MountainMornings

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday I was going to write about yoga. About how I’m dipping my toes into its practice; like an old dancer with creeky knees, I envisioned a newer, Nia-type dancer with fluid joints…or maybe just more synovial fluid in my joints? I’ve tried Slow Flow Vinyasa and Yoga for Arthritis, and I’m looking forward to a class of Restorative or maybe even Yin Yoga. Somewhere between doing it in a chair with octogenarians, and standing on my head with millenniums, will be my sweet spot. After all, the Bride and the Love Bug are practicing Baby Yoga, which looks like a lot of fun!

But today we hear on the news that a suicide bomber has attacked our embassy in Turkey. And all I can think of is the beautiful young woman who was knitting a pink and orange concoction in our Needle Lady circle on Wednesday. She was getting on a plane that night, leaving her 2 small children and husband to fly to Iraq. She works for an NGO and is part of a team that is teaching the Kurds how to manage and develop their architectural and historic monuments. The woman sitting next to her then wanted to hear what she studied (art history – listen up, here is an unusual career path for artists), but I wanted to know if she spoke Kurdish. Unfortunately, she said, she had studied Arabic. Then she told me that although many top schools are teaching Arabic in the states, funding has dried up for research and placements in the Arab world.

After assuring us that northern Iraq is quite safe, we said goodbye to our knitting colleague. Of course, we all thought Turkey is safe too. “A number of illegal groups ranging from Kurdish separatists to leftist and Islamist militants have launched attacks in recent years in Turkey, which is a member of Nato. The last big attack in Ankara in 2007, which killed nine and injured 120, was blamed by police investigators on a lone, leftist suicide bomber.” The French and German embassies are nearby, right off Attaturk Blvd, and it seems that we have been scouting for a different, safer more secure location for our embassy in Ankara for some time.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21293598

So instead of regaling yoga, let’s thank those American women who can not only now fight on the battlefield with the best of ’em, but also those in the private and governmental sector who go to the hot spots in the world to try and build on a sense of peace and fledgling democracy. I’d like to wish a fond farewell to our most popular Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/01/16791796-the-making-of-hillary-clinton-15-moments-that-define-her-public-life?lite

Today is her last day of work, she hands the keys over to John Kerry. It seems her biggest worry is what to do without a schedule. Catching up on 20 years of sleep deprivation is also a priority. Clinton’s answers, her attitude and gravitas at the Benghazi hearings were an impressive way to cap her career, to say the least. I thought back to Anita Hill getting grilled on the Hill, and smiled. Clinton’s body language is a serious lesson on how to handle manipulative, political men. http://feministing.com/2013/01/24/how-to-deal-with-a-mansplainer-starring-hillary-clinton-in-gifs/

You say goodbye, but I say hello to a new super-PAC – Hillary for President in 2016. During her tenure at the State Department, “…Clinton had visited 112 countries, logged 956,000 miles and spent the equivalent of 87 days traveling.” Mr Kerry, those are some major heels you’ll have to fill. Namaste.