Do your dharma.

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Today I was sitting at work thinking about completely non-work-related things like the fact that I need to move out of my house in the next month, leave for a trip home to the U.S., come back and wrap up all ties to Australia over the next month and a half and then move back to the U.S. and get married.  It should be a relaxing few months, eh?  And then I started thinking, “Hmm, Kat, what should you do for a living when you get home?”,  and “When will you get home after your several months of intended bike-touring honeymoon?”, and “Where will home be when you return?”, and then finally, “Do you actually qualify as an adult?”

This isn’t an unusual train of thoughts.  In fact, I think about it most days. And, it’s slowly driving me mad.

Truly.

Meanwhile, I am nearly done with my yoga immersions.  In a few weeks I will complete the last of them, which means I will have all the hours behind me to move forward into teacher training.  It also means that I’ve re-read the Bhagavad Gita and dabbled in the Yoga Sutras.  I’ve begun to more seriously meditate and I’m feeling pretty excited and energized by all of this.  I had a new break-through in opening up my psoas.  It was life-changing. Only serious yoga-types can say stuff like that unironically, which means – I’m in.

But with all these pieces of my life swirling around me, I still wonder what direction I should move in on the larger plane.  I’m still stewing over whether the current course of my life is what I’d like and what I’ve envisioned for myself.  It’s kind of funny that I was mulling over this today, because in an unrelated search of my gmail account, the following conversation, which took place several years ago, came up.  It felt symbolic and a bit sad.  Names have been changed to protect this innocent:

me: i just remembered talking to you last night

Mystery person: well i remembered it at the time

me: haha, i was asleep!

Mystery person: sorry it was so late, but you go to bed early

me: it was like 12:20

Mystery person: well, that’s when i worry the most about you

me: oh mystery person.  just calling to check in? making sure i’m safe in my bed?

Mystery person: no that’s not why i called if you remember

me: i don’t

Mystery person: because i was thinking about how different you would be if you lost your idealism, and that maybe being a teacher would help you with that because you wouldn’t be corrupted by monetary success

me: do you think i am very easily corrupted?

Mystery person: no i don’t think you are easily corrupted, but given enough time, I think you could get worn down

me: hmmm

Mystery person: and then one day you would just become part of the system
me: never!

Mystery person: ok, i was just worrying that’s all

I read this conversation, looked up from my computer and found myself in the office of a major oil and gas company, developing on of the largest coal seam gas to liquefied natural gas projects in the world.  I wondered if perhaps the mystery conversant was perhaps a bit clairvoyant.  I got a little squeamish in my seat.

So, I thought some more about it.  And yes, I work for a gigantic multi-national oil and gas company of the variety that I regularly skewered in papers and presentations throughout college and beyond.  But, on the other side of that,  I am part of a small and dedicated environmental team, working to ensure the project complies with all environmental laws and permits applicable to it.   That is a good thing right?  I actually care about this.  I don’t want to see this go pear-shaped.   I subscribe to the credo that you can’t say damn the man unless you can turn around and go off the grid tomorrow.  Until you’re there, you need to work with the man and get what you want through the proper channels.  And, I truly think that some of the best change comes from within.  So, am I doing what the idealist within me believes is right? Yes.

Should I continue on this track?  That’s a tougher question.

You see, I’ve learned in my yoga training about a concept called dharma, which was previously unknown to me. Dharma is the idea of doing what upholds the good and right in the world, and which an individual is uniquely suited to do.  It is what fits, feels right, and works in your life. For example, if your dharma is to be a garbage man, you’d go out and be the best you can be at it because that’s the right spot for you in the greater scheme.  Some people actually believe that when you do your dharma, the road opens up before you and what felt stuck suddenly begins to flow.

In that sense,  there is a part of me that feels I have always been in line with my dharma career-wise because I have been unusually lucky in my life. Doors have opened for me over and over again at just the right moment.  People have walked into my life and touched it perfectly, and then moved on.  But yet, I have a constant sense of being not fully committed to my plan.  So, is it my dharma?  Does it fulfill me and make me feel whole?  I’m not sure whether it does at the moment.  I know that I enjoy my job.  I feel like I have a path forward, an appropriate level of influence, and I am surrounded by extremely knowledgeable people to gain experience from.  I get to work in environmental law on a daily basis, I have ample opportunities to write (which makes me happy), and I communicate and work with all aspects of the project which makes me feel aware and engaged on so many levels.  So, why do I question my choices?  Does my sense of turmoil over working in oil and gas stem from anything inherent to it, or does it come from a place of internal judgement that I should be in a more creative, cutting-edge role?  That’s where I need to focus my analysis.

