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I’m lucky to still be alive to tell the tale.

February 20, 2013

All I can do this morning when I browse the news and ponder on all the people who have left the planet in recent days, ranging from self-help author Debbie Ford, who faced her shadow, to the troubled music star Mindy McCready, whose shadow overpowered her, to the many people from my own life drama who have passed on . . . all I can do is shake my head and wonder what really happens in the great beyond. I also say, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

I’ve only minimally tasted the pain of life, and that was painful enough. I once hit a man in the head with a glass bottle while he was driving . . . it was just lucky there wasn’t a gun in the car. I can only imagine the pain in the heart and solar plexus that would cause a beautiful 37-year-old singer to end it all. How incomprehensible it all is, even if we find a logical reason.Yesterday I came across a very interesting piece about Larry Hagman’s mind-altering psychedelic trip. It described how the actor suffered a nervous breakdown while filming a TV show and how the film crew carted him off to a psychiatrist who suggested he ease his anxiety by taking LSD. Hagman claimed that he saw his body’s molecular structure during his first trip. “Some cells were dying, some cells were being reborn . . . I realized we don’t disappear when we die. We’re always part of a curtain of energy.”A 70-year-old friend suggested to me that there should be a gentle, legal form of LSD for senior citizens. He says it’s not fair that we kick the bucket without ever really knowing what this whole trip of being in a body was all about.

It’s been 45 years since I took my last trip, high in the mountains of Ojai, in Matilija Canyon or Rose Valley. It was August or September of 1967, a few days after I returned from Haight-Ashbury. I don’t recall the exact location, only that we drove up Maricopa Highway, parked, and hiked to a place that was absolutely still and quiet, far away from the noise of civilization. I was 18 years old and didn’t have the language to articulate what happened. But I remember that my consciousness shifted from the world of time to timelessness. Maybe it was a taste of cosmic consciousness, maybe it wasn’t. I do distinctly remember saying over and over again, “I’ve waited so many lifetimes for this moment.”

The impression this experience made on my consciousness has never left me. At the same time, I know that the human mind is capable of inventing all kinds of realities, whether born of mind-altering drugs, religious conditioning, or the effects of alternative belief systems, some of which I was briefly “processed” in before I jumped ship.

So here I am in beautiful Ojai, in my messy writing hovel, surrounded by books, journals, yoga props, and cats and dogs sprawled across my bed. I’m still sleeping on a mattress on the floor, just like in my hippie days. The sun is shining through the trees, and I feel blessed to wake up happy. If the world doesn’t end, then this day, like all the others, will be eaten up by endless ADLs (activities of daily living): money reckonings, kitty litter cleaning, dog walking (the highlight of the day), and eating food—both for nourishment and for consolation.

All human beings suffer, no matter what props they accrue on the stage of life. Some overdose on drugs, some put a bullet in their head, and all succumb to accidents, disease, or age. This awareness alone helps move me into the present moment, where I can laugh and realize I’m lucky to still be alive to tell the tale.

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Tags:earthly concerns, journal writing, writing yoga
Posted in death and dying, Life in Ojai, New Memoir Chapters, Yoga Writing Memoir | Leave a Comment »

The Road to Singledom

February 15, 2013

Last night, in honor of Valentine’s Day, I made a list of all the men in my life, going all the way back to my first boyfriend at age 15, the Catholic one up the street who set me on fire. That fire was promptly extinguished when my fanatical Pentecostal father told his Catholic father in no uncertain terms that I could not date a Catholic. My old dad confessed his part in this out of the blue a few years ago, adding remorsefully, “I should have let you go out with that young man. He was much better than the ones that came afterwards.”

It’s a long list—almost 50 years’ worth of relationships, including my first marriage at age 18 followed by two more . . . all the living-together arrangements—an endless stream of boyfriends, one after the other, with no real alone space in between. It’s total poetic justice that, after all that obsessing, the shocks, the crying, the heartbreak, the horrible suffering, after all the years of marriage counseling, couple retreats, untold books on relationship as a spiritual path, after all that incredible agony and awesome ecstasy, that I should now find myself not applying the wisdom I’ve gained to a relationship but to finally standing psychologically solid on my own two feet.

