Yoga to the People!

The inevitable has finally happened: after years and years of viewing my life through neurotic, stress-colored glasses, I've become a yoga addict. I love yoga. I love the way it feels to wake up (without an alarm!) and know that yoga will be a part of it. Some days, I fit yoga into my busy schedule. And some days, yoga is the highlight of my schedule. I'm content to sleep until noon, lounge around my apartment cooking and cleaning and snuggling in bed with hours of TV on DVD if I know that at some point during the day, I will leave the house and go to yoga. If I accomplish nothing else, I still feel productive if I go to yoga.

How has this happened? Me, a type-A, ambitious to a fault, self-flagellating control freak content to complete only one activity in an entire day?? I never thought I would be this person...and I LOVE it. I feel like I'm finally tapping into my best, most true self. I'm taking better care of myself than I ever have before...because taking care of myself is my main priority. It's awesome.

The stage for this phase of self-discovery is itself a great part of my motivation. Yoga to the People is a donation-based yoga studio on St. Marks Place, right in the heart of the NYU campus. In a musty old beautiful building with four studios on three floors, the studio is open 7 days a week to anyone with an inclination to show up. There is always a surplus of NYU students, dancers and actors, but there are all kinds of other people too. The teachers are all young, fresh-faced and encouraging. It's like an open yoga forum--anyone can come and everyone is welcome, even those who can't afford to make a donation. I used to take yoga at the 12th Street Gym in Philly, for the few sweet months I could afford to be a member, and though I always loved the classes, it had a much more somber ambiance. Since Yoga to the People is open to any and all who want to participate, the classes are often stuffed to the max...sometimes you'll be sharing the same stale, sweaty air with a hundred other people. It's a little slice of New York City in every class: overcrowded, full of people all striving to be at their best, isolated, and yet a part of a whole at the same time. Each person's practice is individual, personal, and yet we share the practice with each other. It's beautiful The teachers encourage everyone to smile whenever they feel compelled, and not take their practice so seriously. They also consistently remind everyone to thank themselves for doing such a good thing for their bodies by taking the time to come to yoga. I find it so rare in my life to be reminded that the things which are best for us should be enjoyable.

Tonight, I decided to jump off the proverbial cliff and attend my first hot yoga session, at YTTP's midtown hot yoga studio. Being an overachiever, and still a little high from yesterday's awesome afternoon class, I decided to forgo the 60 minute Vinyasa class and go straight for the gold: the 90 minute traditional Bikram class. I was told upon entering that I was required to have a towel, which I assumed I would do without since I don't generally sweat as much as most of the other people in my regular class, and so I rented one along with my mat. The hot yoga class isn't donation based, but a class is only $5. I settled into the steamy studio, thinking to myself how the heat felt like a big bear hug, and waited for class to begin.

Holy crap.

I mean...wow.

First of all, I had no idea my body was physically capable of sweating that much. I felt like I'd sweat out half my body weight in the first half hour. Sweat dripped off every inch of my body and didn't stop for an hour and a half. I hadn't thought to stock up my body's H2O supply before class, so it wasn't long before I started to feel nauseous. I probably spend half the class in corpse pose on the floor. However, the work I was able to do felt amazing. Poses that are often difficult for me to hold (particularly poses that have to do with balance...I have the hardest time stacking my hips solidly so that I can balance) came so easily. I felt more focused that ever, I'm sure because my ego was being sweat right out my pores with all the toxins in my body. An hour into the class, when we got to the floor work, I started to feel a remarkable sensation. The very center of my body, right between my groin and my belly, was opening up and suddenly I realized that was exactly the spot where my intuition lives. Isn't that amazing? When you become in tune with your body, when you become able to listen to it, you can find where your senses and emotions are physically located! Like when you're utterly heartbroken and your whole chest feels crushed, as if a sumo wrestler were putting all his weight on your poor sternum. Your heart, the place where your sense of compassion and love and longing come from, is literally located in your chest. In an instant, I learned where my intuition was located...and how beautiful it could feel when it was fully opened, impossible to be ignored. The breathing exercises at the very end of class became spiritual to me. My head was spinning and my heart was opening and I felt so emotionally and physically free. There was no stress, no worry. Only joy and gratitude for the opportunities that this moment in my life possessed. I knew everything I'd ever need to know. It was amazing.