So, as I consider where to move when we go home and what my next steps will be (and the pressure is all on me here, as Rick is changing course completely and is totally flexible) I have to consider what is my dharma?  What makes me feel whole and right in the world? What inspires me and makes me passionate?  I have to also consider these questions without too much regard to monetary reward – which is hard for someone like me who often uses external metrics like grades, salary, and position as indicators of my own progress in lieu of more subtle things that are less easily measured.  I need also to, on the flip side, consider whether I am particularly judgemental about my personal career choices (despite being quite happy in my role) because of external influences such as my college experience, my liberal bias, and my own internal pressure to do something more selfless

I sometimes wonder why I impose these periods of deep reflection on my life in what appears to be two-year increments.  It’s insanely stressful, especially when you add a wedding and a transoceanic move into the mix, but I do feel most alive in these periods of massive change.  I do love the process of really stopping to consider what I want and how I want to achieve my goals.  I do like waking up in the morning with the knowledge that I’m walking away from what I know and rebuilding, again.  There is something cathartic and beautiful in the process of creation and destruction that goes with these moments.

As much as I want to settle a bit in my life, I feel most awake in a state of flux.  Is that my dharma?

What is marriage?

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Rick has already written his vows.  He knows what he intends to say, even if he still plans to finesse the wording.

Me?  I’m what we call a procrastinator.

To be fair, it’s June and our wedding is in October.  In my defense, much remains to take in on the subject of love before one professes it eternally.  I find my mental space evolving constantly from one filled with autumn leaves, white dresses, and music, to one more observant of the subtle rhythms and patterns that form a marriage.  I watch my parents, my friends, my coworkers, and observe the way they talk about marriage and the way the don’t talk about it.  I take note of the specialized functions that develop in a two-person distribution of labor.  I watch the veiled jabs and gentle support that dance together through a conversation between lovers.  I watch the ways that friends slowly disclose the intimacies that make their marriages work, and I watch Rick and myself as we navigate the road that will take us to these places.

But most recently, I have watched with a heavy heart as my grandfather has been torn from my grandmother by death.  I recognize that the experience of grief is a universal one that we can all expect to experience, but as I often do, I come back to the specificity of THEIR lives and their love.  They married so young that he needed a fake ID to get a marriage license.  They shared their lives together for almost 65 years.  And in death, perhaps, they shared more intimacy about themselves than ever before.  He laid with her in bed, we all did, as she passed away from us.  I watched his poise and stoicism melt before me as he lost her.

My family is not a sentimental one.  Gruff, even.  But we wear hard exteriors to hide soft interiors.  Having the vantage point on marriage that her loss provides as I approach mine, perhaps is one of the gifts my grandmother is giving me posthumously.  She had a sharp intuition, that one.  And I credit her with helping me make my decision to come to Australia – a decision that has made all the difference in my life.  Her judgement was good.

I am, therefore, taking in the way Rick looks at me in the sleepy mornings and the way my heart melts when he talks about our puppy.  In these vignettes I have begun to envision the  architecture of our marriage, and the possible evolution of it with time.

Each time I speak to my Grandpa and hear the ways he is re-envisioning his life daily, recognizing the loss of structure, companionship, and intimacy he faces, I am reminded of what I’m signing up for.  I hope that I can emulate what he had and I take each painful observation as a lesson in what to strive for.

Breathe

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crow pose

Crow pose

Breathe.   I keep telling myself that.  A few months ago, it came easily, but since I’ve gotten engaged everything has changed.

It wasn’t getting engaged that changed everything per se, it was the cascading life changes and decisions that resulted from it that are now adding up.  That, and my Grandma’s passing which, in watching my grandfather cope, has shone a spotlight on what a marriage should be and what it means to love the evolution of someone else – to evolve with them and change in harmonious ways as you both grow with time.

We’re moving home in October when we come back for our wedding.  That’s wild.  It will have been two years abroad for us, and we said that’s what we planned to do.  But, sadly, the thought of leaving challenges me a lot.  I really enjoy my job, my progression in yoga, my nearly car-free existence, and the friends we’ve made here in Brisbane.  I have finally begun to feel like this foreign land is home to me (at least in small ways), and now we are uprooting ourselves once more.  It fills my heart with a mixture of emotions.

But two weeks ago when I jumped on a plane to see my Grandmother and arrived 26 hours later in my hometown just in time to see her before she left us, I realized that the distance from Australia to Wisconsin is massive.  And, lives pass quickly in the spaces and distances that I’ve allowed to grow.  Since I got back on the plane and left my wounded grandfather at home, I’ve felt every inch of that distance acutely.  My heart aches for him constantly.

So, rather than dwell on the hurt of being so far from one I love so much during this painful time, I have thrown myself into work, wedding planning, and coordinating our move home and the subsequent settling (after some months of honeymooning) that we’ll need to do (where that is remains unclear).  But all this planning is only to cover a rawness that sits just below the surface.  The littlest things have set me off all week; whether it was Rick’s tone of voice, work stress (I’m slammed), or being the eternal subject of twitter jabs from my old boyfriend’s fiancée  (an ongoing saga). Things that normally roll off my back or make me chuckle, simply don’t. Try as I may to observe my moods and ride out the waves, I find myself prickly.  I’m edgy and sad.  I keep waking from dreams of my Grandma, and I realize now that in attempting to be strong for my Grandpa I have bottled up a lot of my own grief.  I’m back to crying on the yoga mat.

I’ve been reminding myself to breathe deeply, do yoga, slow down, and come back to my core in order to look outward.  I’m hoping this three-day weekend will be just the enforced-pause I need to do that.

