Month: May 2019

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Stretch & Tone

“Ultimately spiritual awareness unfolds when you’re flexible, when you’re spontaneous, when you’re detached, when you’re easy on yourself and easy on others.” ~Deepak Chopra

Flexibility is something I’ve lived with pretty much my entire life. I remember my high school graduation, how much I reminded my uncle of how early I had to be there (he was supposed to be my ride), and how I still found myself flying after the city bus, racing down the street with my mortarboard cap under my arm, robe flapping in the breeze. At least the people on the bus wished me good luck.

I used to pride myself on not being like that, in being everywhere early, in being as dependable as Cupid on Valentine’s Day. I treated it like it was the biggest virtue, and it is important, but time has shown me everything isn’t quite as black and white as it seemed when I was judging my uncle (at 17). I hated this ability to be flexible on things that to me mattered more than others. But maybe it wasn’t about being flexible at all. Maybe it was about trying your best and life intervening. Continue reading “Stretch & Tone”

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A Treatise on Exhalation

I’ve been neglectful, really. Not the kind of regret that sits on a windowsill and judges, but rather the kind that pops up out of nowhere and reminds me that I’m a human being, that I’m connected to a larger universe of humanity (a horde, really) that exists in and for itself. It’s both outside of me, and a part of me in ways I can’t always quite fathom the way I probably should.

Being “in-semester” does that to me.

For days on end, in-semester, the world shrinks down for me into seven classes, some on the Tuesday/Thursday cycle, and others revolving around Monday/Wednesday/Friday. Each one is its personal microcosm of energy (and the lack thereof, depending on what part of the semester we’re in). When I’m with that group they are the whole world. I engage, I am engaged, and I exhale when I have to move on from them. That’s my life.

But now I’m doing a different kind of exhale. Continue reading “A Treatise on Exhalation”