Life-o-Rama

A couple of days ago I had the opportunity to go to a concert that my students were playing at in my hometown: Band-o-Rama. In my yesteryear, this same concert was the backbone of every winter from grades 4-12. Driving to the concert, I got that nervous pit in my stomach of going to a place where you haven't been for a long time, not knowing and wondering if it had changed or perhaps even wondering and acknowledging that I had changed, and that the course of life had taken me to routes unforseen from the fourth grader I once was.

As I found a seat perched high in the bleachers, I took in the scene: each band set in configured arcs buzzing with nervous players settling into this new medium, -to the veterans in the back who had been through the whole diametric range of shifting from one space to another year after year. After seeing the lay of the land, I started to pick out the faces that I knew and teared up as I saw the very person that started me on the whole trek through music- Mr. McLellan. It was easy to pick him out from the crowd on the floor. His springy step and professional air was contagious and his problem-solving and incredible scope of the whole room was so readily apparent. This man, I realized, was my first mentor. He saved my life. Literally. Breathe Sharon, breathe. As the haze from my eyes started to clear, I saw each of my students in their respective grade levels and chairs and became overwhelmed with a sense of pride of where they had come from when I first started with each of them, to where they were now. It continually amazes me what every year brings forth.

The rumbles of the fourth grade band stirring into action woke me from my reverie. Raw and squwaky, they made their way through. The fifth graders, with more proficiency, were like a pack of wild horses wanting to blast out of their seats. As the grades progressed, the playing got better and better and at certain points, I could hear where the proficiency was holding them back and where in the later grades, it was a tool to be able to help them express fully.

What struck me was witnessing the progression and seeing the possibilities that the fourth graders were shown, and the perspective that the grades after had of looking back. All in all, the bands were together starting the concert and ending the concert, and no matter how green or advanced they were, they were all there, creating music together. This made me think about entering a room of yogis and witnessing the magic that a room of people from all different backgrounds, days, and levels provides. During a ninety minute class, each person's tempo of practice as well as proficiency might be different, however, we begin the practice together and end it together united by breathe, movement and emotion. In essence, we are all mirrors lending us to look at where we have come from, where we are at present, and where we can go.

Life lessons have a funny way of showing up and waving their hands at you. In my case, I saw the conductor, my mentor from my past waving his arms to conduct, yet it was also that elegant sweep in a four beat pattern that reminded me that the longevity of this man's profession was the passion and love of his job, -the internal knowing of the vital importance to bring a life line to these students to express love, anger, joy and angst. Likewise, as a newer teacher of yoga, I feel a constant student wobbling my way through, where sometimes the spurts of growth can be like a wild and wonderful rollercoaster ride and at other times, the path gets cluttered and it is easy to lose my way.

As I was heading up to Boston this week, I was feeling tired and cranky and my partner gave me a hug and a kiss and said, "ok, honey, it is time to go up there and do your important work". Something about this statement made me do a double-take and the whole ride up was a teary mash-up filled with so much gratitude of remembering to be tender, patient and kind to myself and give space to have the perspective of noting where I came from, where I am now, and where I have yet to travel. So, renewed, I find myself wide-eyed and ready to always be a student of the possibilities ahead. Thank you John McLellan for being my constant mentor and source of inspiration, this work is of vital importance. Thanks you for the reminder.

Let Life Unfold

As a housewarming present a few months ago, my mom gave me a 'pot it yourself' flower in a box to plant. For many weeks, the box sat un-opened and every time I visited home my mom would ask if I had planted the flower with my reply always being, 'next time'.

On a night returning home from a busy week away, I peered at the box and hesitantly pried it open to find a bulb, a disc of peet the size of a hockey puck and a pot. Upon starting the meager assembly, I wet the disc of peet with warm water and walked away to throw something in the trash. As I turned back around, my eyes widened in disbelief as I stared at a huge, brown loaf that was once puck-sized. I called my mom yapping away and all she did was press me to move forward and finish the set up. As I crushed the loaf in between my fingers and started to set the bulb amidst it, my mind started to whirl with the questioning of how and could it grow from this sparse element into the beautiful flower on the front of the box.

Day after day the plant started to unfold, and like a kid on Christmas morning, I would come down, notice the changes, and point them out to my partner. Each week's trip home would be the update to my mother tracking the progress of the plant. What I also started to notice was the progress of our conversations evolving from the everyday niceties to some of the most honest and open revelations upon both of our parts. On those days, instead of noticing the growth of the plant, I noticed the way my mom set the table for every meal and how she would turn down the corner of my sleeping bag with a note perched on the pillow to invite me home.

Eventually from the stalk of the plant emerged a pink bulb. Like wanting to pick at a scab or squeeze a zit, I negotiated the reasoning for prying back the petals, however, I let the plant be and day by day I watched it unfurl bearing forth yellow stamen surrounded by pink and while petals. Beautiful.

I called my mom and after getting off the phone with her, I realize that what she provided me was an amazing gift bearing many fruits: she provided me with a frame to watch a moment unfold, she made me realize that there is always time to change, she let me see what a simple choice could offer and what a simple action could bear forth, -she showed me that letting something be as it is, is letting something live into its own potential.

She gave me a flower in a box. She gave me a life to let live. She gave me my life to live, but now it is up to me to make the choice to take if out of the box, water it, and let it grow.

Gulls

Last weekend as I sat amongst the rocks that lay imprinted upon the Cape shoreline, a huge flock of gulls flew overhead. At first it appeared that there was mass chaos- no order or form to the pattern of their flight like one would witness amongst fold of geese heading in the same direction looking for the embrace of warmer weather. However, as the seconds passed by, the chaotic flurry shifted into a choreography of life at its very essence. As the scene unfolded, my gaze drew to the eye of the storm and at the shifting center was a gull with what appeared to be a highly coveted cheese puff in its mouth. Its wings beat furiously, pounding back the advancing hoard of hungry squawkers, and through dives and ascents the gull averted the advances of its peers. As more time elapsed, the hoard started to settle amongst the crags and stones while the lone gull with its lofty prize hovered aimlessly overhead- it could not land, it could not rest, it could not be at peace, -it could not let go. Eventually, the gull's beak crushed and let dissolve that which in the past seconds had seemed so vital to hold on to, and with crumbs left scattered, it returned to the other white bodies speckled amongst the shoreline, -blending back in amongst the fold of hungry searchers, -not so different from one another in the struggles of nature, but certainly not the same in each of their experiences.

Watching this scene was a powerful reminder that the things that we hold on to, the experiences, the memories, the pain, the labels that we think define us, are the very things that we cannot negate. Rather, they are the things that we either choose to embrace or choose to loosen our grip on and let dissolve lest they become the very things that hold each one of us back from landing in the present: in the presence of peace and into the open arms of love.