The Quest for the Juicy Chicken

At some point in my cross-country trip, somewhere in the prairies, I looked forward to that moment when all of that flatter-than-flat terrain would suddenly just crash into the Rocky Mountains.  The wide-open, golden sprawl would plow into the jagged, snow-capped peaks.  After that, the rugged, tectonic argument that, today, still holds its glacial grudge would cascade; slip-sliding into the sea.  As if land and ocean had collided into a cymbal solo of crash and panache.  If the prairies are a country song, then the west coast is classic rock ballad….circa 1989.  Dramatic and loud, with spittle flying and angsty tears flowing.  Made only infinitely better with aerosol hair-spray, feathered bangs and black eyeliner.

Everything is big here.  Like Mother Nature decided to bend over and have a few steroid shots pumped into her plump, rocky bottom.  Nature that can only be described as awe-full.  Grandiose.  Powerful bodies of water, nestled, funneled, and chiseling their own paths through the bosom of stoic, patient mountains; all somehow flowing back to its source.

I skipped over observation while driving through the Rocky Mountains, however, because my knuckles where as white as the snow-capped crowns; anticipating a snowstorm around the bend, keeping my eyes faced-forward, and my foot on the gas pedal.

But bald eagles were soaring in anticipation of my arrival to “the other side” and as I started to relax, I found myself suddenly in Vancouver, British Colombia.

Perhaps it was a blessing-in-disguise (as most hiccups are) that my van was in the shop for the weekend, because it gave me the chance to walk, and walk…..and walk the streets of Vancouver. I was flooded with half-remembered memoires.  Overcome with vague sensations of nostalgia.  Like, somehow this is familiar.

What I’d forgotten is that I have history imbedded into this landscape.

And not distinct memories, per se, but vague sensations of recognition.  My family used to come here for weekend getaways.  I fell in love here.  I remember being in a movie when the Canucks played game seven in the Stanley Cup finals in 1994.  The streets were dead when we went in.  People were hanging off the lampposts when we came out.

I wanted to walk past the apartment where I’d stayed with an ex-boyfriend over 12 years ago, just to stroll that Memory Lane.  I remembered the cross streets but the only distinguishing feature I could recall was a take-out place called the Juicy Chicken on the corner.   After many hours of walking, I was at the corner of Main and E 11^th Ave, and the Juicy Chicken was nowhere in sight.  The corner was completely unfamiliar, and when I’d looked up, the Juicy Chicken was now some garish place called the Rumpus Room.  Complete with lava lamps and table-top Pac-Man, it seemed an unrepentant shrine to the design excesses of the 1970’s.  DJ killed the radio star.

The thing is, lots of things change.  Fried chicken joints may turn into the Brady Bunch’s rec-room.  But there is something comforting about having that sense of familiar which means a lot to me.

I’ve been a person who has spent a considerable amount of time trying to define the meaning of home, seeking her roots and trying to discover how and where she fits into this whole crazy clockwork called life.  But all of that grandiose nature, that gulpable, gorgeous fresh air jolted my half-infused memories and reminded me that this is where I come from; I’ve flowed back to the source.  And perhaps my roots have been growing all along.

Besides, have you seen the size of the trees here??

After Sunday

Up until this point in the trip, everything had been planned.  The route had been planned, the stops, the teaching gigs, the places to stay.  But as I roll my van out of Kentucky on Sunday, I am merging back into the lane called the “No-plan Plan”.  After this Sunday, I have a vague idea of where I need to go, but with no clear direction of how to get there, where to stop, where to sleep or how long it’s going to take.  It’s already snowing in Chicago.

We spent a night over wine and Google maps.  If I had decided just to beeline it west from Kentucky over to Portland, and we’re still talking 2,200 miles left to go.

But no.  That would be too simple.

