blessings

Last week I assisted a yoga class for the first of what is now my regular weekly shift. People filed out of the room thanking me for my help as I stayed behind talking with the teacher and a few other students before grabbing my bike helmet and heading outside for what would be a long, meandering ride home in the gorgeous evening air. The whole time I struggled with the sneaking feeling of being lucky. Incredibly, blessedly lucky.

Life has thrown surprises my way, as it does. There are a few things that, although they hold the most personal meaning, haven't yet found their place in my life as I assumed they would but, in many respects, I'm living the life I always wanted.

I'm pretty sure that a couple of years ago I looked at the assistants, wondered how they got the position, wondered if I'd ever be able to drop into Marichasana C with ease, wished I could be more a part of the yoga community, and even wished I had a bike to ride home. I'm pretty sure I thought those things and last week as I was biking home I couldn't ignore the feeling that I am incredibly lucky because I'm living that life.

I almost wrote about it. I penned the entry in my mind, toyed with how I would explain the experience but then deliberately chose not to. I've been so attached to being sad and so focused on what is missing that I consciously chose not to write about what was right. It's as if I carry the idea that admitting happiness negates my sadness. That acknowledging the parts of my life that are exactly as I want them to be takes away from my disappointment over what is not. And I'm not willing to go let go of my sadness yet - it feels so very real.

So I chose not to write. But then it happened again tonight. The same blessed feeling, and it seems childish not to acknowledge what is going well simply because of my attachment to what is missing. I'm both. I'm living the life I always wanted and I'm sad over those absent pieces.

It's a new thought for me - that I can be both - and it's confusing. It's confusing to grieve the end of something but, at the same time, be able to find a place of contentment and it's confusing to mourn the loss of a life I was so excited about but, at the same time, find happiness in the life I have. Just this morning I wrote about my longing for what is lost and now I'm writing about living the life I always wanted? Which is real? Am I crying or am I calm? Am I in the depths of despair or am I hopeful? Am I lost or am I found?

I feel like I have to choose one or the other. I am sad, disappointed, and a bit lost at the moment but I've let it overshadow all other aspects of my life. I don't like endings, particularly those I didn't think I wanted, and the sadness that accompanies this ending may stay with me for a very long time - but I'm also content with what is.

It is possible to be both. As the days go by I find myself increasingly willing and able to make room for happiness. Life is good, even when it's not.

attachments and figments of my imagination

This morning I added a few extra poses to my practice for no real reason other than that they felt good. As I lay back, enjoying the stretch, I thought about how this would never have been permitted in my old shala. I miss practicing there. Miss the discipline coupled with a deep respect for tradition.

After explaining, for the 800th time, that I have two torn hamstrings and wasn't going deeper into the pose deliberately, I thought about the Helsinki shala where I only had to tell one person, once, that I was working with an injury before all of the teachers knew. I miss the warm, yellow room with its creaking floor, community, and the sound of ujayii breathing enveloping me.

I thought about why I was in Helsinki in the first place and stopped my practice for a minute, surprised by a longing for everything to be like it used to be. Just go back to the way it was.

People keep saying that I sound good. Better. I don't know what to say in return. I'm not sick, not recovering from the flu. I've just been feeling sad. I've also been feeling happy, light, depressed, relieved, angry, wry, cynical, optimistic, and excited - often all in the space of just half an hour. Probably not so different from each of you, albeit each for our own reasons. While sadness and confusion do lurk beneath the surface waiting to rear their heads, I know they'll fade with time, they already are. This is a time of transition and transitions are hard on me.

Breaking up is a transition, redefining what we are to each other is a transition, and the loss of what I thought my life in the immediate future would be like is a transition. I was really excited to live in a new city. To struggle with a new language and see how it would feel to make the foreign familiar. I was excited about that. Now I'm in Toronto returning to my old job and that's exciting too for entirely different reasons, I'm just surprised. And confused. It's like someone took the gameboard of my life, changed the pieces around and plunked me back down in the centre to scramble while I process changes I didn't ask for in the first place.

