Where I Been, Where I Be, Where I Be Goin...

Enough said?

NOTE: This is not MY pregnant belly. This is a random internet image of a pregnant belly. I just liked it.

NOTE: I am, however, pregnant.

NOTE: It is, also in fact, a girl.

Oh, wow, you might be saying, that's great, did you just find out? Is that why we're only hearing about this now?

Um....

Weeeelll....

The truth is, I'm due soon. Increasingly sooner and sooner-er. Mid March, to be specific. So, no, I did not just find out. Have I been thinking about posting about it here for quite awhile? Yes. Have I been encouraged by others to write, in particular, about the pregnancy in this space? Yes, I have. Have I done any of that? No, I have not.

Oh, Shanti Towners...what can I even say for myself?

I will start with this...early on in the pregnancy I spent one tearful afternoon telling a very close friend (who is a new mother) all about how much trouble I was having getting work done...how I had made a commitment to myself this year to take my creative work more seriously and now, with the due date looming like a giant measuring stick (you must have gotten THIS much done in order to ride this ride), I was feeling...lost.  What exactly was I supposed to be focusing on? Where exactly was I supposed to be putting my energy? And who, for the love of ______, was I exactly, anyhow?

Said friend listened very politely to my struggle and then reminded me, as gently as possible, that I was currently involved in the biggest creative project of my life...the creation of another human being...and that it made sense that perhaps I did not feel like I had as much out in my output these days.

So I have allowed myself, Shanti Towners, a bit of a paring down, these last several months.  My creative energies have been going to projects outside of this blog, and that includes, in large part, to the creative project currently taking place in my belly. Hence the prolonged absence.

Which I can not promise you will not continue, but hopefully even the continued absence will be punctuated with some shouts and giggles from the other side.

As for now, as the due date moves closer, I find myself in the midst of a necessary shedding...a space-making, a time-taking, a head-clearing. Which sounds, I'm sure, very lovely and maybe even easy to some of you...but trust me, for this lady, it's not. It's not at all easy. It's confusing. And on certain days, it's hard to know exactly what I'm putting down, and for how long, and how and if and when exactly I will pick it back up again.

It is a time, for me, of learning (re-learning) how to trust the process.  What happens when you let something go? What happens when you trust that just because you're not actively worried about/working on/obsessing about something, it does not mean that something will disappear from your life or your heart? What happens when you give yourself space to just breathe and to be and to connect, whether or not you think you've "earned" it? What happens then? Does everything fall apart like your busy brain tells you it will...or does something else happen? Does something get clearer? Does anything?

For the moment...I'm not sure. But I'll let you know what I find out...

Until then, Shanti-Towners...sending you lots and lots of love...

Back in Action...

So, you may very well be asking yourselves, if you're still reading this blog...if ANYONE is still reading this blog...

Um...where did the blogger go? 

I, the bloggee...I am here, dutifully it seems, more dutifully than aforementioned blogger. So...what's with that? One can not exist without the other. Especially after one (aformentioned bloggee) has already combed through the archives to see if there's anything either a. interesting to read, so that your visit to this blog was not a complete waste of time, or b. some explanation as to the radio silence.

I am hopeful that there is some of option a. available.  I am well aware there is none of option b.

Oh, Shanti-Towneres...where do I begin?

First of all, let me assure you that there is no tragedy or crises or meltdown to be blamed for my absence. That is a good thing. However, that does mean that blame rests squarely on my shoulders for this stunning lack of blog upkeep over the past several months. 

The honest truth, and put as simply as I am able--I am having a re-shifting of priorities. And I haven't quite known how to talk about it. At least, not here. My family and closest friends have had earfuls. But  you, sweet Shanti-towners, many of whom are ALSO close friends...I have not known how to talk to you about it, mainly because:

1.  I don't want to seem like this girl:

2. Because it's complicated, yo.  And;

3. Well, because, most everyone in my life has been so supportive of my embrace of yoga and my transition into teaching, that I haven't wanted to let anyone down or seem like a flaaaaaaake. (Again, please reference video, above).

Now, the whys and what-fors of this re-calibration are really, I promise you, deadly boring, unless you live inside my head, or maybe if you're married to me, and even then, it's only interesting insofar as it relates to my day-to-day happiness.

But the outcome of the why-ing and what-for-ing is: I have realized I am not done pursuing a career as a writer and actress. I thought that I might be. It turns out I'm not. So. What does that mean to you?

