Don't Quit Your Day Job

It seems like everyday I wake up wondering what's going to be important for that particular day. And for awhile, I hestitated about writing about the newly elected Barack Obama, because most of me didn't even know what to say.

A couple of days after the election my aunt e-mailed some writings about her husband's death over three years ago. She wrote a hello and horay! for Obama and also attached some writings she thought I would enjoy. In her e-mail was the mention of a New York Times article on Albany, Georgia's celebration of Obama's victory.

I remember hearing about Barack Obama years ago from my dear friends who live in Chicago, how political consultants had told him to change at least part of his name in order to be remembered by the United States public. How inspired they had been by all he had done in Chicago. And how far I felt we needed to go in order have him actually elected as president. Actually, elected.

I think I was about twelve when my uncle confessed he had been arrested. In Albany, Georgia, he said. Like my young mind knew much about the civil rights movement and protesting and standing up for what is right. But over time I've learned the impact it's all had on everything. My aunt mentioned how much she wished my uncle had lived to see November 4th.

A couple of weeks ago I printed off my aunt's writings to read and placed them in my bag where I keep all my students papers and yoga books. And tonight, when I was all ready to play around on the internet for hours, I pulled out her writings and began to read. And it was so nice. She was finally sharing how she felt with me. Her writings are honest and refreshing.

I don't know if I'll ever really understand where my immediate family is coming from. I do know that all of these bits and pieces that I am collecting will someday come together to make sense. They have to.

Dear Barack Obama,

I love the feeling of you being President. You are the same skin color black & white. Guess what else? We were both raised by our mom and didn't get to see our dad. We also have grandparent's who have passed on now. I am still young I am ten years old I'm sorry for not introducing myself. You being president elect makes me feel like I can be president someday. Because I am not going to be able to vote for you if you run again but I can vote in two elections. Then when I am 35 I will run. You are going to be great I know. I believe in you. You can do it.

Signed, one of my friend's 5th grade students, Covington, Kentucky, 11/06/08.

GO GO GO!

It’s one of those rainy-cold days in Asheville, those days I used to daydream of when it hadn’t rained in months in Las Vegas. It’s all dark and gloomy outside and my office is cave-like today, keeping itself rounded against the rain.

I’m a student again, now. Yoga teacher training started last weekend and really it’s the beginning of something that will never end. And I really like it that way. We all lined up our sticky mats and blankets and learned about anatomy and yoga politics and downdog. At the end of the weekend I didn’t feel like a new person, but at the start of a new journey. Because it’s all one journey after another. Because this is why I moved to Asheville.

Carving out time to practice and meditate daily and read all the yoga books that are out there can be challenging. Sometimes it feels like everything is a means to an end rather than what’s in the moment. I find myself wishing the day away and then not being able to be present on my yoga mat. And that’s what it’s all about, right? Being present in the moment and creating that peace within…

Everyday we dedicate our practice to something. Whether it be to ourselves for healing or some higher power. Because in yoga, god is everything and everywhere. It’s whoever and whatever you want it to be. It transfers through languages and cultures. It recreates the idea of your world. When I was in Las Vegas healing a broken heart, I dedicated my practice to him everyday. And even though we weren’t talking at that point, and things seemed worse than they had ever been, I was finding peace within myself and sending it across the country to him. Because ever since I realized I loved him I couldn’t go back. That love radiated and for awhile, neither of us knew how to handle it. And when you finally do, it is amazing.

Obama spoke in Leesburg a few days ago and my mom e-mailed me that she was thinking about going. I wrote back GO GO GO! Now is the time to GO! When I asked her how it was she e-mailed me that they got there kind of late so he was already speaking but that it went well. Then she mentioned that she and my dad signed up for a yoga class together at the local recreation center. That they were trying to get some friends of theirs to join them.

There are many ways to heal the heart. People travel or meditate and do yoga. Sometimes it takes an amazing conversation over coffee or screaming in your car while driving home from a long day at work. Some people drink themselves silly or write everything out until their hands are sore. For me, it was getting that e-mail.

I Mean Silly Awesome Great and Gay

If I were sixteen, I would be jumping up and down with them. My feet would be sinking deep into the floor as it stretched below me. And the smile on my face wouldn’t be so hidden by adulthood and awkwardness. Because when you see Of Montreal in concert, there’s a little kid in you that can’t help but dance.

And today I’m tired. But I can’t help but think about how hilarious it is that my best friend woke up to a Jesus fish carved into the side of her green jeep. And that she noticed it on the way to the vet to make sure her cat Delicious was okay. And that now the cat has a cone on her head and keeps running into the wall at her apartment.

After the lead singer of Of Montreal (they are from Athens, GA) dressed in nothing but tight, gold shorts, was painted all red, and then came out in a box covered in foam, he called out: thank you for letting us be ourselves. And it sounds so fucking corny but I really loved it.

