The Waiting Game

Sitting in a white arm-chair facing the windows, computer in lap, my PJ bottoms on, waiting for Kathy and Kelly to arrive.  Wonderful morning except for the young man who is painting the porch listening to really loud Mexican music.  In the wise words of Amelia Cook, “No like it.” Jimmy made an outstanding pot of coffee. I wrote a morning post. We walked to and ate breakfast at Surrey, scrambled eggs with jalapenos, tomatoes, onions, cilantro and chorizo, a side of hash browns and homemade oatmeal cooked in whole milk.  Yummy.

We walked back along Magazine Street where I made a small purchase at the Aveda Store.  Finished up with a bike ride to the French Quarter and a light lunch at Whole Foods.

Waiting.  We are awaiting their arrival.  I had to finally ask the workman to turn down his music.  I think he turned it completely off.  Sun pouring in through the plantation shudders.  Not a bad place to sit and wait.  We are waiting.  When they arrive we will head out again to cycle the New Orleans Levee Top Trail.  It originates at Audubon Park and runs 22 miles along the east bank of the Mississippi.  Sounds like fun.  I may have to come back and nap before dinner.  Feeling a little fatigued already.

We are still waiting.  Waiting for Kathy and Kelly.  I am going to keep writing until they arrive.  What shall I talk about next?  Is that their car I hear?  We wait.  I wait.  Playing the waiting game.  Waiting for Godot.  Waiting for Godot is a play by Samuel Beckett in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for the arrival of someone named Godot. The play is hilarious, tedious and absurd.  A tragicomedy.   I have never seen that word before, tragicomedy, but I get it.  All of life is comedic and tragic at the same time.  

Jimmy is listening to Rod Stryker give a dharma talk.  I am waiting.  Waiting for Kathy and Kelly.  The sun still streams though the plantation shudders.  I still have on my PJ bottoms,  Cycling tights in the dryer due to a water spill at Whole Foods.  We wait.  I wait. Wait is defined as: stay where one is or delay action until a particular time or until something else happens.  Yes until Kathy and Kelly come.

PLease do not take this the wrong way.  I love sitting here because it gives me more time to write and I know that every time I write I am making my literary muscle stronger.   I am cultivating a style, a way of using words that will eventually be unique to me.  No one else will write as I do.  I cannot imitate the style of another writer.  I would not want to do that.  I will be authentic, true to the moment, this moment no matter how long it lasts.  Waiting.

Maybe writing is a form of pacing for me.  I can run my hands across this keyboard and while away the hours as I sit here and wait.  Playing the waiting game.  Jimmy just waved at me from across the room.  He is plugged into his computer, ear phone protruding, two finger resting on his brow.  Now he has interlaced his hands just below his chin as he gazes intently at the screen on his lap.  Here was are, together with our computers both immersed in a virtual world.

We all live in a Yellow Submarine, a Yellow Submarine, a Yellow submarine.  Submersibles.  A submersible is not a submarine because it is not a fully autonomous craft.  It must be supported by a surface vessel.  So if I submerge myself with a support team, I am not likely to survive, because I cannot breath under water.  More of the absurd.  Perhaps I should write the sequel to Waiting for Godot.  Waiting for Kathy and Kelly.   But sir I tire of this writing on and on about nothing in particular.  Okay stop.  They are here.

Living The Dream

I filled the days of childhood with fantasies of being a famous actress, a movie star, a prima ballerina, but I would have settled for a slot in the June Taylor Dancers.  They were my favorite part of the Jackie Gleason Show.  I see myself now, lying on my belly on the rag carpet, right in front of our enormous 1957 black and white television.   I have my chin in hand, elbow on the floor, eyes wide open.  Yes I would have gladly accepted an invitation to dance with them.

I have always dreamed of being famous.  I love attention.  I want to be noticed.  Funny writing this I recall locking myself in my bathroom when, my now ex-husband brought an unexpected guest to dinner.  I did not come out until the guest left.  So maybe it is not about being seen, getting attention or even being famous.  Notorious maybe.

You see, for as long as I can remember, when I close my eyes, I have had a vision of me standing on a large stage, alone, in front of hundreds of people who have come specifically to hear and see me.  Who are these people?  Why are they here?  What do I have that they want and need?  Resilience?  Determination?  A deep, driving desire to live a rich, fulfilling life?  Persistence?  The willingness to keep trying o matter what stands in the way.  A compelling life story of abuse and transformation?  There is fire inside of me beckoning me, calling out, “You have a purpose.  A big purpose.  Do not give up.  Keep looking?” Mark Nepo wrote about feeding the transparent bird, the invisible self.   He urges us to ignore the doubting Thomas’.  They cannot see what I see.  I must keep nurturing the invisible dream that lives within me.

