For seven days, my reality. And now I’m back. There is smoke. There is Covid. There is drought. There is Afghanistan. There are hurricanes. There is loss upon loss upon loss. My first day back felt disastrous, overwhelming.

The view is unchanged. Thirty years, same coastal location. And, though the world is chaotically strange outside our front door, off the back deck things are persistently unchanged. Dusky low tide sand, the jutting land spit holding Santa Cruz, diving pelicans and surfacing seals.

Most Sunday mornings, I head out to dance in the garden. I cruise through mid-town, cross the American river and turn left on Northgate. Right there, beneath the overpass, week after week, I pale at the jumble of broken down tents, piles of rubbish, scattered outhouses littering the landscape of the river’s edge. The people living here are lean and dark, downcast eyes, shoulders to match. I look. I breathe. I let in. My Sunday practice for more than a year now.

I pulled up to the drive in pharmacy window at CVS and already knew the drill.  Insert  Qtip an unreasonable distance into each nostril, twirl then hold 15 seconds.  Put nasal sample in sterile tube.  Disinfect and open receptacle to deposit secretions.  Sigh.  Drive away.  Pray.

I found myself wallowing in doubt a short while the other day. Really, who am I to teach a workshop titled Cultivate Being? What do I know? I should be teaching the alternative, the one called Cultivate Distraction. There’s where my expertise lies. Besides, the last time I held a multiple day retreat was 2014 at Harbin, before it was lost to flames.

There I sat, a grandchild nested both sides, focused ready for a re-read of a favorite Dr. Seuss. It was a golden oldie when my kids loved The Sneetches.

Before I dive in to this uber-dance related narrative let me reach out to you yogis. Are you ready to touch in to LIVE practice? Feel it out? Breath and move and feel indoors with like-hearted practitioners? Please join me this Saturday at Clara for Essential Recharge.

The doumentary Oliver Sachs: His Own Life really got my attention the other night. The compelling story of a brilliant man who came into fullness via a challenging childhood, a troubled young adulthood and a struggling middle age.  Through every difficult passage, across every divide, faced with each seemingly un-scalable wall, he just kept moving with destiny. 

Retreat: 1) an act of withdrawing especially from what is difficult, dangerous, or disagreeable 2) a place of privacy or safety 3) a period of group withdrawal for prayer, meditation, study, or instruction under a director

Retreat: 1) an act of withdrawing especially from what is difficult, dangerous, or disagreeable 2) a place of privacy or safety 3) a period of group withdrawal for prayer, meditation, study, or instruction under a director

Took a few days to read a New York Times Magazine special feature about the past, present and future of the human life span. I had to take it in mini-bouts. Put our current state of affairs into stunning perspective.

That first pair arrived as harbingers of middle age. Cheap readers from the drugstore. Every year or two the numbers rose: 1.0, 2.25, 3.5…you get the picture. Maybe you’re living it. In no time the number could not go high enough, my arms were just not long enough, the lighting was just never strong enough.

Ever had shoulder pain? No??? You are lucky and very unusual. I totally remember my first bout. Scooping really hard ice cream at a school fundraiser, this giant container of vanilla, the table way too high for a short gal like me. Feel that? But I was fine doling it out for a couple hours. It wasn’t until the next day I noticed a dull ache about three inches south of the shoulder joint. Classic. And so began my personal introduction to rotator cuff dysfunction.

What happens when you return to the same spot 20 years later? Here I am again. The base of Mount Whitney, the eastern slope of the Sierras rising everywhere that is west, straight up and out of the 5,000 foot plains of the Owen Valley.

January and February…quietest months of my life, on mute. Undoubtedly. Taught online classes, showed up live for the garden dance each Sunday, Coop shopped once a week. Saw friends and children outdoors time to time, talked on the phone, read an insane number of books. Gardening and cooking---saving graces. Too cold to camp. There was no to-do list.

"Not even an inch." This mantra, established immediately, oft-repeated throughout the reunion week-end. Emphatically, joyously, giggly---over and over. Marveling how crazy close we were to each other. A vaccinated release from an entire year of no physical contact with my children and grandchildren. After three glued days it still felt utterly strange, weirdly verboten.

Bhandha: a gesture in which a segment of the body is sealed, isolated or constricted in some manner. Sanskrit for lock, bind, hold captive. And why would a body want to do that?

By and by the events that pepper our days fall into place. Our minds, hungry to create meaning, chew on personal stories. Eventually interpretation breeds perspective.

A year ago today I matched each rise and fall of my breath with my father’s. I didn’t know his breath would end the next day. We never know exactly, do we? Yet even as I remained bed side attentive, I was aware of fear and restlessness, a longing to know woven with denial, this wondering how long side by side with the wonder.

Valentine’s Day dawned overcast and cold and damp. No matter. Because since June, every Sunday morning, you'll find me outside on farmland bordering the Sacramento River. Music radiates from my trusty old Mackies and a hardy group spreads out all over the property to dance.