today

Something remembered:  Being a beginner student and cursing the yoga teacher, hating him/her for that extra count of four....four....when I was DYING for them to say five.  There was a woman in the class I assisted tonight who kept desperately whispering "five...five...five...", five being the count when you exit the pose. It was cute.  

Something learned: Independent eye witnesses claiming that the car behind me ignored my blinker and brake lights and ran into me (as opposed to me reversing into them) mean nothing when the car behind me in question is a City of Toronto Police car.  Survey says:  my fault. 

Something noticed:  The past stayed in the past today.  Gorgeous yoga practices, unfair car accidents, the hug of a sister, dinner with a good friend and grounding from another, a fantastic book, exciting plans, spring in the air, and sun, sun, sun for the first time in days all conspired to keep my mind present and my heart dancing.  Thank you. 

details

A few weeks ago I signed up for a three day workshop with a visiting yoga teacher that I've wanted to study with for years. I could have sworn the session ran from 6am-9am, Thursday-Saturday but after peeling myself out of bed at 5am and dragging myself through the dark, cold morning to the subway I arrived at the studio to find it completely dark. No class.

I hopped back on the subway and made my way downtown to my studio where I had a gorgeous, very long, very lazy practice and caught up with lovely yoga people afterwards. It was a very good morning but when the heck is the workshop? The fees were charged to my account so I know it wasn't a figment of my imagination but there's no mention of the workshop anywhere on schedule. I know what you're thinking, I missed the damn workshop. I suck at the details people. Suck.

Yesterday I confirmed my leave/start dates with my Manager. My current contract ends end of April and my new one begins mid-August, again working 3 days per week. I've literally dreamed of having this exact work schedule which I mentioned to my Manager stating how hard it will be when my 2008-2009 contract ends and I'll be thrust out into the cold, hard world of full time work again.

She was confused, why would I be working somewhere else full time at end of the 2009 school year? I was confused, because I'm working on contract. She was confused, didn't I read the new contract I signed a few weeks ago? They'd turned my contract into an ongoing, permanent position. I get to work 3 days a week, September-April for ever and ever.

Heh. No. I didn't read the contract. I don't even know how much money I make. I don't just suck at the details, I don't even think of them - they're non-issues. Until, of course, they become issues. Like missed workshops or work contracts or paying bills, or remembering where I put my keys after I walked in the door (last sighting was 5 days ago), or replacing my license sticker (expired Nov '07)...lets face it, if the cat didn't meow, he wouldn't get fed.

Back to the work issue, as much as I suck at details I suck even more at commitment and the idea of permanence. It doesn't matter just how closely these hours resemble my dream work hours, the second I heard that they were permanent I had to paste the smile on my face while fighting back panicked claustrophobia. Yeah, I'm embellishing but the fact is, I preferred it much better when I thought my contract ended in April 2009.

Details I haven't missed: I changed my hair from red back to blonde a few weeks ago and today finally found that my fringe was long enough to tuck back into my ponytail. I look like me again for the first time since September. You have no idea how wonderful it feels.

And now I'm off to bed because I refuse to admit I screwed up the workshop dates so thoroughly and I'm up at 5am AGAIN tomorrow for attempt number two at attending the session . Maybe it started on Friday, not Thursday...

soaring to meet reality

I was meeting with a new student today. She'd made the appointment to discuss doing a series of assessments to "find out what I'm good at because I don't even know who I am anymore". She's 19. Are you supposed to know who you are at 19?

It's so distressing, the students I see, the pressure they feel to figure it all out, to know everything, NOW. While other cultures are slowing down, embracing gap years, encouraging students to take time off in between or during schooling we're doing the opposite. Students finish high school at an earlier age, enter the workforce or university sooner and are charged much more for the latter than at any point in history. The first question at any Toronto social event is invariably "What do you do?" or, for students, "What do you want to do?". Not necessarily a bad question but it's the expectation behind it, that they should know what they want to do that stings. There's no room for playful curiosity, for trying something new, for failing, for exploration and for having fun with it all.

This same student kept talking about things she'd dreamed of doing, being an actress in particular, but always followed her dreams with the statement "But I have to be realistic" and a repeated request to do the tests so she could find out what she's good at. As if the tests could know her better than she did.

How did she come to decide that it wasn't her dreams that she was good at? How did she become so lost to herself that she thinks the answer lies in 317 multiple choice questions? How has she come to believe that "being realistic" means letting go of your dreams, defeated? What are we doing to our kids?

