I could be anywhere right now

I'm moving so fast that I look still. And I'm waiting.

6AM

when it's quiet..
run the shore
when the sun kisses the roof tops...
cool
when everyone's nice from the streets to the Starbucks...
smile
Good morning.
It's gonna be a hot one today.
Stay nice...

letting go...

Letting go...
we talk about that all the time in yoga.
I talk about it all the time in yoga.
And here I am...
in the ultimate position to let go and yet...
I think about the trapeze. The hard part isn't the heights, or letting the feet release from the platform to swing in mid air, it's letting go of the bar that releases you to the net below.
What's below?
What's beyond?
What happens next?
Even if you see, it's still hard. It's giving yourself up to something else.
What's else?
Where's else?
Are you there?
Am I gonna like it?
I can swing like a monkey, tree to tree. I can keep in motion, that's me.
But when it comes to being still with the thoughts that it is now time...
to let go...
all I can do is keep swinging, keep moving.

I know it's almost time.
I always feel like I'm running late.
But I'm always on time.

I do the bare minimum, teach, eat, sleep, work out, work in.
I distract myself with people, emails, phone calls, facebooks and the like and even that is too much. It's all too much sometimes.

But it's only in that time, when I let go of it all, that I can listen to what I really need...

peace
peace
peace

om
om
om

home
home
home

My family has their story while I'm here and I hear from them and I hear the sad and the funny and I get off the phone and I only have the sad, cause I'm alone and there's no funny around me.

There's no funny when you are alone. Ask any commedianne.

My family lines my skin and it's pulsing with connection even though I feel so disconnected.

I talked to my mother the other day. She was crying so hard it vibrated my bluetooth. Then my bluetooth beeped, 'I'm done', it said. Then my phone beeped, 'I'm done,' it said.
But I'm not!!! I said.
I have only a few moments on the phone with my mother for updates from home and even that is interrupted by technology or deadzones that disconnect our conversation.
Now? I just want to be close to you and stupid technology is done. I'm not done.
What can I do?

What can I do.

What am I doing here?

Disconnected to my world here and their world there.

If I can just make my inhales match my exhales, we'll be together.

Right now, all I'm doing is inhaling and there's not much exhale to speak of.

Are you there yoga, it's me, Laurie. I need you now. I need something. I need. I don't know.

When I was home just a few short weeks ago, it was difficult, but I felt myself release because the noise from the rest of my life stopped so I could focus on what's most important. I felt like I was finally connected with it all. No bluetooth, timezone, just life and love, messy, yummy, snotty love. it was easy to integrate.

Love. Sounds cliche. So I'm a freekin' cliche.

Love is all you need to feel whole and let go.

I feel it there, like I've never felt in my life. Family.
I feel it here.
When I teach. Union, yoga.
I feel it here.
When I give, to others, there's nothing like it.
I don't want anything else. Take my money, home, job. Just give me the comfort of love, even if death is hanging out in the living room while I'm making grilled cheese in the kitchen.
There's a giggle in there. And a sigh. Oh my.

Home is here but I'm on my own.
In your 30's it gets a little old, on your own.
We all strive for that connection that makes us feel comfortable enough to let go, feel safe, breathe in and out.

I'm in between. In the air. Hanging on with the net below, shoulders and belly heavy with grief and a few too many kale chips from the night before and years...years and years.

I'm ready to let go, no, not yet. ok, now, if I could just get my fingers make it happen, the rest will follow.

Breathe.

As my dad takes one finger off at a time, I feel a surge within, where work no longer remains priority, but fun, risk, crazy, impulse and devil may care creep up and push my butt. I think of that song by Seal, Crazy, 'Never gonna survive unless we get a little crazy.'

My dad has never been impulsive and crazy, but I feel that his letting go is giving me more strength to live a little deeper, a little 'funner', a little happier, in light of his lack thereof.

I feel that as my dad lets go to the net below, he gives me more life to live in a way that doesn't mean just work, goals, priority and drive.

Drive...
We are both drivers.
I've known him best while he was at the wheel and I was next to him.
We call mom for the road...what's for dinner?
After the question is answered, it's just the smooth long road ahead and it's him and I and music and windows rolled down and dewey, dirty east coast air and west side highway that pushes full and wide into suburbia and we are free.
Him and me and miles to go. From Boston to NY. NY to Boston. NY to LA and LA to NY. Airport to Airport.
My dad and I have the road and no plans and no words but whatever comes up.
And we're always on time.
Our cuticles are always raw from the stress of traffic.
I will never have good nails because of him.
We are always on the same road.
We speak the same language. Quiet.
We speak the same language. Words, too many and none of them ever say I love you.
But I feel it anyway. Talk about the weather and I know you love me.
Talk about your job and I know you mean to say you miss me.
Talk about cutting the grass and I know you are telling me you wish I would move closer to you and mom.
Talk about gas prices and I know you mean you are proud of me.
We speak the same language, music, and I remember where I came from and how I got here.
I only wanted to make you love me.
More.
And more.
And that will never stop.
So I swim the deep dark ocean or heavily clorinated pool to bring me closer to you.
You are the salt, the chemicals that dry my hair and skin.
I hit a ball or write a phrase and you are in the thread, the ink.
I fly away and you are in the air that carries me from coast to coast daring me to live my life.

God damn it. No yoga pose in the freekin' world or breathing technique or meditation can prepare me for what's next.
I try, but it's not freekin' working.