I’ve never seen the middle part of Canada, and though perhaps it is as flat and as boring as its American counter parts south of the border, with no fascinating roadside attractions to break up the monotony of pavement like the Mall of America or the infamous Wall Drug, I want to see it nonetheless.   So, I’m headed up towards Winnepeg, Regina, Moosejaw, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary, Nelson and (finally) crossing the elusive Rockies into Vancouver.  This makes my mileage grand total to be hovering somewhere around 3,300 miles.  Tacking on an extra 1,100 miles just to see some undiscovered scrub bush and maybe a brown bear digging Taco Bell out of a garbage can.

Truth be told, I’m a little bit nervous about what comes next.  3,300 miles seems a very long, LONG ways to go when your top speed is 120 kilometers per hour and your bladder is the size of a walnut.  You do the math.

A friend was supposed to meet me in Chicago and tag along for the rest of the ride.  In the end, he needed to plan an adventure of his own instead of clinging onto the coat tails of someone else’s.  And I get that.   But it might have been nice to have a little company.  Someone to tell me stories as the white dotted lines blurred and whizzed into mile after passing mile.  Or someone just to be there and say nothing at all.

After Sunday, the known becomes unknown.  And maybe that’s why I feel like I haven’t gotten very far away from Montreal.  Maybe that’s why I’m a little afraid.  It’s starting to get colder outside, and there are forecasts of snow across the country.  The She-Wolf (Mom, stop reading) has developed a small leak of brown fluid when she’s parked.  And no matter how many opportunities I’ve had in my life to trust and free fall into the unknown, it’s still a difficult pill to swallow.

But I’m trying nonetheless:  to shift gears, merge into a new lane and trust.  There’s a whole WILD frontier that exists beyond the borders of what I know.

And I guess it’s time to gas up and drive.

 

The Reef-Raff of Brazil

 

Despite having my luggage lost in Detroit, with still no guarantees as to when it will arrive, I was fortunate enough to have met up with one of my fellow trainees the first night of my arrival in Brazil.  This having been my first stint at travelling, I was thankful that, as it turned out, her hostel was just across the street from mine.

After all was said and done in the morning, we decided to make our way across the street to The Beach.

Now, every coast has its own definition of the beach.  Seattle has rocky beaches where people bundled up in sweaters and raincoats skip the smooth, grey stones into the frigid Puget Sound.  Southern California sees silicone Baywatch babes bouncing around with plastic Ken dolls, pretending that the water is actually warm and their boobs are actually real.

But never, NEVER have I seen anything like the organism which is The Beach of Salvador.

From up on the boardwalk, the beach looks like a cartoon.  Every possible inch of sand is hidden by yellow and red umbrellas.  All you see is a sea of yellow and red; a field of poppies that curve along the edge of the surf, a veritable garden of umbrellas bordered by a rich row of brown bodies playing in the waves before finally leading out to deeper waters, canoes, fishing boats, sailboats and eventually freight ships.  A Brazilian parfait of vivid.

A beautiful backdrop to behold, but the true magic of The Beach takes place beneath this seamless canopy.

The sun was scorching hot and since I had already acquired a sunburn from an 8:00 am meditation on the rocks, we decided to join the throng, rent umbrellas, take a deep breath and submerge our bodies beneath the surface.

A Brazilian woman found a clearing for us, shouted to a young man in Portugese to bring our gear.  He brought over two low-rider beach chairs, planted the base of the umbrella in the sand, positioned it over our bodies to provide shade and then walked away.  No exhange of money, nothing.

And quite suddenly, we were in the midst of such a thriving, bustling organism, (look out Nemo)  it rivals that of the great coral reefs.

Hundreds of vendors navigated the sands, ducking their heads between umbrellas and shouting out the names of their goods.  Their announcements were speckled with the thick “thh” and “zzhh” sounds which color the Portugese language.  They battled the hot sun selling everything you could possibly want or desire without ever having to leave your beach chair.