Well, possibly absolutely nothing. But, if you're a reader of this blog, it just means that the focus of my writing here and my exploration about life and practice and love and and and...will just be expanding a bit to (re)include my creative work, as well as my yoga practice.  Other than that...onward and upward!

Thank you, so much, for hanging in there.

I'm back. I promise. For reals.

xo

YogaLia

How I Spent My Week...

Sorry for my absence, Shanti-Towners...last week I made an impromptu trip home to Seattle to see my loving family (with a bonus dinner out in Portland with the in-laws!).  Here is a picture of my dad's chickens to make up for it...

Yay, chickens!

Back next week with more yoga-goodness.  And hopefully a podcast!!

Not Yet Neanderthal Bride...

It's sort of horrifying that if you do a Google Image search for pictures of "stressed bride" you mainly get pictures back of brides LOSING their f-ing MINDS.  The photo above is one of the few I could find that didn't make me feel like I was succumbing to some kind of crazy sexist bridezilla mongering.  This is the cultural signifier for bride-dom I guess, just lots of pictures of women turning into raging you-know-whats...there were even several cartoon images of brides dragging their grooms around by the hair.

Yikes.

Please don't concern yourselves, Shanti-towners...there are very few things in this world that could compel me to drag my groom around by his hair.  One would be if there was some kind of natural disaster, he was passed out, and for some reason the only part of his body that I had access to, in order to rescue him from the burning building or what-have-you, was his hair.  The second would be if he thought that it would be fun.

I can't think of a third right now...

Which is a nice segue into my next point: that, currently, I am having trouble keeping much of my focus on anything that isn't wedding related.  I'm mustering all my non-wedding energy to get my ass to class both to practice and to teach, but that means, unfortunately, that my blogging/podcasting/ruminating has fallen a bit by the wayside.  Temporarily.

I've been feeling particularly guilty about this, as I have lots of new readers...hello out there!  Who I'm very excited to have here.  (Um...whom?  Should that be "whom I'm very excited to have here"?)  And I just want you to know that I'm around, I haven't gone anywhere, I've just been solving last-minute dress and venue issues and generally obsessing about all things wedding, and am determined not to accidentally turn Shanti-town into a wedding blog in the interim!  So, you'll just have to forgive me if my posting regularity dwindles to only once or twice per week over the next couple months.

I love you, Shanti-towners and I am, at this very minute, composing a juicy post about open hips, butchering of Indian names, and why I shouldn't pretend to know more about Indian holidays than I do....Oh, and why Louis C.K. is a goddamn genius.

Stay tuned!!

A Letter in Absentia...

Oh, teachers, lovely teachers of mine,

I really don't have too many requests.  I really am easily satisfied.  Make the class long, make it short...make it fast, make it slow...make it super inspire-ey or just talk about my shoulder-blades the whole time, it really doesn't matter to me.  I will, without question, be the one (usually in the front row...ugh.  I can't help myself.) who is laughing at your jokes and nodding at your insights.  So, I hope you won't mind if I ask you please just this one simple favor?

Please, please, please, don't make me feel badly about not coming to your class.  Oh my, I know...I knooooooow that sometimes your feelings do get genuinely hurt if I haven't been there for awhile, I know.  I know it would be easy for you to think it's because I don't like you anymore. And I know this because I have run across my own feelings of minor-betrayal and jealousy when a student who has been coming to class suddenly is no longer in class.  Oh, sure you've been on vaaaaacaaaaaaation.  I bet you have.  What did I do?  Was it that one time when I kept almost saying "breasts" instead of "breath"?  That's what sealed it for you, isn't it?!  Argh!! I'm a hack!

But, sweet teachers of mine, it's not, on my part, for lack of love.  It's not even, usually, for lack of practice.  (I suppose if you were the mister miagi to my ralph macchio and you knew that I had been slacking off and that's why you haven't seen me in weeks, okay, maybe then you'd be allowed to give me the stink-eye.)  But, the truth is that I'm busy, and I'm teaching, and I'm trying to figure out what the hell it means to have a home-practice, so making it to your class is a luxury!  A much-desired one. 

Please don't muck it up by giving me the judgy "I'm disappointed in you" face.

Some of you, my wiser teachers, might be out there saying to yourself, well, you know, I can't really MAKE you feel bad.  If you feeeeeel bad, it's probably because YOU feeeeeel bad.  And you would be right.  I know that I have my own "you're going to be mad at me" thing happening which probably doesn't help, but the truth is...there are certain teachers who I know, no matter how much time has passed between classes, will be as welcoming and as excited to see me as if I had been there the day before.

