The Daily Grind

Surely, I jest.

I commute to work and the drive is roughly 30-45 minutes, with traffic for the first half only and c'mon, I'm driving to the beach. Not a bad gig, right?

When I arrive at the studio, I unlock the building and roll out my mat. Then it's time for my first morning break.

I begin my 'round the corner' walk to the beach and start the time when my feet hit the sand. I like to give myself a solid 30-40 minute wake-up walk.

I am in awe of the crashing waves before me, the smell of the ocean hanging heavy in the air and the feel of the sand on my bare feet. It feels like freedom and salvation all at the same time, it feels like hope and promise.

I think I stopped loving the beach a couple of years after I moved here--a single gal of 18. Where it had once represented escape and refuge for me, after my first child it represented sand in my car, sand in her diaper, a mad supply of towels to keep wet butts off my car seats, a thousand supplies stuffed into an over-capacity diaper bag equipped to anticipate 2,000 different scenarios but never actually prepared for one, watching and waiting for her to dash into water with a mind and strength of its own, the salt water in the eye cry and if her dad came along, his sandy feet in my car too and another towel for his wet bum because we know who cleaned it up after every beach outing.

I'm falling in love again. As I walk there 3 mornings a week, alone and free, I am drawn back into the refuge of this place and I know I am blessed to be here for, of all things, my 'job'.

Once I'm down the beach about 20 minutes, then I turn around for the journey back so I have time to prepare for class.

Soak it up, take it in, watch for shells under my feet but also scope the vitality of the water--the time passes like a vapor dissipating before you have any real sense that it was there.

I turn for one last look out over the beach, one last contemplation of the vast ocean and I turn to leave.

Back in the studio, I unlock the doors, light the incense, start the music as the gentle chants fill the space and then I wait.

I wait for my students and I smile because I know how lucky I am--how right I am for this.

They trickle in, we greet each other and I'm so glad they've come. I'm glad that they want this as much as I want to offer it up

We move through our practice, we breathe, they make it their own and all too soon, it's over.

I lead them into relaxation, mist their space with lavender, prepare a reading and wait for their bodies to rejuvenate in Savasana.

We close our yoga circle by coming back to the seated position from which we started, holding the final moments of inwardness. Eyes open and we bow, Namaste.

They trickle out and I walk across the street to get a cup of coffee for my drive back home from a morning's work--ah, the daily grind. Thank goodness.

Tina, Tina Quite Verbena, How Does Your Garden Grow?

I am inspired, by another blogger I've recently corresponded with, to add pictures of my own garden to my blog. This is the full-frontal of my raised bed--the pollinator seductresses clad in terra-cotta pots.

A close-up of my pollinator seductresses--how sexy and irresistible are they?

This is a side view that shows my big-boy tomatoes in the foreground and cherries (tomatoes, that is) beyond them--basically, a giant green foliage cluster!

My nasturtiums fighting for their space but doing mighty fine.

Red climbers doing what they do--they are flowering these vibrantly red flowers and vibing me to keep the butternut vine from taking them over!












Beyond the sunflower I have moved aside, you'll see my jalapeno just trying to be a pepper and fighting for a bit-o-sunshine.

Front view of the butternut going nuts.













This is the rear view of the other butternut. I have to check on these sneaky, territorials daily and unwind their vines from the surrounding garden occupants.

Here is my parsley, sprouting up from seed and to the right, an orange seed hiding under the soil, awaiting it's debut!









To the left, in order of appearance, behold my basil, cilantro sproutlets grown from seed and more basil.

Catnip grown from seed by my little man--a favorite of squirrels and stray, well, cats.

My children's father

My posts as of late have been peppered with references to him. It has been almost four years since he talked with the kids, longer since he's seen them and I found him on My Space.

I wrote earlier that we had heard from his son--the one he put up for adoption 19 years ago. This confrontation, of sorts, prompted me to talk with the kiddos about their dad--were they even still interested in knowing him, talking to him, seeing him?

Resounding YES.

Before I could even ask my questions, their answer was yes.

I was determined to find him, for them and partly, in a way, sort of, for me. I don't remember making it easy for him--and by that, I don't mean I stood in the way or didn't pick up the phone or limited his visits. I mean, I didn't make it easy for him. He's a certain sort of guy--passionate and deep and because of his life story, vulnerable to emotional panic or withdraw.

