Full Circle

About one year later I am again sitting with Kate in front of a computer listening to php fetch css go in one ear and out the other with one foot here and the other in India. Bless her patience. My flight to India is almost a day away and I want to give New York a big squeeze. I feel unprepared every time I say goodbye and one part empty one part giddy as I stand on street corners alone.

I'm all packed up and ready to go and worrying about the silly little things instead of the big ones. Maybe they seem easier to fix or maybe those are the things that make something special. I'm stepping cautiously and feel like Bambi learning to stand and the rug gets pulled out from under me and I stand and then a rip current pulls everything away but I'm still there in shallow waters watching my belongings dragged out to sea. A little sadness tugging at the bottom left corner of my heart, a little happiness and excitement pulling up the top.

I was hoping to post a picture of me happily perched in pasasana or karandavasana as a "final project" or something to punctuate my time in New York, but instead we'll all have to settle for the intangible glory of tears and toil and little glimpses of liberation.

As I savor the last few moments with my closest friends (and a few tears) I can smell the masala in the distance and can't hardly wait to shed this skin.

me, myself, and all the stuff I own (apparently)

"Hello?"
"What's up?"
"You called me."
"And I called to say 'what's up!'" I'm not getting out of this one.
"Well--" I'm standing in the doorway of my closet with one hand on the phone and one hand on the shelf, my face is buried in folds of clothing, and suddenly I can't breathe. "I don't think I can do this." Tears are welling up. They are just clothes. What's wrong with me?
"Come on, you're the most non-hoarding person I know!"
"But..." I begin to ramble between swallowed sobs.
She interrupts, "Well, anyway, guess what? The baby is kicking now." And "Did you know a milk shake is just empty calories?" And "Guess what? I'm getting married!" And "Remember that time when--" As my brain travels across the country to rest on my best friend's lap, my hands are throwing things into the toss-out-pile, the maybe-think-about-storing-it pile (because you can't handle the thought of not possessing it at the moment), the recycle-please pile, and sadly-the-garbage-bin.

Two people in one space surrounded by the years in New York, the years in love, the years cohabiting, the many avatars of ourselves and our imaginations. We can't walk without falling.

This is me as executioner. This lives. This dies.

I am supposed to kill artist me.
I am supposed to kill knitter me.
I am supposed to kill sentimental me.
I am supposed to kill living in New York me.
I am supposed to kill yoga teacher me.
I am supposed to kill academic me.
I am supposed to kill chef me.
etc.

Maybe if I only had to bury them it would be easier. But I know inside that I'd sneak some things out of the country. But they look at me with these sad eyes filled with hope and dreams of what could be and it's hard. I'm thinking this as I dust off the cover of the "Guatemala 2005" hanging wall calendar. Can I really live without this?

Purging on a full moon isn't a good idea emotionally as it gets quite intense. Or maybe that's the only day you should really do it.

Today I'm casually thumbing through the paperwork-to-be-sorted pile feeling good about last night's meltdown and subsequent breakthrough when a small piece of paper torn from a notebook falls to the ground.

I wish I knew
I was dying
50 years ago
because I would
have paid more
attention to what
I pushed aside

Past me watching present me and leaving her a note. Future me watching present me tells past me that leaving a note would be a good idea. Future me is past me and writes the note for present me. Present me is future me and past me too.

Green Eggs

About 24 hours and $5.50 later I am sitting in a local coffee shop feeling really good about being in New York. It's that warm fuzzy tickle behind my sternum that makes me smile a little. Looking back, it's the same feeling I had walking across the Brooklyn Bridge for the first time and deciding that yes, this was where I wanted to be.

I break out the laptop and sip tea and here come my eggs and they are scrambled. But I hate scrambled eggs! But I didn't say anything. And I didn't get angry. The thought came up for a second and then it was gone and I took a bite and I liked them.

Before noon, the streets are still soft and if you have a chance to walk them and are able to look around, you notice all the many lives unfolding around you. A woman pushes a stroller. A bike passes by. People doing tai chi. Homeless kids laughing and passing a cigarette. Even the guy who turned suddenly stomping on my foot made me smile. I looked up and saw a man with his head out an apartment window. AC water dripped onto my head like sweet summer rain. Isn't it funny how you have to trick yourself into doing things differently and when you do, you're always surprised at how amazing it looks from the new angle.

