Happy Birthday Johnny!

Last Thursday was Johnny Cash's birthday and I've been immersed in Johnny and June. Oh what a love. What a life he led.  Below, a Birthday note from him to her:

"Happy Birthday Princess,

We get old and get use to each other. We think alike.

We read each others minds. We know what the other wants without asking. Sometimes we irritate each other a little bit. Maybe sometimes take each other for granted.

But once in awhile, like today, I meditate on it and realize how lucky I am to share my life with the greatest woman I ever met. You still fascinate and inspire me.

You influence me for the better. You’re the object of my desire, the #1 Earthly reason for my existence. I love you very much.

Happy Birthday Princess.

John"

Happy belated birthday Johnny Cash, and thanks for showing us how not to give a fuck unless it really mattered.

I Pretend

I glide my fingers
gently
over a page
and think it’s your skin
instead.
I think of yesterday.

I glide my fingers softly again,
and again I pretend,
that for a marvelous moment,
I can see your face.

It all glazes over,
I lose my sight,
tears stream unstopped now
down from my eyes.
Until I regain focus,
regain my strength,
at least for a some time.

I glide a finger over my hand,
absent minded for a while
and I wonder
if you feel my touch
When we’re away.
I pretend.

Trail of Hope

Lately there's been some dark feelings in my life. The valleys through which I've been traveling have a good destination. That I know, but the road of Doubt, which is where I've been hanging out for the last couple of months led me to a lot of time sitting down and looking up at the tops of smoke black canyons; wondering how I was ever able to get up there and if I remember how beautiful it was to look down at this valley and through it.

I also spent a lot of time wondering if I'm ever leaving. I sat and waited and embraced the cold. I didn't want to get up and go because it was easier to say I got lost. Died trying. Oh well. The journey was too hard. When I tried to just let go and to let myself sink into the quicksand below me, the pain was too great, and here's what came of if:

Before the advent of vehicles and flying machines, starting a journey was a life-altering decision. People traveled for months or even years crossing through deserts, and snow, and wars. When someone left for travels, you  didn't know if you'd ever see them again. Ever. Goodbyes were forever. If a father left for war he'd often come back to find grown children and distant wife. No Wi-Fi, no Skype, not even  a broken up telephone call.

That ancient travel is what my journey through life feels like and I've walking through the road of Doubt at the lowest and most trying point of my valleys of darkness. This road is set in stones made of the past. It's where we go to look back and think we lost it, made mistakes, made wrong choices, can't escape and worse, there's no other way, there's no way out. The road of Doubt is also the road of self-criticism and not of the constructive kind. In the middle of mine I found some acceptance and with that thought I was reminded that mistakes and what ifs didn't matter.

That was the sign pointing to Hope. Once I turned to the dirt trail of Hope  (it's not a magnificent paved road, sorry), I sat down and was able to see that the journey I've completed so far with its struggles and perceived lack of rewards, has been beautiful. I should be proud of myself instead of beating myself up for not doing enough, or not being enough. Up until this point, if I am not yet at the apex, if I am only conquering one small leg of my trip, I should still be happy and ready, because the future journeys may demand more sacrifice and letting go. They will demand more Faith and Trust and Hope. If I can't hold on to Hope now, I'll be in trouble later.

Besides that, I also realized that in the journey is where I will find myself. Sitting around and thinking "Who am I?, Who am I really and deeply, and truly?" is almost a futile exercise, that's for yuppies. Doing, going, experimenting, testing, and following your heart, and fighting when you're in the dark, that's what answers the question. I expect it  will be a grueling discovery.

So, I went back to gratitude exercises yesterday as part of my fight to focus on the light. It's the second day only and I already feel it help me wake up focused on the small white light, on the trail I must travel.

Here's todays:
Today, I'm thankful for waking up feeling the waves of inspiration, again.
I'm thankful for the beautiful people in my life, who hold me up and check up on me and tell me I am so when I don't feel it.
I'm thankful for the ability to write. I've been furiously writing;

and for Internet, because now I have no excuse but to edit and send out material that has been collecting dust.

Hope, Faith and Trust is my wish for you today too.

Oh Ragnar be Kind!

If you're going to do it or you have to it you may as well do your best. There is a lot going on and taking off  and not enough time to tell you all about it yet! Stay tuned!!!

We are about to start quite an adventurous and rewarding journey. Coming up this weekend I'll be doing my best to share photos of the Ragnar-Vail Lake race. My team, "We came for S'more Running"

participated in the Utah Ragnar last April, and we got snowed in.

