this is where i grew up

Today, for the first time since moving to part-time hours last September, I paid attention to my pay stub and figured out how much money I make. It was shocking - and I don't mean in a 'pleasantly surprised' way. While it may be enough for me to live comfortably on, it definitely isn't enough for me to work through yet another lunch so I grabbed my camera and headed out.

Although I work 15 minutes from where I was raised, I rarely go there (too busy working through my lunches, you see ;), but today was such a gorgeous day, it was perfect for the drive. I stopped in town for a coffee and then moved on to the park to say hello to the river, enjoy the sun, and see what's new in the place where I, quite literally, grew up. Home of:

The best bridge in the world

beneath which we spent hours turning over rocks to catch crayfish and stepping daintily to avoid being bitten



What used to be the most amazing wooden park, complete with castle turrets and gangplanks, has been replaced with this

and this

I guess splinters are more hazardous to our health than brightly coloured plastic which is as uninspiring as it is boring.

Where I learned to swim



The instructor wanted us to learn to open our eyes under water so he would hold up a few fingers, we would duck our heads under water, and emerge to tell him how many fingers he was holding up; if we were wrong, he would pinch us very hard on our bottoms as many times as we were wrong. I was five, I'm not even sure I could count yet (I was a bit slow in some areas), but I know I couldn't open my eyes under water - it hurt - so I would go under, eyes squeezed shut, and come up guessing a number that I desperately hoped was right. It never was. I got pinched a lot. Danger, indeed.

And the baseball diamond where we would play our softball tournaments behind which is a hill that may not look like much but it is widely known as the BEST tobogganing hill for miles around. That thing is killer in the winter. The fencing in the bottom left is the batting cage which, to this day, I have never once seen in use. Good to see that it's still there, waiting and ready, though.




I wandered around the park with my coffee in one hand, camera in the other, seeing how much had changed without really changing at all. The rocks by the river which formed the 'do not cross' line when I was a toddler and a cover for underage drinking when I was a teenager are still there. My favourite climbing tree is as well. And the pool, baseball diamond, toboganning hill, and ice rink are all the same. So, in many respects, am I.

I drove back to the office, windows down, sun beaming, "Little Red Corvette" playing loudly on the radio and the number on my paycheck really didn't seem to matter anymore. Nothing about that moment would have changed were my salary any higher or lower than what it currently is and that moment? It was a wonderful one. Why wish for any different?

almost that person

When I was learning to drive I promised myself that I would NEVER be one of those people who roadraged the 'drivers education' cars with their scared, timid, doing-the-best-they-can new drivers.

Today, following a car driving 20km below the speed limit (placing us at a leisurely 30km per hour) with two wheels on the road and two wheels drifting haphazardly across the dirt on the shoulder...oh. holy. god. it was a hard promise to keep.

But I did.

april

A few years ago at this time I was in Helsinki for the first time and things were already strange. After months of telling me to come, assuring me that his plans were my summer plans, and talking of all the things "we" would do all summer, the boy balked at me purchasing a 12-class yoga pass, complained of how his apartment wasn't built for two but then talked me out of my plans to leave for travels elsewhere stating that I "couldn't leave". I was confused at his confusion and crestfallen by his back and forth after months of big talk.

At this time last year I had just finished writing my comprehensive exam and officially completed my masters degree. This followed a year of running two steps behind to keep up, of being unable to catch myself long enough to know myself. There was just too much to do and in the midst of it all my relationship was falling apart, my dream career no longer my dream, and health issues with scary (and, in hindsight, unfounded) names rearing their heads. I was breathless and disconnected and lost in busyness. Who was I? What did I want? Where did I belong? I knew nothing.

