Friday April 21, 2006

One week passed. One week of practices. One week of backpedalling, forward thinking, adaptation, tears, smiles, sun, power point, books, papers.

One week left. One week of settling down, digging in, finding peace. One week of practicing talks, practicing answering questions, practicing asana, practicing facing fear.

One weekend more. One more infusion of heart. One more time together. One more hello, one more goodbye. One more chance to feel all that can be felt, to touch the dream, to walk along side one another. One more construction of shared memories, shared breath, shared time.

And this too shall pass. All the good, all the bad, all the feeling, all the dissonance, the care, the pain, the fear, the happiness, the sadness. We awake another day, in another place, perhaps together, perhaps not, and it’s all ok. It’s all divine, it’s all the way it is supposed to be.

I take each step gingerly, trying not to crack. The world inside seems made of glass. The world outside beckons with hope and adventure. Just one week more.

This is the pinnacle of yoga. This time, this effort, this moment now. This is why I practice.

Monday April 17, 2006

Jai

The sun was out today. I woke with fire, practiced hot, and steamed through the day with a pitta overload. Irritable, grumpy, quick-tempered. I had to put out some fires today. I started them of course, overheated and moving too quickly without thinking- a standard destructo day in my life.

I need a cameron extinguisher sometimes.

By 5 I burned myself out. Only the smoke was left, wafting away into the clear blue sky from the couch as I lay drifting through REM sleep in a brief break.

I didn’t practice last week. Yesterday I completed a bare minimum, today primary to Mari C. Everything was open, but I could feel my strength waning. I can officially count the days until my qualifying exam: eleven. I am almost ready. Ready by my standards. I have no idea if that’s going to mean ready by my committee’s standards.

One can hope.

There is more than one reason to indulge in hope. In prayer. In faith. It is no longer an indulgence, rather, a necessity. The fear of loss is the final frontier, teasing the brain, echoing through the heart like a bullet ricochetting inside a tin can, the thin walls so perilously intact.

I realized last week that I’ve done pretty well these last two and a half months. The pressure has been constant, and immense, and I’ve only broken a small handful of times. Nothing that couldn’t be repaired.

Now, the precipice, now the openness of love, now the fortitude of trust, now the preparation.

Soon, the leap. Soon, letting go. Soon, I see if I have to go back across this river again.

Under it April 4, 2006

The weather is pissing me off. It has been raining for like a month straight. My skin needs the kiss of sunlight. I need the warmth of summer. This has gone on long enough.

Practice has been limping along. Half primary last Thursday at the shala, standing and finishing last Friday at home, half primary on Saturday. Sunday, Monday off. Full primary today. It was hot in there. I feel weak. I felt like I was fighting myself all the way through it today. My teacher grinned at me after practice, told me maybe I should go salsa dancing or something. My heart sunk, “oh wow, I haven’t done that in a long time,” I said, suddenly missing the freedom of crusing into the city on a Wednesday night to cavort with the amazing and beautiful salsa people in the west bay.

Who am I kidding? If I really wanted that, I’d go fucking do it. It just sounded really really good at 8:30am after practice today for some reason. I think it’s more the lack of freedom that is driving me up the wall than any actual removal of opportunities. My study schedule has me pinned in here. I’ve got the rest of this week planned already. I’ve got next week planned too. Oh and the week after that and the week after that, which is the last one- the week of my qualifying exam. Almost there.