 I was on crutches. Hobbling around in the snow, was already way beyond the permissions I had obtained from the medical professionals. Of course I tried talking my Physical Therapist and Dr. into letting me race, but they recited all these things that could happen to my bones and my future adventures if I did. So I went anyways, and my not doing anything turned into walking around the camp until I couldn't feel my foot, but I didn't run. I was moral support. They did awesome, of course, until the course closed due to visibility problems and injured runners. The joys of obstacle and cross country races!!!

This year's Vail Lake is held at the location where the last Spartan Beast was cancelled. Yay.

This time, I'm closing the race. Back and kicking ass no matter how hot and humid it gets. I'm not in the best shape yet, --that's the next part of this journey-- but I will be in the company of friends getting little sleep and a lot of running done. Really, I just want my decal, and maybe a t-shirt, and the memories of pushing through and spending time with friends who run.

Of course I haven't packed. There's a pile of supplies I did buy today. And sure enough I got the busiest schedule for the rest of today. As I write this , it's 24 hrs til I wake up to drive away at 2 a.m. Friday Morning.

Race on my friends, and be kind.

Dancing Life Away

 Last July when I never published this post, I had the pleasure to attend the 10th annual Salsa Congress 10th annual Las Vegas Salsa Congress  here in Las Vegas. Dancers from all over the world travel and gather at the Tropicana for 4 days of dancing, workshops and shows. After 2 hours of watching the top performers from all over the floor, everyone proceeds to the ballroom and by 1 am it is full and throbbing, people, most who are strangers to each other, dancing away until 4 a.m. when the music stops and those whose feet are still standing may go up to someone's room for even more dancing and merriment.

Sleep a few hours, get up to take classes, eat, shows, dance, repeat. For a few pictures and video click here LV Salsa Congress

I remember my first congress. As a newbie to the scene I was self-conscious. I worried about 'messing up', not following correctly, stepping on the wrong place. The times I asked someone else to dance, I felt that fear of rejection guys are certainly more used to than us.

As the years have gone by, my dancing has improved some. I still sometimes let worry get to me. That Saturday I danced with some worry: Worry that I am not as good as others, that I am not a performer, that I would make mistakes or that I have bad habits in my dance. Saturday I had more trouble hearing the music, and blamed it on my not-good-enough abilities.  Saturday I danced less and I smiled less.

Sunday night, not even pretending to dress up for the occasion:

 I made it a purpose to just go and have fun, enjoying the last few hours of this year's dance marathon. I had the best dances of the weekend and I danced better than I had all weekend.

Congress ended and I caught up on fluids and sleep yesterday. Then, this morning I rose before the sun and taught yoga. I have been working on projecting strength but with a sense of peace and evenness. Today, my inspiration was that exhilarating and calm feeling from Sunday. Dancing away with happiness, floating in the movement. I found my teaching. I found my voice, steady and strong, urging for challenge and form and breathing. I found the peace in teaching, like I found the peace in the dancing of Sunday, and there was no fear.

Fear holds us back. No matter whether we are talking about workouts, hobbies or daily decisions at work and at home. Fear hinders us. Without fear, we can soar. Fear, most often, begins with us and towards us. We are our biggest critics. If we can love ourselves, forgive ourselves and give to ourselves, we can shatter the fear at least long enough to get a little closer to our true selves today, and as we dance and repeat, we get through life with peace and strength, and maybe even happiness. So dance away and remember:

repost from 2012: The world I like to Live In

Is different from the world in which I exist. In the world that I exist in there is a maze of compartmentalized reality and an absence of illusion. I deal in musts, in haves and have nots, in facts and in probabilities and the fickleness of memory.  Every day however, even in the darkest hardest moments, there's an opportunity to look at someone in the eyes and see a person in all it's complexity, and not to judge.

It is the ability to empathize and to distance oneself all at once, to make a hard moment a little bit easier, which drives me. On hard days you walk away feeling drained from the energy poured out of me, or from the energy expended holding up walls that were necessary at the time.


Still, the work that I exist in comes easy for me. I can move in and out, I can open and close I can let you see and make you believe. I've had practice, years of practice in learning to exist. I can go on my own path and wash away the drainage and tuck away the feelings that I may have experienced.

 The lessons, those I like to keep. I can exist without feelings, in that world. I save those; for those who are very dear.

