What the Yoga Teacher Said And Other News

I awoke this morning convinced that I might as well begin the new year fulfilling my potential to become the mean and angry person it seemed I was meant to be. Maybe this was the year I would  yield to my destiny as a hit man or a dognapper or a baby snatcher. Maybe I could at least get a job writing parking tickets or turning down deserving people for home loans. Even if I had to settle for being a bitchy old woman who patroled the beach threatening to turn everyone in who walked an un-leashed dog, I felt I could do a damn good job at it.

Then I went to yoga. In the park. At the beach. You know. All that blue sky and glistening water. Swaying palm trees and dunes simultaneously all soft and resilient against the sea. And the yoga teacher. What she said was something about the word hatha meaning light and dark--and I think she said it meant both the light side of the mountain and the dark side of the mountain. Or maybe I was just looking at the dunes and interjected the image of a hill into the business about dark and light. In any event, I thought  Yeah, I sure as hell am on the dark side of the mountain. And I am. And I'm not sure I have what it takes to climb up and over that mountain to the other side right now, but maybe I should not pursue becoming a hit man and just stand still and wait for the light. It will probably take a while.

I like how the light here looks both like a mushroom cloud and a palm tree.

By some miracle I had the foresight to plan a full day of care for my mom today. Feeling the way I did, I stayed outside pretty much the entire day. My new iPhone (yes, that would be the iPhone without the voicemails from Dan on it) says that I walked over 5 miles. Pretty much every step of that was on the beach. I even found beach glass, so maybe the beach glass drought is over. That's something, right?

The pile on the left is what I found today. The pile on the right is what I've found in the past 6 months.

And yeah, I'm still not really returning all my phone calls right now. I start to call people back, but then I get the feeling I might burst into tears as soon as you say hello. I have to time it just right. But we'll talk. Thank you for calling.