Take a good look

Brianne Milder made this: Brianne's Artworks

Can I say can I say can I say

Can I just say: this is a good life.
Love you, bye.

Countdown

The countdowns begin.

9 days until I leave Portland,

1 month until I turn a ripe 23 years old. 

The days leading up to a birthday are always a good time to take pause and wonder, what am I doing? Where am I going?

Is it possible to answer these questions?

Over the next month, I will assemble a list of 24 things I'd like to do/accomplish/manifest in the next year of my life. Maybe I'll post the list, maybe I won't. Not that I assume the readers of this blog (5? 6?) are chomping at the bit to know what my internal road map looks like. But lists are fun!

Here's a list for ya. A playlist.

Running, Returning : Akron Family

Postcards : An-Horse

With Arms Outstretched : Rilo Kiley

Play With Fire : The Rolling Stones

Please Don't Be Upset (?) : Jack & Jeffrey Lewis

Driving : Sibylle Baier

Omaha : Liz Isenberg

Farm, Ca. : Jana Hunter

No, No, No, I Won't Come (Go) : Michael Hurley

Exit Music (For a Film) : Radiohead

Postcards from Italy : Beirut

Chin Chin & Muck Muck : Devendra Banhart

Vicious Traditions : The Veils

Nobody Has To Stay : Mirah

Bright Bright Bright : Dark Dark Dark

This is what a garden looks like. If I could be buried in a place like this, that'd be swell.

Don't care what anyone says.

Devendra is marriage material. "Marriage material."

Beck is 40.

So I'm late on the uptake, but Beck turned forty last month. Why does that seem impossible? He's the eternal teenager.

Today I packed my books in a big brown (faux?) leather suitcase. It weighs a ton. Despite my minimalist Portland lifestyle, I'll be lugging about 80 books across the country.

BACK EAST

Elephant Journal: How To Be Alone 

Elephant Journal: In Transit (by me)

Elephant Journal: Leaving Your Yoga Teachers (by me)

Today's Date: August 6th, 2010

Scheduled Departure from Portland: August 21st/22nd, 2010

After approximately one year of living the (not-so) easy life in Portland, Oregon, I've decided to get a move on.

Why? Well, the reasons are many. My year was full of surprises. It's been beautiful, sad, funny, musical. Damp, gray, bright, earthy. I planted things that never grew. I began novels that may never be finished. I searched and sometimes I found, and  of course I am still fumbling. I've had moments of true delight. I've also been a lone wanderer, and in some ways this was exactly what I wanted. But it's time to wander further. 

On August 21st or 22nd, my dear friend Camila and I will strike out from West to East, down through California, over to Nevada and Utah, down to New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and up the Southeastern/Northeastern seaboard to New York.

New York! Where I'm from. 

If everything goes well, I'll be in India from November until March, studying at the Ashtanga Research Institute and traveling. 

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. There's a big splendid trip in my very near future. I've given notice to my employers and now feel fully committed to this next adventure. 

What I'll Miss About Portland:

Townshend's Tea House

Random Order Coffeehouse

Powell's Books

Prasad Vegan Cuisine

The Yoga Space

The People's Yoga

The Hupperich Family

The Siegel Family

Cindy C.

Arianne, Nathan, Mabel

Alberta Street

The Southeast

Street Yoga

Vita Cafe

6006 Atlantic

New Seasons

Video Verite

Farmers' markets 6 days/week

Cheap shows

Random nudity

WAKE UP

Back on the West Coast. Let's focus on gratitude.

I'm really happy with my New York adventure. It was the most nourishing thing I could have done at this particular moment. It also felt rather selfish - everywhere I went, I just wanted to soak up all the love and generosity that good folks were offering. I hope I was able to give some of that back.

These days, I'm practicing presence/clarity of mind. Nothing ever turns out the way you plan. The most significant opportunities for transformation disguise themselves underneath layers of confusion, anger and hurt. It's just all about perception.

Reading:

Guruji : edited by Guy Donahue and Eddie Stern 

(A history of Sri K. Pattabhi Jois's teachings, as told by his own students. Published around the one year anniversary of his passing.)

Yoga on the Road

This afternoon I practiced at The Shala near Union Square. Director and co-founder of the studio, Barbara Verrochi, taught a beautiful, challenging class steeped in the Ashtanga tradition, with a little softness here and there. She was trained and authorized by Guruji himself. 

I bumbled into the studio an hour early - I caught the train down from the Upper West Side, carrying an enormous backpack and an overflowing tote bag. I was hot, sweaty, tired, hungry, and not all together sure if a vigorous yoga class sounded like the best idea under these circumstances. Yet more and more I am finding that I am always in the mood for yoga, in spite of lousy conditions.

I sat quietly on a bench and watched the Shala staff clean and tidy the space. Eventually more students began to file in.  Barbara began by talking about the breath, and how extending the breath and measuring it carefully moment by moment leads to true longevity of the mind and body. "You can live one hundred years," she said. "You'll die of course, but you'll live longer if you are mindful of the breath." (I spend entire classes working on my ujjayi breathing.)

In a place like New York, this kind of attention to the breath is very, very difficult, and very, very essential. You forget how to feel the breath as it moves through the body, as it leaves the body, as it reenters the body. You lose it. You're walking quickly, jogging along, dodging other bodies in motion, navigating, hurrying, halting, carrying your own weight, the weight of your things, the weight of your anxieties. In all of this you lose the breath and you get fatigued, frustrated, confused. You get in your own way.

When I left the studio, I had to strap on that backpack, I had to carry that tote bag. I went down the road to the Jivamukti Yoga School, specifically to eat at the Jivamuktea Cafe. I ate a delicious, albeit expensive, vegan Caesar salad with tempeh croutons. A full hour of sitting, eating and reading. Temporary semi-stillness. And then it was back into the frenetic, electric flow of the city. 

At the end of the day, I'm not sure if I'm a city person. I'm sensitive. Perhaps one day I will have the spiritual and energetic fortitude to handle the urban centrifuge. At the moment, however, I'm thinking: farms, sky, organic food, winding roads, typewriter, books, contemplation, yoga.

 

True love is transcendent and cannot be contained in any one form. I am learning this. New York is for shape-shifters. We are always making our way back.

Real Summer

I

Mood: Happy.