Juxtaposition

1. Truth: Trying to make money from my art, from what I love to do, can be confusing and frustrating. It seems like unless you are a celebrity yoga teacher or have a best selling book, the reality is that being a teacher and a writer aren’t very lucrative careers. I don’t get paid much (if anything) to begin with, even when I set my own price (which I’m honestly not very good at), and then I might have to pay to rent space and advertise, and a portion of what’s left after that goes to taxes, so there’s not much left in the end.

2. Truth: This could be a deal breaker. If I don’t figure out how to cobble together a reasonable income from that work, I won’t leave my job at CSU and devote myself to it fulltime, at least not for awhile, at least not while I keep finding reasons to stay for just a little longer — until the bathroom remodel is done or we buy a new car or we take that trip. Sometimes this makes me feel desperate, trapped, and sad. Sometimes it makes me want to give up.

3. Truth: Trying to do this as a “crossfade” is exhausting.  Laura Simms talks about the crossfade a lot, that time when you are still working your current job while also trying to grow your new career, so you essentially are doing two jobs. I feel some days like I’ve got three jobs, and then there’s the laundry, and bills that need paid, and my floor is covered in dog hair and the toilet needs cleaned and my dogs are bored and I can’t remember the last time I flossed my teeth and I really want to go to the gym if only I had the time or the energy — and that doesn’t even include the things I want to do because I love them, like read a book or watch a movie or take a nap or hang out with my husband.

One wish: That some how, some way, I can find the means and the magic to make it work. That we all can slow down, simplify things, and feel rested and nourished and satisfied with our lives, however we might choose to spend our days. That no matter how confused or tired or disappointed, we don’t give up.

1. Truth: I am mourning the end of the summer harvest, hard. When I went to the grocery store the other day, the watermelons were from Texas not Colorado, and the corn looked terrible, wilted with fat kernels that meant it would taste more starchy than sweet. Even though I bought the oregano and purple onion I’d need to make more roasted tomato soup, I’m not sure there are enough tomatoes left. Eric hasn’t brought me any strawberries from our plants out front for days. There’s only a few grasshoppers and the bees are almost all gone. The weather is cooler and the leaves are starting to finally turn and drop (much later than usual), and while I was ready for it to not be in the 80s every dang day, I’m sad.

2. Truth: There are times at my CSU job when I feel like I’m just wasting time. Yesterday it was when I was coding a departmental faculty and staff picture board, converting an older version to a page on our WordPress platform. It felt so tedious, so unimportant, so dumb, and it hit me that this is how I’m spending a large amount of my time. I tried to cheer myself up by telling myself this time would be converted to funds that I could use for better things, but it didn’t really work.

3. Truth: I don’t need to be great or popular or adored. I was telling a few friends, fellow yoga teachers this after my class yesterday morning. I told them I was happy that I’d had three return students, which is a big deal for a 7 am class, and how I don’t let myself believe it means I’m so good that they came back but rather it means I don’t suck, and that’s all I want. That makes me happy. That’s good enough for me. I know that if I keep at it, I might someday be adored by a few students, a couple of humans, and in the meantime I’m so grateful to the ones that keep showing up, keep allowing me to practice with them.

One wish: That we can feel at ease, content, satisfied with all the ways that things are changing, as well as all the ways that they are staying the same.