This morning I just wanted things to be what they used to be. Back in the old shala practicing mysore in the company of the yoga girls, a flight booked to colder climates, and fanciful dreams of a perfect, easy yogi life with my best friend dancing in my head. I longed for things to go back, oh, six months. Maybe seven.

But six or seven months ago the shala was oppressive and downright mean, the future of colder climates already uncertain, and the dreams I had of a perfect yogi life were mine alone - what good are dreams for two when they belong to only one? Six or seven months ago things weren't what I remember them as being. I know that. I know I'm attached to something that is a figment of my imagination, but I kind of wish I could just go back anyway.

I think the hardest part of this transition is learning to be honest with myself about what really was and what I imagined into being.

meh

What do you get when you pair a cold, rainy day with a bored human, a cranky cat, and a borrowed digital camera? Well, seeing as all I wanted was a picture of the cat and I together, the answer could have been fairly simple but, this being me and all, it was anything but.

I don't get it. Given that the cat's preferred activity 99% of the time is standing on my chest, nose pressed to mine while meowing incessantly, a happy cat-human portrait shouldn't have been too challenging. Instead, I got this



and this



and this


I wouldn't exactly call it fun but it was most definitely fuuunny. With all the meowing and flying fur, you would have thought I was making him eat the camera, not sit for it.

I'm not bored anymore but he's super pissed. See the second picture? His red eyes? That has nothing to do with the camera, it's because he really IS that evil.

Meh.

quotes

This morning's paper carried an article about Richard Bradshaw, the former General Director of the Canadian Opera Company who passed on last week. I've had a mini-crush on him since 1995 when I discovered him at the outdoor opera series held at the Harbourfront each August.

I'd just returned from my first overseas trip and was experiencing the kind of world weary despair best experienced by 20-somethings freshly returned from their first European adventure. I was stuck in the backwaters of North America, alienated from my friends who'd managed just fine in my six month absence, and depressed by the fact that nothing had changed. Well, nothing except for my knowledge that EVERYTHING was SO much better in Europe. Grasping for something 'cultural' to do, I read about the outdoor opera series, got dressed in my favourite, purchased-in-Barcelona dress and headed downtown.

It was lovely. Richard Bradshaw was charming and witty and made me enjoy opera. He also, with each wave of his conductor's baton, helped me fall back in love with Toronto. I've had a soft spot for him ever since. I'm sorry to hear that he's passed on. The article quoted him as saying: "The only irresponsible option in art is to avoid taking risks". Love that. And don't think the sentiment is limited to art, I think it transfers every bit as well to life.

In the same newspaper I read another quote which I've heard in varying terms for years without ever knowing that the original source was Mark Twain:
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bow lines, sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

This quote is one of the truths I return to when I'm trying to make a decision - will I regret NOT having done this in 20 years? If the answer is 'Yes', I do it. If the answer is 'I don't know' I give it time. 'I don't know' usually has fear beneath it - fear of the outcomes, the fall out, making a mistake - and fear has a short life span. If I give it time, the answer comes.

Which leads me to the last 2 years. I took the biggest risk I'd ever taken. I fell in love. Maybe not a big deal to some but for me it would have been far less terrifying to do just about anything else. Falling in love was hard. And it didn't have the fairytale ending I was so sure it should have had. And I'm so, horribly, all-encompassing sad about that. Not depressed, not unhappy, just sad. The kind of sadness I didn't realize it was possible to contain in one body. The kind of sadness that I didn't know could co-exist with happiness, excitement, laughter, release and a sense of freedom - because I'm those things too, there's just a sense of sadness lurking beneath it all. I don't want this. I'm not quite sure how I am containing it. But I am.

I am and I have no regrets. In 20 years I'm not going to have to wonder what would have happened if I'd tried harder. I'm not going to have to wonder what would have happened if I'd gotten on that plane to Finland. I'm not going to have to wonder why I let my fears get in the way of what could have been a beautiful partnership. So yeah, I'm sad and I don't wish for this ending - but I don't have to wonder and I'll never have to regret what I didn't do.

