Because I take the bus from NYC, I get here before they have rooms available. But there is a lovely cafe and I get quite a view while waiting.
Met a lovely woman on the bus then spent a lot of time looking at the trees and the lake as we passed by it, and also parts of Connecticut I know personally or from researching my grandmother's life. Seymour, Waterbury, the Housatonic River...It's a sweet, gentle day here. I know it's hot in NYC, though was even lucky enough to leave before that hit.
I have some idea and then No idea what to expect. It's the exciting, stomach churning feeling. What will this be like? Will the other kids like me?
I spent my childhood in New England, moving from place to place, school to school, and sometimes camps and summer schools, staying with different relatives in summers and for a couple years, everything shifting, and every change, I remember thinking: maybe this time it will be better! Where I got that optimism from is beyond me, but kids are kind of amazing. Perhaps needless to say it was not always better, though sometimes it was. But the idea was: This time I will get it Right. I will finally figure out the right clothes, attitude or whatever (I never did - you just have to trust me on that one - sometimes I accidentally got it right, but usually a day late and dollar short).
And so even though I am 55 and should "know better" (drum roll please...) I find there is still some of that. Though also and equally based on prior experience at Kripalu, knowing I can eventually lay all that at the door.
This is why I am here for yoga teacher training and not somewhere else, because this is the place I come to Lay it All at the Door. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't, but usually there is at least one moment this happens, and that moment is transformative. It's like a sober acid trip (without the acid, natch). A view into the soul, somewhere new, unguarded, unseen until that moment, and it's such a gift...
And amazingly that gives me a segue into writing about something I am kind of obsessed with but was not sure how to write about until typing the above paragraph:
Season 2 of Fleabag. If you have not watched Fleabag, do, and maybe read this after. This is full of spoilers and meant for people who like me have watched it and can't shake it...
Because season 1 was satire, very good satire, about how whack we get over grieving intense loss. Sounds unpromising but the young British actress/comedienne pulls it off.
But Season 2 is another thing altogether, because while it is incredibly funny, there are a bunch of set ups that make you think: oh OK I know where we are going, this person is like this and that like that but instead, in each case, even the most unlikely, that person, including our protagonist, finds themselves laid bare, vulnerable in a way as funny as it is heartbreaking and from there a big change happens in their lives.
I think this may be why we who have watched it were all riveted. I won't go into details in case you are still reading and have not watched it yet, but the larger point remains: grief makes you demented, but when you are grieving, you can also find parts of yourself hitherto unknown, and if it's not grief, maybe it is love or attraction or Something Outside of Your Control.
And the only way transformation is possible is by allowing yourself to unattach from your little stories about who you are, which are ultimately not only limiting but also to some degree or other delusional.
As anyone who knows me will understand, I am not saying this from a mountaintop (well OK I sort of am since I am in the Berkshires but not a figurative one) but as someone who has experienced and experiences this, because we are meaning making machines and so we create and dismantle and reconstruct ourselves all the time, minute to minute. And maybe the older we get the challenges to the story are a little harder to come by, or maybe sometimes when you just keep fucking losing people and things and ideas and etc, it gets easier when you get older.
But I am here now, and I am not the same person who came here in early May 2003. And I doubt I will be the same person who typed this when June 21 rolls around. I mean I will be of course, but have a feeling some things will have shifted, but here's the funny scary great - did I mention scary? - part: I don't know what this.a
Time to go check to see if my room is available yet.
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And it was/is. Unpacking now, to shower and yoga! Posting now and if typos will fix later...
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OK so it's a day later, and now posting because no WiFi in room. Which means I have kept my laptop until now in a safe. Yay me, and on our first day we were teaching each other a basic pose. So...I'm on the way and by afternoon taking a yoga class I would not have dreamed two days ago I could have survived. Even with shoulder issue, it turns out, once again, I am way stronger than I know - but also in some bits, so out of shape, but here I am. Still alive.
Favorite little snippet from today, Kripalu yoga teacher training leading us to be "a guide on the side, not a sage on the stage." This remains my favorite kind of yoga by a mile and one of my favorite places on earth to be. It's Day 1, though, so stay tuned...as they assured us, some days we will wonder why we are here. I imagine that is true.
But for now I live in a jigsaw puzzle photo...check out this view from outdoor dining area. I saw lilacs on the drive in, so hoping to find some of them, too.
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