Wandering Mind

I think that's the phrase, or something like it. That was part of my experience over the weekend. I thought I had already said goodbye to my old house, my old job, but I guess not. I stayed in my house in buffalo for the last time over the weekend and it was actually a little hard. Whoever had been taking care of my yard (and I use the phrase VERY loosely) had not been doing a very good job and it was kind of painful to see all the work that I had done over the last three years overgrown with grass and weeds. I had a hard time not cleaning it all up… but it’s not mine anymore. The new owner moves in today. It kind of felt like seeing an old flame for the first time since the break-up and she’s so happy to see you but can’t talk because she has a date… Damn, and I thought I was happy to get rid of it. I know I made a good move, to be here and teaching, but I have to allow myself to realize that there were parts of my life there that were important and/or good and not just cut myself off from that past (which is a habit I tend to have). I think the hardest part about leaving the house for the last time was having a physical place where wonderful, horrific, and life changing events occurred and I could see the places where these memories occurred, I could still see them happening like an outside observer in their original context. Now I have to rely entirely on the conscious mind to not allow these events to slip away.

There were some wonderful moments this weekend, too. I was able to spend a lot of time with my friends from the studio. Due to certain self esteem issues I often have a hard time going back to visit places/friends because sometimes I have a hard time believing that people want to see me, or even give a shit that I’m visiting. And this trip wasn’t much different at the start but as I started seeing my friends I realized that they were as happy to see me as I was them. Buffalo never really felt like home to me, but being in the yoga studio again, and being with my friends, that felt like home to me, like family.

And the yoga was superb. Saturday was the Primary led by Maria Full of Grace. It was a wonderful class and a nice change of pace. It was a slower pace with longer holds than what I have been doing here and a wonderful reminder to slow down and experience the practice. My hips were crazy open, too. All the lotus and half lotus poses came so much more easily than they ever have. I had started to see a little opening in my hips on Thursday and Friday but the step to Saturday was huge. It was hotter than what I was used to so I’m sure that helped quite a bit. Sunday’s class was taught by the Matriarch of my yoga family and, as always, was dead on what I needed. I don’t understand how great teachers are able to teach a class of 20 people, all with different bodies, and different needs, physically, emotionally and spiritually, and everyone does the same poses, hears the same words and walks out saying “that was exactly what I needed.” But that’s what always seems to happen in her classes. It’s inspiring, as student and a teacher. The asana aspect of Sunday morning’s practice was…Hips! So I got a lot more work on getting the hips open. So the hips are a bit tight today but I’m sure once I practice they’ll be fine.

My task this morning is getting more prepared for my class that starts in two weeks… I think I’m going to take it in the direction of teaching it like a language. Teaching that this aspect of theatre is full of ideas they already know but are put together using different/new words and concepts. Allow the students the opportunity to experience as many aspects of this vocabulary as possible (in the time allotted…) from the physical to the theoretical and help them be able to use this vocabulary to expand the processes of their minds. Understanding the “pattern language” of technical theatre (a concept introduced to me through a book by Christopher Alexander). That’s my jumping off point for the morning.