Many times when I'm working with students my heart breaks for them but, more often than that, I'm so glad to have the job that I do. A job where I get to present an alternate point of view and introduce the possibility that "being realistic" isn't something you fall down to - it's something you soar up towards.

giving someone else's words back

I went to see this movie last night about Sigur Ros, set in Iceland, their home country.   Clips of the band playing were interspersed with panoramic shots of Iceland and, inexplicably, I had to fight back tears several times as visions of great plains, waterfalls, the ocean and strange little whitewashed houses filled the screen.  

They weren't sad tears, more a pull or a longing of sorts.  At several points during the movie and many times since I've thought to myself: "I don't belong here".  Not in an immediate sense, at the moment I am very much of and enjoying Toronto, but in a grander sense, I don't belong here forever.  I've always known that.  Everyone who's known me has always known that.  

My contract ends in one month and I've been resisting, resisting, resisting the urge to travel feeling, instead, like I should stay put in Toronto. I've decided several times that that's exactly what I'm going to do, I'm going to stay in Toronto and "invest in life here".  That last bit comes from someone else.  They're someone else's words that I've tried hard to internalize, to make mine - but they're not.  They won't stick. 

I've decided to stop struggling and give in to my need to vagabond.  I'm going to play overseas this summer and go where the spirit takes me which may well be back home after just 3 weeks or I could be gone 3+ months.   Either way, I'm relieved to not be fighting with myself anymore and I'm so excited. 

dating

Another date tonight. Another lovely, kind, interesting man. Another reminder of how that inexplicable chemistry, the kind that turns a lovely, kind, interesting man into someone 'special', can be so elusive. Another reminder of how lucky I've been in the past to find it at all. Dating again after such a long absence from the dance has been interesting. It's bolstered my faith in mankind, there are so many very decent men out there, and it's bolstered my faith in myself. I was afraid that I would compare every new person to the boy and find them lacking which hasn't been the case at all. There is no comparing.

The guys I've been out with have been really great. Accomplished, funny, interesting, emotionally mature - they 'get it' - but no one I'd be interested in seeing a second time. At first I was slightly deflated by the reminder of just how hard it is to find someone that feels special but now it just feels kind of nice to be reminded of how many decent people there are out there. I'd forgotten about those awkward "it's not you, it's me" or "you're very nice but..." conversations, God, they suck. How do you explain something that has no words? That there's no chemistry, that they're not your match, that you've always known the second you've set eyes on someone that that "something" was there and you didn't feel that tonight but you really would, actually, like to be friends because they're totally supercool?

Dating again has made me miss the boy in a fond way, reminded me of the instant connection he and I had, and realize just how hard it is going to be to find it again, but it's also helped me see things about that relationship that I hadn't seen before. One of the things that has struck me most is how interested these men are in me; how thoughtful the questions, how focused the attention on the answers, how genuine the intention to get to know me. It's struck me because that wasn't there with the boy. Everything he knew, he knew because I offered it.

Turns out there is some comparing after all.

I remember how surprised the boy was that I liked him. How, at times, I felt that he was almost suspicious of the fact that I loved him, as if I were simply desperate and latching onto an unwitting foreigner because I couldn't find someone in Canada. It's funny. If only he could have known me at home he would have known that I wasn't in love with him because there were no other options, I was in love with him despite the fact that I had other options. I chose him.

I think of him every day. I miss him every day. But it doesn't matter. Life is moving on in an increasingly joyful way and I'm letting myself be carried forward instead of resisting by wishing over things from the past. Of course, I hate that things are over but I hate even more the way that they're over. It's strange knowing someone who used to mean the world to me is out there living a life that doesn't include me, that we don't even talk anymore. It seems childish and ugly, I don't like it but, again, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what I want, wish for, like or don't like. There's freedom in that and all of the painful feelings that used to accompany thoughts of him/us are changing, fading. It is what it is.

Broken edges become dulled, raw feelings are soothed by time, the ache of missing fades, sadness melts into acceptance, life rebuilds around the hole left by someone's departure, and faith returns. Sadness, regret, longing, fear, confusion and shock are replaced by happiness, excitement, openness, acceptance and optimism. The change is a slow but sure one. I have trust again that all happens for the best and I know there will be a time when I don't think of the boy at all let alone think of him with sadness.

It's already happening.

a three hour tour

Some snow yesterday. I went out for a short walk that turned into a three hour, snow-filled tour of High Park with an intermission at my favourite coffeehouse for some warmth, great music and coffee.

