from the hours on the hill, the earlier-than-usual race day wake-up call, and the emotional and mental exertion of competition. Add to that this winter’s weirdness of booting up and eating lunch in a cold car, and I wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d opted to go home and curl up someplace warm and cozy with a good book.

 But I’m glad she chose to ski with her mom instead.

The older my children get, the more I find myself cherishing the stolen moments – an unexpected ski through the woods with my son, a quiet hour of piecing together a puzzle with my youngest, an afternoon on the mountain with my oldest girl. There are plenty of times where these growing children of mine retreat to their rooms as soon as they are home from school, or skate off to the lift with their friends without a backwards glance, or are aggravated by my very presence. And I’m (mostly) OK with that. It’s all part of the process of growing up.

There are also many moments of teenage angst, siblings annoying each other, the stress of making their way through middle school – on top of the constant curve balls of doing so during a pandemic – and a mother (me) who doesn’t always have the patience to gracefully dance through it all.

Somehow, Sunday afternoon, I convinced Ella to keep skiing. Decision made, we clicked into our skis and pushed away from the race day hubbub toward the lift. We headed to the summit of Cannon, passing through the mid-mountain snowmaking fog to rise into the cold sunshine of a world above the clouds.  

This late in the day, many skiers had gone home, so we had our choice of trails, without having to human-slalom our way around other skiers.

Not so long ago, I brought up the rear when skiing with the kids in case they fell and needed help, or to make sure they turned the right way at trail intersections. I hoped, in those days of snowplowing and pony slope runs, that there’d come a time when the skiing pace was a little bit faster. Now, I play caboose because I don’t have a prayer of keeping up. I love watching my kids race ahead of me, all fearless speed and nimble turns.

But Sunday afternoon wasn’t about keeping up so much as just hanging out. We chatted on the chairlift – about what, I couldn’t tell you. I don’t recall the specifics of our conversation, but I am holding tight to the feeling of just being with my daughter. No stress, no angst, no more race day nerves.

Just a mom and her girl, sunshine and snow, and a few stolen ski runs. 

Original content published by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul. This essay appears as Meghan's January 14, 2021 Close to Home column in the Littleton Record. 

The Power of Om

We gather each week, a collection of men and women, 20-somethings to 60-somethings, business owners, teachers, parents, athletes. Some of us can barely touch our toes, so tight are our hamstrings. Others have the lithe bodies of dancers, bending easily into each pose. If you threw us together anywhere else, we might seem a hodgepodge of folks with little in common. But in the upstairs room of this barn, tucked behind a house off a side street in Littleton, we gather to practice yoga.

As the pre-class chitchat fades, Rose leads us in a chant of Om, the shortest of words, drawn into a long sound which is supposed to represent the union of mind, body, and spirit. In other words, Om equals yoga.

I first encountered yoga when I was living in Crested Butte, Colorado, in the 1990s. The yoga studio in that little mountain town of uber athletes and beautiful people was next to the tiny health food store, and so in my mind yoga became an extension of eating whole grains and downing shots of wheat grass. For many practitioners of yoga, it IS an extension of a lifestyle of pure foods and actions.

For me, yoga practice started as a way to supplement my more active athletic endeavors, to bring more flexibility to my body and calm to my mind. I started with videos by Rodney Yee and Patricia Walden, finding my way into imperfect poses in the sunny light of our loft living room. After I moved back East, I found a Thursday evening class in Franconia, which was both invigorating and informative. But then life got really busy, and yoga was left behind.

When I had three children in the space of two years, my life pace shifted from long bike rides and hard skiing to kid-carrying and crawling on the floor. My days were often mentally and emotionally hectic – and physically exhausting, even though I felt I wasn’t actually exercising. (Raising kids is a perpetual workout, but there’s no training regimen, and the challenges change from one minute to the next.)

Then I found Rose. If yoga is the union of a healthy mind, body, and spirit, Rose is the personification of yoga: smart, beautiful, and good. She is both a dedicated student and teacher of yoga, traveling regularly to Boston to practice with Patricia Walden (whose videos introduced me and countless others to yoga) and studying occasionally in India. She is kind in her teaching, but also tough, persuading students to go deeper into each pose, challenging us to improve – at once encouraging and demanding.

I harbor good intentions of extending my yoga practice at home, beyond my weekly class. The most I manage is a few twists here and there, a down dog pose after skiing, a forward bend or two before bed time. Still, my weekly practice reminds me to sit straight as I type at the keyboard, to broaden my chest and breathe when I start to stress about something, to refocus when I need to.

Tuesdays always seem to be my craziest, busiest days. But I know that no matter how hectic my work schedule is or how crazy the kids get, I will get to close out my day with 90 minutes of yoga, seeking poses that will engage my muscles and quiet my mind. I often rush to make class, arriving harried and barely on time. The very act of unrolling my mat onto the wood floor begins the calming process.

At the start of each class we sit, cross-legged, to chant Om. Rose asks us to look inward, to direct our energy from our minds to our hearts. Soon I am too focused on putting my body into the next pose to dwell on the day’s happenings, tomorrow’s tasks, and the persistent to-do list.

My mind focuses. My body moves. My spirit lifts.

A version of this essay ran in the Oct. 12, 2012 edition of the Record-Littleton.