The slush is melting. A reminder of the snow that brought such mixed feelings to so many people, from exaltation to revulsion to dread. For me, being the Gemini that I am, each moment held a different feeling. I had moments of absolute giddiness, joy and hope and others when I wanted to hide in a corner sucking on a bottle of wine or run like a lunatic screaming profanity….But regardless of what was happening outside (with the weather) or inside (with my emotions), I bundled up and ventured out to be in it. I wanted to experience the snow and ice and slush- to breathe in the elements and be in the land of the living.
In my snow adventures I was often surrounded by people- a mixture of people of all ages romping and playing as people often do when it snows in Seattle (which is rare). I walked in areas of my neighborhood that I rarely visit, and I smiled at people I most likely ignore on any other given day. This is what snow does for me- it helps to bring the introvert out so that I can look people in the eyes and begin a brief dialogue. It also…brings out the worst in me. The angry me who gets frustrated by people who refuse to give space for me to walk past them on the sidewalk and the me who frets about the homeless, the flooding, and the power outages. I obsess. I ruminate. I “kvetch”. And there’s no rhyme or reason. I’m downright unpredictable and crazed.
Metaphorically, the storm and my ensuing moods related to change in my life are like my experience of cancer. I had moments of insight and recognition of luminous beauty mixed with times when I wanted to scratch incessantly at an itch that never existed. And this is where my yoga practice so beautifully comes in. I can once again feel pain without having to own it as something that will never go away. I can be in the experience of joy or pain or itchiness and trust that this is just this moment. My truth does not have to be dictated by this discomfort or this elation. And when I freak out, I can look at that as another opportunity to learn. Which seems never ending…
Lately, I delight in thinking about Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra 1.1 (that’s right- the very first sutra)- Atha Yogānuśāsanam, or something like “now begins the exposition of yoga”. Even in the slush, yoga is being made.
faded scars and all 
Cabin fever…we don’t have that here because it simply doesn’t get cold enough…we are always able to exit stage left and retreat to the rest of the world and lick our wounds or our heated brains…Steve has his shed…I have my garden…it’s all the same, a place “away” where we can regroup and centre and prepare for reconnection. I like “kvetch”…I am a kvetcher of old. It tastes right on my tongue and feels like it belongs in my repertoire…I think that some of us are prone to passion. I think that we stress too much about our anger and our outbursts and we don’t realise that without them, the subsequent swing to the flip side of happiness and joy wouldn’t taste anywhere as sweet. We passionate people were born to rage as much as we were born to delight. Taming the rage is what age brings us…a slow awakening to our own place in the world and our responsibilities to it and the rage starts to bleed out of us. The integrated cycles of life and the ebb and flow of change can do that to a body and something I read recently “It’s not the strongest or the most intelligent who survive, it’s those who are able to adapt to change”. We can only live and learn and sometimes we need to repeat lessons over, and over, and over again until we learn them.