At this time this year I realized that I'm happy in a way I haven't been in years. I know you're sick of hearing it but I still feel loss and longing, I miss the boy, but there is a happiness, a freedom, that wasn't here last year. Yesterday I realized that so many of the questions that plagued me over the last few years are gone. Who am I? Where do I belong? What do I want to do with my life? I'm no closer to the answers but I'm no longer obsessing over not knowing. I don't know where I'm going to be but I know that I'm right here. I don't need to know any more than that.

This time this year I'm done my masters, assisting with yoga classes, creating community around me, meeting new people, free from the web of someone else's confusion , found my teachers in Toronto and, through all of these things, finding myself as well. Changing to part time work provided the space I needed to first fall apart and then regroup; now this same space allows room for new work opportunities to present themselves, one opportunity in particular is something I've wanted to do for years.

This time this year I celebrated the first warm day of spring by going for my first bike ride. I rode along the lakeshore to Queen Street, grabbed a cup of coffee and headed to the park where I welcomed the feeling of grass between my toes, watched the dogs celebrate, and had the space to sit and realize how much change had occurred over this last year. To notice that I wasn't rushed, wasn't wondering, wasn't confused and wasn't lost. I was right there, on the park bench on a gorgeous Thursday afternoon - and I was happy.

kiitos or merci?

The last three trips I've taken to non-English speaking lands have all been to Finland. Maybe that explains why here, immersed in the land of the proud French, I've reflexively been responding to everyone in Finnish before hastily switching to French. Thank you becomes kiitos becomes merci. Sorry becomes anteksi becomes pardon, and so on.

I miss the challenge of trying to navigate a city using a foreign language. I miss the challenge of absorbing new words and wrapping my mind around new grammar rules. I miss some things.

conference yoga

DAY 1
A living room floor in a friend's house. To my left, a coffee table pushed flush against the wall but still close enough to connect with outstretched limbs. On my right, an antique couch bearing destroyed seat cushions, the latest victims of a bored teenaged puppy. In front of me, four very curious cats watching every move with great interest. The one introduced as 'the most vicious of them all' was also the most curious of them all. She took to walking under me while I was in downward dog, letting her tail brush across my face, under my nose, in my eyes, as she moved back and forth. I worried about injuring her during jumpbacks.

DAY 2
Began at stupid-o-clock as I snuck out of my room, mat bag in hand, to avoid waking my coworker. Wandered the Mezzanine floor looking for an open, non-AC room to practice before resigning myself to the gym. Tucked into the corner, weight-press-thingy to my left, exercise bikes behind me, mirrors to my front and right. Mirrors are devastating. My asanas which feel like beauty are actually very ugly and my body which I'm usually able to make peace with is puffy, pudgy, and even uglier. Trolls sneak in, my mind begins to obsess, self-loathing takes over until I focus, focus, focus - come back to the breath, come back to this moment, come back to driste and it all fades away. Gone. Beauty returns.

DAY 3
Back in the gym. Same spot. Same trolls. Same retreat to what actually matters - the breath, the driste, the moment. Arms are not straight, back arches, stomach puffs, it doesn't matter. I'm here, I'm blessed with a body that carries me through my day, and this moment is a good one; this is what matters. Behind me a woman talks loudly to her friend, explaining that she doesn't watch TV because she needs silence in order to hear God speaking to her. I know what she means and, after three days of conference talking, talking, talking, I long for this silence.

I begin, for the first time, to really look forward to India. Months of injuries, rotating teachers at my home shala, stolen moments on friends' floors or in hotel gyms; I long to be in India with one teacher where I can stay put, stay still, and stay quiet.

travel memoir by techology

On my first trip to India I travelled with a walkman and a disposable camera. That's it. I taught myself to fall asleep to the sound of Matchbox Twenty, one of the only two tapes I still owned and brought on my trip with me, and I returned with grainy, dark pictures courtesy of my crappy disposable camera.

When I returned to India a few years later it was armed with a discman and a borrowed camera the latter of which possessed both broken flash and zoom. I purchased the same Matchbox Twenty album, my secret weapon in the struggle to fall asleep amidst the sounds of TV's, radios, car horns, barking dogs, late night arguments, and later night family dinners, on CD and packed a handful of 35mm film, proud that I'd remembered an actual camera that time out.

