Cider, Bank Statements, and Relationships

A bottle of my favorite Fox Barrel pear cider is sitting on the coffee table next to my propped and crossed feet. Ginger and Blackcurrant, crisp and delicious. The olive green label reminds me of the T-shirt a friend wore yesterday. The shirt (and friend) remind me of what I did, who I saw, where I went, what I felt and thought yesterday. An eventful day, to say the least.

So I'm having trouble concentrating this evening... As I write this I feel exhausted at a deep, deep soul level.

Moving will do that to you.

Not just moving. The whole transition, the change, the transformation, the purging, the letting go, the releasing. Oddly, sorting my possessions has become a therapeutic metaphor for all the other emotional shit. This afternoon the heap of my belongings dwindled while the “throw away” or “donate” piles swelled. While I'm not very sentimental about my stuff I unconsciously attach much of my identity to it. This is a part of my life's footprint. What will I be remembered for, what legacy am I leaving behind, how do my belongings describe who “I” am? And how many old bank statements do I have? Holy shit, so many. 

Believe me, I'm aware of how narcissistic this all sounds.

My point is this: as I process the end of certain relationships and find closure with old paradigms, letting go of the material things gets easier. As my focus shifts to what I want to create, what kind of mental and emotional space I need to dip into my life with a soup ladle, the old stuff naturally drops off. Not to say I'm forgetting or stuffing that old stuff. Far from it. But obsessively focusing on a broken machine can constrict or bloat it until it's the only thing I see.

So this is a balance between the letting go and the creating. What a revolutionary concept.

Sometimes those processes (destroying the old, creating the new) happen simultaneously. Or they overlap. Maybe a relationship ends first so healing can begin before the next one. Maybe we discover an opportunity but in order to reach for it we realize that something else has to give.

I'm uncovering how I want and need to be in relationship with others. Intimate, romantic, friendly, casual, in passing, all of it. What does it mean to be in an equal relationship? When do we hold each other at arms length, when do we put on the masks, when are the masks necessary, when do we say no, when do we say “fuck off,” when do we say “I love you,” and do we really really truly mean it?

In that whole clusterfuck of thoughts, I have to acknowledge just how many objects, thoughts, people, and hopefully habits, I'm letting go of. What a bittersweet process... Each of us has a perspective, a set of feelings, a set of opinions, and a set of justifications that follow our actions. There's nothing inherently wrong with this. All those aspects of ourselves weave, tangle, break, mend, grow, cross, and sometimes separate permanently. Even when the “right thing” seems so illusive, I'm so grateful for what I have and cherish. Like Fox Barrel cider. Not exactly cherish worthy, but still damn tasty.

Swells of Sadness and Love

Lately my impending move (from this house, this town, this community, this life) feels like a bone-crushing weight.

I'm reminded of all the lessons and questions I offer students in my yoga classes. We can numb and hide through lack of action, surely. But we can also avoid ourselves in mental or physical busyness. We can “push” through to keep from feeling. Sure, we get stuff done. We act. But what am I ignoring?

The humor isn't lost on me. During the yin yoga training I led recently, I asked the participants to notice what sensations and emotions they feel when the body is still and quiet. We can be so scared of what we experience and allowing all that sensation to wash over us is intense. There's no getting around that.

One lesson I learned very early is: when we offer questions or insight, we probably need those wisdoms ourselves. Sometimes the circumstances are already in effect. Other times, the question I ask my students shows up in my life not two weeks later.

I resist admitting I feel scared or sad to others. Usually I don't fight sadness within myself, but I haven't wanted to succumb to this grief. Friends have asked me, “So, are you excited about the move?” No, I'm not really excited. Then I feel awkward because they're excitement for me suddenly deflates. Or they continue with the common follow up question: then why not just stay here?

I taught my final yin yoga class at the studio—one of the Sunday night classes. Often as a gift to send with them I sing or chant while everyone is relaxing in savasana. This time, my song represented a final goodbye. I felt the air pricking my skin and a soft pressing on my chest. I knew I wasn't the only emotional one, but one person packing up let her tears fall more freely. We embraced and held each other for a long time, and she murmured in my ear: “It's the end of an era.”

