Day 1: Green Lotus YTT

Yesterday I moved out of my first apartment and back home with my family. I'm starting a 1-month, intensive, immersion program to become yoga teacher certified! This is also the last month I'll be home in NH (and also on the East Coast) before I head out west for Woolman. I'm hoping to keep these posts short and sweet- one of my favorite yogi principles is to speak little, speak kindly, and speak truthfully. If what you have to say is the truth but it is not kind, do so in a kind manner. I'll write again later this afternoon to reflect on my first day.

To transitions, new beginnings, old and new friends, and self love!

T

Update: I'm writing in my notebook for YTT. Not sure if I'll get around to updating this daily as well, but here's hoping!

Anxiety

A simple moment of weakness.
A cloud passing in front of the sun,
and skin tightens, goosebumps prickling,
grasping at the warmth it so lovingly accepted just a moment before.
Chest tightens, matching the papillae of follicles in the shadow of that cloud and mind tightens, grasping for wisps of light.
Reaching and yearning, the clenching of body keeps just.. out.. of... reach.
Sun-drenched thoughts and pleasant memories within view, without comfort.
Spiraling deeper and deeper into clenching, unrelenting mind and tight, tight chest,
wishing for release and relaxation.
Finding it in escape-
Unsustainable.
Finding it inward, looking inward at the hurricane of words and colors and feelings and seeking the eye of the storm.
Keep looking inward at the eye- it expands, opening up to see all.
Here is solace.
I am solace.
Here is strength.
I am strength.
Here is peace.
I am peace.
I am a universe unto and into myself.

feed your head, water my soul

The Gardner || Water the Flowers

Original poem by TEarly || Street art by Mark Samsonovich 

Untitled- but of course it's about you.

You are timeless.

I can hear the seconds ticking away, one after the other on my wrist,

my trusty Timex keeping me 

as it always has.

But you are timeless. 

The seconds my trusty Timex have been entrusted with 

slip and melt and bend together,

the ticking narrating otherness.

But you, 

you are timeless

and my heart races as it beats so slow

humming alongside my thoughts as they breeze by,

reaching through to the corners of the universe

but never stopping longer than to kiss me on the cheek.

Then they're off, 

taking the ticking ticks with them,

strolling hand in hand beyond my reach.

You are timeless.

12/16/2014- 3:06 AM

100

In the last seven days, my life has gone from zero to sixty, zero to one hundred, zero to six thousand. I've had extraordinarily little time to process it all, but for the first time in my young twenty-one years, I'm perfectly fine with that. More often than not, I'm consumed with thoughts to the n-th degree about literally everything- family, friends, academics, work. For some reason this week has been entirely different. My brain is giving me a free pass, some sort of karmic break. I'm not sure why, but every conversation, action, laugh, cry has all been directed by instinct rather than mental or emotional processing. Its unprecedented. And crazy. And awesome. And I just had to make a note of it here, cause after one of the most unbelievable weeks of this semester, and this year, I'm happy. Terrified and uncertain and everything else under the sun. But I'm happy. Twenty-two in two days, and I couldn't be feeling more human.

I woke up with your name on my lips.

Happy Decemberish!
Instead of freaking out about the next two weeks, by the end of which I will be 22 (?!), I'm taking a big Pranayama breath, writing everything down, lighting some incense, sipping some Riesling, and going to bed.

It's nearly 1 AM and rather than subject myself to the same nostalgic rabbit hole as last night, I'm putting my hands up and giving into December. Today marks the beginning of a three week countdown to freedom, Ashtanga yoga, job applications, food blogging, recipe-rewriting, and peace. It doesn't matter if I don't wake up with your name on my lips anymore, I haven't for a long time, and even though I still kind of want to, today I woke up with my own name on my lips. And this Riesling's. Let's do this.

What do pie dough and nostalgia have in common?

I think the weirdest thing about losing electricity and heat during such a reflective and family-oriented time like Thanksgiving is not the lack of me-time, but the immense self reflection that followed a period of high intensity family time. Finally back in the kitchen and baking, getting the gratitude gears turning within me wasn't all that difficult. What was difficult was realizing the deep seeded pang that I thought I had healed months ago. Once superficial, then cut infinitely and gaping, I thought I had neatly sealed away any sort of rooted nostalgia. A few hours and pies later, I locate the source of my angst and here I fester. Do I reach out again? Do I let time keep passing, furthering temporal and, for the time being, geographic space between us? Usually I let my emotions be directed by whatever universal tug I'm feeling, and right now I've never felt more pulled. Note to self: apple pies and nostalgic trips down photo album memory lane do not make a stable Taylor. Not unhappy, I'm just feeling confused and very stuck. Time to sleep.