Asheville July 2014
It is a Monday and I am thinking, 'Ok I really do need to get to yoga again soon but don’t have any motivation tonight.' I went to the farmer’s market this afternoon after work and drank this cashew cacao concoction and now have a stomachache. Well really I had the stomach ache before yoga class would have started but it seemed to have settled to the point of allowing me to get a second wind on eating. I finished some mushroom raviolis with a wholemade sauce that my neighbor next door made from the tomatoes from our garden and after the pasta I finished it off with a salad with this tahini/nutritional yeast dressing and an apricot croissant and then a piece of chocolate. —she and her partner are the nicest neighbors we've ever had—generous, friendly but respect neighborly boundaries.They later text me to thank me for walking their dog over the weekend while they were away and offered me bread pudding “I know you aren’t eating too many sweets these days,, but do you want some?” I told them, “I’m good.”
As I sniff a piece of lavender I plucked from a plant outside, I think back on my weekend. It really started with a cow. Friday afternoon I made the trek out to one of the wilderness programs where I work and the cows were grazing on the periphery of the property. The dirt bumpy road rarely has traffic except the coming and going of staff so I stopped my car to watch them for a few minutes. One of the black cows started to watch me as I watched her and I thought to my self—how lovely is this life that I am living that I can go to work and gaze at cows on my way to work and watch them chew as they gaze back at me.
My husband was out of town for the weekend so I spent much of it socializing with girlfriends. I called my friend Sarah to find out if she wanted to go to class on Saturday as I wanted to say goodbye to a friend who was moving to NYC as this was to be her last class with our teacher. Sarah wasn’t able to go but invited me to stop by before class.
I arrived at her house with a few gifts of tomatoes from our prolific backyard garden and a pastry croissant from the farmer’s market that I stopped at on the way to her home, oozing with raspberry filling. She and her son and dog greeted me outside. Her son was waiting for a friend. He was in his own world swaying back and forth on a homemade swing attached to their front yard tree. I watched him for a moment, dark and pensive and my eyes were drawn to his feet. Thin and perfectly shaped they appeared to me so perfect that I commented on what nice feet he had. I guess it was an odd compliment; He ignored me and his mom paused before thanking me as we walked away into the house. She and I chatted for a few minutes on an upcoming writer’s seminar before I hurried off to class.
Dear friends,
I leave for NY on Monday. My to do list is a mile long. I don't care:) I'm stopping all to do's to be at class tomorrow.
I have been attending our teacher's class for 7 years. He has been a wonderful yoga teacher and light in my life.
In as much as I'd like to say I'll be back, I don't know. Please join me tomorrow in my final, but never last class, with my maestro and dear friend. Class is at 11am.
Much love,
*Jeannette
Our teacher's Saturday’s class is more of an event that a class at times. He draws a full crowd and finding a space to put your mat down on can be challenging. (One woman actually plopped her mat down outside the door of the room into the expanding courtyard when she came in late after the class had begun.). I hadn’t been to his weekend class in over a year so it was a reunion of sorts. I had switched to the rigor of Bikram for awhile to try to heal a hip issue. When I got to class, Jeannette who the class indirectly was in honor of was at the desk signing in. She is glamorous with her long reddish brown hair and green eyes. She seems scattered and spacey but isn't, she is dressed today in a long scarves with big sunglasses, her laughter ever present and lilting voice with a sophisticated air.
She is about my age give or take and is leaving the area to return to her home state of New York to be a curator at an art gallery and an adjunct professor at Stony Brook. I am sad to see her go, I have enjoyed spending time with her before class and a few times after, when I have joined in with the yoga group that often meets for lunch. She was always a favorite in the group when I would go—interesting and engaging. I picked a Goddess Card earlier that morning for her and made a photocopy of it. The card had to do with receiving and as we all gathered around her I thought the card apropos.