And there are certain teachers...who will not.

And that is who I'm addressing here...those of you out there who just can't help but feel affronted when a student disappears from you.  And who maybe feel that giving said student a bit of the cold-shoulder, a bit less of you, a bit more distance...will make the whole thing easier.  You won't open up so much to me, and so then, when I disappear again, it won't hurt quite as much for you.

Sounds pretty f-ing human.

I've been thinking a lot about this lately...partly for myself as a student (and my own upset at feeling like I've let people down, or hurt them, or fallen out of favor because of my absence), and partly for myself as a teacher, because I never want to make anyone feel this way. 

My larger self is going to take over the keyboard right now and say that, in my deepest depths, what I want for anyone in my class, is for them to find a place that is safe, and where they feel (as one of my mentors would say) that the yoga can be "lit up in them".  And if that's with me, that's great.  And if it's not with me, that's also great.

Of course we want to develop relationships with people in our classes, of course we do, but really (I'm coming to believe this more and more) our role at the front of that room is first and foremost to be keepers of a certain kind of space.  Our role is to cultivate safety and curiousity and equilibrium and all of the other things that the practice of yoga itself creates...in the space of our classrooms. 

And I don't know if we're able to do that AND make the judge-y face.

So, if you're out there, oh anonymous hurt-feelinged teachers...please know that I love you deeply.  And I WANT to be in your class.  I would never come back again, if that weren't the case.  So, please remember that, the next time I come in after some medium or long absence.  Because what I also need to learn from you...maybe more so than anything else...is how to love myself and the people around me, even when they aren't living up to my expectations. 

And I'm hoping that you can show me how to do that.

Lots of love,
YogaLia

Lo Siento!!

(that is the only spanish I remember from highschool.  That and "ET telephono mi casa!" from the spanish-dubbed version of ET watched on some we've-run-out-of-real-work friday afternoon)

I'm sorrry I've been a little absentee from Shanti-town the last week or so...my boyfriend's folks were in town and we have been showing them a good time...I'm also knee-deep in several small projects (many of which you will hear more about in the coming days.)

In the meantime, please send my your yoga-in-the-world photos!! Only a few days left and I have gotten some really awesome submissions so far!!

I wanna see your aaaaaaaaaaaaaart!!

xo
YogaLia

You can always come back...

Wow. So. Where have I been?

Well, I will spare you from condensing 3 months into a single blog post..."you", if there is still a "you" out there. Sigh. I've been thinking about this blog, again and again, especially as my life changes and my practice changes and each affects the other...and so tonight I have reserved just this small space of time to write a little, to get back on solid footing here in Shanti Town, and to set the stage for a forward movement.

The short of it is, I am in Los Angeles, going on 6 weeks now, with 6 more to go (perhaps more...but that is the long of it), and so many things are upside down...in the best way upside down. I won't go into all the actor-schmactor parts of it, as this place is a reprieve from that particular dragon...but I will say this:

1. I miss Laughing Lotus! Not only can I not (at the moment) afford my glorious unlimited monthly yoga, but finding a kick-ass Vinyasa class in this town (that isn't an hours drive away) is no easy feat.

2. Anyusara is all the rage here and I'm actually pretty taken with it. In particular with a teacher named Stephen Espinosa who I would follow around the world. He is...I can not describe the gift of teaching that this man possesses...he will get his own post later on! Ode to Stephen Espinosa...coming soon, right here at Shanti Town!

3. LA has one up on NY in this: (ahem, drumroll please)...FREE YOGA EVERY DAY OUTSIDE IN RUNYON CANYON PARK. Okay, people. Freeeeeeeee OUTDOOR yoga! Walking distance from my apartment! Outside! Now, it's an open level situation so there aren't the crazy hardcore poses I live for, but in this economic client (i.e. my tiny bank balance) the free yoga is the best thing that could ever happen to me.

4. The giant dip in my daily walking level and the lack of the Lotus is making for a slightly grumpy body. My goal for the next couple weeks: to find a studio or a practice change that bumps the intensity up a notch so that I can stop wasting time pinching my belly in front of the mirror.