Although travelling with a discman AND a non-disposable camera was high-tech for me, I was a travelling ludite in comparison to others. These travellers came with iPods, laptop computers, digital cameras, and mobile phones. I wasn't envious of their 'stuff' so much as I was of their convenience and my next trip found me similarly stocked with laptop computer, iPod, mobile phone, and camera with fully functioning options. Granted, the mobile and camera were borrowed luxuries but they were convenient ones. Travelling with a phone changed things completely by making what had always been a solitary, disconnected pursuit a busy, social, connected one - this was an unexpected and not entirely welcome change.

And, yes, I'd downloaded my Matchbox Twenty sleeping soundtrack to my iPod.

For my upcoming trip, the list of technology grows to ridiculous lengths. In addition to my laptop and iPod I bring my very own phone, my beloved Nikon, and a new acquisition, a small Canon for those times when carrying the Nikon is too cumbersome. While I began writing this with a touch of humour, amused that I can trace my advancements into the world of technology according to my trips to India, as the list of stuff I travel with grew to culminate in that final list complete with not one but two cameras, I'm embarrassed. Can I explain that, with the exception of the laptop and Nikon, the rest are castoffs donated my way when the previous owners upgraded? Or that both the Nikon and my laptop travel with me for working purposes?

No. I didn't think so.

I have to go look this way now.

crap

No-chemistry man just sent an email offering to take in the cat while I'm gone this summer.

What to do, what to do?

On one hand would like to keep as much distance as possible between us, on the other, I've exhausted all possible cat-sitting resources. If not no-chemistry man, then it's the weird pot smoking guy in the basement dungeon.

Can I really relegate my little guy to the equivalent of a basement hot-box for two months just so I can avoid potentially awkward social entanglements?

And, uh, does it make me a bad cat-friend that the answer is a very definite 'Yes'?

i so wish i was kidding

Perfectly nice traveller, kayaker, photographer, successful, mature guy but not even the tiniest bit of chemistry.

So


I just used "I have to feed my cat" as an excuse to end a date early.

spring, sister goddesses and weddings

If I hadn't been such a shy child and if the mean ballet teacher hadn't yelled so much I might have stayed in ballet instead of finding refuge in hockey with its masks and padding that made it so easy to hide. Had I stayed in ballet then I'd probably know how to pirouette and, that being the case, I would have pirouetted my way around the city today instead of walking because it's spring and that's what spring makes me want to do. Dance, twirl, explode with happiness because oh, holy God, it's not freezing, the sky is blue, the sun is shining and the promise of life is in the air.

Today was the first, real spring-like day. My friend and I set out for what was supposed to be "Rebecca & Alishia's Excellent Spring Adventures" but ended up being "Rebecca and Alishia's Excellent Three Hour Meal" where heaps of sushi were consumed, the meaning of life discussed, and I got the lowdown on a workshop Alishia attended where participants were instructed to refer to each other as "Sister Goddess". How wonderful is that? Family and friends take notice: from this point on I will only respond when addressed as "Sister Goddess Rebecca" because that? That can't help but make a girl smile.

Before meeting up with Alishia, I met up with my little-big sister, Ekah, who is every bit a Sister Goddess herself:



She's getting married on Saturday to this lovely man:



I insisted on taking this picture because it will be their last picture EVER as unmarried people, and because in EVERY single picture from this point forward there will be a ring on their fingers and commitment and responsibilities to another person for EVER and EVER more. The emphasis on the EVER was necessary because it freaked them out a bit which I took great pleasure in. It didn't freak them out as much as my dad's "pep talks", though, which reassured them that it's normal to be a bit anxious since "you're about to make the single most important commitment of your life".