I hadn’t been in one place where so many people were so happy and full of energy in a long time. I’m getting a little too used to my day-to-day work and yoga mode where I find myself hidden in lunch breaks in my office and singing in the car on the way from one school to the next. And on top of it all I am starting to freelance career counsel here in Asheville. Because the idea of creating my own career has always appealed to me I’ve just never had the guts to do it.

And even when things aren’t beginning to slow down and I start my yoga teacher training a week from tomorrow, I know that it’s all meant to be chaos. Folded on top of each other and around and never knowing when anything is going to end. And every time I try to stop this motion it cuts me short like a revolving door. Like I should just step in and go, instead of fearfully sticking my fingers out only to get slammed back into me.

And all I can picture is my best friend’s cat in her tiny apartment in LA running around that hardwood floor and sliding into the walls. And then just bouncing right off and back up onto her feet. And it’s hilarious.

Thank you, Delicious, for being yourself.

Out of Gas

I like myself. I like myself. I like myself. I like myself. I was talking with a friend from Las Vegas last week about how recently I’ve felt really negative. That when I go to yoga I’m only scratching the surface rather than digging in deep. I told him that I was missing Las Vegas and yoga and that hot desert heat.

My classes are cancelled at the local community college here and I’m walking to work at my second job for the rest of the week. It’ll be about a 45 minute walk and I plan on doing a lot of thinking. I’m looking forward to it. Because even though my gas gauge is at about a quarter of a tank and the gas shortage in this area is supposed to clear up by early next week, I figured I would take advantage of a crisis.

In Boston, I used to take the T and walk 20 minutes to work. I’d put my IPod on and listen to music and think about my day. It was nice and refreshing. And now in Asheville it’s officially fall and even the trees are starting to change. And I like being back in that place.

My friend from Las Vegas sent me some motivational CD’s that we listened to as part of training at lululemon. He’s recently re-listened to them and talking to him made me realize what a slump I’ve been in lately. How I need to move and stretch my way out of it. I feel terrific. I feel terrific. I feel terrific.

The truth is, with yoga teacher training in three weeks, and my classes going really well and my career counseling picking back up again, I feel like the world is in a great place. And every time I think about what’s going on outside my mountain bubble, I want to pass what I’m thinking on to them. At least, that’s how I want to believe things are going. And as a result, that’s the truth of how they are going.

Seeing Obama speak in Charlotte this past weekend while visiting him gave me hope again. Even though all weekend I wrestled the idea of another long distance relationship, of driving down the mountain to see him and knowing things are amazing and that we’ve worked our differences out (even though I love a good fight), my habits take shape underneath it all and I can’t help but feel anxious about things. And maybe it’s because my parents haven’t e-mailed me or called since I’ve told them the news, or maybe it’s just an old habit that I tell myself. Because even when you know you deserve love, it doesn’t always feel great when you have to constantly explain yourself to your family. To realize that they’ve never really trusted you to make your own decisions. It’s isolating.

Everyday is new. And what I moved here for, what I’ve been looking forward to, is finally coming up in three weeks. In my yoga classes I keep concentrating on my hips (where emotions are stored), thinking that if I let it out in class that I won’t have to deal with it later. That as soon as I work on my tight hips I’ll be able to have a better relationship with my family. That working on changing that attitude will change things. It’ll open things up…

go to wordle.net

Time, time, time...

Part of me almost wants to congratulate all those that said the economy was going to shit. Say: “you were right!” with a big applause. Tell them that they knew things were unstable and on a shaky ground and thank you for being practical and warning us all about the end of our economy as we know it.

Then I think about the rash of friends who have recently been laid off. And there really has been a rash of them. For one reason or another, whether it be budget cuts or new hiring, as well as the company closing down altogether. And part of me wants to feel more appreciative of the opportunities created here in Asheville, and another part of me wants to rework the whole system. No jobs, no forty hour a work week, no idea of a career, but just living and being. I moved here knowing Asheville could provide that feeling for me. That that lifestyle existed here. There are still many realities in the world that you envision. And not all of these realities are negative.

I always wonder if the person moving and talking out in my world is the same one that I see inside, from behind it all. Like when he tells me I don’t communicate how I feel to him or that I have a hard time demonstrating my appreciation, I immediately think of my family and how often I feel that glare. There’s so much of that mixed in with the misunderstandings between my mom and me. Because for me, there’s that extra pause of anxiety before telling someone I love them.

Right now I’m teaching at a local community college. My three classes are all very different, and my goals in teaching them are to help them realize their potential. Sounds corny and lame, and for some of them it takes a lot of effort to sit still and not fall asleep at eight in the morning. And for a little while, I was getting frustrated at some of the lack of response in my classroom. And then I realized, it wasn’t them, it was me. I was searching for validation from the wrong source. We all have to know we are doing a good job at whatever we are doing, and that we are all contributing to something greater than ourselves. And that idea doesn’t have to be thought about everyday, but can easily be tucked away under thoughts of the day.

