Gilead

I haven't written much about my yoga teacher training. I started in September and by January will (hopefully) be certified to teach 2 different styles of yoga (My 200 hour training is from September to January and I'm taking a second training for Buti yoga right in the middle which will take place next month) I have no words to describe what this experience is like. Aside from just strengthening my own physical yoga practice I have experienced amazing connection and community. Teaching yoga has been a dream of mine since I first discovered the practice way back in high school and it is everything I hoped for and more. This past weekend was my second in studio training weekend. It's also where I got to teach my first round of sun salutations and co-teach a tapestry yoga class with 30 of my best friends. The energy in that room was amazing and by the end of the flow I don't know if there was anyone not crying. It was that powerful, that beautiful. My first weekend of ...

I've listened to Pink's new album on repeat for the last few days and I feel like its one of those albums that changes things. The last time I felt this way about an album - in awe of such a beautiful musical masterpiece, feeling like every lyric could have been written about me, the only thing that speaks to my heart over and over in such a way - was with Paradise Valley by John Mayer. I was in my teenage years and in love with a boy who never loved me back, spending my summer in the mountain town I've loved since I was a child, trying to make myself believe I was worthy of good things. Listening to Paradise Valley still brings me back to that place, every time. It brings me back to dancing barefoot in the kitchen on sunny Sunday mornings believing that I was the kind of girl good things happened to. (I was and I am. Not with that boy, or in the way I expected it to happen, but I did stop running and get my little bit of heaven) I feel the same way about Pink's album...

I went to yoga this morning still in a thanksgiving daze. I thought it was just the fog of returning to a schedule after a holiday weekend and my first day working with a new child jitters. But as I unrolled my mat and we started flowing I quickly realized it wasn't just something I could shake off. I felt like I was moving my body in this armor of cement. Concrete was packed around my bones. Every movement I tried to make felt tight and forced, and even holding the easiest of poses for a few minutes wasn't available for me. I'd only experienced this kind of resistance once before, a few weeks ago when I went to my first Buti class after injuring my ankle. Before that my yoga practice often was full of ease and while sometimes I would cry or rage I would often work through it on the mat and by the end of the class have achieved some kind of release. But these last few times I've hit resistance on the mat it hasn't budged. I could have worked poses and breathed in...

This morning was perfect. One of those mornings I used to dream about, the kind that happen so rarely that when they do I feel like I need a camera to capture every little detail. The perfect cool crispness of the air, how its not yet snowing, how you need to bundle up in a sweater and cuddle under a blanket, how the golden leaves dance and fall to the ground. The smell of apple crisp in the oven, the way the scents of apple and cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla all mix together and tickle my nostrils. John Mayer on the radio (my all time favourite album of his no less). My coziest sweater wrapped around my shoulders and my bare feet on the kitchen floor. I was made for these mornings. I think ordinary moments like this become extraordinary when you pause, just for a second, and think to yourself how amazing this all is. The present makes the perfect. Another thanksgiving is here and I'm thinking about how much my life has changed. I'm married now, in our own little house. Marria...