I am 62 years old.  When will this purpose make itself known to me?  Will I write a book?  How else can I make myself big enough to warrant a large audience of people?  Is that the goal?  “Live your dreams.”  I hear that again and again, like rolling thunder inside my head.  “Life is limitless.”  I have not yet given up and I never will.  Ellen Burstyn wrote her autobiography at age 72. I wrote her a letter and she never replied.  Oh well, next!

I sold Midtown Yoga because it felt like an albatross around my neck, an anchor dragging me down to the bottom of the ocean.  I want to fly.  Now that I have wings, I do not know where to go, which direction to take.  It is not about place.  I have been so many places, India, France, Belgium, England, Italy, Germany, Guatemala to name a few.  I have been to New Orléans, San Francisco, New York City, Tampa, Miami, Denver, Carbondale, Breckenridge, DC, Chicago, Indianapolis, Seattle…..I can live anywhere.  I choose Memphis because I love its eccentricities.  Like me, Memphis is still evolving and like me, it has had many problems to overcome.  A city, a person, a country, any and all, must be strong to thrive.  We must be healthy and have hope.

I mentioned to Jimmy earlier this morning that I dream of being famous.  He wrinkled his forehead and said, “Why? What would you possibly gain from that?”  It is not about money.  Perhaps fame would be the outgrowth of fulfilling my dream.  It would mean I had manifested a lifetime calling, an inner quest realized.  My childhood dream becoming a reality.  When I do stand up on the stage, where ever it is, whoever is in the audience, whatever I say or do, I will thank God because I will have finally fulfilled my life’s purpose.  I have done many things in my lifetime, but this vision looms on the horizon.

January 30 -One Year One Day at a Time-NOLA

NOLA, an acronym.  New Orleans, Louisiana.  Okay good.  Why doesn’t Memphis have one, an acronym?  As my grand baby Amelia says, “I want one.” But how do you get one, an acronym?  Can I just make one up?  MOM, Memphis on the Mississippi.  DM, Delta Memphis.  MHE, Memphis home of Elvis. MB, Memphis Blues.  MS, Memphis soul.  MM, Memphis music.  MG, Memphis Grizzlies.  MM, Memphis Motown.  This is really fun.  I have never sat down and tried to come up with an acronym for Memphis.  We need one.

I am in New Orléans, NOLA, staying at 5525 Laurel St in the Garden District at the home of Chuck and Susan Schadt.  My friend, Kathy Fish and I bid on this weekend get-away at a Blues Street Caravan Fund Raiser.  We won.  Jimmy and I are here tonight alone.  Kathy and Kelly arrive tomorrow. We will be together two nights.  We leave on Sunday morning.  I want to be back for the Super Bowl and home to keep Amelia on Monday.  The Fishes will stay Sunday night.

The drive.  I taught two private lessons this morning.   Jimmy talked to Comcast for an hour and a half while packing the car and doing his real estate work.  We ate lunch and set out on our adventure around noon.   Great tunes.  Our friend, Greg Leonard, who lives in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida and works for Tree of Life makes cds.  Not just random cds, but works of art.  Today we listened to You Missed My Heart, a compilation of Karla Bonhoff, Mark Kozelak, and others, and Songbird, another compilation of Fleetwood Mac demos.  Stunning.  Out of sight.  Spine tingling.  Goose bump creating.

Great road trip until we hit NOLA.  Traffic.  Mama, the traffic. And Siri, did she lead us astray or what?  Jimmy had printed out google map directions which were pretty straight forward, but Siri, as she so often does, had other plans for us.  We followed her through twists and turns, over congested expressways, through crowded, overlapping intersections, down one-way streets, around road blocks until we finally arrived at our destination.

The house lights, inside and out,  are on. The stairs to the house were now on the left.  Wooden, planted in a sea of sand.  Yellow tape ropes off the new brick stairs that march up pristinely up to the front door.  Blocking the door is  a vintage TV set adjacent to a plastic grocery bag.  Odd.  Right in front of the door?  A cleaning woman peers at me through the glass.  I knock.  She opens the door.  “We are staying here tonight.” I tell her.

“Oh,” she says with a mop in her hand.  “You stay tonight?”

“Yes,” I reply.  She lets me in.