I'm also clearer. Clearer that there is no "but" to real love and understanding that soon I'll stop hoping this isn't really happening and just accept that it happened. I'll be sad until sadness runs it's course and I embrace what life has in store for me next. Through it all, I'll never have to wonder "What if...". There is no what if. I didn't let fear rule my choices.

Which leads me to my last quote of the day, this one from Eleanor Roosevelt:
"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this. I can take the next thing that comes along'. You must do the thing you think you cannot do".

philosophy girl

I was really hoping to write this morning. Was hoping that the act of putting pen to paper would help me clarify this mood. This feeling that something is missing - that I'm missing something. Not a person, a...something. A lesson? A sign? An opportunity? I don't know. I kind of like this foggy, daydreaming feeling but I'd also hoped that the feeling of my pen scratching through the pages of my journal would part the cobwebs of my mind and help me see the missing something.

But I can't write.

I'm in my favourite coffee shop with the awesome coffee, free wireless, funky music and wide open doors as opposed to the dreaded air conditioning. Usually its a refuge. Usually I sit, wrapped in the fuzzy arms of the blue armchair in the corner with my legs tucked under me, and I daydream, or write, or read undisturbed for hours. Today it's different.

Today I'm sitting across from philosophy girl. Philosophy girl really wants to be noticed. She really wants us to know that she's immensely hung over from the bottle of wine she had for dinner last night. She really wants us to know that it 'ruins' her life that there's no wine store in her neighbourhood. And she really, REALLY wants us to know that she's working on her PhD in philosophy.

She rattles on about paradigms, about how the "difference between here and there is time", about "we're living in the 'ought' - who decides what 'ought' is?". I remember that feeling. Of being in my early 20's, of being exposed to new ideas, of how exciting it was and how I really thought that I was the first one ever to hear these things, to think these things. I was insufferable too. So listening to this woman would be endearing if it were'nt so freaking annoying.

I would stop listening but she projects so much, it's difficult to. Instead, I'm listening. And mocking. Yes, very enlightened of me. But if you were here, you'd understand how difficult it is to resist the urge to mock.

Her favourite topic this morning is how if someone can't explain their philosophy or their thesis to the 'average' person of 'average' intelligence, then they don't really understand their philosophy themselves. She lectures at length on the idea, however, when her companion manages to get a word in edgewise to ask her about her thesis she retreats quickly with mumbled comments about it being 'complicated' to explain and loud complaints about red wine and how hung over she is.

Ok. I take it back. It is kind of endearing. Cute, earnest, seeking little philosophy girl.

most inappropriate inspirational quote ever

This was forwarded to me today by someone who, for reasons I'm afraid to put too much thought into (you'll understand when you read the quote), thought of me when they read it:

"The faint of heart never get to screw a wildcat. Go out and live, do things that you are afraid of, and then let go of the outcome".

Let the record show that I have never, not once, even contemplated screwing a wildcat.

Back from a few days of silence and solitude at the cottage where I divided my time between wading in the creek and sitting in 'my' tree out back. What could be more magical than sitting in the calm, wise, enduring embrace of a tree? That a small creek bubbles merrily along just below where I like to sit makes it that much better. It was nice.

It was particularly nice because the morning before I left my mind was full of all kinds of happiness, anger, curiosity, mischief, sadness, quiet, noise, calm and hyperactivity all in the space of seconds. One feeling being replaced by another before I could even register the first. The monkey mind was active.

As I practiced this morning I was thinking about what a difference a month makes. I started thinking about it because I was so. very. tired. The teacher training intensive in July didn't allot time for a personal practice and, although my practice grew in many ways during that month, my stamina for a vinyasa practice is gone. So. This morning as I dragged my sopping, exhausted, winded self through the last quarter of my practice I thought about what a difference that month has made to my stamina.

Then I started thinking about all the other things that have changed in the span of four short weeks. This time last month I had only just returned home, was still in teacher training, still in a relationship, still had a tourist staying with me, was still unemployed, still planning to leave Toronto, still had blond-ish hair, had never assisted anyone in a yoga class, and didn't even know that a lovely cottage lay in my future. This month, of course, none of the above holds true. And next month? Who knows.