I sit here in my kitchen, sunlight streaming through the sliding glass door, ignoring yesterday’s dirty dishes, reveling in being alone. The writer in me remembers the thrill of hearing a delivery boy knock on the door to hand me a beautiful bouquet of flowers in a glass vase or pretty wicker basket, always with a festive ribbon and a little white envelope with a sweet message inside. Then later getting picked up in a red convertible and driving off full of hope and anticipation with a handsome-devil boyfriend, going off for the weekend to a romantic bed and breakfast . . .

I feel no need to burn the journals where I scribbled furiously in my efforts to make sense of it all. Once in a while I look at the love letters, photo albums, and romantic cards I’ve saved through the years . . . all these material reminders of past Valentine’s Days. If I had not had all these experiences, would I be this content alone? Everything that ever happened was a hard-won lesson on the road to peaceful singledom.

Tags:journal writing, writing yoga
Posted in dating after midlife, father daughter relationships, Life in Ojai, New Memoir Chapters, Yoga Writing Memoir | 4 Comments »

45 Years Ago in the Haight Ashbury

February 8, 2013

I originally wrote the Post below on April 24, 2007. Today’s Post is a reminder to myself to finish the story mid February, 2013

Turn On. Tune In. Drop Out!
I got a little jolt last night as I sat in Seated Wide Angle Pose, Upavistha Konasana (the pose in the photo) watching a PBS documentary on Hippies and the Summer of Love.

It dawned on me that it was 40 years ago (1967) [now 45 years] that I took the Greyhound bus from Ventura to San Francisco and rented a room on the third story of a house on Haight Street.

I was 17 years old. I had enough credits to graduate early from Nordhoff high school. While my classmates were still in prison, for the first time in my life, I was free to draw around the clock with Bob Dylan and Simon and Garfunkle in the background. I could sit for hours on the window ledge, in my painted jeans, watching the unfolding hippy invasion below. From my third story perch I could spot Janis Joplin in the crowd and hear Country Joe and the Fish playing nearby.

Imagine growing up in the small town of Ojai and suddenly finding yourself transported amongst 20,000 people dancing in Golden Gate Park! The documentary showed the Human Be-In, a Gathering of the Tribes, and all the great counterculture gurus.

I remembered how I made money selling my psychedelic drawings ($5 to as high as $25 each), babysitting the young children who lived in the first story apartment below, and peddling the Berkeley Barb.

You could buy a ten pound bag of brown rice for $1 and get clothes, shoes, and other essentials at the Free Store. When I ran out of rice I fasted to protest the Vietnam War. My AWOL boyfriend was picked up by the military police in the dead of night and locked up in the Presidio.

Did anyone else see the PBS special last night? Did you see yourself? As I stretched forward in Seated Wide Angle Pose I had this great cosmic insight that we’re all still trying to turn on, tune in and drop out… Is that what growing older is all about?

To be continued

Part Two: 1967, The Summer of Love in Ojai:

http://ojaihistory.com/summer-bummer-ojai-in-the-turbulent-60s/

45 years ago the Beatles went to India: http://brightstarevents.net/viewArticle.cfm?id=125

Tags:journal writing, writing yoga
Posted in Haight Ashbury, New Memoir Chapters, Yoga Writing Memoir | 2 Comments »

Can you build a bridge and burn it at the same time?

February 7, 2013

Last night I finally opened the boxes of journals that I’ve been schlepping around for three years, and OMG, it’s like opening Pandora’s box!