Candy, gum, peanuts, cashews, cigarettes, ice cream,  coconuts cut open with machetes with straws stuck inside (tastes like sweet, sweaty feet), ceviche, skewers of shrimp, skewers of beef, skewers of chicken, blow-up water toys, sunscreen, sunglasses, sunhats, hammocks, jewelery, saris, beer, capirhinias, dresses, tube tops, rice, grilled meats, bean cakes and coconut cakes, salad, grilled fish, soup served out of a giant thermos by this huge Brazilian mama with the most pendulous breasts.  Young vendors walked around with buckets of hot coals, a fan, and Quiejo (cheese) on a stick that they would grill and fan over their coals until it was brown and gooey and delicious.  (Their buckets, I later noticed, were made of old paint cans, and I couldn’t help but question the toxicity of the Queso.)  The ice cream man after serving your ice cream topped with chocolate sauce would walk around the beach with a squeeze bottle, putting extra sauce on your cone after you were half-way finished……I mean, imagine if someone took your bag of popcorn half-way through a movie just to add more butter.  Boys would walk around with watering cans filled with sea-water, rinsing the sand from your feet and cooling you off….FOR FREE.  (Sorry, my American-born, feet-squeamish-self has a hard time wrapping my brain around why someone in their right mind might do this.)

In every direction, this organism was teeming and pulsing with life and activity.  To my left, an eight-ish year old Brazilian boy started playing with the hair of a nearby woman, a stranger, combing it with his fingers and styling it repeatedly….seemingly just for fun.  A gaggle of Brazilian girls gathered to my right, swarming a group of Japanese tourists, originally asking for money, but finally befriending them, when an on-looking tourist from Sao Paulo started feeding the Brazilian girls English words to say to the Japanese girls.  Eventually, complete with a Brazilian flag and “peace fingers”, the Japanese girls lined up in front of the surf, surrounded by the ten or twelve ecstatic ninas for a photo.

And this beach, on a MONDAY, was not crowded with lobster-like tourists (like me), but jammed packed full of locals, kids, families, and some of the skimpiest bathing suits I have ever seen on both the beautiful and the rotund.

And like any efficient organism, this well-oiled machine was completely self-sustaining.  The Brazilians sampled the wares from the vendors while casually, but attentively, watching their children play in the surf.  Their children picked up garbage bags and water bottles and turned them into beach toys.  The homeless and the thrifty walked through picking up the beer cans and recyclables, and during our evening walk along the beach, there was practically no evidence of the melee that had taken place there just hours before sunset.

When we finally finished our beers and started to pack up, our umbrella lady folded up our chairs, collapsed our umbrella and asked for 8 REALS (about 5 dollars) for an entire sunny day of quite possibly the most amazing people watching I have EVER had the chance to participate in.

And THAT is the organism which is The Beach.

Get Out of the Looking Glass…

It’s a good day to go to Brazil.  On the day of my departure, winter finally hit.

It only started snowing around 11 am, but by the time I was on my teeny-tiny tin plane to Detroit, the world was a blanket of white.  A shroud of fog and snow enveloped the airport lights until they misted out into oblivion.  Beautiful, yes, but not looking so good for visibility.  Patches of the white stuff scaled across the tarmac like psoriasis on an albino.  I watched with focused and rapt attention as the horde of yellow de-icing trucks descended  upon my air-planes’ toy wings.

Just in case they missed a spot.

Our wings sufficiently coated with what looked like Lime Gatorade, I white-knuckled my seat rests as we hoisted into the sky.  With probably only just enough horse-power to clear the clouds, I surfed on a sea of cumulus, left behind a winter-wonderland, and stared out a tiny window at the horizon-line of a pale, pink winter sunset.

I think that I am finally experiencing an emotion that resembles excitement.  Or else I’ve mistaken that for nervous energy.  At the airport and on the plane, I wanted to eat EVERYTHING.  Devouring all those micro-waved plastic pouches of well,….probably chemically scented, preserved and infused plastic, as if it was a Kobe beef filet-mignon.  Constantly inserting peanuts, pretzels and granola bars into my mouth…to smother and placate the frenetic butterflies in my stomach.

On the way to the airport, I couldn’t stop talking.  And when I said goodbye to my friend, I couldn’t tell if I was laughing or crying.