I walk to the back where I remember there is a bedroom.   Pictures sit on the floor, a rolled up is pushed against the wall, and tall shudders, wrapped in foam and plastic lean against a window seat.  Not quite the way I remember it.  I walk into a second bedroom.  Well appointed.  I like the feel of it.  Oops.  I open the door to the bathroom.  Paint. I smell enamel paint.  Oh, look, the cabinet doors are on the floor.  Well this bathroom is not in use.  I ask the cleaning lady, “Is there another bathroom?”

‘Oh yes.” she leads me down the hall to a sweet little toilet with a nice tub/shower.  What you might call a wash closet. Yes, I think.  We will take this one.  Here we are in the second bedroom without the shudders and the paintings on the floor.  We do have to walk down the hall to the bathroom. Oh well.  LIfe is a series of concessions, trade offs, and disappointments.  Still not to shabby.

Next, Atchafalaya Restaurant on Louisiana Street.  Had one of the best meals of my life.  Mussels in a tomato, white wine broth I could have bathed in, a curried cream of something soup with jalepenos and cilantro, swordfish with turnips and greens cooked to perfection, and the finale,  a pear tart with ice cream and a caramel sauce…to die for.  WOW!  If you come to New Orleans you must eat at Atchfalaya.  Stunning.

Now we are settled into our NOLA home for the weekend.  We are in the bed.  Jimmy sleeping and I finishing yet another post.  As always, I love it is rewarding to reflect on another day gone by.

I to bed.  What a remarkable thing it is to live….the texture of a bed spread.  The pixels in the photo.  The colors and lack of that surround me here.  My hair, eyes, fingers, toes.  A body.  A life.  A day in the life of one human.  Where were you today?  What did you see?  Who did you meet?  What did you do?  Worth remembering?  Yes, I believe it is worth every minute.

January 29 – One Year, One Day at a Time -So Tired

Bone tired.  So tired I could hardly flip the omelet in the pan.  Body is moving in slow motion.  Got up, drank coffee, meditated, followed  my son at 8:00 am out to the BMW mechanic off Mendenhall,  Then we stopped at Starbucks so he could get two breakfast sandwiches, a juice and a coffee for him and his partner, Travis.  I paid.  Two private lesson in the morning. I practiced yoga, ate lunch, watched TV, practiced yoga, taught yoga, ate dinner.  Now I am writing a post.

My Jewish husband tells a joke about a Jewish woman who calls the paper to give her husband’s obituary.  She begins, “Abe Rosenberg was a wonderful father and husband.  He worked hard all his life to support his family.  He was active ….” suddenly she is interrupted by the voice on the other end of the phone.  Mrs. Rosenberg, ” I am happy to take down all this information about your husband, but I must tell you it’s a buck fifty a word.”  Mrs. Rosenberg pauses, “Oh well, just say Abe Rosenberg died,  Buick for sale.”

That is how I feel right now.  This day is done, I am going to bed.  No more descriptions, superlatives, expletives or descriptions of the day gone by.  This day is over, dead, fini.   Post is up.  In the words of George Burns, Say good night Gracie.”

Teaching Yoga

I have just made a big change in my teaching style.  More like a 180 degree turn.  Merging all I learned from Rod Stryker and Cyndi Lee, both of whom have taught me so much into Sarla Yoga.  Of course there is a lot of me mixed in with it.  My own down home revival speak, constantly reminding people that change is inevitable and that, over time, with practice each and everyone of us can cultivate the tools necessary to thrive and be relatively happy.  Maybe I should brand it.  Just kidding.  Oh yes, and I am using music in my classes.

Maybe She is A Short Story

My main character, Susan, has gone off the grid.  I have no way of getting in touch with her.  Email has failed.  She refuses to respond.  Perhaps she does not have what it takes for an entire book.  Maybe she is a sprinter, a short story.  My intuition tells me to sit with it for several days.  Not to give up yet.  She may just be busy doing other things.  Uninterested in keeping me up to date on her daily status.  I get that.  She is rather a strange one, like a little bird afraid to leave the nest.

So where does that leave me?  In the lurch?  Hardly.  I am really enjoying my blog, and my work is going well.  I have more private clients and students then ever before.  I have two workshops on the schedule for March. And, I will be traveling almost the entire month of February.  We leave tomorrow for New Orleans.  On Tuesday, I go to Santa Fe, two nights at the Eldorado Hotel with my friend, Cyndi, and then we move to the Upaya Zen Center for a weekend workshop with Roshi Joan Halifax and Natalie Goldberg.  Cyndi and I will be joining Natalie Goldberg, Roshi Joan Halifax, and Sensei Kazuaki Tanahashi Feb. 7-9 for SKY ABOVE, GREAT WIND: The Life and Poetry of Zen Master Ryokan.   