There’s this constant struggle with myself as a writer. Some of my friends from college have given up on writing. They say it’s the best thing they’ve ever done. And when I think about what I really want to do and what I’m doing now, there’s constant thoughts of what could happen. It’s like I’m still working towards feeling satisfied and balanced in my life. I do it everyday.

Pour a little salt we were never here...

I can still remember the smell of the hardwood floors underneath my sister's bed. The dust that hadn't moved in weeks. The feeling of hiding there in hopes of being gone forever. Of just disappearing for awhile.

I'm in Philadelphia with my family celebrating my sister's 30th birthday. Things are patched up for now, hidden under what my parents really want me to do and how I envision my life. We don't talk about yoga teacher training, but details are asked about my new jobs in my field. And I do feel good about it, but not for any of the reasons they do.

When the topic of parking in the Charlotte airport is discussed, I mention that I got a ride and the conversation stops. It's how I've always felt-frustrated and on the verge of telling the truth. But sometimes it's easier to be casual. And easy seems like the better choice.

Growing up I always knew I would leave the D.C. area and driving in last night to go to Bon Iver show, I realized even more why I left that area of the world. I felt stuck. And being alone at a show makes you take in the noise even more. Makes you hear the chatter below his soft, high voice. Wondering too where he's going to go from here. Whether heartbreak in the woods of Wisconsin should become popular. Whether things like his music should be felt in a room full of people asking for skinny love or another beer. And the whole time I wondered how he felt about that.

Eventually everyone is found. My mom stepped next to me under my sister's bed, angry at me for snapping the leg off of one of her old dolls. Talking about not knowing if there was a place to fix it in town. Then hearing how much it hurt her to have me break this doll from her childhood. And then watching it sit on the shelf in her closet for years, wondering when she was going to get around to fixing it.

There's the building and the breaking and the building...

There's a certain sense that when you are driving up to the mountains, to where you've done days and days of driving and moving to get to, that there's no way that this small city is really it. That if I somehow keep driving I'll find somewhere hidden and new. That the journey just keeps continuing.

I talked to one of my good friends today who is moving down here from Chicago at the end of the year. We talked about writing and careers and feeling like what you are doing is making sense in being a part of this world. I felt like she was right next door already, and that things and time had just passed. That I was going over to her place to have dinner with her husband and baby boy. That now both my friends from Chicago were back to go on hikes and start a garden in their backyard. It's so weird how things feel that way sometimes.

There was the beautiful Colorado River while in Arizona, green against red, and the poverty across the whole country and into Yukon, Oklahoma, birthplace of Garth Brooks. And a mule ride on the north ridge of the Grand Canyon. And moving away from this strange place that I called home for a year, and into a new place that I'd always seen as my home. I want to shout to everyone I see, including the CVS girl who tells me she's had too much candy at the checkout counter, or the snobby checkout girl at the overpriced downtown green grocery store: "I'm here to do something amazing!" I promise. "I'm getting started tomorrow!" And that's here now.

Getting used to things, even final things, is an adjustment. After being with friends driving across the country and then in Boone and Charlotte I just can't seem to quite adjust. I don't know the yoga instructors and everything is so new again. So I wonder why I'm doing this, again. Why it matters so much to me to be here.

And it's that question of what you do when you get to the end of a journey. I guess you just start a new one.

This Fucking Yogini is Eastbound...

Tomorrow night my friend from Kentucky is flying into Las Vegas and my other friend is driving in from L.A. We are going to one last celebration and one last yoga class before my Kentucky friend and I drive back east. I haven't written on this blog in over a month and I really don't know why. I guess real things just caught up to me. And now I'm leaving Las Vegas on Monday, headed for those North Carolina mountains.

I signed up for yoga teacher training which starts in October in Asheville, NC. I've always talked about it and now I'm finally going. It's a whole new chapter and experience. Beginning with a mule ride across the north ridge of the Grand Canyon and ending with the 4th of July in Boone. I will be spending time with friends in the mountains. Because the more I think about it, the more I realize that the lifestyle that was laid out for me at birth is not the lifestyle that I am going to live.

I spent one of my last nights in Vegas on a moonlight hike in Red Rock Canyon. We stayed up all night on those rocks and watched the sun come up over that red-orange sky. I feel like I've spent my time here well. And I know I will miss the friends I have made here. I always do. There are amazing people everywhere, it's just a matter of finding the ones you love and staying with that.

There's a million reasons not to go. I just moved out here, the economy is not doing as well as usual, gas prices are high, I don't have a job yet, my health insurance will run out at the end of the month, etc. So maybe just a couple of reasons.

Growing up, I always thought my relationship with my parents would get easier the older I got. But it just hasn't. They were so angry at me for creating my life out here in Las Vegas, and now they don't understand my decision to move back east. In my mom's eyes, I am being irresponsible. She told me over the phone that I can't always follow my dreams. I can't imagine ever giving that up, especially at 26. Explaining that each new experience leads to the next, that compassion and acceptance are easier than judgement and opposition, is lost when it comes to parent-child relationships in my family. We have never seen eye to eye. And it has cost us our relationship. And at this point I don't know what to do about it. I don't expect my mom to change, but I do know who one of my very first students will be.