I was typical--I constantly asked about child support, reminding him of his financial obligations to the children he fathered, reminding him that I was not the only parent, that he had to assume some level of responsibility, that he should be just as concerned for their well-being as I was, that he had to be consistent. Blah, ex-wife, mother-of-his-children, blah.

Mind you, he has NEVER paid child support of any significance. The first year of our separation, my attorney had child support and alimony drafted from his income every pay day but after that year, I have maybe received a total of $300.00 from him for the last 7 years of their lives. I'm here to tell ya, I've spent a bit more than that on raising them.

Anywho--in resurrecting him from absent-father land, I resolved to let it go. He's never going to assume any level of responsibility for them, much less financial, and he's never going to take their care as seriously as I do. Bottom-line.

In the wake of my conversation with the kiddos about finding their father, I began talking to them about him, this man they knew only through faded memories of their own, pictures embodying their disconnect and what I passed along.

It suddenly became important to me that they know they came from love--regardless of what happened to him and I later down our road, they were of love. A deep, passionate love between two people desperate for each other at one time.

In retelling these stories to them, I think I became attached to a memory of him from then. My emotions were hard to categorize, they were blurred and out of context.

In my defense, I never got closure in our relationship. One day he came home from work, 8 hours late, and said he was leaving--we needed a divorce. My world crashed--I was at the lowest place I'd ever been and sinking with every action he took toward leaving us behind. He never looked back.

I didn't think I was going to surface from that--I had meaningless sex with meaningless people, drank too much, ate too little and damn near lost my will to mother my children. It was a long road back for me from that period of my life.

Then, finally, closure.

After reconnecting with their dad for about two weeks over the phone, I invited him to come stay in my home (because I knew he couldn't afford a hotel) and spend time with the kiddos for the weekend.

I stayed close. No way was I trusting him alone--after this long, I don't even know him.

We watched movies, went to little man's play--all three shows--and they slept together on the futon. I knew how important that was to them.

Saturday, when we were driving home from the last play of little mans, I asked their father to go walking with me when we got home. I needed a walk and wouldn't dare walk alone after dark.

While walking he told me that he was sorry for the way he left--he said I didn't deserve that and it's bothered him every since.

Closure.

Closure is such an odd thing really and, in the end, unnecessary. I didn't need him to take responsibility in order to know already that he had been wrong. But I can honestly say, that I just got over my divorce last year, the process and the experience that is, I've been over our lost love for longer.

But it took me that long to mourn, to mourn him, to mourn for the interuption to our family, to long for him, hate him and forgive him and to redefine my new family. In forgiving him, I think I thought I loved him like I did then but that wasn't it at all. I love him in a new way. I love him as a human being not strong enough to take the first step toward his children without me. I love him because they love him and because they resemble him and because they have certain characteristics of his--she has the shape of his face, he has his eyes. She has his toes and he has his dimples.

How could I look at them everyday, loving them everyday and harbor ANY resentment or ill-feelings toward him?

I couldn't reconcile it in my heart.

So his acceptance of blame and expression of remorse was a seal on my heart, already pieced back together nicely. And his visit was a firm reminder that I've already walked that road--the scenery hasn't changed, the path has crumbled through the years making it even more treacherous and my destination is transcendental now because the theme of my living is greatness.

I am more.

Verbal Diarrhea: Part II

I'm done.

Verbal Diarrhea: Part I

Ever been a victim of?

Ever spewed it to your ex?

Ever said SO much fucking shit AND kept talking past the point when you should've shut the FUCK up?

Ever dealt with emotions that you've buried deep inside yourself, for yourself, where you don't even know what you feel, who you feel for or why and suddenly you're on this plane of existence--it's shaky, it's foreign, it's familiar, it's real, it's illusion, it's tumultuous and crazy and inexplicable and spawned from nothing but maybe everything.

Did you ever have someone giving you advice who is SO categorically uNqUaLiFiEd? A person so unfit to speak an ounce of alleged wisdom that their tongue should be removed?

I can't explain what happened tonight, I can't explain why I opened my mouth--I think sometimes I need to hear my own words, to talk something over with myself in order to make sense of something myself, to say something out loud regardless of who I share my voice with. There seems to be but one requisite--said 'hearer' must breathe and walk and, apparently, be inextricably tied to my past. Of my past so as to be THE past, like, THE story that gets told. Whatever.