Because THAT'S not at all an anxiety-inducing thought ;)

get busy living

This series of photos, Life Before Death, has been making the rounds on the internet. If you haven't seen it yet, click here and be sure to read the text summaries beside each photo.

I stumbled across the site yesterday which was also the first day that spring made her appearance after this long, relentless winter. The winds were strong and I headed down to the lake to see what was happening with the water where I couldn't get the stories of the people out of my mind. The woman who called her estranged husband after 17 years of silence to be met with the words "I'm coming", the one who referred to death as a test of one's maturity, and the several individuals who felt cheated when faced with death soon after retiring from years upon years of hard work. I was reminded of how unpredictable life is. How short. How important it is not to wait for some time in the future to start living.

Life happens; sometimes it's awesome and sometimes it's really not but it happens and every minute lived is a minute borrowed. Sitting by the lake last night I was surrounded by a symphony of sounds, the wind blowing, seagulls calling, waves crashing, and trees swooshing. I turned my face to the still-cold air that stole my breath away with it's force and knew that I was alive. Blessedly, luckily, miraculously and joyously alive.

be wild

"The real mask of wildness is a love of nature, a delight in silence, a voice free to say spontaneous things, and an exuberant curiosity in the face of the unknown" Robert Bly

Spring is here in every sense, literal and metaphoric. It's a gorgeous feeling and a joy to be caught in the wildness of spring. The barely contained explosive dance of nature balancing the need to wait a few more days with the itch to bloom, grow, reach. The anticipation, the eagerness, feeling on the brink of freedom is mirrored in the people I meet with. It's mirrored in me. My mind tries to be melancholic and often succeeds, but it doesn't get to rest in melancholy for long - my soul won't let it stay there. There are too many good things happening and enough is enough.

'Exuberant curiosity', could there be a more beautiful phrase?

Be wild, everyone.

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.

my cat, the addict

I just picked up the cat from the guy who was watching him while I was away and he, the cat not the guy, reeks of pot.

I think my little guy has been corrupted, see for yourself:


BEFORE CAT SITTING




AFTER


If you have a lead on a good Narcotics Anonymous group for household pets let me know.

it's not you, it's me

Two years ago when myself, Mikko and a bunch of others went to Kovalam to practice yoga while the Mysore shala was closed we met a woman that I haven't seen since but who I've kept in touch with through the internet. We don't talk often but emailed back and forth quite a bit after Mikko and I broke up. I confided some of the gory breakup details and she made the proper sympathetic noises which I appreciated until I learned that, while she was sympathizing with me, she was making a play for Mikko at the same time. I didn't feel the same about her after that.

She's currently travelling in India and she uploaded a ton of pictures from Mysore a few days ago which I loved, it was wonderful to see pictures of familiar sights. As I was looking at the pictures I thought I saw a familiar face but figured I must be wrong until I saw another, and another, and another. It was Mikko. In Mysore. With her.

Devastating

Mysore is the city we met in, a place he always referred to as "our roots" and spoke of returning to together. The fact that he's there during the very month he'd convinced me to reconcile, that he's there at another woman's beckoning (someone I'd confided in in particular), that I found out through her pictures, and that he knew I'd find out that shitty way but clearly didn't care - oh so sucky. Sucky but it also screams 'asshole' and I cannot continue to feel sadness over an asshole so in many respects, this has been an epiphany.

It strikes me as cheap to return to 'our city' during the same month he'd asked to come to Toronto to reconcile. It strikes me as weak to run from one adoring woman to another without pausing in between to process what happened and face what comes up. And his behaviour these last few months strikes me as downright mean. None of these things are who I thought he was and it's become harder and harder to resist acknowledging that I was in love with his potential, not him.