Steel

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I’m sitting on the tiled front porch of my rental apartment in Noosa, enjoying the gentle stream of sunlight hitting my legs and the crisp fall breeze.  Sure, I should be inside a dark room watching powerpoint presentations about land acquisition and the need for simplifying planning to focus on policy outcomes rather than procedure, but I’m not and I don’t feel bad about that fact at all.

Yesterday I woke up on a jet plane somewhere near Fiji, and by the time I ate breakfast and watched Avatar I was descending into Brisbane.  When I got there at 5 am, I surreptitiously entered the country with a large number of contraband items including but not limited to peanut butter chocolate chip Lara Bars and chocolate chip Clif bars, stealthily bypassing the drug-sniffing dogs and under-caffeinated customs agents.  Before they could catch me, I was in a cab, out of cell phone range, in the airport link tunnel.  Operation Lara Bar was in the bag.

I entered the Queenslander, unlocked and empty at 5:40 am to find my fiancé gone, as well as the two-dishes of lasagna I’d left him 9 days earlier (a small win garnered for the budding-domestic-goddess-slash-international-granola-bar-smuggler).  A quick shower later an even quicker realization that my phone was no longer functioning, led me on a pre-dawn manhunt to find the Telstra agent who could rectify this mess.  Completed, fiancée snuggled, and tea consumed, I was soon in another cab to a meeting point at the Chermside bus station, where I’d intercept my manager and journey next to his 1-year-old for the next two hours to Noosa where operation “Attend a Relevant Conference in an Amazing Resort Town” commenced.  And, here I am.  It’s been a whirlwind.

I spent the last week in the US.  It wasn’t planned and that made it sad and wonderful at the same time.  Last week Sunday I called my Grandparents, and finally after months of hearing she was doing okay, got a real response to the question of what my Grandma’s condition was (she had battled lung cancer for two years).  Within 24 hours I was on a plane.  I made it home and held her before she passed. I thank every ounce of luck and grace in the world that I had the resources and ability to do that.  And even more, I thank those same forces for giving me the next week to grieve and support my family, particularly my Grandpa, as we all interpreted her loss.  My Grandma, as my dad put it, was “steel.”  Nothing less.  She was a firecracker and a sage.  And in her own way, the same way she nurtured her immense gardens, she nurtured her whole family with a frank, unsentimental, but unshakable love.  She passed in the evening, surrounded by the edifices she’d built; her family, her gardens, her home, as she lay in her own bed.  When she was gone, the lights flickered and within seconds a gale force wind shook the house, bringing down shingles and tree limbs.  The wind howled in the fireplace and then the storm passed.  And so did she.  Without hesitation or uncertainty.  Like Grandma would.

I had never seen anyone die.

And I held my Grandpa and he shook.  Sixty-four years of life together, ended in that moment.  There aren’t words for that.  There’s nothing that you can do for that.  So I held him.  He and I have always had a connection, but there isn’t anything to say.  All you can do is let your heart ache as it must and envelope the shaking pillar of your family in your arms.  All you can do is direct every bit of the love in your being toward him who must wake up the next morning and make a life anew.  All you can do is walk in her gardens and through her kitchens with reverence, and listen to the birds hoping that her spirit is in their song.  All you can do is share a kind smile and an ear with the piercingly sorrowful eyes of one who loved her more than I can fathom.

If I could, I would stay there.  I would be there to eat breakfast with him each day and to argue over politics to keep him feisty.  But I can’t.  I always feel the distance, but most keenly now.  Here.  Far away.

Death doesn’t scare me.  And in many ways I don’t find it sad.  But life without those we love is terrifying and heart-wrenching. The hole that cannot be filled is more tormenting than anything I can imagine.

People adapt.  People are built to survive.  And he will.  We all will.  He will ask himself each day, what Mary would do, what Mary would want, and he will do it.  I think we all will, as we have always done.  She was steel, and so we need to be too.

Mary Louise Sachs.  April 4,1930 – May 14th, 2013.

Misrepresentation and social media

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I came across the most interesting line in the New York Times a few days ago.

I was reading an article about the passing of Lilly Pulitzer, whose iconic clothing line, popularized in the 1960’s, continues to be a symbol of wealth (and WASP) despite the audacious color choices and patterns which are her signature.   I wore a vintage Lilly belonging to my mom to a wedding in Virginia last summer and the dress brought the house down.  I had old men looking at me like I was their 1960’s prom date, older women stopping me to reminisce about the Lilly’s that they had worn and loved, and people my age wondering where I got it and how they could find one too.   Vintage Lilly designs are fun, quirky, and more elegant than anything they put out today.

But this post isn’t about Lilly’s per se, it’s about the changing way society uses symbols and shared meanings to communicate information.  To wear a Lilly was to indicate you were a part of, or at least understood, the rules and customs of a certain part of the population; a typically upper class part with the luxury of being able to buy and wear outrageous resort-wear without shame (or you simply have exceptionally loud taste). She may never have intended this as a designer, but the brand grew the way things have for years: a good idea, worn and shared at first by friends and family locally, and eventually shot into another echelon when worn by Jackie Kennedy Onassis, an old schoolmate supporting her business.