I'm under the belief that yoga is the key to challenging everything you've ever thought about in your life. It's the key to happiness and love and all that corny bullshit that we constantly shy away from in life. To peace and change. I believe opposition to yoga is the idea that life is harder than we think and that faith cannot carry us to a happy place. I believe that following one's dreams is always the path and daily yoga and meditation are key to figuring out the lifestyle that you want to lead.

I'm hoping to find peace with my parents. To continue to forgive and remember the things that amaze me about them. My mom's unending worry and love for her family. Her belief in my talents to do something amazing in this world. My dad's ability to pass no judgement. His talent for knowing and learning. When I picture my parents, who they really are, my mom is walking our dog Liza on the side street in the morning. My dad is out in the garden in a torn old t-shirt taking care of each and every plant. One is in the morning, just after the sun breaks, and there's that fog falling all over the road. The other is in the late afternoon on a Saturday, the sun starting to set slowly over the trees I used to hide behind when I was a child.

Knee Poem

It is almost like
I am perching
or like a kickstand
but it doesn't hold me up
just separates.

Ever since I can remember
it's been one knee out
like tree pose
only laying down
just to make space.

It's a habit I only broke once
for a couple of months
while we slept
knees into knees
just for a little while.

That first night you were gone
I lifted my knee up
like a warrior
defending myself
just because.

I had extra space
the length of my thigh
is what I gave you
muscles, blood, skin
just for you.

I Love Beards! Yes, Beards!

To all of the places that I have known. To all of the places that I have known. To all of the places that I have known. To all of the places that I have known!

I have this visualization of my best friend sitting in first chair next to her rival saxophone player, the heavy brass instrument hanging beside her. He only got to be first chair about twice during middle school, because everyday after school she was forced to practice for two hours to keep that chair. To keep that passion of music. And then when high school came she divided her time between drama after school and marching band before. After graduating from college she moved to New York City and then L.A. to pursue a career in acting. She left that saxophone in her parents house in Virginia.

About a month or two ago when she finally gave up her dreams of being an actress, she started a music blog (it's linked underneath my faded beach picture, selectbypush) and started writing music reviews for popmatters.com. She also got an internship at a record label to really start getting into the business. Her blog is all about the bands that are going to be at Coachella, where we are meeting in a couple of days.

I don't feel like she's really giving anything up, actually. And for her, music never really went away. She's just rediscovering her passion for it. She's brought out that old saxophone and she's finally starting to play it in front of people.

It is called Bunkerhill Saloon and it's on the outskirts of downtown old Vegas. It's basically on a street of apartment complexes and I think as we pull up that we could discover another side of Vegas tonight. When we walk in the opening band is still playing and a couple people are dancing at this old bar and I see beards and flannel shirts and I think: this really could be something. I'm immediately in North Carolina, but this lasts about twenty minutes.

By the time Akron/Family sets up their equipment themselves, half the crowd is drunk or has left. There's about ten of us who are really interested in what's going on and as they begin to play some ass hole by the bar yells: "you suck!" The bass player gladly dedicates their set to him before the second song. It's just three of them, and they are loud, folk, electric, and amazing. I think I'll leave the music writing to my best friend and my roommate, but it truly was one of the best shows I've ever been to. It was seven bucks, a couple of PBR's, and a reminder of how important music is to me in my life.

After the show we tell them what a great job they did, my roommate buys a t-shirt and we say we'll see them at Coachella this weekend. Thursday night we are heading out to the campground after my roommate gets off of work. I was going to go into work an hour early today to get the schedule ready for when our manager gets back into town. We've had a couple of people quit recently, so I've already got to adjust the schedule accordingly. I'll never really know what makes people tick or how people find what they are passionate about, but I feel like something is tilting in my life, spilling over.

I'm already late sitting here writing this blog. I think I'll stay and keep listening to music with my patio door open. I think I'll go into work when I'm supposed to and know that I can get it done later. For right now, I just want to hang out and enjoy some music and think about this weekend...

Blogaversary.

One year ago I started this crazy thing. So I officially know exactly what I was doing a year ago today. Whole Foods, gas prices (75 cents cheaper), Virginia Tech shootings, going to work, the way the weather felt that day, listening to Wilco, going to coffee.

Honestly, I'm just having a weird day. But I wanted to write because it's been one year and it's weird. Just having a blog and writing about myself is weird.