I don't want to admit that in part because I thought he was just fantastic and I so don't want to know that he's not actually that person but also because then it's me. Then it means that I loved something that never was, that I deluded myself, that I've been creating misery over an attachment that I dreamed up. It means that all of my sadness, my depression, my anger, my sense of loss is completely unfounded and exists because I've chosen to make that my existence. Come on!! I SO don't want to admit that just as I so don't want to admit that I don't like or respect the person he's shown himself to be. But there it is. Even I can't keep fooling myself into thinking that I can love someone that I don't even like. It's time to let all of this drop.

Epiphany

My journals spanning the last two years have been full of confusion over what I’m supposed to be doing with my life and where I’m supposed to be doing it. I spent much of the last few years feeling lost - lost in purpose and lost to myself. Yesterday as the plane flew over the city I saw the CN Tower, followed Yonge Street up to North York, found the white bridge and used my finger to trace the Humber River along it’s winding path until I reached my house and I had a huge grin on my face the whole time.

I may not know where I belong but I’m not lost. I have no idea where I’m going to end up but I know that I’m here. Now that I’m thinking of myself again as opposed to a mythical ‘us’ I'm realizing how much energy I put into nurturing that relationship at the cost of nurturing myself. I see how desperately lost I got in it all and how afraid I was that I wasn't moving, learning, growing; that I was just stagnating in sadness. I wasn't. I was learning, I was growing, I was facing up to some of my demons, and I've emerged from it with a different understanding of what I can do with this life.

Finding out what someone is not has helped me remember what I am.

insomniac pictures

Maybe it's the crazy full moon eclipse or all the stuff floating around in my mind or the late night hot fudge ice cream sundae snack but I'm completely unable to sleep.

Playing with pictures from the beach today instead of sleeping. Here's a few....

leaving

Trading Canadian Geese + ice

for pelicans + sun

and snow + stockings

for sand + bare feet

Back next week...

where i work

The entry hall of one of the buildings on campus following yet another snowstorm. The campus was very quiet but the building feels empty at the best of times with its cavernous hallways. Next week I won't be there, I'm trading snow for sand and headed south for the week. Yay for me :)







 

SPC2 - blue

I've been wanting to participate in the self-portrait challenge for months. When I saw that the theme this month was 'blue' I figured that would be an easy challenge to begin with. I love blue, it's everywhere in my home, my car, my clothes, my work. I seek it out when I draw, when I write, in what I take pictures of, and in my dreams.

I was wrong, though, it hasn't been an easy challenge because blue is also a state of mind. While I haven't necessarily been feeling blue as of late, the memory of the fall when that's pretty much all I felt is close. Too close. There's a lot on my mind and I find myself walking gingerly through the minefields of memories, fears, and dreams to avoid stirring things up unnecessarily. It feels good to let things settle.

Above everything else blue, for me, is water and I love water. Sitting by it, floating in it, canoeing/kayaking through it - nothing can beat the calming, cooling, meditative effect of being near a river, lake or ocean. This picture was taken in Florida in December. I've posted it before but I chose it to post again because it's a moment where my blue state of mind met the vast blue of the ocean and it was a turning point. This moment is where things changed and I started to leave the fall behind and look forward to the spring.

See more blue-ish pictures over at SPC

wah

It's when I write the least that I'm struggling the most. There's a growing reluctance to say anything as I'm keenly aware that I've been saying the same things for months. There's an even bigger frustration that I can't pull myself out of this tailspin.

I've written of feeling like the rug was pulled out from under me taking the lovely life I'd dreamed up with it but I've written less about the aftermath, about the bewilderment of fully being present in my life and finding it lacking. Without the distraction of a relationship and without the expectation that I'd be leaving to build a new life somewhere else, taking a long, hard look at the life I have has been a rude awakening. This is a really great life I've built but it isn't necessarily the right one for me. Kind of like I built the foundations but for the wrong house.

