When Life Hands You Lemons . . .

. . . don’t simply make lemonade.

Bake.

Baking is about creation. It’s about changing a list from flour to nuts into a dessert or breakfast treat. Whether it’s melding butter with chocolate or combining raspberries with ground almonds, the result enhances the finest flavors of each ingredient.

Yoga. like baking, is about transformation. This shift can happen in my body when I’m molding myself into into hero pose, or in my mind when I’m gazing at the flicker of a candle. The rigidity in my Parkinson’s muscles lets go of some tension, and the chatter – from fears of future symptoms to frustration with the current ones – empties from my thoughts.  This change, this shift, maintains the essence of who I am – my list of ingredients – drawing out what’s most flavorful.

Sometimes, a cool glass of lemonade can be refreshing.  But, making it is less a creation to me than a means of masking the taste with sugar and diluting it with water. I want to bring out the natural tang of the fruit. I want to create a lemon meringue pie, lemon squares, lemon poppyseed cake, lemon drop cookies.

To transform the lemons in your life-with-movement-disorders basket into a delight, bake something. And, of course, practice yoga.