While Hiking at Red Rock...

rocks hardwired to other rocks slipping underneath your gray newbalance shoes luon sticking to a cactus picked out over raw hummus and smoothies and sun gazing over a fake lake paddle boats old school style any style two men smoking cigarettes and one has risked his life for the other you can just tell by the way they swagger around each other and you sit and enjoy some fake grass after trying to catch up on the way up the desert mountain and on the way down you were like a cat, impressive and red cheeks and nose dry in that desert and the strip was tiny, you crushed the stratosphere with your index and thumb all those people making bad decisions below you and earth and breeze and some cashews and dates pictures being taken and remembered one after another with sweat frozen with dust to your forehead and it's so nice to have a day off and see the red rocks in the distance one after another laying on each other so soft and curled up and sitting, one leg on top of the other, you talk about things that have been, travels to what you considered the edge of the earth and to you it's impossible to only have been as far east as Chicago but then again the last time you were in Portland you were four and things scramble on the way down you turn and scale a mountain and miss a yoga class and things don't seem to bother you as much as they used to even as he moves way out ahead of you and even when on the way up you pointed out your family dynamic in a group of friends your mom in the car your dad way up ahead and sister mediating in the middle brother off missing somewhere and you taking a break near the bottom and when you see them at the top the you has wondered off and made it up first and you take a picture of yourself and he then takes a picture of you in a bridge pose and yoga makes you heal and wonder about these kinds of things wandering around the mountain and you both can even see Utah from here and then driving to go get those smoothies and sit by the lake you stop by a neighborhood with hills of fake grass and both see your teenage years in a flash of smoke and you put your broken sunglasses on, crooked on your sunburned nose and you move slowly to something tired, something rested, something unheard of before now...

I think I'll spend my whole life deciding if this is true or not.

I woke up on Sunday morning in an awful mood that I just couldn't shake. Even though I had plenty of sleep the night before and I was getting ready to go to a Steve Ross workshop across town. He was the first person I ever did yoga with, on the Oxygen network, in my living room in Virginia. In the house I grew up in my kitchen is attached to the living room, so my family was hanging around as I tried to concentrate on postures. "Does that really do anything?" my brother asked me mid-pose. "Can't you see I'm sweating?"

My dad firmly believes (he only firmly believes in anything, it's never a half-assed thing for him) that people are born with certain dispositions. Who they are is who they are, and there is no changing that. There are certain things one can do throughout life to adapt to situations, but generally people are set in their ways from very early on.

My new roommate and I went together to the yoga class; he went to a coffee shop to write while I went to my yoga class. In the car and earlier that morning I was just being an ass hole the whole time. I couldn't shake this bad mood and I was taking it all out on him. Telling him I needed space and that I was one of those abnormal people in that I needed time to myself for about two hours a day or I get really impatient with people around me. It was a similar conversation to the ones we used to have when we were dating. I just went right back to that formula.

It's all really silly, anyway. Even as I got to the yoga class, one I'd been looking forward to all month; I couldn't really process how I was feeling. The kind of yoga that Steve Ross teaches is relaxed but intense; basically he wants you to eventually come into your own true self. At least, that's how I see it. He plays hip hop music and expects you to not take yourself so seriously. Toward the end of the class he leaned down to me while I was stretching in a hip-opening pose and said: You're quiet today. Is it working for you? I stubbornly answered : YES!

Tomorrow, of all days...

Stack his journals, pictures, clothes, and razor on the chair in the living room. Go through the box of pictures, pick out the best ones with him and his brother, the best ones from your wedding, one with your son playing his violin, and one of your daughter sitting on the front steps. Wash the clothes, throw away the razor, and start to read through his journal for good poems about his life, about nature, about Buddhism. Stop at the poem about your son, about the day the three of you trekked through a snow storm to get him to his violin lessons, about how you were the only ones who showed up that day and proudly announced that you were from New England. About time, and change, and how later when your son came home one weekend from college he was different. He had grown a beard. And the poem compared him to a snow angel, and how his arms grew wings and carried him away. He wrote about how he missed his son now that he was no longer living at home. How he didn’t feel like he knew him anymore.

Don’t play any Johnny Cash, it’ll make you cry. Wash the sheets so they don’t smell like him anymore. In fact: vacuum, clean the counters, take out the recycling, sweep the front porch, move each vase of flowers from the living room to the dining room and then back. Smell the flowers and know that in two weeks, they, too, will be gone. Get out all the necessary paperwork. Find it in his desk drawers and in the safe in the attic. Look at the paperwork; thumb through it like it makes sense, like you can concentrate on it, then put it away until tomorrow. Until your brother is there because he is good at handling all of the necessaries. Take Zeke on his walk, and remember his Frisbee. Wait.

Touch the New York Times Magazine that has sat on your couch since the day they called you out of class. Since the day your students wondered when you'd be back to teach English, and since they started sending cards saying: “We’re sorry for your loss.” Look again at the magazine and remember how you took it with you to the Emergency Room that day, thinking you would have to wait a couple hours before he was out of the hospital. Remember the nurses’ face as you asked to see him.

Fluff the couch cushions and put a kettle on the stove. Line all of the different teas on the clean counter. Get out the milk and sugar. Remind yourself to go to the store to get more milk. You’ll do that in a couple of days. When things have settled down and no one is leaving dinner or flowers on your doorstep. Wait.

Give long, intense hugs and watch your son and daughter pull their luggage across the room. Watch them hang up their coats, as they tell you that people will be there soon and that everything is ready and the food is on the way and that everything is going to be okay.