My cats are so excited, hopping into and around the boxes; they can feel the erratic energy flying around. It’s all there—except for the early journals from the 60s that, in an attempt to free me from the past, a boyfriend had me burn. (So these journals go back to the 70s and 80s)

It remains to be seen why I feel compelled to turn my kitchen into an office so that I can arrange all these crazy life stories into the form of a book; it may just be for my own integration. I only know that, unless I do this, I cannot sleep. I have this idea that, if I spread everything out in the open, then when I wake up at 2 a.m. I can go right to my writing table and in nine months birth my next book.

I’ve already laughed in the face of all the obstacles. It is so blatantly obvious that money is not always a true measure of success. Nor is lack of money always a true measure of failure. (I have a stack of books by authors who died in poverty and were buried in unmarked graves. I hope that doesn’t happen to me.)

When I see rock star yoga teachers teaching mega classes with hundreds of students, I remind myself that this phenomenon occurs in every belief system. In the religious world there are wildly successful charismatic ministers with mega services that, in their size, leave mega yoga classes in the dust.

When I visit my parents, I’m reminded that there is no end to the belief systems in this world and no lack of evidence to substantiate just about any belief, from far left to far right to heaven above and hell below. My dad is so looking forward to seeing his mother, who died decades ago, in heaven—he mentions her every time I visit. He is surrounded by books on the afterlife—a far different afterlife than the one described in metaphysical books, but equally compelling.

My journals reflect the mind of a mad woman who has possibly thrown out the baby with the bathwater. But at least I’m aware that I’m insane. I recall some years ago challenging the reality of a longtime friend with dementia. She looked me square in the eye and told me in no uncertain terms, “Don’t you think that if I’d lost my mind I’d be the first to know it?” (Found this gem in my journals, too.)

I don’t mind if the whole world subscribes to the Law of Attraction that says like attracts like, you attract what you need, and you create your own reality. It doesn’t matter to me what people believe, so long as they don’t mind if I don’t believe it!

Yes, there is karma and there are laws of nature, but I cannot in good conscience pretend that I know how it all works. That North Korean sociopath dictator who sits in his palace while his starving people reportedly turn to cannibalism is not rich because of good karma. The young woman killed yesterday by the Taliban was caught up in circumstances beyond her control. I don’t believe she attracted being tortured and shot.

My own life has not been a life-and-death drama, but my journals reveal the heavy religious conditioning, the brainwashing from birth, the deeply embedded patriarchal belief system I was born into.

On March 3, 1996, I wrote these words on the road to freedom: “Over and over I see that, for me, my relationship with the man in my life is the core of my life . . . it is either cultural conditioning or my female nature. Maybe when I’m 50, after men-o-pause, I won’t be like this, but today [and all the years prior] I am in this [incomplete] state . . . ”

Underneath this telling entry I wrote down my horoscope for the week of March 7-14, which asked: “Can you build a bridge and burn it at the same time?”

Fifteen years later I can unequivocally say, “Yes!”

Tags:earthly concerns, journal writing, relationships, wounded daughter, writing yoga
Posted in Life in Ojai, New Memoir Chapters, Yoga Writing Memoir | 2 Comments »

As if life itself isn’t strange enough, then there’s the dream world. . .

February 5, 2013

As if life itself isn’t strange enough, then there’s the dream world. Last night I was in a hotel room with a man from my past. In real life he was a healer—a successful, movie-star-handsome doctor. But he was also a wounded child, addicted to sex and drugs, with posttraumatic stress syndrome from his years in Vietnam. Our ten years together eventually woke me up to the shadow side of relationships.

In the dream, many years had passed since I’d seen him. He was claiming that he was now rehabilitated, and I was supposed to trust him. He was still young, lying nearly naked on the bed, smiling with need and beckoning me to come to him with that same “I want you” look on his face as when we were together. But I felt nothing, no sexual pull . . . just a sense of obligation.

I said, “It’s been a long time since I’ve had sex. It’s going to take time for me to trust you.” And just as I said that I noticed an insect crawling on his pillow—a scorpion. I looked again and saw another one, and another one, and then I realized that they were everywhere, all over the floor, and that I had already been stung on the leg but hadn’t noticed it. I shouted, “We’ve got to get out of here!” and ran out and closed the door.