The funny thing is, it's exactly the life I thought I wanted and even that, that I'm quite literally living a life I thought I could only dream of, makes me so very lucky. It's just that now that I'm here I'm longing for a family I don't have, people who aren't here, cityscapes that are not my own, and a different way of earning a living. I'm wondering what I want to be when I grow up, what makes me happy, and dreaming of living somewhere else. I guess that, while I was working to build this life I dreamed up whatever number of years ago, the parameters of what I wanted changed but I was too busy to notice. Now I'm not. Now I'm noticing.

I've been sifting through the vision of the life I thought I was going have, the one I've been grieving, to pull out the pieces I can achieve on my own. There's a core certainty that I'll get there with the same focus and determination that let me create this life but I struggle to retain that certainty. I'm shadowed by an all-pervasive feeling of purposelessness where, the longer I feel caught under its thumb, the less faith I have that I'll ever get out. I go on dates that bore me and serve only as reminders of how hard it's going to be to find someone again and I look at joblistings for overseas jobs that are way beyond my language skills - it's overwhelming and I'm easily buried beneath feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and wishing. Wishing things were different, or easier, or clearer.

It's not lost on me that this isn't about a life, a job, a partner, it's about me. About wondering what my purpose is, the struggle to keep the faith that I'll ever know, and that the answer lies in surrendering to the reality that I'll never know and being happy where I am. I guess I just didn't think I'd be working through all of this at this age or that I'd feel so alone while I was doing it. Even more so, I never expected that I would find it so hard to keep the faith.

I wrote this post a few days ago but didn't publish it because I'm afraid to give the wrong impression. That I'm unhappy, that I'm depressed, that I'm whining. I am those things at times but they aren't me, they're not all I feel, they just seem to be the focus of what I write about because I'm so surprised to be here and I'm working so hard, perhaps too hard, to figure out where I'm going next.

I love that I dreamed a life bigger than I thought I could ever achieve and actually got it and I love that now that I'm here I'm not content to settle. I'm glad that I'm looking, evaluating, dreaming, and even despairing because it's that constant interplay between stretching and reaching that has led me to where I am today. Still, as much as I love that that is a part of who I am, I'm definately not enjoying it at the moment and I'm definitely having trouble keeping the faith which disappoints me to no end.

It's such a strange dichotomy because I know in my heart that I'll achieve whatever dreams I set out for myself, I've never NOT gotten what I wanted/needed, but my mind is so quick to lose the plot. I could spend an entire day laughing but all it takes is one bad moment and my mind runs around like chicken little screaming that the sky is falling in. I never, ever dreamed that it would be so hard to keep that screaming voice at bay and that being in the moment, seeing beauty, laughing would take such conscious, hard effort - I remember a time when it was effortless.

Underneath all of the chicken little screaming I DO know that this too shall pass, that the ebbs will give way to flows and I work to take refuge in the present moment where my fears aren't screaming and my dreams aren't tugging. Right now the present moment means the solace of my office, the sounds of my favourite CD, and a pink-frosted valentine's cupcake. The present moment is a very good place to be.

blue

May not have been the wisest choice for my living room walls...

a whole lotta white and a splash of colour

Lots



and lots



and lots



and lots of snow today.



So I bought some of these



and returned to my nest to spend a quiet afternoon



and an even quieter evening




Not pictured is a gorgeously slow yoga practice, the watching of a very silly girl movie, the eating of cups upon cups of bright red raspberries, and a whole lot of time spent lost in daydreams.

It was a good day.

work today

Or NOT work, as the case may be. The snowstorm (I know, ANOTHER snowstorm) kept the students away and thanks to all the other snowstorms we've had I'm already caught up on casenotes, workshop prep, and my email inbox is clear for the first time in, oh, ever. It's hard to counsel when there's no one to counsel so I not-worked today.

It was a pretty good day.