"I'm barely helping you at all." Ha. Yeah right. It's a nice sentiment though. All those little details that you forgot you gave yourself permission to slide are now center stage when the visiting teachers come to town. Day one they watch you and take notes. Day two you get feedback and nod your head yeah yeah yeah. Day three you do. You do! You sadistic #&%#ers, #%&@ you! Day four you realize that maybe you aren't seeing yourself clearly (duh).

I've never watched myself practice. How can I be objective? How can I see the possibility? I can feel the kinks. It's so quickly that weeds overrun the flowerbed. We don't even notice they are there. And the gardener comes around and pulls and pulls and pulls.

Today I finally let out a sigh and said "okay". And I wasn't just saying it. Inside, my body said let's be open to the possibility. And now everything looks translucent.

Next post: A look at Ashtanga Yoga Immersions...

The Fourth of July and Other Favorite New York Past Times/Fear and Loathing in New York

Flood lights are turning the sky a milky hue, helicopters are circling overhead and shining spotlights down on the large gathering of people who have been corralled into this smallish riverside patch of grass (that is often generously referred to as a "park"). Police officers litter the crowd, stand in dark corners, are perched from view towers, and are checking bags at a make-shift gate. "This is a police state...They're gonna unload on the crowd, man!"

There are people everywhere. We wander aimlessly, trying to lay claim to a patch of grass not occupied or surrounded by screaming children with tennis balls or water guns. Like bugs to a light bulb, our natural instincts pull us closer to the water, closer to the Macy's boat which will be blasting massive explosives into the air. We fight the pull of nature and walk toward the exit, picking a spot that allows us an easy escape.

"I dare you to open that pizza box!" The group of friends in front of us has stood up from their blanket to see if the show is starting --how this would give them any information beats me-- leaving a box of Fornino's tasty pizza vulnerable to our antics. But is the box empty? The question plagues us. We go back and forth over how funny it would be to ask them for a slice or whether or not we should just open the box (not that we'd actually eat it, of course). Others around us begin to stand up. Again, what they think they will see puzzles us all. A portly woman stands and balances precariously on a cement balance beam which separates the concrete picnic table area from the grass patch where we and the pizza box sit. We look at each other with eyebrows raised, "That box is going to get stomped when the show starts". It happened sooner than that. It happened sooner than the "healthy" American lost her balance. The woman's obese daughter in Nike high tops and cutoff shorts stomped onto the balance beam with knees high, she stomped onto the grass, and then raised her foot high and stomped on the pizza box.

"Oh!" Did we shout it, or did our eyebrows mime it? Either way, it happened. The group of friends and sad owners of the leftover pizza (seems there was some left) turned around aghast. You see, there are invisible and unsaid divides between different cultures/income levels/age groups in New York. The girl looked at the group and smiled as she stomped again. The mother laughed. The friends moved the pizza box.

We couldn't handle it. We had to get out. We fought against the stream of umbrellas, coolers, and glow sticks to the exit shining a few meters ahead. Dogs were barking impending doom. We walked and walked until there were no more cops. We found a small alleyway where everyone could pee behind cars while the "bombs burst in air". We couldn't hear the car alarms going off anymore, only the loud blast boom and rumble in our hearts.

More lessons learned on the New York City Subways/Even on the subway one can practice/Samskaras

"Excuse me."  Much like the Indian use of the horn, it is sometimes directed to someone, sometimes a notice that I am here in space like sound bouncing so we know where we all are like bats or sharks in the ocean.  I slide as gracefully as possible into the seat between two "normal" sized commuters (they did not cross the seat indentations into mine--a horror unto itself).  

A man stands over me grumbling under his breath about girls and youth and who knows what else but I do catch his reference to my lapse in the use of "excuse me".  This, apparently, I could not stand for.   "I said 'excuse me',"  I also mumble under my breath.  We are here acting like the other isn't.  This is how you ride in a car for thirty minutes with no AC and the lingering smell of puke and Chinese barbecue chicken over the screams of a baby in a stroller.  

It could have ended there.  We both could have had our moments of anger without penetrating the other's personal space (a relative term depending on the situation, but something New Yorkers will claim, name, and fight to the death for).  I look up briefly from my Sudoku at the sound of the man's voice inches from my face.  His mouth moves slowly like it is full of marbles.  I see every bristle in his fisherman face.  I can smell his angry little life and his desperation to yell at someone, anyone, just to get it out.  Is he enjoying this?  I suppose neither of us anticipated that I also have samskaras (in a nutshell, patterns of thoughts, actions, behaviors "inherited" from past lives or the past of this life) I'm working through.

"GET OUT OF MY FUCKING FACE!" 