I enjoyed reading that Lilly Pulitzer hated promoting herself. The author slipped a truly telling line about the world’s changing social mores in her piece, saying “She (Lilly) meticulously avoided personal publicity, as was once common to people of bottomless wealth.”  It was a refreshing reminder of what used to be the norm before social media amped up each of our personal megaphones.  Once upon a time people let their actions speak for themselves, without putting it on youtube, writing an ebook, blogging, tweeting, Instagramming, or facebooking each passing thought or moment of their day.  I long for the time when being humble and soft-spoken about one’s life and achievements was the mark of character.   I thought it  was one of the most sharp statements I’ve ever read on class and the changing dynamic brought to today’s society through social media, and it really hit home to me.

The topic of how social media is changing our rules and mores is a topic I have given a lot of thought to.  I recall sometime in college writing an email to facebook inquiring whether Macalester could be included in their network, back when it was only in the East.  I wanted to be a part of it then, the connectivity and intrigue of being able to learn about the people you see every day.  I don’t think I anticipated then, what social media is today. And, honestly, I don’t know if I would have gotten on board then had I known.

Whatever happened to understatement and the elegance of doing something for its own sake, without sharing it ad nauseam? I find that from facebook, to twitter, to instagram, social media seems to induce a sense of self-importance among its users that rubs me the wrong way. It memorializes life as we’re living it, giving a sense of urgency to each of our desires to share or promote our moments as we live them, rather than just living them.  It makes everybody’s walk home from work, or bike ride, or dinner, or baby suddenly worthy of blogs, photos, and incessant snippets shared via Twitter.  and while these are important personal moments, the sharing element seems to me like crying wolf on what’s important in life, slowly lowering the bar for what qualifies as memorable.

I recently joined Instagram while traveling with Eliot. He loves it and finally convinced me to get off my high horse about it.  And it’s fun, I can admit it.  But I catch myself in the midst of editing a photo of something utterly mundane that, upon further reflection, has no place on the web and then deleting it.    Not internet worthy.  Not worth memorializing, at least not anywhere outside of my brain.  I don’t want my life represented in a series of over-hyped vignettes.

I think perhaps most Instagram photos fall squarely in that category.  I mean, I love sharing photos of my life – but they can’t possibly produce an indicative image of what my life entails.  More than anything, the images present a custom-crafted vision of how I want my life to be seen by others.  It’s a form of personal marketing, and frankly I think it’s turning us all into narcissists.

Maybe I just don’t get it.  Is Instagram about marketing your life or is it just an artistic toy?  If it’s about art, again, it’s setting the bar pretty low.  I took a photo of my shin guards today and made it look good using filters. If it’s about sharing and memorializing one’s life, I think there is more insidious stuff happening to each of us when we begin to see the mundane details of life – a glimpse in a mirror, or a flower we pass on a walk, a morning coffee, etc., as media to consume and share, rather than personal experiences that make up a life.  I wonder at times whether this type of consumption of isolated personal moments takes away from them, and instead turns them into media tools to craft an image of who we are and what our lives look like.

This is just something I’ve been chewing on lately.   Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy social media and I don’t think it’s going anywhere fast.  It’s here to stay.  But,  I worry about what it does to me, and what it does to each of us.

Flattened

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Our queenslander is quiet.  One solemn lamp warms the minty-paneled walls, and candles still burn on the dinner table.  The night feels more silent than normal, or perhaps that is my exhaustion closing in. Rick and I mirror each other on our mauve couches, lounging.  Silent for once in a few days, digesting our huge Tibetan dinners. Feeling tired from an impromptu lunch climb of Mt. Coot-tha on our bikes.  It’s peaceful.

Since my return from Vietnam a few weeks ago,  I feel as though I stepped off a peaceful boat, walked down the pier, and right into a busy street where I got sideswiped by a bus.  A bus full of wedding stuff.  I’m attempting to peel myself off the road but I keep getting flattened by more traffic.

Okay, okay.  I’m being a bit dramatic.  But seriously, why don’t more people elope?  Weddings are such a racket operation.  Highway robbery.  It’s appalling.

I love a good party, but as soon as a white dress is involved it gets all kinds of slimy.  I think I feel about weddings the same way I feel about Christmas – great idea, but totally co-opted by the machine.  Make a registry, have engagement photos, send out save the dates, book a planner, join a gym, spend, spend, spend…  

Vomit.

I looked over at Rick tonight and said, “Remember a month ago when we didn’t spend every waking moment making huge life decisions? That was nice.”  And yeah, I’m not only talking about the wedding here.  If we were just planning that it would be much easier. It’s more like plan a wedding; move back to the US – but where?; should we buy a house?; honeymoon?!; jobs; family; should we get a puppy?; oh yeah, buy a dress for this wedding; figure out where we want to have it…

We can’t make any decisions.  I’m like a panic attack waiting to happen.  It’s vile.