I am really doing this.  I really just said goodbye to all of my stuff, to my friends, my dog, to a new love….to everything which makes me feel grounded and provides me with a point of reference.  A circus of memories, experience, juggling acts and clown-like impersonations.  A veritable fun-house of mirrors, with so many reflections and perspectives of myself.

But it’s all illusion, isn’t it?

I mean, obviously those things exist, but are their reflections accurate?  Does looking into one mirror give me enormous skinny legs and a stretched-out bobble head?  Does one reduce me down to midget size to become one in the land of the Munchkins?  And why, why do we pay so much attention to these reflections of others??

Have you ever balanced on one leg while looking in the mirror?  Found calm and stability within the throes of your own gaze?

Now close your eyes.

Me, I always fall.

So that is the goal: to balance on one leg with my eyes closed.  To know exactly where I exist in space, to balance there, internally, without relying on ANY reflections.

Because isn’t that the only perspective that matters??

“Finding balance is not letting anyone love you less than you love yourself.”

Cliff-Notes to Life: the abridged version.

T-minus 15 days.

I am no longer a coffee drinker.  Now I drink green tea….A LOT of green tea.  Consequently, I have become an incredibly proficient and prolific pee-er.

I got a travelling back-pack for Christmas and I was surprised by how little fits into it.  Packing light is a skill that is usually not in my repertoire—shoes, belts and accessories, however, are.  But I will replace those items with a few other Christmas gifts:  a cool little chamois towel that is like those little pills you put into the bath and turns into a giant dinosaur sponge.  ABSORBS EIGHT TIMES ITS SIZE IN WATER!!!  A flashlight, a pocket-knife and Hallelujah-thank-Mother-Mary-Son-of-God-His-Great-Uncle-and his pet lizard (or whatever pet a good Christian man might have kept in those times….sheep?)–a sleeping bag liner that protects you from my phobically feared bed-bugs.  And, since moms will be moms, a stocking stuffed with enough anti-bacterial EVERYTHING that I could ward off the plague for all of Europe, should it decide to rear its ancient midieval head.

“Baggage” is interesting, isn’t it?  I wonder what else is going to fit into that metaphorical back-pack?  What am I taking with me?  What will I gladly throw into the sea?  What precious souvenirs will I find along this adventure that will replace items lost or tossed?

As I rode the plane to visit my family in Portland, though it wasn’t the “big” trip, it still felt like a launch, a taking-off, a journey.  Or was it merely a continuation of a journey that has been taking place all along?  A journey that has been taking place since the dawn of time?

In my world, I see my journey beginning around the age of fourteen or fifteen.  A sense, that amidst the hormones and the breast buds, “it” was much bigger than you and me, bigger than high school, bigger than my town (which most things are), bigger than the edge of the stars.  And as I look back, I see periods in my life that were disconnected from that sense of wonder.  Times when that curiosity that comes with the innate naivete of  youth was as dull as the grate in a fireplace.  A tiny flame…not even a flame, really.  An ember that was buried beneath layers of ash, soot and dirt.    But nevertheless, still burning.

I oftentimes regard those periods as if it was a fork in the road, a diversion off of my path, a disorientation or a way to excuse that shitty choice of a boyfriend or another escapist reason to move to a new city.

***Slap on the forehead***  “Silly me, there I go chasing trails of bread crumbs again.”

But I am slowly beginning to realize that all of those “diversions”, those separate realities that I so readily disassociate from mySELF are actually all very connected and part of my path.

There are times when I can’t help but wonder (usually post-break-up and loaded full of cocktails)” WHY did that person get put in my path??”  Was it really necessary to take five years to see myself out of a bad relationship?  I mean, aren’t there Cliff Notes or a weekend intensive course I could have taken to cut the time down to say….two years?  But there are no short-cuts are there?  There are no quick-fixes for pain or loss or grief.  And the reason why they say hindsight is twenty-twenty, is because only with hindsight can we see the connections….the way things came to be.  The way I came to be.