I don't yell it or scream it.  It was that cold, calculated, venomous voice built up for all those times when I couldn't or didn't say what I wanted to say.  He looked afraid.  I was steaming.  Of course we rode the subway side by side like this without saying a word for two more stops.

Sometimes you ruffle your wings and then feel better, but sometimes you ruffle them and the feathers keep getting more disorganized. 

What else could have I told him to make him feel like shit?

What was going on with that poor guy that he needed to tell me that?

Why did I react that way?

Now that I have acted upon those samskaras and now that it doesn't feel as natural, will I be able to let them go?

So next time I do it differently.  

As much as I am attached to the idea of transformation, those samskaras are attached to me.

Sensation junkies

Last night, in a visiting-relative-paid taxi over the bridge I had that happy little feeling that makes me want to stay in New York forever.  I love riding in taxis at night in New York, especially when we are going fast (relatively) in one direction so I can see the street breeze by, or, when we are crossing the bridge and all the lights from the city turn into a dream.  It is the same feeling on an open road (again, in a car) with one of "those" songs and the sun baking your arm.  Or riding on a motor bike and dropping your head back so you can look up at the trees and the sky.  It is the feeling of being somewhere/being not somewhere.  It is the feeling of flying over a town in a dream.  You are there, but you aren't because your feet aren't on the ground.  

It occurs to me that much of New York (although this must be obvious) costs way more money than many people can afford right now.  And it isn't God that is magically changing the economy.  (Future president/any person of influence, please do something different because this shit sucks!)  So for the time being and perhaps forever I'll have to live vicariously through the New York dream of movies like "Sex and the City".  Great.

A note on other sensations of being alive:

Post-headstand balasana, my torso feels like it has an exoskeleton that is cracking at the seams.  Some days I feel shattered.  It feels like one by one, each rib is lighting up in the joint where it connects to the spine.  And when it lights, it ignites an electric shock down my spine.  Every breath shatters glass.  And then I realize that I have a dialogue running in my head and it is so loud that I wonder if anyone else can hear or if I have been talking out loud.  I wonder how long I've been here with my forehead on the floor.  And then it is over.

No expectations: lessons learned from India and the New York experience

There is a plaque on the wall which reads "Best place to renew your drivers licence" by New York Press.  There is an award for this?  What exactly were the criteria?  At this point, I'm thinking this MVD "Express" won because it has truly captured the New York experience. 

People are standing in lines, sitting around, leaning against walls, running to counters when they hear their numbers.  Everyone seems so know where to be except me.  Like any good consumer, I head to the right and behold--the information desk.  I get my paperwork, find no pens in the "pens box" and see too much hostility and self imposed isolation from those surrounding me to ask to borrow.  So I walk out the doors (but they haven't beat me) no, I go next door to the HSBC and use one of those pens on a chain to complete my forms, and then head back in.  Do I need a number?  A line?  Should I just sit and wait?  I decide to stand in a line.  Turns out to be the right choice.  I finish my book.  I thank myself for remembering my ipod.  As I crank up the volume I wonder how people survived without them.  I look around and fantasize about being in that Stone Temple Pilots video "Everybody Hurts" and singing out loud and we all riot and get the fuck out of the there.  We overthrow the system.  I smile to myself and swallow that.

Why are we here and what on earth are we doing?  We are waiting in lines to get licences to drive.  We think we have to.  We think we are contributing to order and safety.  

Why does this suck?  It is hours in and I'm pissed because it says "Express" in the title and it is everything but.  What did I expect?  A fast food "drive thru" window?  When I was in India, I carved a place in my heart for experiencing situations like this.  "This is So India!'  I'd think.  And now I'm realizing that this is so New York.  Evil civil servants with bald spots (even the women) and bad skin.  Angry citizens in tacky outdated clothing like sweat suits.  No pens in the pens box.  Broken toilet (I've had to pee the entire time).  An old man that looks like MR. Magoo and has a half smoked, unlit cigar stuck to his lip the whole time.

This is my first New York licence and it will have my New York address.  I've lived here for 6 years and I am only just started to really be here.  And now I am leaving.

Tips on surviving the New York MVD:

1.  Bring a pen

2.  Bring an ipod

3.  Bring water

4.  Use the toilet before

5.  Eat before

6.  Bring a fun read

7.  Sudoku

8.  Wear comfortable shoes

9.  Have no expectations

10.  Stay positive

11. A smile goes a long way.

Abre tus ojos

"Too posh to push" "Staycation" Really?  Seriously--really?