It took me a full half hour to recover enough to even be able to stand and put my mat away. My body felt so weak and I know I was very dehydrated. But I felt empty and full at the same time and it felt fantastic. I felt yellow...if one can feel a color, that's what I felt. I went to the market below the studio and bought a container of cut-up pineapple and a small bunch of daffodils. As I was walking down 6th Ave to the D train, I almost crossed the street right in front of a taxi who had a green light. I stopped myself in time, and the cab driver honked a brief warning. Out of habit, I heard myself mutter "fuck you" and then stopped in my tracks. How funny! The way we are conditioned in our daily routines to foster stress and anxiety and frustration! It's been so drilled into my nervous system that I don't even realize it! I was so aware of everything, of this silly impulse that had flown out of me despite my state of zen. And I thought, I must go back and try again. Every time I go, it will get easier. And no matter how hard it is, I will never regret going.

On the subway ride home, I wrote the following in my journal:

"...my body feels great. It feels right--it feels like mine. I own this body. It's my only truly meaningful possession. My heart, my soul, my mind, my body. My breath. My experience. My feelings. I feel so wealthy. So fortunate to have this body. So fortunate to have these chances. Everything is a chance! Everything is an opportunity! My god, what a revelation! It seems so simple, but it's so profound. Every breath is an opportunity--to say or do something meaningful. Why would we spend our time wasting these opportunities? This is my revelation. This is my answer. Every moment holds an opportunity to make a choice. What choices will I make? How will I seize these opportunities? Every day I have a chance to be happy and to make others happy. To learn and to teach. To breathe and to grow. You miss so much by closing yourself off to any opportunity. The opportunity to really know another person. To be close to them. To see yourself in them, through their eyes. Every relationship is a chance to grow and should never be viewed as anything different."

I know I have a tendency to wax poetic, and I know I was in a hot yoga-euphoria, but I do believe these to be truths.

I've learned that when I focus exclusively on money, I'm unhappy. When I focus exclusively on my career, I'm unhappy. When I focus exclusively on my relationships with others, I'm unhappy. But when I focus on myself, I can see what each of those other things truly means to me, and how they can work in tandem to create a rich, full life that I'm thankful and proud to live.

What I must work on now is my ability to balance...both literally, and figuratively.

there will be no correct clothes

there will be no proper payment

there will be no right answers

no glorified teachers

no ego no script no pedestals

no you're not good enough or rich enough

this yoga is for everyone

the sweating and breathing and becoming

this knowing glowing feeling

is for the big small weak and strong

able and crazy

brothers sisters grandmothers

the mighty and the meek

bones that creak

those who seek

this power is for everyone

yoga to the people

all bodies rise



-YTTP's Mission Statement

April Showers Bring May Flowers

A week ago, my father sent me a giant bouquet of red and yellow tulips to congratulate me on closing The Irish... They're wilting now, decaying at an accelerating pace. I know I'll have to throw them away tomorrow. I want to hang on to them as long as possible, cherishing the memory of walking into the dressing room at the theater and seeing them displayed at my seat in all their sunny, optimistic glory.

It's 4pm and I should be getting ready for work. Instead, I'm sitting at the kitchen table, staring at my dying tulips and thinking. I'm thinking my way through what I'm feeling. Forgive me for this second self-indulgent post in a row, but I'm going through some complications right now and I'm trying to work them out.

I don't understand men. I don't understand their behavior. They'll work so hard to win us over, and then the minute they have us they lose interest. Every single romantic entanglement I've had (with two exceptions) have ended by the guy losing interest. Time and again I've consoled myself by realizing that they clearly didn't care enough for me to begin with. It's like I told Alee last night, we all know that when you truly care for someone, it doesn't go away. You don't wake up one day and stop caring. Even if you stop seeing or talking to them, you'll always care. The only boy I've ever truly loved and who has ever truly loved me is still in my life long after we've stepped off the roller coaster. So there.

Is it the thrill of the chase? Is that what happens? When they win us over too easily, do they lose interest? I don't think of myself as being someone who is easily won. I need honesty and kindness and compassion to be won, and these things are scarce in the dating game. Honesty, kindness, and compassion always fuck me up. When someone tries to take care of me, although I resist initially, I'm lost. Compassion makes me trust you. How can you be compassionate at first and then pull away?

I'll never understand how men can tell you that they're feeling things they're not sure they feel. How it takes them so long to figure out what's going on with them. You can see it in their eyes, the wheels turning, trying to figure out what they want, fighting their own vulnerability. Women aren't more vulnerable than men--they're just more honest about their feelings, and less frightened of them.