She was very thankful when I gave it to her and got teary-eyed that so many of us were going to miss her and were honoring her specialness in the community. Our teacher during class mentioned her and her faithfulness as a student for the last seven years and how we’d miss her but said she’d be back visiting, trying to keep it light as he asked her to demo a pose. She remarked somewhat anxiously but gleefully, “Oh no, are you going to embarrass me?” A southerner, ever polite he seemed flustered, as it wasn’t his intention at all. The pose that she was to demo is a challenging one (eight limb pose) and she struggled initially to get into it, I looked over at another woman who I can only describe as the grande dame and hostess of classes—she was looking on nervously empathizing with Jeannette’s embarrassment. Truly we all held our breath and then breathed a sigh of relief when our teacher, (a little guy) finally hoisted Jeannette up into the pose—we all clapped nervously ready to move on and away from the awkward scene.
He started the class by saying that the class was to take a bird’s eye view of things. He looked around and sincerely and humbling thanked everyone for coming in his endearing way, “Thank y’all for coming today.” He added, “Once I was in a class with my teacher and there was wayyy more people in the class than today”-we all looked around as he is saying this, how could you get way more people in here? He goes on to say, “and my teacher (John Friend) said, ‘where is everyone?’ “You know, y’all, It is all a matter of perception.” This lead into his story (as stories are the hallmark of his class) of how he was at a friend’s house recently and they live on a “homestead” and have chickens and horses and the horses were mating so this friend said let’s go watch and they all ran out to see this lesson in breeding. Later that evening the friend told his daughter, ‘we are going to have a baby!’ and the friend’s child replied, ‘when did you mate?’ He added to the story, “she was thinking why wasn’t I there?” Laughter….
He went on to say that “once after class someone told (him) that he was too idealistic. He then glances over pointedly my way…Is he speaking of some comment I have made? Might it have been the time that I told him that ‘I want to live in his happy bubble??’ I tuned in again as he says, “But really with the sun 93 million miles from earth the PERFECT distance or we would burn to death or freeze, but don't… …his sentence seemed to fall off from there.
It is a Monday and I am thinking, 'Ok I really do need to get to yoga again soon but don’t have any motivation tonight.' I went to the farmer’s market this afternoon after work and drank this cashew cacao concoction and now have a stomachache. Well really I had the stomach ache before yoga class would have started but it seemed to have settled to the point of allowing me to get a second wind on eating. I finished some mushroom raviolis with a wholemade sauce that my neighbor next door made from the tomatoes from our garden and after the pasta I finished it off with a salad with this tahini/nutritional yeast dressing and an apricot croissant and then a piece of chocolate. —she and her partner are the nicest neighbors we've ever had—generous, friendly but respect neighborly boundaries.They later text me to thank me for walking their dog over the weekend while they were away and offered me bread pudding “I know you aren’t eating too many sweets these days,, but do you want some?” I told them, “I’m good.”
As I sniff a piece of lavender I plucked from a plant outside, I think back on my weekend. It really started with a cow. Friday afternoon I made the trek out to one of the wilderness programs where I work and the cows were grazing on the periphery of the property. The dirt bumpy road rarely has traffic except the coming and going of staff so I stopped my car to watch them for a few minutes. One of the black cows started to watch me as I watched her and I thought to my self—how lovely is this life that I am living that I can go to work and gaze at cows on my way to work and watch them chew as they gaze back at me.
My husband was out of town for the weekend so I spent much of it socializing with girlfriends. I called my friend Sarah to find out if she wanted to go to class on Saturday as I wanted to say goodbye to a friend who was moving to NYC as this was to be her last class with our teacher. Sarah wasn’t able to go but invited me to stop by before class.
I arrived at her house with a few gifts of tomatoes from our prolific backyard garden and a pastry croissant from the farmer’s market that I stopped at on the way to her home, oozing with raspberry filling. She and her son and dog greeted me outside. Her son was waiting for a friend. He was in his own world swaying back and forth on a homemade swing attached to their front yard tree. I watched him for a moment, dark and pensive and my eyes were drawn to his feet. Thin and perfectly shaped they appeared to me so perfect that I commented on what nice feet he had. I guess it was an odd compliment; He ignored me and his mom paused before thanking me as we walked away into the house. She and I chatted for a few minutes on an upcoming writer’s seminar before I hurried off to class.