Show your daughter the flowers that a family of one of his students sent, and watch her scoff at the thought of it. Because to her, flowers don’t represent comfort, but anger and rage, and the replacement that smells up a corner of the room. Watch her walk into the kitchen and immediately begin to cry when she sees the calendar hanging on the wall, marked with School Staff Meetings at 7 p.m., a trip to Irvine, California, and then, on March 22nd, Ralph dies. Look at her touch the calendar, and then walk outside to the back porch and pick up the phone to call her friends in California.

Listen to each story about how he shaved his beard just above the lip so that a deaf student could read his lips. About how he wanted each student to feel comfortable in his classroom. Listen to how he took a deer off the highway and brought it to a butcher because it was such a waste not to. About how he drove past it on the highway twice and then decided to pull over, wrap it in his coat, and place it in the trunk. How you told him to take care of it, because a hanging deer in the middle of a Philadelphia suburb wasn’t exactly normal. But neither was he.

Watch as your two brothers and their families read about how he found God in nature, and how he hiked as much of the Appalachian Trail as possible. Until his sixty year-old body couldn’t take it anymore. Until he hit Pennsylvania and the green and mountains had become too much for his knees. Listen to your neighbors tell people how he darted across the street the first day they moved in to carry a coffee table and welcome them to Philadelphia. Watch your brother hand you a picture of him dancing a few months ago at your nephew’s wedding. Remember how he slid his thin legs across the marble floor, suspenders held tight against his chest, eyes closed in harmony with his own tune.

Listen to his patience, whispering in your ear that it will all be over soon, that things will settle down. That he will call any minute and tell you why he decided to ride his bike to the hospital the day he felt his shortness of breath, how a young girl was in the elevator when he hit his head on the rail, and fell over from a sudden heart attack. How lucky he was to be in the hospital, but how unlucky he was to have a small piece of plaque in an artery of his heart. How he loved the metal of that bike, and how much he appreciated the hospital returning it when he couldn’t. When he was returned in ashes and air and flowers and food and family you haven’t seen in many months, even years.

Wonder how you will survive the ceremony the next day. Wonder why his death is the only time his whole family could be in one room. Slowly watch people leave your house. Feel them hug you. Feel the cool air that brushes over you just after a hug, and then feel nothing.

***

Three years ago tomorrow I was living in Boston, across town from where my uncle grew up. I was in this writing group that met out at bars once a week and that week we decided to do a list writing exercise. I had just gotten back from my uncle's funeral when I wrote this, sitting at my kitchen table. I don't begin to know how my aunt was feeling, but I do know that when I wrote this, things began to heal for me. Even some of the truths I knew at the time, or some of the truths I've heard later, after I wrote this, don't matter in this writing exercise. In my small family, we don't always talk about things in the most candid way, but my aunt contains something very true and real about her. Especially after her husband died, it seems. Maybe nows the time to start writing a letter or email. I want to hear stories about her and my dad and their brother. And I don't even want to bother with the truth.

Bring on the Belated Birthday Wishes...

Amazingly enough I don't even mind the traffic in Los Angeles. Maybe it's just because I don't live here or maybe it's because every time I visit my best friend I want to pack up my stuff and move out here. Work for lululemon and do yoga and hang out on the beach in California. Surround myself in that creative air. Because that's really how I see LA, anyway.

Then come the excuses. It's too expensive. It's too superficial. It's too ridiculous. The biggest thing I've learned from living in Las Vegas: it's what you make of it.

A year ago yesterday I was hanging out with my two best friends in LA as well. It was the week I decided to move out here and quit my career counseling job. It was the week I starting realizing and feeling more like myself. I remember getting calls from east coast friends early in the morning last year, so I put my phone in the other room. This year, all my early morning calls came from west coast friends.

The silliest part about birthdays is it forces you to look back to what you were doing the year before. And each year, I'm amazed at how different my life is. How many changes I've gone through in that one year. Quitting my first real job. Moving across the country. Two break-ups. Starting a new job. Financial struggles. And I know that in a year, things will be completely different again. Maybe I won't be just visiting LA.

We took a yoga class yesterday where the instructor focused on duality. Meaning: bringing how you feel onto the mat and off of the mat. At one point he had us in a pose breathe out something that was bothering us or causing us pain. And instead of layers upon layers of things pouring into my head, some slow, subtle thoughts came to mind about what I can change in my life. What I know I can just breathe out and let go. And for the first time, I think I truly understood that.

There's a Lobster Behind the Fridge.

I wrote this blog in my head while driving to yoga this morning and I have a feeling that it's not going to come out quite right. I mean, I sometimes try really hard not to write about things that are really personal to me (hence the recycling rant below) but at some point I just have to do it.

I was wearing our orientation green t-shirt and we were sharing a bed in Venice, Italy. I had known something was wrong for awhile, but admitting it at this point was impossible. I remember wishing I could go back in time to when things were good and clear. I think I've written about the break up with my college boyfriend and me before.