I know what it's like to be afraid of committment. I used to be terrified of being let down, and even more terrified of letting others down. In the aforementioned two exceptions to a guy losing interest, I was the one pulling away. I've pulled away when things got hard in my own life and I didn't have anything to give the other person in return. I've pulled away when I've been scard of how deeply the other person felt about me, or how deeply I felt about them. I've pulled away when I just didn't want to deal...when there seemed to be too much at stake. I've been selfish. I've hurt people with my selfishness, and I've regretted it deeply. And in one case, I've worked hard to make amends.

It's too easy to look out at the world and all the people in it and feel isolated. Isolation from others makes us so desperate for a real connection that the minute it comes around, we're so quick to jump it and hold on for dear life. Even when a connection is fuzzy, we try to convince ourselves that it's clear because having something faulty seems better than having nothing at all.

I often feel isolated but I never feel alone. I have a strong, loving, expansive family who supports me all the time. I have a rich, full emotional life that I'm not ashamed of. I'm in touch with who I am and what I want. I'm not afraid to be alone. I'm so fortunate to have more love and support than many lonely people have.

I don't need this crap.

I don't need these games, this uncertanity. I don't have time for fear and baggage. I don't need to settle for being anyone's temporary girl, to be used for comfort and security at someone else's convenience then pushed away the moment the flame gets too hot for them to bear. My feelings run rich and deep and I'll share them with anyone in a heartbeat. They're my treasures, and if they frighten you then I'll find someone else to share them with, someone who appreciates them, someone who is open to learning from them. I don't need anything from anyone that I don't already have. I'm proud of who I am and I'm not looking for anyone else to define me. All I want is to have experiences that help me learn and grow as a person. My only expectation is that I be treated with respect at all times. I deserve honesty and trust. And if that is too scary for anyone else to bear, then, alas, it may be time to move on to the next adventure.

Tomorrow I will throw the tulips away. On Monday, I will trek through the Greenmarket and buy myself a new bouquet of something fresh and springy and cheerful to brighten up my little apartment. Maybe daffodils. Or hibiscus.

It's spring, and I'm growing.

How lovely!

There's No Place Like Home...For Now

And so, at long last, I've returned to the blogosphere! And at a much shorter last, I've returned home to Brooklyn. You see, a great deal has happened in the 3+ months since I've written.

In December, I had some adventures in online dating, got stranded at the Crowne Plaza in San Fransisco on Christmas Eve, and revisited my roots in Vista, California. In January, I took a weekend trip to New Haven and auditioned for Yale's MFA acting program. In February, I returned to Philadelphia to start work on The Irish...Redux at the Kimmel Center, while simultaneously maneuvering through multiple auditions for Columbia's MFA program. In March, The Irish... opened to mixed critical reviews and massive ticket sales, just 3 days after my final callback for Columbia. And now, having received official letters of rejection from both graduate programs, having closed the show with the possibility of yet another revival hanging ominously in the air, and having no intention of returning to my formerly back-breaking New York schedule, I've landed back in my tiny, cozy Brooklyn apartment.

I haven't worked in 5 days, I don't feel an ounce of guilt for the luxurious relaxation I've been revelling in. Instead, I've been reorganizing and prioritizing my life to center around the constant pursuit of my own peace of mind. I've put myself on a low-carb, high-fiber, pescatarian diet and have been taking yoga every other day. I quit caffeine at the beginning of February to promote better vocal health for the show, and have decided to stay off it. I'm going back to work 2-3 shifts a week at Morimoto and filing for partial unemployment to supplement my income. For now, I'm going to avoid getting a second job. I'm starting rehearsals for a new play with my friends at Untitled Theatre Company #61 in a couple of weeks that will keep me semi-occupied throughout the spring. And I've become determined to jump back on the audition horse and ride it very slowly and recreationally for now. I've learned that having creative stimulus is absolutely crucial for me, but also that I desperately need a more even balance between my career, my day job, and my mental and emotional well-being.

Anyway.

Sitting in my cozy kitchen this morning, eating my gluten-free frozen waffles with strawberries and vanilla soymilk, gazing out at the drizzly mess outside, I got to thinking about the impermanent nature of belonging.

When I was a freshman in college, I fell in love with this boy who lived down the hall from me. He was my first real friend in college and from the moment we met we were inseperable. We had most of the same classes together, and after class we would always settle down in my apartment or his to do homework, watch movies, make pasta, do laundry, and snuggle on my cheap KMart futon. He had a girlfriend back home, so we never truly became an item, but for two months we were eachother's rock, a shoulder to cry on at any time of day or night, another lonely, confused teenager trying desperately to come to terms with adulthood and all that it entailed. One night, we took a walk around the city and he kissed me. I was ecstatic--for the first time a boy who I felt truly close to, who I cared about deeply, was going to be mine! To hold and to comfort throughout all the scary pain of learning how to take care of oneself. Now we could take care of each other!