This is ridiculous.  I can't speak for the whole western world, or for the whole world.  But for me, a US resident and national, I am sickened and blown away by how fucked up our lives are.  It isn't everything, of course, but there is enough of it to warrant a furrow between by brows and widening eyes.  

I watched "The Business of Being Born" yesterday.  Nothing new for a young, idealistic, tree-hugging liberal, but disconcerting all the same.  Not just the statistics either.  Merely witnessing all those squirmy and slimy babies squirting from vaginas was enough to make me cry.  Ah, the miracle of life.  My "childhood" friend is having a baby in December.  I really should be there.  I really want to tell her to see the movie.  That may be a bit selfish and "crazy, tree-hugging liberal".  How do you not come off as nuts?

And then there is the "staycation".  Just saw this clever term being used on one of the morning "news" programs.  It is a pleasant way to say that our economy is going quickly down the toilet, we have no money, we work our asses off, and now we can't even afford to utilize our god-given right to drive massive vehicles vast distances across these vast lands to start fires in forests and eat packaged meats on white bread.  So what are we supposed to do?  Pitch a tent in our backyards.  Watch more TV.  God forbid--have a conversation?  I don't know if I can handle it.  My need to consume will surely consume me.    

So what will I be up to this fabulous Memorial Weekend?  Enjoying some fabulous sales?  Giving in to the new trend of a fabulous staycation?  I'm working.  I'm practicing yoga.  I'm trying to keep the momentum going with the whole "getting my life prepared" thing for the move in July.  I'm trying to not think about what might or might not happen between me and my significant other and instead enjoy all the time we have together.  And I'll probably eat a soy dog in someones backyard.

Skinny and Sweet (There is an exception to every rule & NYC made me skinny)

There are a couple of new women practicing at the shala (doing second series).  One of them is practicing full second plus part of third.  I spied (post practice of course) her pincha and karandavasana and the woman totally had a Manju-as-a-child-pincha-photo banana back.  And she could bind her legs by herself and she could come down and almost come up (you could tell she can come up on days when she is up to it).  And her back was flat--almost even back bending--when she was resting on her arms.  *shrug*  Just goes to show that a)its not about the poses b)its about practice c)it takes patience d)every body is different.

Post-India Notes:

While getting dressed in the shala today I noticed that my big bra (the biggest size post-India) is too big.  India made me fat.  New York made me thin.  Ha ha.

Life/practice notes:

Had the WORST allergies today.  Could barely open my eyes this morning as they were so swollen.  Thought I had pink eye or something.  Yuck.  Felt so ill that I really thought I wouldn't make it to practice.  Low back is bothering too but I think its from adjusting people while I have bad posture.  In back bending I took it easy--just ankles.  (That is so ridiculous.  I am now really praying at the end of eka pada.  "Dear God, thank you for blessing me with legs, legs that work, legs that are able to do this crazy shit.  Thanks!)

Things I like/don't like:

Couldn't get through the first three pages of "Midnight's Children".  I must be a bad person.  Laughed my head off last night at "Nine-to-Five".  Absolutely infatuated with Amy Winehouse.

My heart is in mysore

I just picked up this book on successful blogging at the local library (my favorite haunt). Happily flipping through the pages as I chomped down a particularly delicious (although inappropriate ayurvedically [is that even a word?] for winter and my dosha) salad with homemade ginger carrot dressing (yum), my eyes landed on the "top 10 dont's of successful blogging". Number 2, "don't let more than 3 days pass between blogs". Oops.

Well, the truth is, I didn't know if it was right to continue writing in this blog, since I was between mysore engagements and all. But I figure now, what the hey? I'll be there again soon enough and perhaps "living mysore" is all in the mind.

What's new? Russell and Sally left New York, and Guy is back at the shala. I'm curious to find out what he's going to say about my practice. You see, Russell has had me working up to yoga nidrasana and doing the "split" (which means practicing second series only). For some reason, it feels like I'm cheating or something because Guy didn't give it to me. He's going to come back and be like, "Really? Is this what you've been up to?" Its just poses, I know. But who is the one that has to let go? Is it me? Should I be like, "Okay, whatever. I'll go back to whatever I was doing before." Or is it my teacher's turn to let go? Or, does it really even matter? Maybe because I feel like I'm having fun (loads of back bending will do that for you), I feel naughty.

Anyway, I'll be in to practice tomorrow, so we'll see!

Since I've been away, I've been keeping up another blog:
www.ashtangainspired.blogspot.com. But, I think I'm going to post here mostly from now on.