But at least I like the guy who is tenuously helping me peel myself off the roadway…

Vietnam Pho Life!

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Halong Bay sunset

Halong Bay sunset

You better believe I came up with that catchy title myself!

Anyway, I’m sitting here over a hot bowl of pho.  It’s not the first time I’ve done this since returning from Vietnam, and it surely won’t be the last.  The food in Vietnam is a never-ending gastronomic adventure that I’m doing my best to replicate at home. I wish I could tell you about all the things I ate, but the truth is that I didn’t even know what they were most of the time.  Regardless, they tasted amazing.  Even weasel coffee, made from coffee beans specially processed through the gut of a weasel!  Can’t wait to send that home to the fam!

I know I should go into detail about my travels in Vietnam, and I would love to, but I hardly think I did the country justice in my short visit.  As I always seem to do, I underestimated both the size of the country, and my desire to see all of it.  As I’ve said many times over, travel is such a refreshment for the soul – it awakens your mind and body, and reminds you of the breadth and depth of humanity.  There never seems to be enough time for travel.

Flower market by morning

Flower market by morning

Rather than go into detail about what I did and saw in the country, I’m just going to share some vignettes and observations from my time there.  I didn’t travel with a detailed enough itinerary or plan to be of use to anyone else in planning, and I didn’t take notes on what I did.  But, I can tell you my thoughts because I have plenty of those.

One of the most surprising things about Vietnam to me, was not the motorbikes, or the crush of people, or the smells of food and streets and exhaust, as many people described to me.  My mind was more fixated on the layers of culture that permeate the Vietnamese world.  As you walk the streets you see pate, french breads, and other foods whose stay has long outlasted the French rule.  You see colonial architecture next to soviet-style, socialist government buildings.  You see countless reminders of the “War of American Aggression”  or the Vietnam War, whether in museums, or in the form of someone wheeling themselves down the sidewalk in a cart because they have deformed legs due to the toxic chemicals sprayed across swaths of Vietnam during the war. You see women carrying their wares, or other goods on carrying poles and wearing the traditional Non la hats, next to teenagers on their iphones.   It’s a wild array of contrasts.

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Motorbikes in Ho Chi Minh City

Most of all, I was struck by the persistent thrum of Vietnamese society despite all the occupations, wars, and turmoil.  I was stuck by the grassroots victory of capitalism in a country that fought so hard for socialism, and intrigued by the tangible sense of economic acceleration that I felt both in the cities and in the outlying areas.

I think part of the reason I so enjoyed the country was the company I kept, and the timing.  Having just gotten engaged a week before, my brain was full of emotions and my heart felt like it was on overdrive. It felt odd to leave on a vacation without Rick during this time, but the plans were made months earlier. So, I picked up in the throes of giddy wedding planning (and more importantly, life planning) and spent a week with one of my ex’s best friends.  It felt a bit ass-backwards and it freaked me out.  In fact, I took so long saying goodbye to Rick that I nearly missed my plane!

Morning in Hanoi

Morning in Hanoi

That nervousness proved unfounded, because Eliot and I have always gotten along like two peas in a pod.  He read the maps, I perused the internet on his cell phone.  He suggested ideas, and I said yes or no to them. He shared his mangoes, and I shared my antacids.  He paid for my custom suit, all my flights, and a few hotels, and I paid for the 6-hour bus ride where he nearly got motion sick and an overnight boat where he narrowly avoided singing karaoke.   You can see how we work together well.

I kid.  There was much more than that.  I also let Eliot wear my scarves in cold air conditioning.

But, seriously, Eliot made me feel like someone was watching out for me while we  traveled, and was a great companion for the week.  We talked and talked and talked some more, and we drank coffee, picked out baby gifts, tried on clothes, ate incessantly, rode bikes, dodged motorbikes, and generally had a great time.  Traveling with him is sort of what I imagine it would be like traveling with a brother; comfortable, engaging, flexible.  We could do what we wanted; at times we split up, or one of us went to bed, but there was never any drama.   It was a perfect fit.  And though travelling with Eliot reminded me of the past, it also brought back a lot of wonderful memories and made me smile.  As soon as I was on the plane to Kuala Lumpur by myself, I missed having Eliot sitting next to me reading magazines and acting impatient.  The kid is just wonderful.

Eliot overlooking the Halong Bay sunset

Eliot overlooking the Halong Bay sunset

It was definitely a bit odd taking off to travel with Eliot, given the myriad associations that I attach to him, and the timing of my trip just a week after Rick and I got engaged.  But, oddly, traveling with Eliot gave me a lot of mental space to recall who I was in college and who I am now, and reconcile the differences. I relish my time with him because I have never had such a close guy friend in my life.  I have no brothers, or close male family members near to my age. I have been surrounded by women my whole life, so I’ve had few chances to share a close friendship with a guy that didn’t suffer from sexual tension and miscommunications.   I just soak it in with Eliot.   He is the only guy I have even felt so uninhibited around that I wasn’t dating.