Turns out yesterday was just the warm up for today, we're currently being pummeled by yet another snowstorm. I took some pictures while I was out collecting the morning coffee/newswpapers but all they really show is big, white spots - it's snowing quite heavily. I'll try again later but in the meantime, below are some pictures from yesterday's baby snowfall...

running

Pretty

if you look closely you can see that someone turned this snowman into a snowwoman...

Tinto's on Roncesvalles, my refuge from the storm

enjoying coffee, strange music and people watching

changing shifts

lots of abandoned bikes in snowbanks

What you can't see is the number of people ignoring the "Caution, thin ice" signs and walking on the pond in the background

best historical plaque ever

Tonight was bookclub night for the bookclub that never reads. Turns out it was also the night that the bookclub that never reads cancelled the session due to illness, inclement weather (another snowstorm? really?), and low participation (mine, I'd emailed earlier saying I wouldn't be able to make it). I was already on the road so I missed the cancellation and ended up at D's house just in time for dinner. I stayed long enough to have a proper catch up which was so lovely, it's been ages since I've seen everyone, and to offend her husband by noticing that Einstein the dog has become rounder (read: fat).

But none of that is really the point.

The point is that I passed through an older part of the city on my way to D's house and while I was sitting at a stoplight I noticed a historical plaque posted on one of the buildings beside me. The plaque read:

"Independent Order of Oddfellows and Rebekahs"

Yup. That just about sums things up.

wheeee

This morning during practice I was asked if I'd like to be added to the roster of assistants for Mysore practices :)

I'm number 854 on the assistant list, the one they would call last, but it's part of what I want to be when I grow up and a huge honour to be asked.

Good things are happening.

mysore

A lot of people have passed through Mysore in the last few months. Those of us who are stuck at home are always hungry for news: what's going on and how was it? Some say very little and some say a lot - about the shala, Mysore, and the people, both locals and visitors. I'm struggling right now with reports from one person in particular because...I don't know really. I think because this person's comments strike me as arrogant and smacking of cultural superiority while, at the same time, being presented from a pseudo-zen/spiritual point of view. And let me say up front, yes, I know, this rant has more to do with me than with them.

Cultural superiority is cultural superiority no matter how many droll comments you couch it in. Stories about "Indians" shared in "aren't they funny" tones are not funny, they're patronizing, disrespectful and arrogant and I think they say more about you and your prejudices than they do about the culture you're immersed in. God knows I've been frustrated while travelling and completely lost my cool on more than one occasion, but I'm thoroughly ashamed of myself afterwards and know damn well that my reaction was about me, not the idosyncrasies, no matter how different they be from home, of the country I'm visiting. That's part of why travelling is so wonderful. It pulls you out of yourself and smacks you in the face with your assumptions, beliefs, biases, judgements - but only if you allow yourself to think that it just might be you as opposed to blaming the culture you're immersed in.

This same person is casting aspersions at the shala (just a money grab), the locals, and the other yogis. It's frustrating to read. I find myself getting angry at what I see as arrogance, mocking of AYRI, Gokulam and the very community they've chosen to immerse themselve in all the while presenting it with an air of being 'above' it all. The shala is what you make it, India is what you make it, life is what you make it - it's all the same.

Mysore can be a hard place to be, like a yogi club med for the lost and confused. The kirtans,colour/totem/birthplace assessments, rolfing, massages, ayurvedic courses, movies, clubbing, dinner parties, swimming in the river or at the Southern Star, dance lessons, philosophy lessons, painting lessons, ashtanga practice...there's a lot to do. Last time I was there I was surprised by how many yogis were having a hard time being still, quiet, myself included. I felt desperately, desperately alone in a crowd of hundreds. I was disappointed at not 'connecting' with anyone and I wondered where, if not there, I was going to find "my tribe". I was disenheartened at the feeling of being a walking wallet. I was afraid that I was spiraling down a rabbit hole of introspective depression that I would never climb out of. I struggled and hated and felt angry and alone. And I learned so. very. much. It was gorgeous.

That's why I go. It's both a reprieve from life and a petrie dish in which I'm brought full up against all of my shit and given the time and sift through what I'm able to handle at that particular point. I know, I know, this in itself is intolerant and judgmental but listening to the most shallow, judgemental, insight-free woman ever twitter on about her journey, her spiritual development, her practice in such a superior way in the same conversation as slights on "Indians" and the yoga community she's fully immersed herself in has irritated me to no end.

And made me want to return more than ever.