Months later, on a fall it's-getting-really-cold-soon night in Boston we were on my front porch at five in the morning arguing about being in each other's lives. He was too polite to tell me to just let go, but that's exactly what I needed to do.

I have this weird reoccurring daydream where I'm talking to my son or daughter (it changes, depending on the day) and we are up in my attic (it's the scary wooden one in Leesburg where I used to creep around trying to find old toys I had grown out of or Christmas gifts my mom had hidden from us) and we are going through a box of old pictures and we stumble onto this picture of me and another man and my son or daughter asks: Mommy, who's that? It's seriously that corny and unassuming. And I go on to explain who it was, that I loved him at some point in my life but that I love their dad now. And that's it.

I will be the first to admit I'm not the best at letting go of people in my life. After that argument on the porch we decided to not talk for a couple of months. Let things heal a little. It took our best friends wedding in North Carolina to bring us back together as friends.

And after that I dated my boyfriend from Boston for a year longer than I should have, to be honest. I didn't love and respect him the way he deserved and we both struggled with letting go in the end. And now he's got a job in Las Vegas and he's driving across the country on his way to take over the lease of my apartment. Even though I'm staying around Vegas for a little while longer, I'm excited to have another friend in this city. We can start over new.

I just got back into town last night from New Mexico. My mom and dad and sister were there, and we stayed in this little, Southwestern-style apartment. I knew my parents could hear the argument in their room, but I didn't care. I was back on that porch in Boston, but it was New Mexico vs. North Carolina in this one. Deciding to hurt each other. Because honestly, it was time to let go and I hadn't recognized that.

I woke up the next morning with most of all a sense of relief. My current daydream consists of an awkward Annie Hall moment in a bar in North Carolina months or even years from now. And I've had this one before. We are both exactly where we want to be in life, and after a great conversation over beers we finally relax, settle in, and then one of us has to go, so we stand up together, awkwardly sway in front of one another in an attempt to pick sides in a hug, and then turn and say good-bye. And this is at the very least.

It's a Wasteland.

On days when I'm feeling particularly selfish, I try to think of ways I can impact the world in a positive way. Why can't I find some way to make all of my ideas, and my ideals, a reality. That's basically at the core of everything.

When you recycle in Las Vegas, they take your bottles and cans and throw it all together into one big pile, supposedly to be separated at the landfill. At least, that's what they tell people. When you go on the recycling section of the city page it just loops you around in a circle. Six bags of recycling sit in my dining room, waiting to be taken out somewhere. But I'm convinced now that Las Vegas just doesn't recycle.

A couple of my friends and I were talking after work about making a documentary about the problem of no recycling in Vegas. The issues of no community or attachment to anything tangible, even if you try really hard. In thinking that the community here is one that is temporary, a wasteland that people come to to make money and leave. I came here for peace and discovered so much more, and now I'm ready to leave. I got what I wanted from Vegas, and can't imagine investing anymore than that.

This is where I fit into the problem. Of making things temporary. Of creating an idea about a documentary that really should be made, but probably won't in the end. When I was talking to my friend about energy and solar power in Vegas, and how we don't utilize the sun in this crazy city, he simply said, "if you think about it, Vegas shouldn't even really exist." He's right.

My friends and I drove up to Red Rock this past weekend and decided not to drive around the park area because there were too many cars. It felt all crowded and overused. "Vegas isn't that bad," they remarked. In the end, explaining what I've learned and grown from personally by making this move seems trivial. In the end, I feel guilty for living in such a self-indulgent city. When I see all the tourists walking around, gambling and spending, they seem to just want to take from the city this idea that something greater exists. That the world comes to Vegas in all its glory. In order for Vegas to exist, other parts of the world must suffer and go without. And at some point, some point soon, I can't be a part of that.

It's Valentine's Day.

Normally, I'd be happy about Valentine's Day. In fact, we had all these events in the store today and all in all I had a pretty good day. My friend from Kentucky texted me from the airport in Cincinnati that she was on her way and I told her I'd pick her up from the Vegas airport around midnight. That we might be going out with some of my friends to a battle of the sexes poetry slam in Caesar's Forum Shops. That doing that was enough of a welcome to Vegas.

Instead of that I get a text after yoga class that her flight got delayed and she'll be missing her connecting flight so she probably won't be able to make it out to Vegas this weekend. I cry right there in the yoga studio with my two friends who I met up with...because I really needed her to visit this weekend and I'd been looking forward to it for months.

So instead of going out I just took a bath and now I'm sitting here, stewing about how much I miss my friends and the east coast. Instead of investing in the amazing friends I have here I'm deciding on feeling sorry for myself tonight. Because that's just what I want to do.

Even though he's moved back across the country we still talk every so often. We sent each other Valentine's Day gifts but haven't been able to get a hold of one another all day. I find myself not wanting to talk about it to anyone because after not seeing him for a month and a half I can't even remember what he smells like, much less how I've been feeling about things lately. At some point I just decided to let things happen and see where it takes me. Loving someone is just something I've never been able to control. And I wouldn't want to, either.