As such, he was party to all my ramblings about all the stuff tumbling through my head, and he listened and gave advice as someone who has known me well for a long time. Whether  it was life advice, or determining which fabric to use for my suit, he was on it – it wasn’t his first rodeo, in that sense.  It was so nice to talk with him, hear his thoughts, and remember how much I like Eliot.  He doesn’t begrudge my ridiculousness, and I never feel like I have to put on airs around him.  He even was sweet enough to tell me I’d be a pretty bride when I showed him a picture of a white dress I’d tried on while I was wandering around the city on my own.  It was a joy traveling with him.

The trip to Vietnam, for all these reasons, was incredible.  All the things about the trip that initially made me nervous like leaving Rick when we were so happy, seeing Eliot and dealing with the related associations, etc., were EXACTLY what I needed at that moment in time.  It really felt like the pieces all fell into place for a reason.  Being away from Rick reminded me of how much I care about him, how much I miss him when we’re apart, and how I enjoy being with him.   Being around Eliot helped me process some unresolved things from the past few tumultuous years, and reminded me of the road I’ve traveled to this point today.  It was an amazing trip and I’m so grateful that all the pieces fell into place to make it what it was.  Vietnam is an incredible country and I hope to return.

Trackside in Hanoi

Trackside in Hanoi

Some news!

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I’ve been sitting on some news for a while. Some pretty great news. Some news worth letting sink in. But, I think it’s time to share.

I’m engaged!

It happened on the first of March, so it’s taken a bit of time to tell my friends and family, square it away in my head, and digest the news before sharing. That said, it can be hard to keep good news under wraps I’ve learned! It spreads like wildfire! Even though I haven’t exactly been able to stop the excitement from spreading on social media, I am excited that I have had a few weeks to absorb this news before personally sharing my story! We are so excited and eager to begin to plan a wedding, and our next moves from here.

Here’s the story of how he proposed – if I appear gushy, it’s because I am.

Rick planned a special date, almost two weeks in advance, with a formal invitation requesting that I wear something nice (a specific dress he loves) and that I meet him before our reservations for a drink.  I’ll admit that the early planning did have my curiosity piqued at that point. I had some inkling that an engagement might be in the works, and my psychic sister had been asking me about it for weeks. But, disappointment sucks, so I wasn’t jumping to any conclusions. Though we’d talked about marriage over the time we’ve been together,  I had never put any pressure on him and didn’t feel a strong sense of urgency on the matter.

After meeting him for a quick drink after work, he took me to a very nice restaurant in the CBD, where we both ordered amazing steak dinners, and shared a bottle of wine.  I was just considering what dessert should be when he stopped me and told me he had something for me.  I thought, “Oh my god! This is it!” But, he went on to tell me he had picked up some headphones for me after borrowing mine and realizing they were falling apart. So thoughtful of him, and so not what I expected him to say…

So, with a slightly embarrassed sigh, I thanked him for the headphones and admonished myself for being delusional.  We resumed considering our dessert options, but after a short time he announced that he had something planned for dessert elsewhere. This raised my eyebrows a bit.  We paid our bill and headed out of the restaurant – me with excitement and confusion, (and sharp reminders ringing in my head about not building up any expectations).

He led me to the botanical gardens, which were wet with rain after three weeks of nonstop drizzle.  We walked the empty sidewalks, chatting about life, dinner, and Brisbane, when he noticed a bench off the path and suggested we have a seat.

The bench overlooked the river, sparkling with the reflections of the city on the smooth waters.  To my left I could see the lights of the Story Bridge, its suspension cables lit brightly against the night.  In front of us were the sailboat moorings, peacefully bobbing in the current, and to the right, the Kangaroo Point cliffs were lit up in a soft purple.  It was a gorgeous and silent night in the gardens.  After a few minutes of taking it all in, he told me he had something for me and gave me a small box.  I opened it to see a sparkling ring, unlike any I’d ever seen before.  Immediately my eyes filled with tears and I looked up at him, to find him on one knee, in the mud of the gardens, asking to spend the rest of his life with me.  I was so overcome with emotion I could barely reply.  But, obviously, you know what my answer was.

After some more tears and hugs, he reached back into his bag and pulled out a bottle of champagne that he had been carrying with him all day, along with two glasses.  We toasted to the wonderful night, and drank the whole bottle in the gardens while we let the news settle in.  We both were crying and laughing and giggling, and repeating things like “Holy shit, we’re getting married!”  It was the kind of moment that you hope is forever crystalized in your memory.

Once we finished the champagne, we giggled our way back home where we gorged ourselves on ice cream, berries, and chocolate shavings that he’d been sneakily hiding in the freezer (which I had found earlier in the week and been told to pretend I never saw). We turned on some music, danced around in our house, and then called our friends and family. It was jubilant, champagne-soaked, and giggly.