A couple nights later while clasping hands with an intimate soul lover I tearfully expressed the grief I felt. I haven't wanted to feel this, I haven't allowed myself to. To feel this sadness means letting go of an old life. Not completely, these years are still a part of who I am. But leaving the yoga studio, leaving the house I've inhabited, leaving the town I've existed in (it has never really been a home to me)... Initially I just wanted to escape from this place. But in the last few months the same soul whose fingers were now tangled in mine reminded me that the things, the goals, and the people that are important to us, they matter. How we spend our time matters. Being vulnerable to ourselves and the people who matter changes who we are, inspires us to run toward something beautiful.

If I choose to run, I want to run towards something, not away.

During that night I repeatedly wiped my cheeks to make room for the next wave of tears. The loving soul in front of me sat quietly, tracing the lines of my fingers and palm. I truly wish and hope that all of you find safe spaces to be with the upheaval inside of you and release it. Yes, it requires trust and vulnerability, but when that space can be held for you, or you hold that space for someone else, that is sacredness in all its glory.

I'm sure in time, as plans form and intentions and goals are recreated and discovered, excitement will begin to set in. But in many of these moments, terror and grief blossom deeply in my throat and behind my eyes. As days draw closer to some form of final end, this is my reality. After choking on a rush of sobs, I whispered, “I don't know how to honor that.” But that is how I can honor it. I ask my students, “What does it feel like to be in your body right now?”

It feels painful, and sad, and beautiful. I feel loved, I really do. Even with this gravity, there is still love here.  

Moving through Fear

I've practiced, learned, and taught at a yoga studio in Northern California for the last two and a half years. That space was a sort of home but I'm moving forward now. Moving moving, crossing a wide expanse of land moving. There have been bigger, more expansive moves in history but this is a big one for me. Through this process I've cycled through thinking, deciding, declaring, transitioning, planning, freaking out, procrastinating, packing, and more freaking out.

Lately, as my time at this home draws closer to an end, I'm engaging more in the freaking out part.

Not the sweating, trembling, panic-attacky freaking out. But the quiet fear that shows up in the mass of half packed boxes and untouched plastic garbage bags on my floor. The sleeping-in-til-noon, the piles of laundry and my turquoise sheets that desperately need cleaning. The mental to-do list in my head that hasn't made its way to paper because then this mess would be real. The written or the spoken words, they matter. They're more real than a fleeting thought.

I stuff and tuck this quiet fear underneath my stomach, ignoring its squirming until the pressure is too much to handle. This is how I internalize fear. If you watch me you'd notice I don't openly show my nervousness; I quiet, I still, and my energy sucks inward like a tortoise. I do nothing.

Fear causes a pause, a seizing up, a halt, a change of gears or direction. Last week I sorted through stacks and worn boxes of old drawings and writing and I began finding clues and insights into a childhood I don't remember very well. Finding some of these surprising, wonderful, and sometimes painful gems means something deeper than nostalgia and sentiment. I'm not sentimental about many of my belongings or much of my past. Instead, the symbolism of this process struck me right in the chest. This move symbolizes transcending years of hurts I don't remember the origins of.

I don't believe in being born again. I don't believe in recapturing a child-like state of innocence, and I don't believe in ultimate bliss, contentment, or the jelly-like blob of unity and love some people preach about. I will never throw out my journals regardless of what they hold. They're still relevant, the words still matter. That life still matters. If I move through fear, it won't be because I've forgotten about it or ignored it. I'll move through it because something mattered more than standing still. Transcending the current moment means honoring the past and reaching out in front of myself simultaneously.

I could easily not act at all and stay where I am. But after a pause, fear demands action, doesn't it? The running. The jumping. The falling. We run towards something or we run away, changing direction. Fear must react against something.

What purpose does me staying in one stagnant place serve? Nothing. It's time to grow, it's time to learn, expand and be bigger. That expansion is always larger than any fear of the unknown. Sigh it out, allow this to escape from the body. 

Poems, books, phrases, stories, and memories often show up for me in these moments of panic or revelation. When they do, notice them. I grew up reading Dune by Frank Herbert, and one line from that book will always settle with me: “I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

If I don't push the limits, will I ever be able to remember that I'm still breathing?