By this time in September I'll have already returned to work and I'll have a new tourist staying with me but the rest of it? No idea. Some ideas. Lots of excitement. But no real, make a plan idea. Think I'm finally settling into the fact that this is the way I like it best.

stupid mouse man

Sound the alarms, someone in the building has seen a mouse. My landlord lives for emergencies such as these. He brought a pest control team through today, less than 24 hours after the enemy sighting.

I spent the morning at home wanting to be here when they came through; in part to make sure my landlord didn't nose around too much and in part to gloat that there have been no mouse sightings in my apartment thanks to my lovely kitty-cat roommate. That last bit was particularly important as the cat has been a bone of contention with my landlord since day one. The snide comments and references to evicting me were only silenced when I forwarded section 10.4 of the landlord tenant act which states that you cannot evict a tenant for having a companion pet such as a cat or dog. Needless to say, I was happy to be present to wave my mouse-free flag and point out the benefits of having a four legged roommate.

Then the stupid mouse man came and pointed his flashlight under my sink to point out mouse droppings before swinging the flashlight to the bowl of nearby cat food and stating that mice like cat food. My landlord followed him around the apartment repeating that over and over - "So, they like the cat food huh? Isn't that interesting." No. It's not interesting. And it sounds highly unlikely. A mouse is going to scrabble it's way over the edges of a smooth porcelain bowl to immerse itself in food enjoyed by one of its predators? I don't believe it.

The damage done, the stupid mouse man left behind a couple of poison-filled boxes and assurances that the mice won't die in the house, they'll eat the poison and leave the house in search of water to die a slow agonizing death outside.

I threw the poison boxes away after they left. Shhhh...don't tell anyone....



How could you not love this face?

nothing and something

People keep asking me what I'm going to do in September. When I share that I've agreed to return to my old position on a part-time basis, the next question is what I'm going to do with the other days. I don't know.

No idea. Zip. Zero. Nothing.

I'm the only one from my yoga teacher training program who hasn't already sought out teaching opportunities. Partly because I don't feel ready to lead a class yet and partly because I don't want to. While I don't exactly know what I want to do with my free days this fall, I do know that they involve doing a whole lot of nothing. I also know that it will all make sense in hindsight. There's something in store.

This weekend I assisted my first yoga class. It was a sunset class held in the beaches and it was perfect. I parked my car just off the highway and rollerbladed to the outdoor pavilion where the class was held. Mats were arranged to face the lake, small candles were placed here and there. Practice took place with the magic of the lake in front of us, the sound of people enjoying the summer evening around us and the beauty of the sunset above us. After the practice people stopped to say thank you which surprised and humbled me. I should have thanked them.

After practice I rollerbladed in the darkness back to my car stopping several times to look at the stars, stare the the lake, and check out the recent creations of 'rock balancing guy'. It was perfect.

easy

I've been thinking about the 'easy' joke. The one we repeated over and over, the one about how easy I was. The word with its high school implications made us laugh while, at the same time, it was always said with a touch of surprise. Things were easy between us, we slipped into being together so seamlessly that it was strange but great.

I've been thinking about it and I've decided that you were easy too. You were easy to scare away.

The first time I told you that I was having doubts and needed you to be the strong one, you ended it. The first time I told you I needed distance, you retreated without even trying. The first time I gave in and gave up on us, you didn't even pretend to step forward and pick up the slack. When things stopped being easy between us, you very easily threw in the towel, very easily gave up, very easily decided it wasn't worth fighting for.

You were easy.

Thing is, you were also easy to predict. Before you left you filled the air with talk of things not being over, of wondering what it would be like to live in Toronto, of being confused, but even as you talked I knew. I knew it was over because I knew you wouldn't work for it. It'd been the way of things between us since we got together, I just ignored it. I ignored that it was easy for you to retreat and give up because I didn't want to give us up.

Lately I've been angry with you. Angry that you were so easy to scare away and that you don't care to fight but, really, I'm just angry with myself. I should have let things be easy myself and stopped trying so hard ages ago.

That's easy to see now.

bandaids and chocolate

Today I asked the person I love to stop contacting me. If it's going to hurt, it may as well really hurt so I can feel it, grieve it, process it, and move on. Ripping the bandaid off quickly as opposed to slowly and all that.