When I woke up, I scribbled all this down in my journal. And, as I wrote, I saw how each man in my life was like a symbol, representing a world I thought I couldn’t touch on my own.

[My editor says, “Develop/expand on this last thought, Suza!” And I say, “I will!”]

Tags:dating at midlife and older, journal writing, wounded daughter, writing yoga
Posted in New Memoir Chapters | 2 Comments »

The School of Life

January 29, 2013

If this is the School of Life, and if we’re here on Earth to learn, and if every person we meet is our teacher, then what did I learn today from the people I encountered?

The day began with a phone call from a yoga student who lost a dog to bone cancer a few days ago. She told me the story of how a few years ago she had adopted two starving Rottweilers. The dogs, renamed Bonnie and Clyde, had been abandoned in a fenced backyard when their owner moved. By the time the two trapped dogs were rescued, they were skin and bones and in terrible shape. Bonnie and Clyde were inseparable buddies. My student called to say that she would be missing class because she could tell that Bonnie, the surviving dog, was depressed and mourning, and needed her to stay nearby.

I assured my student that staying home with her despondent dog was much more important than coming to class. Life is constantly reminding us that we do yoga to live—we don’t live to do yoga. We do yoga to help us cope with whatever life brings. And we do yoga to prepare for death.

When I got to Sacred Space Studio, a longtime student and friend that I hadn’t seen for about a year was waiting by the door. She asked, half kidding and half sheepish, “Can I come back to class?” “No!” I joked, “it’s too late.”

After class I remembered that she had stopped coming to yoga shortly after happily telling me that her boyfriend was moving in with her. I remembered how excited and optimistic she had been, describing how they were moving the furniture around to make space for him. So naturally I asked, “How are things going with the live-in boyfriend?”

“It was a total disaster, ” she replied. “I work all the time, on my days off I have my art, and on Sunday afternoon I need some quiet time. He was so needy . . . We’re still friends, but he had to move out. We still go out together, but he has to work on his stuff . . . I can’t do it for him.”

I would have been happy for her if things had worked out, but as it was, hearing her say “It was a disaster” reminded me of my own disasters that I’ve inadvertently averted. I drove home counting my blessings.

I know this is getting long, but I have to tell you about one more lesson today. As I was driving up the highway, just past the intersection of Cuyama and El Roblar, I saw a beautiful sight. A young couple with a big backpack, a guitar, a folded stroller, and a baby, hitchhiking. I took it all in as I flew past them. They were smiling confidently, each with one arm stretched straight toward the road, hand clenched, thumb up. I glanced up at my rear-view mirror and saw that the three cars behind me passed them, too. So what could I do? I haven’t forgotten my hippie roots. And I didn’t have the excuse of dogs in the back seat. So I pulled over, got out, and waved them over. As they ran toward me, I threw the dirty dog blankets in the trunk.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Matilija Canyon,” they replied.

“Oh,” I said. “I’m only going as far as Fairview. Will that help you any?”

“Yes, that gets us closer . . .”

So we put the big guitar case and stroller in the trunk and squeezed the backpack, mom, dad, and baby in the back. (I had groceries and yoga props up front.)

As we drove off, I quizzed them. “Where are you from?”

“Germany.”

“Oh,” I said. “I’m from Holland.”

“Oh, we’ve been to Holland.”

We exchanged names. I knew it would give them a kick if I mentioned I was a former mayor of Ojai, and sure enough, they thought that was a hoot. I could tell they were seasoned travelers . . . and they had a distinctly European vibe, like my relatives. They reminded me of myself, way back in 1968, when I was an optimistic teenager hitchhiking with my baby boy.