5. I miss you all and I love you and I promise to catch you up more and better soon, soon, soon.

Love,
YogaLia

365 Days of Yoga - Days 21-31

10 Days. An overview...

1/20/09 - Hooray! Hooray! Tears...laughing...calls home...much text-messaging. Hooray! Slight sinking feeling that either I am not doing enough, or I really ought to quit what I AM doing and go save the world in some small (or preferably LARGE way). Early AM yoga class.

1/21/09 - This is the first day of the rest of my life. I am accessing my Inner Obama and I am going to make. Things. Happen. (Translation: finally dropped in to see my commercial agents after putting it off for months). Nighttime yoga, followed by a healthy cleaning of the studio bathrooms.

1/22/09 - Barely slept. Cancelled an appointment I should have kept. Did about 5 minutes of yoga and spent the rest of my time trying to overcome the fact that I have NOTHING to wear. Certainly not to LA. Where I would be departing that evening. For which trip I had the worst 2 hour trip to the airport of my life. I hate the stress of being late...even if you're not actually late but think you're going to be. Especially for a plane. Which I ended up on with no food, no water, no headphones, and a seat that wouldn't recline.

1/23/09-1/26/09 - I LOVE LOS ANGELES. (Except for the part where my beloved had the stomach flu and we had to stay in a hotel for a day so he could sleep and not contaminate anyone. Poor baby. But I didn't catch it! So I was still having a grand old time...). Did yoga in our tiny hotel rooms and on the floors of friends places...10 minutes at a time. Every day, folks. Every day.

1/27/09 - Back to reality. Which includes the revisions of my play that need to be done for tomorrows rehearsal and which, I have not finished. I spend 5 hours straight this morning pounding away at the script, sneak in a half-hour home practice, and then off to work. Whereat...I notice that my tummy feels a little...bit...funny.

Uh-oh.

1/27-1/28/09 - Hard Core Puking.*

1/29/09 - Recovering from above.*

*Addendum to 365 Day Plan: On days where one's insides are struggling to come outside, yoga practice for these days is excused.

1/30/09 - Totally frazzled crazed finishing of rewrites...a rehearsal wherein I don't know if the play has gotten better or worse, and my first day back among the living. So glad to be eating again.

1/31/09 - My first class back at the Lotus. Hallelujah! Did I mention that I started my period the DAY after I got over the flu? Oh yeeah, that's sweet. It seems that since I didn't get a chance to experience a real bout of PMS (which, seriously folks, I get like nobody's business) I have decided to cram all of my grumpiness into the past two days so a hard-core 2 hour yoga class was a sweet sweet relief. I felt like I was flying through the whole thing...only problem was that my mind kept wandering into the same fantasy of me auditioning for a certain reality television show that I will not mention but to which I am heartily addicted, however, am a bit too short and a lot too...healthy...to ever be competitive on. You know what show I'm talking about? It's fiiiiiiierce. Let's just say that in the fantasies, while the judges don't really know what to do with me, they do LOVE me, and I take the fashion world by storm! Namaste.

Not Yet Done...!

I'm sure you have all given up.

I would have, by now.

I almost did...

But, I've decided, no! I'm going to give it another go! I am NOT going to be hushed by my own busy-ness or anything else!

It's an interesting thing actually...the meshing of this practice with my life, and maybe the last several weeks have been an illustration of the front burner/back burner switcharoo that must naturally take place as my acting career ebbs and flows. Lately there has been a lot of flowing, for which I am truly grateful, but I won't pretend that my yoga practice hasn't suffered. My steady five classes/week has hovered around 3 on my busiest weeks, and I can FEEL the difference. My legs and arms get cranky for movement, and I, too, get cranky. I want to chide myself for being so dependent on a practice to feel at home in my body (and in my life, oftentimes) but then I remember that I ought to just shut up and be grateful. How did I ever get along before??

I am settling in to the speed of my schedule now and am making a larger effort to get my ass to class and am nearly back to my previous schedule, and am no worse for the wear, thankfully. In fact, I feel like some small gap has been closed and am more intimately connected to the asana than ever before. I'm convinced that part of this is due to my newly found attentiveness to my core throughout the practice. There is such a lot of fire and dynamism down there!

Oh, Shanti Town, I have so much to catch you up on! The Yoga Conference at the Sheraton! My ensuing obsession with Seane Corn. (Seriously. I love her.)! Halloween Yoga! My new favorite teacher at the studio! More Edward stories! There is so, so much...

But, in time. In time.

For now, I would just like to say...I'm sorry to have been away so long. I can't promise it won't happen again, but my hope is to always return, no matter the absence...