As with all procedures for the faint of heart - or the big babies - I'm pairing the choice to really hurt all at once (instead of the long, slow, chatty email kind of hurt) with chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate to sugarcoat the fact that this is actually happening, that this is actually a breakup - period.

This sucks. Here's to crappy choices and great chocolate.

every silver lining has a touch of grey

Paul McCartney did it. Alanis Morissette did it. David Bowie did it. Heck, even Bob Dylan did it. But the Greatful Dead?

It seems inherently wrong to hear “The Best of of the Greatful Dead” piping through Starbucks’ soundsystem.

“Touch of Grey” is playing. Good song. Good timing too, it reminds me of a high school friend who has been on my mind lately. We used to borrow her parents car to “go to the movies” which in high school code translated to “sneak across the boarder to go to a dead show”.

Every time we heard this song my friend would howl with laughter & tell me that it reminded her of my family. Not because we needed a silver lining or because we were pessimistic enough to think that every silver lining had a touch of grey. Nope.

It was because of the line “the dog has not been fed in years…”.

crap

Having just accepted an offer to return to my old job on a part-time basis, this morning I received an email from a woman I love, at an organization I love, doing a job I thought I could love, asking if I was still interested in a position there.

My gut says not to take it. The timing isn't right. I want to save my energy for other things. My profession insn't supposed to be my focus right now. In going back to my old job, I'm afraid I'm pigeonholing myself even further than I already am. That's my main interest in the new job possibility at this point in time - to keep the door open - as opposed to a geniune desire to enter a new field at this point.

Hmm. I think I already know my answer.

fluffy black dustbunnies

There was a dog in the shala this morning. A tiny, black toy poodle only a few months old and so small that he was shorter than the length of my foot. I know this because he came over to attack it a couple of times.

He was too young to practice so instead of showing us humans what upward and downward dog are really about, he darted around the studio finding all kinds of fascinating things everywhere he looked. Fast little thing. One minute I was in downward dog and the next minute a small black dustbunny was racing towards me only instead of brushing past me, it stopped to lick me.

The dustbunny lives. It was awesome fun.

Note to self: add puppy-watching to swinging on swings, climbing trees and wading in a lake/river to that list of things that lift my soul.

you don't get to know

I'm doing better today.

My bike and I zipped around the city, the city I no longer have to leave, enjoying the bare streets with the cool breeze taking the edge off the hot sun. My bike took me to my new, favourite coffee shop before heading to Fresh for lunch on the patio where I enjoyed a perfect, solitary meal and didn't feel sad once. Not even when I noticed that I was sitting at the same table we'd sat at our last time there. That was after you told me that you loved me but didn't love me enough and I was still bewildered, struggling to understand the "but".

Even though all these weeks later I still don't understand it, I'm doing better today. But you don't get to know that. Maybe it's childish, maybe it's vengeful, maybe it's just plain mean but you don't get to know that I'm doing ok. You lost that right when you decided you couldn't say "I love you" without tacking "but" onto the end. There is no "but" to real love. Don't you know that? So, you don't get to know that at this very moment, I'm doing just fine.

You'll transform "I'm doing better today" to "I'm doing better - period" and you're going to feel better, relieved. You'll never know that I hyperventilated the first night I walked back into the apartment and felt the emptiness of the places you weren't. You'll never know that now I doubt my judgement and wonder how I got us so wrong. You'll never know that tonight while making dinner I remembered the last time I made corn, how I'd put it on the table and then pretended to need the washroom so I could cry in private. And you'll never know that I was hit with a wall of sadness, completely overwhelmed, last night when I walked past the man singing in the video store and realized it had only been one week since you and I walked past and smiled together at him singing away.

You'll never know those things. Instead, you'll feel relieved that you no longer have to feel like the 'bad guy' and that you can forget the confusion of "I love you...but" and return to your remote, untouchable ways. After two weeks of swallowing my sadness, my confusion, to help you through yours, I don't feel like making it easy for you anymore. You're not getting off the hook that easily this time.

I'm doing better today but you don't get to know that.