In my opinion, one of the things that made the day perfect was the story behind the ring he gave me. To preface this, I have always been unsure about diamonds. I have conflicting feelings about buying an artificially price-inflated stone for the sake of custom, especially given the ethical issues associated with diamond mining. That said, I can’t argue against the beauty of a nice diamond, or the value of presenting a solid investment to one’s partner as a testament to one’s commitment. So, the bottom line is that I’ve always wanted something that served as a bit of a compromise, a vintage ring that has a story, a history, and is re-used, but still is a valuable and beautiful gift. Well, Rick nailed that. The setting came from his mom’s mom, the main stone from his Dad’s family.  The stone has been used by EVERY Frederick John Weismiller (he’s number 4) to propose to his wife.  It’s from 1918.  The setting was worn by his grandmother for years, and is worn down along the sides where it rubbed against her wedding band.  It’s a vintage heirloom, with SO much special meaning – the only kind of diamond I think I’d want.  We took it around to various jewelers the next day to ask about making some changes to the ring to make it “mine” and every single one has been incredibly complimentary of it, to the extent of insisting I make no changes save for re-sizing. I guess that means it’s good! I feel so incredibly lucky to have such a meaningful symbol of his love, and our mutual values of family and simplicity.  It feels perfect.

I know this is gushy, and I never expected to be gushy. I never expected to start crying immediately upon seeing an engagement ring. Or to have a big, sparkly diamond on my finger. I haven’t always been certain these were things I wanted. A lot of the way this played out took me by surprise, and truth be told, there is plenty of reckoning still happening in my head. But, I wouldn’t want this any other way. The ring, the ice cream, the calls to family in the middle of the night – it was special. I guess I have to admit that I’m a girl, and I’m sensitive, and apparently I get gushy and emotional at times like this. I suppose it would be worrisome if I didn’t. 🙂

Yoga Bitch

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I’m in the middle of my yoga immersions. On my bedside table is a workshop manual covering all the stuff we discuss in class, my notebook for notes, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, and what I’ve heard to be the most easily-readable translation of the Bhagavad-Gita. Heavy stuff. So, when I was buying these, I allowed myself a fluff book too: Yoga Bitch.

I have to admit that when I got my shipment of books, Yoga Bitch was the first one I opened. I have seen it in circulation amongst my yoga teachers, and from the moment I saw the name I knew the book was for me. Its premise is exactly what I have struggled with as I have walked this yoga path – how to reconcile a wry, sardonic persona with the authenticity and vulnerability that yoga demands.

I’m not yogic on so many levels.

From a young age my mom referred to me by one of two names: Grace, and the Princess.    I was called grace due to my lack thereof.  No bandying around that one.  Though I have managed to cultivate bit more physical grace with age, I can’t really hang my hat on a graceful physicality, or nature in general.  Strike one against Kat the yogi.  I was also known as both “the Princess” and, even better, “the Adorable Child.”  These were both tongue-in-cheek references to my ability to play the role of a sweet daughter while actually bossing my sisters around and manipulating them like puppets.  Cute stuff. So, there’s a testament to my authentic nature.

I note these because they underscore the fact that, hell, I am no yogi.  From childhood to now I lay no claim to being sweet and sincere. I like to drink beer, enjoy the occasional cigarette, get a little wild, and have been known to exhibit a bit of temper.  I’m sarcastic and occasionally snarky and judgmental.  I struggle to cultivate inner peace – and I’m not always sure I want to.  That’s the rub.  That’s why I love Yoga Bitch. I get this chick. She’s like me.

From her musings on her inner conflicts regarding her need for freedom in her first serious relationship, to her ambivalence about becoming someone who “drinks the kool-aid” (or her own urine, as the case may be), I relate to this author wholeheartedly.  She embodies my personal dilemma with yoga in so many ways.  How do you embrace yogic principles without giving up the identity that you have created for yourself? (Answer: release your attachment to that identity.) But why?  And by what proof do we know that this path leads to the enlightenment we seek?  Are we just drinking the kool-aid like we would from any other organized religion (that my inner cynic (and Marx) tells me is simply the “sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions… the opium of the people?”

Ay.  This is too much thinking for me right now and I haven’t finished the book. Perhaps she addresses these questions further in.

Anyway, I think her memoir works because so many people come to yoga from a place of inner conflict and/or confusion.  So many people find that yoga’s integration of the body and mind in the quest for enlightenment simply…works.  It works better than a lot of other things.

Last weekend I got a massage; a Valentine’s gift from Rick.  It was probably the best massage I’ve ever received and I know this because I started crying in the middle of it – which as I’ve learned from yoga means they dug up something juicy deep in the flesh around my kidneys and lower back.  I could tell you more about the juicy bits, but let’s just say it’s awkward crying through the hole in a massage table and leave it at that.  It was a snotty experience.

I bring it up because the author of Yoga Bitch, and I, share the common experience of finding that yoga answered (or helped to answer) something existential that our souls sought.   It’s a tool that has helped fill a bit of a void in my comprehension of myself as a relational being amongst a world full of ’em.  It’s a path that has brought me to a new understanding of myself, my pain, my past, and even more so, my present.  My massage last weekend reminded me of where I was with yoga just a couple of years ago – crying on the mat and feeling every hip opening take me a little deeper into a dark place that I, frankly, did not want to explore.  It reminded me of what yoga has done to make a wry and sardonic creature like myself into a bit more of a well-rounded, authentic person in just a few years.