As we passed the Deer Lodge, I decided to take them at least part of the way into Matilija Canyon—an epic adventure. As we drove deeper into the mountains, they told me how much they love Ojai, how they felt safe here, how nice all the people are. As we entered the Canyon, the view was so breathtaking that I could feel my heart bursting and tears welling up inside. I made up my mind that I’d find ways to spend more days here, like I used to do decades ago . . .

“This is how we imagined California would be like . . . ” the couple repeated several times. “We love it here! We just love it here!”

Tags:journal writing, nature, Ojai, outdoors, writing yoga
Posted in dating after midlife, Life in Ojai, Yoga Writing Memoir | 1 Comment »

“No fair! You know all my secrets!”

January 24, 2013

Well, yesterday (Wednesday) was really exciting. By some cosmic coincidence my pregnant yoga student had a baby girl a few minutes past 5 p.m.—the same day and time of her weekly prenatal yoga class, just like I joked might happen. But not in the yoga room—in a birthing room. While my student was delivering, I met a kindred-spirit, out-of-town, vegan Facebook friend (and her darling husband) for the first time in real life at The Farmer & the Cook. And then, to top off the evening, I went to bed with the man of my dreams, Colin Fletcher, The Man Who Walked Through Time. I have not yet learned to manifest bags of gold, but somehow every book I’ve ever wanted to read magically appears on my doorstep—usually without my even having to ask. It almost makes me believe in the Law of Attraction.

While waiting for the freshly made potato soup to finish cooking, I got acquainted with this exotic couple, Viktoria and Augusto Nieva-Gomez. Viktoria already knew all about me from reading Fishing on Facebook plus all these posts. “No fair!” I said after we hugged. “You know all my secrets. Now tell me yours!”

Viktoria and Augusto both have strong accents, so first I asked where they were from. He was born in Mexico, she in Austria, and they met eighteen years ago on Christmas eve in a Brazilian restaurant in Germany. I love romance, so I wanted to know all the details, and to my delight Viktoria turned out to be a high-energy chatterbox—a writer’s dream come true. If I got the story straight (and I hope they feel free to correct me), they fell in love in Europe and then got married in a beautiful Native American ceremony in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where they knew no one but everything fell into place.

It was great fun to hear about their life together, first in Mexico and later in California. As Augusto periodically spoke up to clarify a point, I noticed that I was unconsciously scanning the room. Although I was listening intently, my eyes were wandering. Maybe it was the sweet energy between Viktoria and Augusto, or the looming full moon on the horizon, but my eyes fell ever so briefly on one or two men sitting at nearby tables who suddenly looked attractive. It took me by pleasant surprise.

Still waiting for the potato soup, nut loaf, and other vegan delectables to appear, the subject inevitably turned to how it is that some of us, raised on the delicious childhood tastes of ham, sausages, pork roast, hot dogs, and crunchy fried chicken, come into the awareness that these are sentient beings we’re eating. I heard myself saying that custom can accustom people to any atrocity. People in some foreign countries sit in a restaurant and order various dog-meat entrees, freshly killed from the crates of dogs stacked nearby. That is the custom that they’re accustomed to. In this country, our custom dictates that it’s perfectly normal to celebrate religious holidays by eating pigs and lambs.

To further spice up the conversation, I brought up the idea that some of my distant Indonesian ancestors were probably cannibals. I mentioned that I had recently read about an elderly man who claimed to have eaten humans and, when asked “What do they taste like?” replied, “Very much like pigs.” Which doesn’t surprise me, as their physiology, to the best of my knowledge, is closer to humans than that of any other animal.

When our food arrived, the subject turned back to romance and relationships. Because Viktoria was a bona fide “real reader” and not one of my editors or longtime acquaintances, I was thrilled to hear that she rolled on the floor with laughter while reading my dating memoir. She had not only shared the book with friends but mailed copies to Switzerland and Germany! She told me how she had loved my description of Earth Cafe Raw Vegan Chesecake as being “the only real treat on the planet with no calories.” And, since it turned out that she and Augusto were visiting Ojai to celebrate her birthday, she surprised me with a piece of “Strawberry Fields Forever” Earth Cafe cake, and a box of Lulu’s Maca Buttercups, a handcrafted raw chocolate cup that actually tastes surprisingly like Reese’s peanut butter cups, only filled with sprouted almond butter. It was a totally delicious, delightful evening, and then I fell asleep with Colin Fletcher on my chest . . .

