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...

A while ago my friend posted a story on her insta-stories about a show she was watching. I don't remember what show it was, or even what the context was but I remember a quote from it (If anyone knows the show help a girl out!) I paused her story, scrambling for a pen and paper to write this down because this quote, and the way my darling friend explained it, left such a huge impact on me. The quote was "You can stay or you can go but you cannot kill me. I won't allow it." My friend then talked about how this quote related to how people were treating her in her life. I've thought about this quote so many times since then, in different life situations and relationships. And these last few days its been on my mind again. I want to tell you about codependent me. The me who, when someone was upset with her, would have scrambled and lost sleep and run herself ragged trying to figure out what the problem was and keep the peace and make people ok with her. The girl w...

Healing isn't a battle, its a romance In March I wrote about death, and grieving, and healing in such a public way it caused a shift in the earth I was standing on. all of a sudden everything I thought I knew, the people I thought I knew, no longer existed. I remember that morning, seeing the results of my vulnerability, and feeling sick to my stomach. I stared at my phone for a long time not knowing what to do. I could hear my husband in the kitchen making breakfast and I knew I couldn't talk to him. I walked out of our apartment building in my pyjamas and bare feet (in March), sat in my car and called a dear friend. I didn't know who I was going to call, who would help me make sense of this mess, and by some miracle my fingers dialed her number and she just happened to have a few free minutes. I don't think I said a word for 10 minutes. I just sobbed in a way that made my entire body hurt. Today is the first day of fall and it feels like grief. I don't know h...

Maybe you've seen it. The article floating around facebook on why we should stop saying marriage is hard. I'll tell you my conclusion on this post in just a few words: its wrong. Marriage is really really hard. I wish more people had told me marriage is hard. But not just told me marriage is hard, but to be honest about marriage and WHY its hard. Because I always heard that marriage is hard and then I got married and one of my first thoughts stumbling through that post-wedding fog into the "real life" days was "Nobody told me it was hard like this" I'd heard that marriage was hard but because he would leave his socks on the floor (which he does) and because we would want to organize our house differently (which we do) or because living in such close proximity with one person is difficult to adjust to (which it is). But no one told me marriage was hard in the way that being in such an intimate relationship with another person rips open your wounds if ...