Four days after my return from Santa Fe,  jimmy and I leave for a yoga retreat in Belize. We are going with our friend and yoga teacher, Jim Bennitt.  Yippee.  25 degrees here          75 degrees there.  Fun in the sun.  Snorkeling.  Fabulous food.  New friends to meet.  I am a lucky girl.

Nice Digs

And who knows, maybe Susan will find me in Santa Fe or Belize.  She could be in NOLA.  We’ll see.  If not, she will be a fine short story.

Suicide – Why?

Today’s Commercial Appeal featured an article by David Waters addressing the very real problem of suicide.  “Suicide takes tens of thousands more lives each year in America than homicide.  Tens of thousands.”  He goes on to quote Mike LaBonte, executive director of the Memphis Crisis Center, “It’s one of those things we don’t talk about, and in not talking about it we create the perception that it’s not as much of a problem as it really is.”

One of our good friends committed suicide some 7 years ago.  She went to Colorado on a business trip, rented a car, drove to a cold mountain lake, walked in and drowned leaving a husband and three children.  We knew she was struggling.  We reached out.  She declined help.  What was it that drove her to such a demise?  We will never know.  She never told us and now she never will.  Maybe she did not believe that no matter what we would love her.  Our monsters are always darker and more foreboding in hiding than when they come out into the light.  Tell your story.  Find someone, anyone, a homeless person, a minister, a therapist, a friend, a partner.  Tell it and keep telling it until you feel lightness returning to your heart, until you are free to be authentic, to share who you are on the inside with those you meet in the world.

In the course of a lifetime, I have considered suicide on multiple occasions.  I fantasized about pulling out in front of a city bus, which I believed would surely end in death, to make it look like an accident.  Why pretend?  Because there is such a stigma attached to suicide.  Someone who commits suicide or wants to do so is weak and selfish, lacks faith, is deeply disturbed, financially troubled, in a legal bind, does not love their family, has been abused mentally or physically, is a sinner.  Now there’s a condemnation.  Suicide is a sin. Consequently, the thought of suicide is likewise a sin.  “For every person who dies by suicide, 30 others attempt it.”

One of the major goals of this blog is to discuss openly those things from which we hide.  “You must meet the outer world with your inner world or existence will crush you. Though we often think that hiding our inwardness will somehow protect or save us, it is quite the opposite.”  Mark Nepo 

People often tell me how brave I am, how much courage I have.  “How can you be so open about your life experiences?”  How can I not?  It is the way my heart meets the world, wide open and free.  For me to live any other way is death.  I cannot hide the truth about who I am without collapsing my heart.  Going forward, no matter what happens, I will not stop writing.  I will not return to the land of the walking dead, waiting for each day to end so I can go to sleep and shut down the pain.  To write is to live.  Today, I choose life.

January 28-One Year, One Day at a Time – How Important is it?

Chocolate covered almonds. Every night begins with chocolate covered almonds.  How else is one to sit down at the end of a very long day and recapture its highlights. What are the day’s highlights? Meditation?  My yoga practice? Isn’t it one’s perspective that determines what is to be highlighted and what should be tossed aside?  Could the trip to Kroger for a red pepper, fennel and fingerling potatoes be the highlight?  Into what category does a grocery run fall, significant or not?  Do I mention the bottle of Meiomi wine I bought today?  Or is the private lesson I taught at 8:30 am the most important event of the day?

Should anything I do be judged by its level of significance or is each event to be seen as significant in its own way.  The second private lesson I taught at 10:30?  How do I value it?  Lunch with Jordan and Jimmy at 12:15?  A Skype client at 2:00?  Perhaps the private student who forgot to come at 4:00?  Then there was the student I worked with at 5:30 pm.  She wants to do handstand.  What are her obstacles?  Does she rate top billing?

Let’s not overlook the multiple times I checked the stats on my blog to see how many views I had.  Who was looking at and reading my blog? Hits on my blog… now that is especially riveting when you look at it in relationship to what is going on in the world.  Syria, the Ukraine, Argentina, Iran.  Consider the world view.  How important is my blog in the scope of world politics? mmmm?

Finally I have to note the television shows I watched in between appointments.  The Following with Kevin Bacon.  Intelligence.   The show I viewed  tonight, The Black List.  I love, absolutely love TV, but where do I place it on a scale of 1 – 10?