Tags:journal writing, relationships, writing yoga
Posted in Life in Ojai, Yoga Writing Memoir | Leave a Comment »

“Why don’t you ask that woman you slept with? She must know where your kimono is.”

January 23, 2013

1956. A Diets-Vermeer family photo taken in Den Haag, Holland, a few months before destiny brought us to Ojai, California, the land of sunshine and orange orchards

This morning, while wiping up the pool of pee Chico left in front of the sliding glass door which was closed so the cats would not be eaten by coyotes, I noticed how I constantly remind myself that no one on this Earth has an easy life. If one fine morning an angel with a big house and a ranch for Honey scooped up my whole menagerie I’d have a lickety split clean house in 24-hours and time, energy, and cash to escape my monastic life. But like Gilda Radner famously said, “If it’s not one thing, it’s another.” As many others have pointed out, the only thing we can really control is our response to whatever comes down the chute. And I would not trade my troubles for anyone else’s.

Speaking of troubles, when I went to visit my old parents Sunday afternoon my dad was turning the house upside down looking for his kimono. Nothing makes him madder then when someone does not put an item back where it belongs. He kept muttering, “I can’t understand it. It’s supposed to be here.” My mom just sits undisturbed, with a slightly evil amused look on her face, while he looks behind furniture, lifts pillows, and rummages through the closet. She keeps right on reading de krant, the same Dutch newspaper she was reading my last visit and the one before that. Then suddenly, as he paces past her she looks up and jokes, “Why don’t you ask that woman you slept with? She must know where your kimono is.”

Turns out my dad needs his kimono because my niece, who is going to Beauty School, is coming to cut his hair. The niece arrives with a big black doctor-like bag filled with barber equipment. The kimono is found and she escorts my dad to the back porch where she sits him in chair and gets to work. And just like when I was a child I breathe a sigh of relief that the ogre is out of the house. I quickly sneak several slices of cheese to divide between Honey and Chico. I make myself a nice snack without him asking me three times if I washed my hands or telling me to use another plate.

When my mom gets wind that her husband is getting a hair cut she exclaims, “But then there will be nothing left!” She does not like that he’s doing this without her permission. She rises from her easy chair, grabs her walker, and then changes her mind and sits back down. But she turns her head toward the back porch and yells, “You can sleep by yourself till it grows back! And if it doesn’t grow back in a week you can buy a wig.”

When my dad comes back into the house he’s all smiles, with a spring in his step, looking all fresh and clean. “I feel so good, ” he says, over and over again, “I feel like a new man.” I make my escape early, guilt-free, while my niece and her older sister are still there, infusing my old parents with their happy, youthful energy. . .

(My mom, Maria Vermeer Diets, 92-years old on February 8, 2013)

Tags:earthly concerns, journal writing, writing yoga
Posted in elder care, father daughter relationships, Life in Ojai, Yoga Writing Memoir | Leave a Comment »

“I’ve had a great life. . . too bad I didn’t realize it sooner!”

January 20, 2013

Of all the elements of nature, the wind feels most mystical to me. It is the breath of the Earth, reminding me to take a deeper inhalation of fresh, clean air. Here in the river bottom on this quiet Sunday morning, the winter wind in the oasis of trees that surrounds my house feels almost like summer, soft and warm, causing all the leaves and pine needles to shimmer in the rising sun.