But it's the only thing I can do.

I think if I wanted one more thing, just one more thing, it would be for him to get into the car, ask if my seat belt was buckled and get on the road. I don't care which road it is.
East side, westside, north or south bound, Rolling Stones or Paul McCartney. It's his choice and I'm just along for the ride. I'll always learn your lesson.
This is our last stop and I love that man. He's driven me and my family crazy but he taught me how to drive...
my life...
and let go...
kicking, screaming, holding on, swearing, bitching, complaining and f-cking out of his mind crazy.
but still...
letting go.
It's not the most ideal yogi way. But it's the only way for me. And it's the only connection I understand and have in my head while I'm here, alone.
Yoga isn't always beautiful poses and peace.
Yoga is f-cking life and it's messy and miserable and amazing. It's falling and crying. It's not graceful and pretty. It's working it all out so you can work it all in.
The beauty comes from the bliss you find in the misery. The lotus in the f-cking mud.
My dad's right side, the wheel at his hands and the music playing, that's bliss. That's yoga.
And that's all I can hold onto right now, while I'm here, while I teach, alone, until I'm home.
Where love is...
finding the light, red, then green and going...
letting go.
I'll be home soon.
I don't have any bags.
Just wait for me at the loading zone and we'll go..
let...
go together.

There's something...

There's something about an onion.
What is it?
I heard that if you put a bowl of cold water next to you as you chop it that the tears won't flow.
There's something about an onion.
And even if there is none in sight, tears flow.
If you eat a raw onion, there is this feeling within, hot, stable, sensational from the taste buds to the toe tips.
I chopped an onion and ate the whole thing. I've never done that before. I feel it everywhere and now it's coming out my pores and my breath.
Sorry.
There's something about an onion.
I needed to feel and there are worse things you could do.
That gives you a reason to shed tears, even if you are the hardest person out there that doesn't cry, even when watching, 'Terms Of Endearment.'
I'm tough.
Onions are tough. You don't look at them and weep. You have to cut a little into the layers to get where it really makes the water works flow.
I'm a fucking onion. I won't cry when I talk to my mother or when I see my father fall off the bed. I won't cry when I see my sister get angry or the dog hide in fear. I won't cry. I won't cry.
I went to lunch with a dear friend the other day.
We went to a place that favored my fare, vegan, raw, whatever, just tell me it is.
We had good conversation. The food was delish.
The music that played in the background, great...until a very sentimental version of 'The Rainbow Connection' played and I lost it. Over my kale and beet salad, I lost it.
And the fucking Rainbow fucking connection. Give me a break.
I don't know when I'm going to lose it.
I have a student/teacher friend of mine that lost her father.
She said that it's ok, to want to come home and cover myself with the blanket. That it's ok, not to wash my face when I go to bed. That even the easiest tasks become difficult.
I wish there was a rule book or manual to tell me the like.
Something that told me it was ok, to be how I am right now.
It would be different if I were home with my mother and sisters. They find humor and laughter among the hell cancer brings to a family. But I'm alone in LA, with only the emails and phone calls that remind me of the hell they are going through while I live 'normally' and deal with the loss and demise of my dad from a far.
I can talk to them and hear the stories, but I am not there.
I am only dealing in the way that hasn't been written, hasn't been told. I'm dealing and I don't know how.
I take a yoga class, run miles like someone is chasing me.
I eat a raw onion.
I walk home alone with a smile on my face, exchanging pleasant glances with strangers, then I hear a song and I am weeping... in public. Thank god for the base ball cap and sun glasses. Thank god for the hollywood uniform. I fit in. It's not plastic surgery or fame, just sadness. Thank goodness we can hide sadness so well here.
I gulp. I pull back. I'm a woman. Perhaps it's PMS, a break up. I hope the others think such triviality.
I walk home with the beautiful beach to my left and blinding water in my eyes. I can't walk another step. Please help. Please hug. Please.
But I don't know when it's going to hit. When the breath will be fowl, when the tears will flow. When my face will morph into something other than peace and complacency and find pain.
I'm like an onion. Buy me, I'm good for you!
Then cut into me and it's not the most pleasant. Even eating an onion is not the most pleasant.
But I keep buying them and cutting into them. Thank god for burgers. They muffle the pain. Thank god for friends and family, they muffle the pain.
There's something about an onion, that made me think of my life and where I'm at. Layers upon layers to get me here. Tears upon tears to get me here. Many burgers and many fries. Many friends and many family that make it all better going down.
Never eat an onion raw, by yourself. At least have a burger and bun near by or a kid with sparklers to avert your attention.
There's something...
and I'm still trying to figure out what it is.

Technodreamin...

Just thought this was funny...
Last night, I was having a dream that my blackberry shut down while I was texting...who, I don't know, probably someone fabulous, then the little hour glass showed up and it instantly became the iPhone and I was able to touch screen everything, download the light sabre and play.
Then my phone rang next to my bed and I was awoken, to my old beat up blackberry, which I love, but only reminded me that I slept in too long...8AM, how dare I!!?
However, I dreamt about my blackberry. I dreamt about an iPhone. What the heck is wrong with me that my dreams are now consisting of technology?
How did I get here?
Perhaps wanting what I don't have? I mean, how does one interpret that dream?
There was no flying, no water or other symbolism, just technology.
My how dreams have changed.
Whatever happened to dreaming about money, tropical paradises and McSteamy?
Message sent.