Part of me wants to get out of bed and change into clothes, drive to the strip and hang out with friends. The friends I have here and now. Because I realized today that I have more friends in Vegas than I did in Boone even. And these are great people who I get to see almost every single day. But at some point you can't replace my friend from Kentucky or that feeling I get when I'm around him. But she's not on a plane on her way here and I'm still sitting here, waiting to see if my legs will move me to some kind of decision.

May it Always Be

We spend so much time (at least, I do) trying to live in the present. Going to yoga, relaxing, sitting and thinking, painting, waiting in traffic. It's all right here. All in all, things are pretty boring right now. And I kind of like it that way.

I've really started to like Las Vegas for it's energy, even though it's pretty quiet right now and even though on my way to and from work I see at least one accident each way. I passed by one today at the exact point where I got into mine a month ago. And it really didn't seem that long ago, especially from the feeling I get when the car in front of me slams on their brakes.

I tried for a very long time not to make decisions based on money, and last week they caught up to me. Because I quit my job last year I basically get nothing back from taxes even though I paid a ton (where do they go again?) and with the taxes on my new car plates I can bearly make rent. I have a friend who is moving here who might take over my lease, so I'd be free to leave whenever I want. Or at least find a temporary place while I'm still in Vegas. But I'm at the point where I don't want things to be temporary again.

I really have nothing to write about. Things are just keepin' on.

Out with the old...

For awhile I seriously thought the worst thing in the world that could happen to me would be to get into a car accident. Thinking: I have no friends out here in Vegas, the people are mean, and my health insurance is still in paperwork form. And I figured I had at least three or four more months with the Honda.

I have to admit I freaked out a little bit. While trying to get from the middle exit lane to the side of the road on a busy highway I wondered where my phone was. That I needed to call my dad and get him out here immediately to help me. That I'd just smacked into someone who hit another car and the honda was smoking on the side of the road. I called one of my friends from work who came right over to help me. Without question, she was there for me.

Maybe things happen to test you to find out a different perspective on a place. I've heard horror stories about car accidents in Vegas. But everyone was nice and supportive, including my dad. When I called crying, yelling that I hated Vegas and just wanted to come home, that I'd had enough of this place, he reminded me of my goals and how self-destructive it can be to not be completely present while living in a place. That North Carolina will always be there.

My parents helped me buy a new car. I explained to the dealer that I was going to pay them back each cent and that I wasn't that kind of daughter and that I really, really wished I had the money to do this on my own but that I've got this new job that I love but it's not the best pay but I'm really good at budgeting and just happy to have parents who will help me negociate for a new car after I've wrecked the old one. When I was fifteen I backed that exact car into a tree in the driveway. My dad calmly understood that it was a mistake but my mom was really upset with me. This time, she just reminded me why she wanted me to get my health insurance at work all taken care of. I think I just assume my parents will never change despite everything that happens in a day. Despite it all.

The heart pumps blood to itself before it reaches any other organ in the body.

When I was younger and would get in trouble my dad used to make me sit on the steps and think about what I'd done. He would always tell me to quit feeling sorry for myself whenever I told him that I hated him and wished I had different parents. When you have opposing values from your parents, it's really hard to ever see eye to eye. There's always something there pulling at both of you, and sometimes things just snap.

I've spent the last three weeks feeling sorry for myself. Wanting to run away from this place that's so awful. Wanting things to work out when I haven't even realized how much we both created stories about each other. I created a story that he was going to leave, and so he did. But things are never really that simple. And if they were, they would never really be worth it.

We have a January challenge at work to see who can go to the most fitness classes for the whole month. I did yoga in the middle of the Fashion Show mall on the strip in Las Vegas, Nevada today. I write it all dramatically because in the middle of class I realized exactly where I was. And it was incredible.

As part of my job we write our one, five, and ten year personal, business, and fitness goals. It can seem intimidating at first considering my goals and perspective change every week but there are always certain things that stay the same.

Five Year (November 2012-30 years old)
I am being: To make this happen I am being ambitious, creative, peaceful, and organized.
• I live in Asheville, North Carolina, having successfully opened a lululemon athletica as store manager or community coordinator.
• I lead a GREAT staff of people, motivating them to achieve their goals.
• I am going through yoga teacher training.
• I am a published author in small magazines and am working on a book to be published.

Five Year (November 2012-30 years old)
I am being: To make this happen I am being environmental, stable, and content.
• I drive a Prius car.
• I own a house that I will completely redo to be environmentally friendly, as well as remodeling my house by going to garage sales and making new furniture.
• I contribute to the Asheville community through lululemon, yoga, and volunteering.
• I am in a passionate, amazing relationship (possibly married).

I feel silly sharing these now knowing how much will change. For now what I'm working on is being able to do a freakin' headstand alone, not up against a wall, during yoga. And to be able to breathe calmly for fifteen seconds while doing it.