Yoga Bitch, in closing, is a book that I have not finished, but that I’d already recommend.  It’s good stuff.

Adventures in Ayurveda

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As I have mentioned on here a bit, I have been working for the past 5 months or so with an Ayurvedic doctor here in Brisbane, who also happens to be a friend and amazing yoga teacher.  I went to a workshop she put on months ago, and was inspired to learn more about ayurveda and how it could help me improve my own health and wellness.

It’s been an adventure delving into this.  First, I learned about my dosha, which in ayurveda means your constitution. There are three; kapha, pitta, and vatta.  They all have very specific qualities that make them unique and reflect elements of the natural world like fire, water, air, and earth.  The way these elements interact together helps to explain the way your body and mind work; your energy levels, your mindset, and many elements of your physical and mental health. Most people are a mix of all three doshas – often the way the three interact will change with the seasons.  But each person has their own unique mix, which is something you’re born with and can’t really change.  You can, however, manage the way the doshas work within your body to attempt to achieve balance and improve your health.

In my case, I didn’t come to Heidi, my doctor, with any specific health issues.  I basically had a host of small things that had bothered me for a long time.  I could hardly eat a meal without being doubled over in stomach pain shortly thereafter.  I had skin rashes, inflammation, and my mind often felt foggy and tired.  I was also extremely moody.  But I took all of these things to be normal – and assumed that most people dealt with the same health frustrations.   I just wanted to see if ayurveda could offer me an alternative to it, and after hearing Heidi talk about it, I thought it might .

When Heidi sat down with me, we had a talk. A serious talk. I walked away feeling like I had bared my soul.  She knew about my mental state, the way I felt about my friends and family and their health issues, my relationships, my stressors, my libido, my sweat, my exercise habits, and every last details about my excrement.  She looked at my tongue and drew pictures of it, and she looked into my eyes and furrowed her brow.  She looked at my fingernails and my skin, and by the time I was done I felt there was nothing Heidi didn’t know about me (and she probably knew things even I didn’t).  It was all a bit intrusive at first, but as we went on I could help but wonder why no doctor had ever asked me some of these questions.

I learned from her, that I’m a pitta.  A pitta pitta.  Where most people are more of a mix of three, I’m pretty much all pitta.  In short, that means I have a fiery nature, a strong metabolism, a strong desire to work and stay busy, and I’m prone to skin and stomach issues.   There is a LOT more to that – but that’s the quick and dirty.  It felt oddly validating to be deemed super pitta.  I’ve been told on more than one occasion, by more than one person, that I am the most intense person they know – which I have never fully understood.  But, Heidi saw it too in my “crazy eyes”, so I’m just accepting it as fact.  I’m intense, apparently.

So, to help balance out the pitta in me and bring me to a more healthful place, I have been going heavy on bitter foods like rocket, kale, broccoli, pomegranate, berries, and other “cooling” things like coconut water, coriander and fennel.  I’m laying off some of my favorite foods like tomatoes, anything salty, all nightshades, and sour things like lemons and oranges.   I also take all sorts of tinctures (not the sketchy type…) and potions.   I meditate and do breathing exercises.  I feel like a witch.  And, I like it.

The end of summer here in Australia is a hot, and extremely wet time of year.  It’s a hard time to be a pitta.  Things go all out of whack – and my body has.   I got a serious infection which I tried to treat with ayurveda – and which was working pretty well until guests arrived, I went traveling, and drank a lot for my birthday (which I do not regret!).  The inability to keep a routine and follow the rules I needed to follow to heal myself totally backfired on me.  I ended up in a lot of pain, upset with myself for failing ayurveda, and in a doctor’s office getting myself some antibiotics – which I try to avoid like the plague.   I am wiped out from battling nasties for weeks now, both with ayurveda and with western meds.

But despite that, I’m pretty hooked on the benefits of ayurveda,  It’s amazing to recognize that by observing my body more closely and recognizing what my symptoms mean, I can figure out how to be healthier and happier by making dietary adjustments.  I don’t have pain after my meals now, because I have worked on cultivating the right flora in my digestive tract.  That has helped my moods (because eating without pain is always a good thing!).  My PMS is less intense, my temper flares less easily, and I don’t feel that inner sense of hardness that I did for so long, which made it hard for me to cultivate empathy for other people.   I feel (more) comfortable being vulnerable. My skin has cleared up so I barely have a hint of skin rash or inflammation.  And I wake up feeling refreshed and ready to work rather than groggy all day and alert in the evening when I want to sleep.  My whole life seems to make more sense and feel more aligned with what is healthy and right.

I know some people might think ayurveda is a bit wacky and out there, but to me you simply cannot argue with results.  I feel amazing. And even though I have been unwell recently (during a hard wet season with LOTS of rain, heat, and humidity – all which really throw off my dosha), I know that I am on a course towards much better health than I have had ever before.  It feels so, so, good.

I want to encourage everyone out there to learn more about ayurveda and improving your health in a natural, diet-based way – because health is so much more than the absence of disease.  The goal is feeling vibrant, alert, and whole.  And I’m finally feeling that way!