My friend, Jenny, came by tonight to pick up a bottle of Vata Oil.  She stayed.  We drank wine and visited.  The Meiomi I had bought earlier in the day became more important.  It was good, not stellar, but nice.  I had not seen Jenny in some time.  Life changes, big life changes going on in her life.  Those deserve attention.

The truth is every thing we do has value, but none of it life altering.  Not one thing we do in a day can change a life, but over time, the accumulation of mindful acts adds up.  They all come together, friends, private students,  wine, lunch with my son and husband, writing a blog, television, chocolate covered almonds to make a life, my life.  A great and wonderful life.  Thank you God. Thank you in particular for the skill of moderation.  It has made all the difference in my life.

Riding the Bucking Bronco – Repost.

Wow.  I wrote this two years ago.  Things have changed so much.  No more thrill seeking.  No more anger.  Not much sarcasm.  Lots of gratitude.

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Sarla Nichols

Yippee.  I lurch back, hollering my head off.  I am Debra Winger riding a bucking bronco in the movie, Urban Cowboy, hoping that my love, John Travolta is watching (which of course he is.)  How many years of my life did I spend trying to get a man’s attention.  Not just any man mind you.  No, I chased the hard to get ones…the guys who never called back, never spoke when spoken too.  My heart smashed into my chest with the idea of not being wanted.  What a challenge!  Just give me a challenge and I am all over it.

Don’t you see.  I yearn to ride the bucking bronco of life.  I thrive on attention especially that derived from thrill seeking.  I straddle the beast, hugging my inner thighs tight to his sides. I feel his beating  heart in my loins.  Now this is living.

I am proud to say my Daddy taught me early on to exploit my own sexuality. ” Need a new pair of sneakers, do you?  Come on then my Little Princess.  Sit right here in Daddy’s lap. “Oops, what is poking up between my thighs?  I kiss Daddy on the cheek and jump right back down. The next day, he comes busting through the front door with a box of Keds in his hand.

I never sold sex for money, but I traded it for attention, for what I like to call “added value.”  At James Whitcomb Riley High School I made a habit of walking between classes with one arm around a letter-jacketed, football player.  Honey, I was stylin’.  With a stud on one arm and straight A’s tattooed on the other, I garnered a movie stars gallery of spectators.

Like Debra Winger, I drank with the bad boys, dated the jocks, and when no one was looking, hung out with my good friend Tom.  Tom, the go to guy…the one that comes when you call; who gives a girl a shoulder to cry on.  I can see him idling his woody wagon up my driveway on Donmoyer Avenue.  I slip out the front door and into the bench seat of his beat-up car.  He’s got a six pack of Schlitz beer and Marlboros in a box.  We are ready to ride.

Physically, we never left the drive, but in our hearts we traveled to the far corners of the universe.  We were determined not live our lives under the smoke stacks of South Bend, Indiana. He will forever be my link to God in, what I then considered, a Godless world.  His family of 11 children was, no surprise, Catholic and Tom exemplified the Doctrines of the Church.  He never pushed me to have intercourse.  We dabbled in sex, as teenagers do, eyes tightly shut, groping one another,  but never consummated our relationship.  He wanted a commitment, one I could never give.  I was not a one guy girl.

Tom didn’t really “do it” for me.  He was no bucking bronco, just a  “steady Eddie.”  He was the one you could let get away  because he would always come back.  Kinda like a rescue dog.   There’s a great line from a song.  Can’t remember the artist.  Goes like this.  “How can I ever miss you if you won’t go away.”  That was Tom,good through thick and thin.  Not much of a challenge.  Boring.

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Eternally Grateful

Short recap of my life story.

Lived in a 2 bedroom, 1 bath house with nine other people. My father was a rageaholic and an alcoholic who sexually abused me,verbally abused my brother, Scott, beat my grandmother, and forced my step-mother Elaine to have daily sex with him.  She was pregnant 7 times in as many years and gave birth to four boys and one girl in that time span.  My father rarely worked.  My step-mother attempted to support our family on a weekly salary of $90.00, her wage for managing a boutique department store.

A straight A student, I played the violin and was a junior high cheerleader.  Entering puberty, I I started drinking, smoking and having all but full-blown sex with Micky Stilson.  Quit orchestra, snuck out at night, spent evenings at the skating rink where I could flirt with older boys, and smoked in public.  Somehow maintained my grades, while my already low self-esteem plummeted.  Mick was the classic bad boy. Cheated on me, ran away from home, dropped out of school, stole his dad’s car, even got into an altercation with a police officer.

