Being and Breathing - Weston, MA

Photo credit: Broomstones Curling Club

When I tore three ligaments in my ankle a few years ago, I recovered strength by doing yoga. Specifically, power yoga with the DVDs of Bryan Kest and my favorite Baron Baptiste. While I enjoyed Kest's workout, the folks in the video were all clearly Claymation because no one but NO ONE can bend like that. So I stuck more with Baron since being in Brazil in the tropical heat and no air conditioning made hot yoga just obvious, not marketing.  And his students seemed to have the normal range of motion...

I do have a point here. At least I did before I ate the last 40 candy corns. What is it with candy corn? It doesn't taste good, it's so sweet it sets my teeth on edge and I can't stop eating it. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. Baron. One of my favorite lines in the DVD is when he tells you to relax into a pose and says that you should be just "being and breathing...being and breathing." This is a pose I have never done in my life, especially in the three months since moving to the US. Just being and breathing...

Instead, I am running around like a chicken. I knew it would be like that in the beginning, but now, isn't it supposed to slow down?  So while I was driving down to a store in Natick (7 miles away) this morning and trying to keep my car on the road because let's face it: New England fall makes you forget to be and breathe, and even drive. Breathlessly beautiful around every curve in the road.  Wait, did I finish that sentence? Doesn't matter. 

Anyway, my favorite app called Waze led me down some new roads in this town of 11,000 and I like to look at all the business signs when I'm not looking a sugar maples and I saw this "XXX Curling Club" where XXXX has been forgotten by yours truly. What? Curling? We can do curling here?  People outside of Canada and Scandinavia still curl? My high school boyfriend was a curler. He also sometimes reads this page so I'm done here.

The point being (wait, I need another candy corn) there is so much to DO here. I know what the land of opportunity moniker means. It means you have the opportunity to fill yours and your family's schedule NON STOP with stuff. Sports, arts, crafts, farming, climbing, jumping, hiking, etc. It makes me dizzy. So here are the sports you can do within seven miles (let's include the curling, shall we?) of my house:

Hockey (on three different teams)
Skating (figure, ice, fall on your face in the driveway shortly, also ponds in the neighbor's backyard)
Knee hockey (okay this is cheating but two friends have basement courts on our street)
Soccer.
Football.
Lacrosse
Field Hockey
Volleyball
Kung Fu
Karate
Tae Kwan Do
Tennis
Swimming 
Rowing
Kayaking
Biking
Canoeing
Squash
Skiing - Cross Country (out the back door)
Skiing - Downhill (cheating but you can take the Ski Train from Weston to Nashoba Valley in the winter). 
Curling - it IS a sport. Stop laughing.

What else can you do? 
Arts and Crafts at the Community Center
Drumlin Farm mini-camps (my kids are currently detectives on Wednesdays)
Birding (ditto the above)
Farmhanding
Picking your own whatever.
Pottery
Join a thousand volunteer groups. volunteer until you don't have a spare moment
Writing classes
Book groups
Alumnae Groups (I live 10 miles from my college and can't get there cause I'm so busy!!!)
Get my dog trained. 

And I can't even begin to tell you about committee-landia--I can be on the math and science committee or the creative arts committee or Friends of the Library or a room parent. Oh, yes I am all of the above. I must stop volunteering. Here is a new word for me: "No." 

It's a gorgeous fall day and I feel like I have to go walk in the woods. And so I did. I took two labbies (mine and my neighbor's) for a walk and a swim and watched the leaves fly through the air. And then I hurried home for the next program.

I'm tired. And my kids get home on the bus in an hour and we're heading to the detective camp.Where I will sit and try to organize thoughts of what to do for their eighth birthday party in less than a month. Curling party?

Being and breathing...