The hard part is trust.   If we look back and see that those connections have meaning and importance in who we are now, then it should be easy to embrace the people, places and events that will shape us in the future.   Trust that the dots will connect as they have always connected.  But it’s not easy, is it?  For me, trust is one of the hardest.

Airplanes rides are one of the best excuses for indulging in Hollywood movies; without shame I dial up flicks that I would normally not deem even suitable rental material.  So with a six-dollar bag of cheese and crackers in-hand, I cozied up into my tiny seat, plugged in my earbuds and ordered Eat, Pray, Love; curious to see how the movie version compared to the book.  Hollywood it was, but there was one part I really enjoyed:

‘The Physics of the Quest’–a force of nature governed by laws as real as the laws of gravity or momentum.  And the rule of ‘Quest Physics’ maybe goes like this:  ‘If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting (which can be anything from your house to your bitter old resentments) and set out on a truth-seeking journey (either externally or internally), and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and, if you are prepared-most of all-to face (and forgive) some very difficult realities about yourself…then truth will not be withheld from you.’

Pay attention.

I keep getting asked if I am just “SOOO” excited for my trip.  To be honest, I am blank.  Emotionless.  Maybe scared.  I don’t know what is going to change, or how, or when…or if at all.  Which I think is good.  My experiences will not be foreshadowed with expectation or preconceived notions.  Contrarily, after two conversations with my neighbors on both of my flights, I started to see the importance of openness and receptivity.

A man in his seventies starting chatting to me about his love for gambling and casinos and introduced his wife, sitting one row in front of us.  When I offered to switch seats so they could sit together he said, “Nah.  I see her everyday.”  He spoke of growing up as one of twelve siblings and how he lost his three-year old daughter to Leukemia.  My other neighbor mentioned that she had just started up Moksha Yoga in Hamilton, Ontario.  (connections??)  And then continued on to tell me that her husband died last year only to be followed by the death of her mother two months later.  She escapes for the holidays with her daughter to avoid sadness and memories and confessed her new interests and travels are a way to “get my life back”.  I asked her if it got any easier, and with damp, brown eyes, she softly shook her head from side to side.   “No”, she said.  She smiled and added that she was pretty good at hiding the sadness, though.  I gently reminded her that sadness and grief are important emotions and that all-too often we shelve those feelings because they are uncomfortable…to us, or to others.  We put on our smiley-face, emoticon masks and pretend they don’t exist until they turn into hard spots in our hearts and distant memories in our minds.

And these were real conversations, soul conversations with perfect strangers and they taught me the potential and the power of what you can let in when you are open.

So maybe blank and emotionless isn’t so bad.

Go ahead, Universe.  I am your canvas.  Paint me.

Prelude to a Downward Dog (December 2010)

So thus begins an adventure.  An adventure in spirit.  An adventure in body.  An adventure in personal history and in history as old and dusty as the sages.  Truth be told, I’m scared shitless.

Consider this a prelude to a downward dog.  And consider yourselves among the lucky.  It might get messy.  No, if I know myself at all, it will definitely get messy.

In case you’re out of the grand poo-ba hula-hoop, I’m high-tailing out of Montreal for warmer climes in attempt to wiggle my fingers into and under the spiritual undergarments of yoga.  Having practiced for going on three years now, I realized last spring that maybe, just maybe, this might be something I could DO.  And for a former dancer/glass-blower/art student/teacher-waitress-broke-ass-wayward-wanderer, I certainly have DONE many things that have CERTAINLY not earned me much in terms of status symbols, or a paycheck, for that matter.  I am simply one of those hippie-dippie folks who has to take pride in “life experience” because the BMW is definitely not in my deck of cards.

But maybe my history is relevant.  Maybe, I might be able to help others find comfort and acceptance with the “here and now”, open their eyes to the power and beauty of living fully each and every moment, the uncertainty of the road ’round the bend, to help one find strength and confidence in the whispers of the heart, and to listen.  Don’t get me wrong, folks.  I am not speaking from some enlightened state.  I did not take LSD (recently).  I am speaking from the perspective of one so humbled by lack of knowledge.  One who sometimes feels so small.  One who, still, at 32, just doesn’t know.