Seeing the writing on the wall, I asked my mother, who abandoned me when I was a year old, if I could come to Memphis and live with her and my step-father, Bill.  She consented.  I contacted a lawyer my mother knew.  He took me before the judge, who, because I was 16 and “of age” according to Indiana law, was able to end my father’s custody and free me to go south to live with “Mommy Dearest.”

More abuse, physical and emotional.  A mother who served me alcohol on daily basis, took me out drinking with her, allowed me to smoke at home and at school.  What more could a girl ask for?  Mommy and Bill moved to Florida when I was 18.  I stayed in Memphis. I has attended the University of Tennessee in Knoxville for two quarters and dropped out due to a nervous breakdown.  Probably attributable to the alcohol and drugs I took during that time.

Once back in Memphis, I found work at what was then St Joseph hospital as an insurance clerk.  I filed claims for patients. When my parents moved I found an apartment with an across the hall student whom I befriended while at UT.

By now my bulimia was in full  bloom. I had used laxatives for years to control my weight.  I ate compulsively until I made myself sick and then did everything but throw up to eliminate the evidence of my over consumption.  My digestive system became dependent on the pills I took and the enemas I self-administered.

Began attending St John’s United Methodist Church, found God and moved back to Indiana to “save” my family from damnation.  Instead I introduced my already screwed up brother to a gang of thugs and drug pushers with whom I spent most of my time after I gave up my evangelical work.

My soon to be husband, Jeff, rescued me from the den of inequity, brought me back to Memphis and, foolishly, married me.  It is a miracle we did not kill one another.  After 7 years, an affair and an abortion, he divorced me.  I went back to school to finish my college degree.  Again, I excelled, majoring in both French and Psychology.  Met my next husband, Jackie, and moved in with him in less than a week’s time.  I graduated, but turned down an opportunity to go to grad school in Psychology and a teaching job in France to stay home and have children.  I worked as a paralegal at a local law firm.

Prior to my law career, I worked at Squash Blossom, a natural food store in Memphis, for Jimmy Lewis who, unbeknownst to me would be my third and final husband.  He eventually hired me away from the law firm, offering more money and an opportunity to be a leader.  I hated working for the attorneys, most of whom were arrogant, crude and misogynistic.

Jimmy and I were both married.  He and I both had daughters.  I filed for divorce, but continued to live with Jackie because I did not have the resources to move out.  Jimmy and I went on a business trip to Atlanta, a natural foods convention, shared and room and ended up having an affair, falling more deeply in love and…..Jimmy’s wife found out.  We came home, arranged to live together in a duplex we rented for a year.  Big mistake.  We lasted 3 months.  I got pregnant by my not yet ex-husband and Jimmy moved in with his parents.  He eventually got a divorce from his then wife, but lost custody of his daughter Alyana, from whom he is still estranged.  A few years later, Jimmy remarried. He rehired me.  We tired to work together, but could not keep our hands off of one another.  I was banned from shopping at Squash Blossom.

Doomed to living with a wonderful man whom I did not love or trust, crazy as hell, depressed, suicidal and unable to care adequately for my two children, I reached out in desperation to a friend, Lou Hoyt, who became my first yoga teacher.  Through her I contacted Felicty Green, a 6 foot tall South African Yoga teacher who at the time lived in Seattle.  I went and spent a week with her.  She became my Baba Yaga.

Baba Yaga is a witch (or one of a trio of sisters of the same name) in Slavic folklore, who appears as a deformed and/or ferocious-looking elderly woman. She flies around in a mortar and wields a pestle. She dwells deep in the forest, in a hut usually described as standing on chicken legs, with a fence decorated with human skulls. Baba Yaga may help or hinder those that encounter or seek her out, and may play a maternal role. (Wikipedia)

I went back and lived with her for three more months.  Yoga became my life line.  Over the span of 29 years, I have studied, practiced, trained as a teacher, opened and operated a successful studio, and trained over 100 others to be teachers.  But most importantly yoga gave me the tools I needed to be a great parent.  Yoga saved my life.

Jimmy and I married in 1999.  We are friends, lovers, partners and more.  My children, Katie and Jordan, are both grown and living with their partners here in Memphis.  I am so proud of them.  Every time I hug them, when I tell them how much I love them, I am reminded of what a gift my life is, and I am grateful to be who I am today.  What was once impossible becomes possible over time through the practice of yoga.