The week feels like it’s ending on a happy note. I try to watch my mind and monitor what comes out of my mouth, but sorry to say the whiny irrational child in me seems to rise with a vengeance when I’m tired. The cats, the dogs, and their constant demands, their throwing up and peeing in the night, my cleaning it up and then not being able to fall back asleep and never getting a break from them, just gets to me sometimes. I curse people who don’t spay and neuter their pets! Last Monday I had exactly $42 in cash and I spent it all on kitty litter, cat food, and dog food—just to tide things over for a few days. My three-month attempt to wean three old cats from kitty litter now that I’m settled into my new digs was a total fiasco. I spent more on Simple Green, Earth-friendly paper towels, laundry detergent, and water, and wasted more time and energy, than I would have had I just thrown in the towel and surrendered to the money drain of kitty litter. I want to fling Ginger across the room when she cries to come inside so she can use the cat box!

If I would just train myself to lie still in the Goddess Pose for ten minutes before calling upon those nearest and dearest to me and whining about how hard my life is, my writing-yoga life would be as close to heaven on Earth as I think it gets.

There is a gate (a real-life gate, but also a spiritual gate) that opens to the river-bottom nature preserve, only a one-minute walk from my door. The hard part is leashing my overexcited wild Aussie girl and extricating myself from the endless worldly demands. I justify my escapes by telling myself that if I were dead it wouldn’t help matters, so I need to get out into the boonies to help prolong my stay here.When I step through that gate with my pack of eager dogs, the view is so dazzling I’m instantly transported. I’m reminded now of something Beatrice Wood said frequently in her later years: “I’ve had a great life . . . too bad I didn’t realize it sooner!”

Tags:earthly concerns, journal writing, nature, Ojai, outdoors, writing yoga
Posted in Life in Ojai, Yoga Writing Memoir | Leave a Comment »

The world of time mattered not

January 14, 2013

This morning the dogs and I headed out when it was barely light, and it felt like an adventure to be out in the cold, invigorating wind. The book Nature’s Ways asks what time of day you most resonate with. For me, without a doubt it is the crack of dawn. That’s when you feel like you have your feet in both worlds—light and dark, visible and invisible. That’s when you can move as if propelled by some force outside yourself and you feel like you can walk forever. That’s when there are the least cars on the road, when the valley is silent, and you can reconnect with the amazing ancient feeling of standing upright. That’s when you can remember the eons before electricity when we rose at first light.

Yesterday while I was riding my bicycle from the river bottom to Mira Monte, the bike suddenly locked up while I was pedaling uphill. The wheels turned, the chain looked fine, but something, maybe the gear mechanism, was stuck. First I felt frustrated. I gently kicked the back tire (thinking maybe it was hitting metal), and then with a great deal of effort I squeezed the handlebars and changed the gears. I sped full blast downhill, and the brakes worked fine, but once on level ground my bike rebelled and jolted to a halt. I’d smooth out the gears, glide along for a block or so, and then—again—jolt, jolt, and stop. This became especially problematic and somewhat embarrassing in intersections, when I’d have to jump off the bike midway, causing waiting drivers to have to idle their cars for a few more seconds.

It was almost noon, the warm sun felt fabulous, and really the only problem was that now I was running late. So I called my student to let her know the situation. “No problem,” she said. And then I began to enjoy the walk. I felt carefree without the usual dogs on a leash, my bike is light, and we ran/walked together uphill at a nice relaxing, non-exhausting pace.

I want to share here that my student is facing great uncertainty. Her health challenges are forcing her to face her own mortality. Any one of us could die today, tomorrow, or a year from now; that is a fact. After my student’s lesson, as I rode my bike downhill and walked uphill, adding an extra hour to my travel time, the world of time mattered not. I felt so enormously grateful for my health. For my energy and ability to walk and walk. The mountains of Ojai never looked more beautiful. As I walked, that Bible psalm about walking in the valley of the shadow of death came into my consciousness. How important it is to make friends with death, and to feel death walking with us. That awareness can help us step ever deeper into the mystery of life.

Tags:journal writing, nature, Ojai, outdoors, writing yoga
Posted in death and dying, death and dying, Life in Ojai, Yoga Writing Memoir | Leave a Comment »

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