Outside it continues to snow every bit as heavily as it was when I woke up this morning, tomorrow is going to be beautiful.

yog-ahhh

So. Yoga. This morning I had to talk myself out of a temper tantrum during practice; a full on hand slapping, feet kicking, huffily exhaling tantrum. Instead, I took deep, non-huffy inhale and checked in with myself. It reminded me of the calm, rational way a parent checks in with a tantruming child: hands on hips looking down and asking in that overly-calm, soothing tone "Ok. Just what is it that you want?". Turns out, my self wanted to chill the heck out. To suck at poses I can normally do and for that to be ok. So, ok, today my asana practice sucked.

I've been moving into the intermediate (second) series these last few months which involves a lot of backbends. Instead of my chest opening, as I'd assumed would be the case, making some of the primary poses easier the opposite has happened. My back has stiffened up and I quite literally can't get into (bind) some of the twisting poses in the first series. Which causes me NO END of frustration.

I get it. I get that my body is changing. The new poses are developing underused muscles and revealing weak areas that I just worked around before, the result is that I'm stiff and am forced to develop those ignored areas before entering deeply into the poses again. Kind of like my body is using the information gained from the intermediate series to self correct. It reminded me of something someone said after I adjusted them in a class this weekend, they looked up and said that practicing is like giving the body a chance to remember where it wants to be. So true, and this is a good thing, just frustrating. Soooo frustrating.

It kills me to be incompetent at anything but to work for months to learn something only to lose it again - argh. As I moved on from my narrowly averted temper tantrum I thought about what the practice reveals in the body and, beyond that, in life. Today I got something very cool. I got that not binding in my twists doesn't mean I've become incompetent period, it just means that after such a big growth spurt my body needed to pull back and integrate what it's learned before continuing to move forward. And, yes, I got that it's very much the same in life - I got it in many, many different ways loud and clear.

This, my friends, is but one of the many reasons that yoga rocks my world.

"The power needed in yoga is the power to go through effort, difficulty or trouble without getting fatigued, depressed, discouraged or impatient and without breaking off the effort or giving up on one's aim or resolution. A quiet vigilant but undistressed persistence is the best way to get the sadhana (yogaic practice) alone" Sri Aurobindo

instead

I thought today would be different.

Instead of thinking about how I thought I'd be spending the last day of January cleaning in preparation for the boy's arrival, I led my friend through two hours of yoga, pranayama and meditation which was amazing. Amazing for him and amazing for me. It reminded me of how much I wish to do that for my living - very much a new beginning in itself.

That evening, instead of thinking about how I thought I'd spend the last night of January in delicious anticipation of his arrival the next day, I spent the night snowshoeing through unplowed streets to S's house where I sat in the company of 7 others howling in laughter. It was purifying, that laughter, better than any therapy. As if the cobwebs of the last few months had been cleared to welcome a fresh start.

Instead of spending the first day of February thinking about how I thought it would begin with a trip to the airport arrivals, I spent it in a red snowsuit hiking through the forest while the snow continued to fall. Instead of thinking about how I thought the day would include the sound of our stupid, made up language I spent an hour sitting by the river listening to the sound of the water made heavy and slow by the cold. I held out hands filled with birdseed and, as the chickadees landed on my outstretched fingers to feed, I didn't once think of how I thought my hands would be holding the hand of someone else instead of birds and birdseed. Nope. Not once.

And today, instead of thinking about how I thought this would be our first full day together again, our fresh start, I woke up early to make breakfast for everyone, drew a picture that didn't suck with my new ink pens, and hiked through the still-unplowed snow to P's house to lead a group in yoga. I didn't once think of how I thought I'd be teaching yoga somewhere else, with someone else. Uh uh. Not even a little bit.

The tail end of January and the beginning of February have been packed with good things: whispered inspirations, opportunities, a knowing of where I should be, and fresh starts. Instead of spending the weekend thinking about what might have been, I spent it consciously acknowledging the new beginnings that have come my way and I didn't once think about how different these new beginnings are from the new beginning I was expecting just a few weeks ago. Definitely not. No way. Not even the tiniest little bit.

Uh. Uh.




Sigh.