Day 5. It's love.
I met you and then right away you were the first thing I thought of when I woke up, and the last thing on my mind as I fell asleep. While with you, my heart would beat fast, and I wanted to tell the whole world about you. Everytime I saw you beads of sweat would begin to form on my shoulders and roll down my back sloooowly, damn are you HOT. Two people in the room or two hundred it doesnt matter, cause when I’m with you it feels like its just you. and me. My mom’s nervous that because of you, I’m never going to find that special someone because we spend so much time together....and well I guess at some point I should start thinking about that, because you are, after all.... my yoga mat.
My magic carpet. My therapy couch. My plus one on airplanes. Ah yes, it’s a love affair alright. I’ve “dated” lots of mats, but now I found that I’m in a very monogamous relationship with lululemons ‘the mat.’ It’s everything I ever hoped for and more and I’m a lifer. My preference is the solid black one....cause you know what they say....
I digress.
Dear mat and yoga practice.
I love you. I love you the way I used to love dirty martinis with extra olives on a Friday afternoon, and now, I love you. You complete me. (and truth be told, I still love dirty martinis)
The first time I ever laid a foot on you it was 2008, in my very first yoga class. It was the Sunday 1145 class at Breathe, which in the amazing way the universe works, would also be the first prime-time slot I would ever teach less than a year later. When that first class was over, I laid right down on you, during some crazy thing called savasana, and my friend Bob looked over at me (also a first timer) and said, I have no idea what the hell savasana is, but I sure hope it’s a drink. Close. It’s a nap. A really special, sweaty nap, and since that point we’ve taken at least a thousand savasanas.
Through my practice and on my mat, I’ve had moment after moment after moment of awakening. I think Oprah calls them Ah-ha moments, and ever since Oprah gave away all those cars as I watched from my living room jumping up and down, clapping, and crying tears of complete joy...I believe everything she says. My first out-of-body moment was during my first of what would become many trips to Mexico for yoga retreats.
As I lay there in Tulum Mexico in Spring 2008, with my new practice, my new friends, and my new mat (I was dating a blue jade at that point), with the sound of the ocean roaring gentle and strong: I couldnt believe the joy of lying on the ground sweating out of every single pore of my body. I took a picture of the sunrise on that trip, and this past year got that picture tattooed on my back, as a beautiful reminder of when I truly began living my life. (by the way Mom, if you are reading this, I have a giant tattoo on my back) Yes there are less permanent ways to commemorate life, but I love the permanence of my practice.
A few months later I would be back in Tulum for my first level 1 Baptiste training, and a few years after I would be back for my level 2 training. Each trip would mean something very different to me, but each trip would end with me, laying on the ground, looking up and thanking god that I had found this path to walk on. One day soon I know I will lead my first retreat there.
Mat, you were there for me like an old friend when you and I took that solo surfing trip to Costa Rica for 3 glorious weeks, when I needed to step outside of what I knew in that moment, to wake the heck up. Up in the tree’s overlooking the ocean in the open-air studio of Nosara Yoga Institute, the view was unbelievable. There was one particular practice when we were up there in the tree-tops with 2-new friends we had made that day, neither of them english-speaking. A thunderstorm broke completely free from the sky, and we watched in complete awe, and moved our bodies and breathed deeply to the backdrop of thunder. Just this past Spring we took a game-changing trip to the sleepy surf town of Sayulita to meet up with a dear old friend, and make 20 new-ones. We’ve been to Kripalu to see Seane Corn, fallen in love with Sacramento at Zuda, we’ve breathed deep in DC, Baltimore, Vancouver, Charlotte, NYC, San Fransico, Portland Oregon, Portland Maine, Boston and Chicago in the past 2 years. We sure do get around.
(and at this point I’d like to point out an aside that I am neither independently wealthy, nor do I have a rich Aunt Bunnie (nor do I even have an Aunt Bunnie, it just sounds regal) but I will literally eat cereal for breakfast lunch and dinner to fund these excursions. I cant think of one thing in my life that I have ever purchased that I can recall with such nostalgia and gratitude as a trip to the ocean with my mat. So if you think you cant do it. You can. However, I refuse to buy cheap coffee, cheap chocolate, or cheap running sneakers (lifes too short) I will however drink 9 dollar bottles of wine cause I cant tell the difference. (but I budget that all in as well).
Soon we’re packing and heading to Nairobi. I cant even imagine the adventures we’ll go on, the places we will see, the people we will meet, the practices we will indulge in, and the stories of those that walk upon you and practice next to us. I know I will experience all sorts of emotions on you, the whole gamut, and what I do know is when I need it most I’ll place both my feet upon you firmly, breathe deeply and know that I am home.
Me and you. And you and me. no matter how they toss the dice, it has to be. the only one for me is you, and you for me, so haaa---
Wait, sorry, that’s a song isn't it. Sorry, lost my originality for a moment.
But what I want to say is Mat, you are the business. The peanut butter to my jelly. The schameel to my schamazel. Thank you so much for being my partner in crime, for absorbing my tears, for releasing my belly laughs, for letting me open my hands across you, for supporting my feet as I ground down through you, growing roots, building a home. Every single class, building. Every single class, breathing.
I bow to you.
Now roll on up, we’re headed to Kenya baby.