Somehow I have the sneaking sensation that this might strike it rich.  And definitely not in the paper form of riches, nor in gold or jewels, but rather in the heart-expanding, Grinch-like growth that no amount of money can tease away from.

I leave in exactly 38 days.  My flight departs Montreal and 22 hours later, touches down in Salvador, Brazil.  A city situated in the state of Bahia, and considered one of the birthplaces of Brazilian culture.  From there, and three days later, I will take a bus six hours south to a town called Itacare.  Continuing on a bumpy road to a beach-side eco-resort called Piracanga, where for one month, a beach-front cabin with no running water, save for the sounds of the ocean,  is where I’ll call home.

The preparation has been not-so-complicated and oh-so-expensive.  Since I am travelling after the training through Central America for two months, I have been aerated by pin-pricks that should have been administered by golden needles, they were so expensive.  I had to have Hepatitis A and B, Typhoid, Yellow Fever and a lofty prescription for Malaria pills which will assuredly ruffle the tail-feathers of my night-time pillow, or perhaps cause the pincers of my bedbugs to quiver in fear.  Eeew.  Eeeeew.  Eeeeeeeew!!!!

The teacher training is intense.  One month, six-days a week, with a schedule that begins at 6:00am for meditation and ends at 7:00pm.  There are two yoga classes each day interspersed with lectures that cover anatomy, meditation, yoga history, public speaking and all the rest (whatever that means).  And you know what the funny thing is?  The funny thing is that that all seems like a piece of cake.  The hard part is now.  Knowing that for my month of training, I am expected to be a pillar of good health–no drinking, no meat, no cigarettes and GULP–no caffeine.  I don’t know about you, but I am the person who stumbles from bed to the coffee pot, brews half a pot (and then says she only drinks two cups a day), and cannot speak until that hot, beautiful, bitter liquid has become one with my bloodstream.  So I am trying to wean myself off the bean now, and truth be told— not going so well.

The beautiful part has been the people.  One of the training administrators set us up with a bulletin-board on Yahoo.  Once we were invited to join, we were allowed to post bits of information about ourselves.  It was like a flower unfolding, or the character-introduction part of a play.  You know that these characters are going to change you, affect you….but yet, you have no idea how.  People from all over are a part of this.  Three women from Trinidad are coming together.  A father, with two children and a patient wife and dog are supporting him on his dream.  A 37 year-old woman is leaving her corporate job to don a backpack and follow her heart.  One woman, confirmed to go, is having hardships and may have to back out.  At lease a post a day is sent to her offering support, encouragement, advice and love.  And we’re strangers.

I mean, how cool is that?  How do you prepare yourself for something so big, so exciting and simultaneously terrifying?  Knowing, in my three years of practice, the dredges of the bottom-scum that yoga can bring to the surface, am I ready to share the muddy waters with perfect strangers?  Am I going to suck at being a yoga instructor?  Turning beet-red in front of my classrooms, stuttering my words over half-formulated poses, contorting my students into a modern-day version of a bad Twister game?

And so I set the stage for you.  Because for me, the best yoga instructors that I’ve ever had were the ones that spoke honestly, who weren’t afraid to show the good bits with the not-so-good bits.  I have NO doubt there will be a slew of not-so-good bits coming your way.  But (and prepare yourself) I’m going to share them with you anyway.  Because it’s me.  And it’s real.  And inevitably, it will lead to some oh-so-beautiful bits.

I want you to take this journey with me.  And so we begin together.  To learn and share and be open.  To shock and rock and challenge.  Why not?  Could be fun.  But mostly, and since I’m scared shitless, I’ll need some pillars of support along the way.

(a yogi would say namaste, which means, “I honor the spirit in you, which is also in me”,  but I am a virgin citizen in the territorial waters of Sanskrit terminology so I abstain until further notice)