A couple of days later, however, he snubbed me in ballet class and I was pissed. After class, I went over to his room and asked him what was going on, what had changed. He told me he thought he would feel something when we kissed, but he didn't. I was devastated. I cried for a week. Then, I got really, really drunk for the first time at a party and the boy carried me home to the dorms, only to be caught by the campus security guard as I puked my guts out on the sidewalk in front of our building. Security sent me to the hospital to make sure I didn't have alcohol poisoning, and the boy came with me. I don't remember much about the night, except that I was pretty hysterical, and that he stayed with me until 6am when they finally released me.

After that, we hardly talked at all for months and I became totally reclusive. I felt like I'd lost my security blanket, like I had no one else to turn to when I was tossing and turning in the middle of the night. And so, I went on amazon.com and ordered this book by this Indian spiritual guru called On Love and Loneliness. I wish I had it here to quote, but alas, I think it's in storage in Philadelphia. Anyway, the book was all about how human beings are always trying to possess one another and that is why we are always so lonely. Once we realize that we belong to nothing and no one and nothing and no one belongs to us, we can begin to truly understand what love is. Love is selfless and without expectation. Love is transient, taking all forms. Love is something that we never lose, because it does not have an owner, rather it is fluid, moving between us all, connecting us in a much deeper way. You can never truly love someone that you feel you possess. As a 17-year old kid trying to cope with not my first but certainly my greatest disappointment, there was only so much of what the book was saying that I was able to grasp. But for whatever reason, my wiser, more content 23-year old self was remembering this book today and realizing how much sense it now makes to me, now that I've truly come into my own in this nomadic, bohemian life of mine.

I've been living in this apartment in Brooklyn for 7 months now, longer than I've lived anywhere in two years. I've taken on such complete ownership of my space, obsessively working every day on improving it, making it my own safe haven. And yet I'm not even on a lease! I don't own this apartment, I don't even officially live here. And yet, it feels more to me like home than any place I've lived since college (and I've lived in a lot of places.) Returning home on Monday after the show closed was such a huge relief, to a girl who's moved more than 25 times in 23 years, who is constantly grasping at newfangled definitions of "home", trying to find one that fits. And you know, I think for me home is a transient idea that doesn't depend on any particular four walls and a ceiling (although they're certainly appreciated), or any particular address, or even any particular city. Home is wherever and whatever I make of it. Home is a state of knowing where you are in relation to the rest of the world. That address and these four walls help me to orient myself in the world, to know where I'm coming from and where I'm going. When I'm away from them, I feel displaced, though it would be just as easy for me to rearrange myself in a different location.

Recently I was discussing committment in relationships with a boy. He said he thought of relationships like cars (such a stereotypically testosterone-filled analogy, I know): either you're taking it for a test drive, you're renting short-term, or you're leasing. Or, I suppose, you could pay for it all at once if you're loaded. Anyway. And I thought, what a close-ended way of thinking! "Committment" in relationship terms is such a problematic concept to me. How can we know how long someone will be in our lives? Trying to compartmentalize our lives into time frames is so limiting. If we try to know how long something will last, we can so easily end up smothering it.

Today, I am content. I know where I am. I love and am loved. I appreciate the peace and the stillness I currently have at my disposal. Today I am free of obligations. I know that everything is temporary. My apartment is temporary. My unemployment is temporary. Even my peace of mind is temporary. And as director Whit MacLaughlin once said to us in rehearsal, "change, if we consider it a constant, can be a comfort." All I know is that things will change. And so in this moment, I am thankful for the opportunities and the people in my life. Although I know they will flow in and out of my life like the tides, the lessons I learn from them will stay with me permanently. Everything leaves its residue on us. Someday, I'll look back fondly on this time in my life and remember what it was like to not know...how freeing, how exhilirating it can be to be unsure.

I am no longer afraid of not knowing. I am no longer afraid of loss or failure or even rejection. I am living without expectations, without certainty, without trying to possess or be possessed. This life I get to live right now, in my cozy apartment, with my lovely friends around me, with creative work to do, with a snuggly boy on the side, is just one of the many lives I've lived. All I'm certain of is that there will be many more to come.