Now, the world I like to live on is a different thing. This world exists under my existence, every day, every moment. In this world the tiniest thing is important, and noticed and acknowledged as a miracle. In this world there's a quiet but perpetual love surrounding me, cushioning my movements. I walk as if I walked on water. I feel embraced by the day. I breathe in and it's not air, it's purpose. I am alone and so happy. I need nothing. I have me. I feel intensely but I have no need to share other than to share kind actions with others and make sure that if I have the chance to brighten the path of someone else, I do, and I thank the universe for the chance to do so, before I move along. I'm like a butterfly...softly landing and taking off.

Now you come into my worlds. But you must pick one, you see. I can't dream of you in my world and love you in the other. For if I dream of you I dream of love that is soft kind and effortless. If I dream of you I dream of certainty, trust and forever. If I dream of you, I fly far away with just a blink of an eye and I soar above in contentment. Oh, and I dream of you.

If you want the dream, it's yours. Know it's grand. Know it's there, but be ready. There's a flood of me that's been stored away, kept away from wasting, waiting for a reason to be released. If you want it, it is yours and I'll be yours and I... I will love you. I will love you like I love the air and the sun and the earth beneath my feet. I will think of you and all that is you as me. I will plunge into the abyss without asking for anything... except for you to know the delicacy of the occasion, and for you to enjoy and dream with me. I will love you with passion,  like the passion of the birth of a volcano. I will love you slow, and I will love you deep and I will forget for a while, that we are two.

But you must dream. You must dream, or you won't see that world. If you don't dream,  it will happen all around you and you will miss it.

If you don't dream with me I will dream it in my world and let it go, but keep it forever, just so I remember what it felt like. If you don't dream with me the rain will come and wet the flowers as they dance to the mounting breeze. If you don't dream with me the storm of my love will come and pour itself and the lighting will thunder with excitement and like the storm, you'll see it pass and watch it go,  as forever leaves you.  So dream with me, dance with me, let the rain wash away your worries and your fears, and come away with me. As you stand beneath the willows and feel the air on your skin, know it's my touch. Let me soak you, and take you away from your cold reality, so you can be a part of mine, under my skin.

Originally: from the old blog

The pros and cons of crutches: All the things you wouldn't learn if you didn't break your feet.

Broke my foot. Again.

Same culprits: running and turned out dancer's feet and this time add a  bad choice of terrain.

I know better. I just don't exercise what I know, you know?

So I ran on a treadmill with my Vivo. Then there was a crack.. I rock at efficiency! break your foot in less than 15 minutes may be the title of another post. I'll explain further how to enhance your chances of injury.

So yesterday I did something unheard of for me. I had it looked at. I had an x-ray. I confirmed my fears, although I have self-treated for this before, as evidenced here or here or I have a few more of those... somewhere.

In any case, thus ensued a forced adventure in slowing down, looking at the bumps on the road, and learning to graciously accept door openings, and here are my listed findings, for those curious enough to walk in my shoes. Or in my one shoe and my one air cast boot, more accurately speaking:

1. Crutches fit in a small size sedan. I was worried for a minute. (plus)
2. You gotta make sure you really secure it under your armpit. (con)
3. They are great conversation tools. One day, I might just wear them for fun instead of need and see how  many more people I talk to that day. (plus)
4. You can trip.  OMG can you trip. On whatever you call the bottom of the door frame, the rugs, you name it. You have to watch out for separations between elevator and floor, and it is toootally an exercise in caution. (con).
5.  People open doors for you. Pick , plus or con. I normally do the opening, so it's a con for me, but I'm learning not to feel like a wuss. This is the exercise in help-acceptance. 
6. Upper body work out. (total plus).
7. Time management.... (total con). I want to go fast I want to go fast I want to...almost fall, no, not going that fast.
8. You could trip others. May come in handy if needed. (not assigned).
9. Can't get coffee. 
10. This is really the worst. So much so I'd assign it 3 times the bad points. Upon parking, exiting vehicle, donning my backpack and safely and securely unholstering my crutches, I realized there would be NO COFFEE!!! on my walk to the office, for logisitical reasons obviously. This was the day I saw myself  forced to pick between crutches and coffee and it shall live in infamy.
11. Getting off on the wrong floor is so close yet so far away... no stairs for you today. Reminder: Count your blessings! --so plus.

 Overall, a plus, if not for the coffee, my third  world problem, which turns it all upside down.

All the things you wouldn't learn if you didn't break your feet.

Here's One of today's lessons:
"The central question of a warrior's training is not how we avoid uncertainty and fear but how we relate to discomfort. How do we practice with difficulty, with our emotions, with the unpredictable encounters of an ordinary day?" Pema Chodron

--with a smile and a gentle disposition. whenever possible. (me).