I'm not being totally honest here. In fact, I'm evading the truth because I don't want to admit the ugly truth--the awful, embarrassing, ugly, backward truth.

For one second or a few, for one day or several, if at all, I think I wanted something back--something I haven't had in a while. Something I haven't wanted in a while. Someone. Him.

It's best explained by understanding that the past few weeks have been something of a soul-shake, a breath-quake--for me, for the kids and surely my honey though we rarely talk about it.

For fuck's sake--it's been cRaZy. I can't even muster the words to categorize the level of crazy, to capture the experience for what it's really worth.

I have felt every emotion available in my arsenal of emotions and I have felt them backwards and I have felt them sideways and I have felt them deep, raw and unprotected, unguarded, exposed. Totally exposed. I have felt them alone, inside, this total internal trip because that's how I roll--this lone warrioress that I suppose myself to be.

But in this total eclipse of the heart, this total darkening, shadowing, I surfaced cleansed of all idiotic notions heretofore unspoken.

It's like, for the past couple weeks, I've had SO many questions that I didn't even know what I wanted to ask. I had so many thoughts, I didn't know what to think. And the emotions tied to all of these questions and thoughts, these emotions that crossed spans of time and criss-crossed again, making them almost current, almost relevant again, almost...real? Like I awoke from a coma where time had moved me forward but my heart was parked in another era.

Only there was no coma and time was steadfast.

"Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you when you think everything's okay"~~Alanis Morissette

Sure as shit.

I embrace my compulsion to speak what's on my mind and I even further embrace and exert my right to experiment within the spectrum of my emotions, to try them out and try them on.

There are times when I think I am a mess--a total wreck. And then there are times when I remind myself, usually in the aftermath, that I am alive. I am just alive and as such, I am open to mishaps and foibles and prone to travel the paths of various emotions, these little links to consciousness that connect us to others, to self and beyond.

As this living being that I am, I am subject to myself and all that implies.

My children's brother?

I just talked to my ex-husband's son and not the one we had together.

I'll start at the beginning.

My ex-husband is a phantom. He lives his life under the radar so it's not unusual that I would get a call from someone looking for him...like tonight.

I noticed a TN phone number on my caller id that I did not recognize but because I have family in TN, I picked up the phone.

The male voice on the other line asked for my ex-husband by his first name. Obviously, I responded that he had the wrong number and hung up.

I was marginally concerned that an individual was calling for him versus the usual business or creditor but swept it under the rug...for 10 minutes.

My heart leapt when the phone rang again from the same number. This time, when I answered, the caller apologized first and then asked if I knew ** ** (name of my ex), it was very important he said.

I explained that he was my ex but I had not heard from him in over 3 years.

"This is his son."

My heart fell--I knew of this adoption so I knew, from what he shared, that he was telling the truth.

This 19 year-old young man just had a son himself and is trying to find his father, a man that makes a life of leaving loved ones buried in the past with not so much as a glance back in their direction--even those whose diapers he changed, whose little fingers grasped his own as they were taking their first shaky steps, those whose first word was da-da and they meant it for him.

I gave him all the information I had which amounted to very little.

I didn't tell him he was chasing a ghost.

The Family has Left the House

I have been alone since about 9:00 this morning and ya wanna know something? I'm okay. I'm actually really enjoying myself. It's freakin' fantastic!

I drank coffee, wrote, read email, responded to email, checked on my garden, ate lunch, watched TV, took a shower, took a power nap on the sofa, wrote some more, emailed some more...

I'd like to have higher aspirations for my time alone but in the wake of a pretty scary migraine episode yesterday, one that impaired my vision for about an hour, I'm taking it easy today.

Chillin'

I would like to practice yoga before the night gets away from me, maybe make a run to the grocery store but in truth, I'm waiting on a call back from a yoga studio. They made me an offer and I countered their offer with my own, what I think are fair, terms~~now it's a waiting game.

I SO want this.

Sure, it's a long drive, about 40 minutes to the beach, but great experience and exposure that I really want to have under my 'yoga strap'. But I'll be okay either way~~I sort of have to be. But I really want this.

More later cuz' I got nothin' but time...