Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray)

1. Morning walks. The other day, we walked by the CSU Flower Trial Gardens, (stuff like this is why I LOVE living in a college town), which is within walking distance of the first apartment Eric and I lived in together, the basement of a cute little house in Old Town Fort Collins. We only paid $325 a month, which some of the time we split with a roommate. In the current market, just one bedroom in a shared space costs at least $600-1000!

As we were on our way to our old house, I asked Eric if he remembered the time his friend Dan borrowed our charcoal grill for a BBQ he was hosting, and how since he didn’t have a car and only lived a few blocks away, he walked home while dragging it behind him like he was walking a dog. Someone saw him and called the police, who he had to bring back to our house to confirm that he wasn’t stealing our grill. Then I pointed out a house on the corner just a block away and reminded him about the time they had a yard sale and we bought their dining room table set, and because it was so close to our house, we just carried it back, made two trips to get the full set back home.

Eric said the last time he’d walked by the house, it looked smaller, and he was right. They’d moved the fence closer to the house in back so that there’s room to park a car in the alley and they added a weird rickety narrow roof deck on to the same garage that we never used 30 years ago because it seemed like it could collapse at any moment. We didn’t have much when we lived there, when we first started out, but there was lots of love and a whole bunch of good times that made good memories.

2. Ringo. He got up from a nap yesterday and was limping. He has arthritis and one of the spots where it flairs up is in his elbows. We gave him some pain meds and did some cold lazer on his elbow that was sore. He woke up this morning already feeling better but he’ll be on restriction and meds for at least a few more days, if not a week or two. I feel so sad and anxious when he doesn’t feel good but I’m so grateful to have the resources I need to help him and that he’s such a good sport about it all.

3. Practice. I am getting ready to fly out to Oregon and spend a week visiting family. I haven’t flown since COVID and my people keep getting older every time I go, so practice is helping me cultivate the wisdom and compassion, the ease and calm I want to bring with me. I also am going to the beach for a few days which is always so good for me. I’m sad Eric and Ringo will be here without me, but so happy to come back to them after my visit.

4. Eric. He made a strawberry pie for us this week. And on the morning of the day I was teaching yoga this week, he came to tell me he was going to the gym and I asked if he could help me load my yoga stuff into my car before he left, and he said, “I already did.” This October will be our 30th wedding anniversary and I would absolutely marry him again.

5. My tiny family, small house, little life. There absolutely is no place I’d rather be, no one I’d rather be here with.

Bonus joy: Fat Boy ice cream sandwiches, writing with my Wildish Writing group on Friday mornings, Hendrix is WALKING!!! <3, afternoon rain storms, cucumbers and zucchini and tomatoes and flowers from our garden, finding the charger for Ringo’s cold lazer after looking for a really long time and almost ordering a new one, listening to podcasts, leftovers, sunshine, good neighbors, other people’s dogs and kids, crossing things off my to-do list, watermelon gummies, grapefruit drink mix, Asian cucumber salad with cucumbers from our garden, green grapes, spinach & artichoke hearts and greek yogurt dip with salty chips, lemonade, those yummy sandwiches from The Pickle Barrel, pay day, getting all the laundry done, zucchini bread and muffins with toasted walnuts, the yellow flowers and bees on our golden rain trees, cone flowers and daisies, hummingbirds, trees, watching TV with Eric at night, making each other laugh, making each other less anxious, reading in bed at night while Eric and Ringo sleep.

1. Truth: Everyone has a unique perspective. This morning, I watched this Instagram reel. Both the video and the caption are powerful reminders that, “Understanding that other points of view exist is the beginning of wisdom.” It reminded me of the comic where there is a number on the ground with two people standing on either side of it. One claims it’s a 6 and the other insists it’s a 9. Both of them are “right,” they simply are seeing things from a different angle. It’s good to remember that individually, we don’t have all the answers, don’t see the full truth of things, don’t possess an entire or complete awareness or understanding. It’s good to be curious, to try and understand things from different perspectives, AND to understand why you might see things the way you do, AND to not see any way as fixed or solid or True. (Of course, there are extreme perspectives that fall outside this logic).

2. Truth: Other people and their perspectives inspire us. I watched another Instagram reel this morning from Hadley Vlahos, a hospice nurse who just published a book of stories from her work, what she’s learned by caring for people who are dying, and in it she talked about the two kinds of people who inspire us: those we want to be like and those who show us how not to be. Both are equally inspiring and maybe you need both to find your path somewhere in the middle. One encourages you to keep showing up and moving forward, and the other keeps you from getting stuck or lost and quitting.

I was also thinking about this after hearing of Sinéad O’Connor’s passing. Even though the family’s statement didn’t share a cause of death, based on her honesty about her lifelong struggles, it’s hard not to guess at why she’s gone. It made me think about how some of the people who inspire us, who make art that makes us feel less alone and keep us from giving up, feel so alone and sad that they give up. Sometimes what the good ones do for us they can’t do for themselves and that’s incredibly sad.

3. Truth: You can trust yourself. I had a decision to make yesterday so I did a Yoga Nidra practice to get into a relaxed enough state that I could hear the truth of what I wanted. (Not trying to be cryptic: My Sunday morning yoga class needs a new regular teacher. I was invited to take over and I was trying to decide if I wanted to take it on.) I didn’t immediately have clarity because it was so nice to be asked, to be seen as qualified, as “good enough.” Also, pre-covid, eventually teaching more was my intention. And yet, it wasn’t an immediate and wholehearted “yes.” During my yoga nidra practice, I had the sense of things falling into place around me, a return or a restart, a clear path, which I could have easily mistaken as meaning I should say yes. As I reflected more on it, I remembered that I am fundamentally wise and compassionate, and therefore can find my way simply by trusting myself. To make the decision, all I had to do was check in with what I really wanted, and it turns out it’s something other than teaching more yoga.

One wish: My wish for you, kind and gentle reader, is for you to trust yourself, to allow yourself to rest in a state of curiosity and self-awareness, and to never forget that you matter, that there most likely is someone out there who was or is inspired by you to keep going, keep trying, keep showing up with their heart open, to not give up.