Don’t Hesitate

So I said that I would expand on the various interest points of feet and their artistic and metaphoric beauty and so I will.  But this is not that post.

For the first time in probably two years I spent the whole night last night pampering myself.  I fail miserably at being a ‘girly girl’, as I would far rather spend time tromping through the desert or burying my feet in sand than doing my nails.  But last night, feeling a bit overwhelmed from the day, I dedicated my time to exfoliation.  A bath salt soak, a full body scrub and a facial followed by a manicure and pedicure while watching Amelie.  With soft skin and bright pink toes, boosted by cinematic joy, I passed my night in blissful girly comfort.

I had seen Amelie before, but in all honesty it had been years and I have forgotten the entire premise of the movie.  I love the idea of breaking away from fear to find the joy in life.  We all have idiosyncrasies and somewhere there is someone who will embrace that oddness – wouldn’t it be a shame to miss out because of fear?  The romantic in me just wiggled with pleasure at it all.  Not only the romantic in love with love, but the romantic in love with life.  One of the best parts was the two suitcases in her father’s hands and the gate closing behind him.

I loved the likes/dislikes in the introductions.  How much you can learn from those simple statements!

Patricia dislikes red ink and stray hairs that tickle the back of her arm.  She dislikes having to shout to be heard and when people speak too quietly.  She likes the feel of hot, soapy water on her hands as she washes dishes.  She likes being barefoot and digging her toes into the sand.

Really, try it for yourself.  Keep it simple; we spend so much time in complexity.  Take a break.

So why did I need my spirits lifted in the first place?  My grandfather passed away yesterday morning.  I went to Oklahoma to see my grandparents in June.  The reason behind the visit was really to see my grandma who has been having seizures.  I thought it would probably be the last visit to see her, but never suspected it would be the last time I saw Grandpa.  He was happy and healthy for his 84 years.  We spent a day playing with his great granddaughter Christina and then went to Chili’s Bar and Grill where he ordered cheeseburger sliders and teased my cousin Tabitha something fierce about heeding the advice in the childcare book.  He always had this dry humor and growing up it generally took me a good 15 minutes to catch on to the fact that he was pulling my leg.  And when I say dry, I mean drier than the Dustbowl.  Must be in his bones, having grown up on an Oklahoma farm during that time.  His house was always full of bits and bobs, figurines, old speakers, magazines – he never threw anything away because after all, you never know when you might be thankful you have it.  He was always stubborn about doing things himself.  Well into his 70′s he would go out to his farm and tend to the land.  Once after having surgery my mom called him to see how he was doing.  He was digging a cesspit out on that farm.  With a shovel.  He was always doing something that made us shake our heads, whether it was digging that 8 x 9 foot hole in the ground or climbing up to the roof of the house on 13th to replace a few shingles.  Two months ago he sat across from my mom and I in his favorite arm chair and even though I knew he was getting old I thought he had a few years left – I never suspected he would be gone so quickly.  But I am also glad that he did not suffer for months or years.  He fell and hit his head and a week later passed away.  Even though I am saddened, I have to be thankful that he never had to go through the pain of disease or lose any of his autonomy or acuity.

Death does tend to bring a new perspective to life though.  Jump in and enjoy every moment of it.  Laugh as much as possible and don’t hesitate.

Take the Chance

Today I cannot stop thinking about those little decisions that end up changing the entire course of life.  A little over three years ago I decided on the spur of the moment to accompany my friend Courtney to Bikram yoga.  At the time, I thought that it was a fantastic work out and I enjoyed the benefits it gave me in the areas of flexibility, strength, focus, breath.  I never suspected that I would find myself three years later teaching at that same studio.  Sure, there were tons of decisions that steered me towards teacher training, but that very first class was the starting point to the journey.  Had I never gone to that first class, I would perhaps not have discovered it until I moved to Hawaii, where I fell into the company of Bikram yogis through scuba diving.  Who knows if only a single year into my practice I would have been ready to attend teacher training?  So that very first class changed the course of my life – at the time perhaps just to a tiny degree, but over time my course was drastically altered by that small adjustment.

I went to Hawaii to go to graduate school in molecular biology.  What I found in Hawaii was a passion for life and the realization that I had the power to choose my direction.  I was not a pawn in the grand scheme of things – I am the queen, able to move front, back, right left and diagonally.  Hell, I even made the decision to leave the game of graduate school, a game that I had worked my entire life to enter in the first place.  I was probably about 12 years old when I decided that I wanted to be a research scientist; I held onto that goal because of its familiarity, even though it brought me no joy.  That is until I realized that I held the key to my life and my happiness.  My yoga was a huge part of that discovery.  So I went to Hawaii to attend graduate school and left Hawaii a year later to attend Bikram Yoga Teacher training.  And how did I make the decision to go to training?  I started work trade at the studio because I could not afford to continue to pay for classes.  I cannot even take all the credit for that move, since I mostly just talked about it until Chris one day introduced me to Cas and handed me the work trade application.  Work trade turned into six days a week when graduate student became merely a title rather than an actual occupation.  Six days a week and the students knew me.  One day one of those students asked me a simple question after class.  “When are you going to training?”  The way she phrased it caught my attention.  She didn’t ask “Are you going to training?”  That question would have invited a simple answer, which is the one I had been giving, which was “Nope, can’t afford it.”  No, she asked me when I was going and I realized that the answer was, “When I figure out how to afford it.”  That day I made up my mind to figure that out.  I applied to the scholarship thinking, “If I don’t get this, I will try again in spring.”

Turns out I didn’t get the scholarship.  And yet I still went to teacher training.  Two things got me there:  My beloved Hyundai, Biscuit and Chris.

After teacher training I moved to the Bahamas.  Oh, what I would give for there to have been a Bikram studio there.  The following months I won’t recall in detail here. I learned a hard lesson about self fulfillment and taking the beauties of life for granted.  I learned about trying to force happiness and I learned about the importance of goals and growth.  I also loved and laughed a lot.  I floated amidst a thousand translucent comb jellies;

I was knocked around by tropical fruit;

I sat on the second floor of an abandoned resort and watched evening fall over a perfectly flat ocean;

I rescued a potcake and named her Gidget;

I tromped through the jungle in search of a blue hole;

I had a million little adventures.  And I got to do it all with someone I love.

Two years after moving away from Arizona I am back.  But I have to remember not to give myself grief for finding myself right back where I started.  Instead I have to give credit to how I got here.  Each step of the way has been beautiful.  Maybe this is where I need to be to take my next step, to discover something new and exciting about life and about myself.  I had a student thank me for class the other day literally in tears of gratitude.  I change lives doing what I do.  One sweaty 90 minute class at a time, I help people help themselves.

Every single day, every single choice has the potential to change your entire life.  That is an incredibly empowering fact of life.  Never, ever, are you trapped.  You only have to open your eyes to opportunity and never be afraid to give something a chance, even if it scares you.

So if you live in the Phoenix area, come sweat with me : )