Dear friends,
I leave for NY on Monday. My to do list is a mile long. I don't care:) I'm stopping all to do's to be at class tomorrow.
I have been attending our teacher's class for 7 years. He has been a wonderful yoga teacher and light in my life.
In as much as I'd like to say I'll be back, I don't know. Please join me tomorrow in my final, but never last class, with my maestro and dear friend. Class is at 11am.
Much love,
*Jeannette
Our teacher's Saturday’s class is more of an event that a class at times. He draws a full crowd and finding a space to put your mat down on can be challenging. (One woman actually plopped her mat down outside the door of the room into the expanding courtyard when she came in late after the class had begun.). I hadn’t been to his weekend class in over a year so it was a reunion of sorts. I had switched to the rigor of Bikram for awhile to try to heal a hip issue. When I got to class, Jeannette who the class indirectly was in honor of was at the desk signing in. She is glamorous with her long reddish brown hair and green eyes. She seems scattered and spacey but isn't, she is dressed today in a long scarves with big sunglasses, her laughter ever present and lilting voice with a sophisticated air.
She is about my age give or take and is leaving the area to return to her home state of New York to be a curator at an art gallery and an adjunct professor at Stony Brook. I am sad to see her go, I have enjoyed spending time with her before class and a few times after, when I have joined in with the yoga group that often meets for lunch. She was always a favorite in the group when I would go—interesting and engaging. I picked a Goddess Card earlier that morning for her and made a photocopy of it. The card had to do with receiving and as we all gathered around her I thought the card apropos.
She was very thankful when I gave it to her and got teary-eyed that so many of us were going to miss her and were honoring her specialness in the community. Our teacher during class mentioned her and her faithfulness as a student for the last seven years and how we’d miss her but said she’d be back visiting, trying to keep it light as he asked her to demo a pose. She remarked somewhat anxiously but gleefully, “Oh no, are you going to embarrass me?” A southerner, ever polite he seemed flustered, as it wasn’t his intention at all. The pose that she was to demo is a challenging one (eight limb pose) and she struggled initially to get into it, I looked over at another woman who I can only describe as the grande dame and hostess of classes—she was looking on nervously empathizing with Jeannette’s embarrassment. Truly we all held our breath and then breathed a sigh of relief when our teacher, (a little guy) finally hoisted Jeannette up into the pose—we all clapped nervously ready to move on and away from the awkward scene.
He started the class by saying that the class was to take a bird’s eye view of things. He looked around and sincerely and humbling thanked everyone for coming in his endearing way, “Thank y’all for coming today.” He added, “Once I was in a class with my teacher and there was wayyy more people in the class than today”-we all looked around as he is saying this, how could you get way more people in here? He goes on to say, “and my teacher (John Friend) said, ‘where is everyone?’ “You know, y’all, It is all a matter of perception.” This lead into his story (as stories are the hallmark of his class) of how he was at a friend’s house recently and they live on a “homestead” and have chickens and horses and the horses were mating so this friend said let’s go watch and they all ran out to see this lesson in breeding. Later that evening the friend told his daughter, ‘we are going to have a baby!’ and the friend’s child replied, ‘when did you mate?’ He added to the story, “she was thinking why wasn’t I there?” Laughter….
He went on to say that “once after class someone told (him) that he was too idealistic. He then glances over pointedly my way…Is he speaking of some comment I have made? Might it have been the time that I told him that ‘I want to live in his happy bubble??’ I tuned in again as he says, “But really with the sun 93 million miles from earth the PERFECT distance or we would burn to death or freeze, but don't… …his sentence seemed to fall off from there.
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