Several weeks ago I made a big decision to take some time off from work. To be for the girls, what I imagined they needed, to clear my head and make space, literally and figuratively withing our four walls. To notice more, to be present, to attend to details. To watch more game, more jumps and more leaps and turns. 



Yesterday, walking through Rittenhouse I felt alive for the first time in a good while. Maybe it was the great meeting I had with the Lemons layered with the good long weekend of time with the girls, some load lifting news for a friend or quite possibly Adam Levine’s tattoos live in person. I’m not much into him on The Voice personally, but the girls so adore him and it was a delight to see him perform, but mostly to witness their ever growing love of live music. (thanks to our magic making friend who gets an extra special Santa hat for the season)

Music has been such a soul saver for me – all of my days, especially now. A trait Dean and I have passed onto the girls – good news bad news who knows?! Sure they love pop music, but they have a deeper listening for the good stuff, and it thrills me to no end they can identify a good mix vs a bad one, and especially lately that they can appreciate the very cool things we get to do – music included – simply because we’re kind people, who are friends with kind people, who know some kind people, that like to meet new kind people.

It’s a club, “the keepers” I call them. I know a kind heart the minute I meet them. I can see it in their eyes, the way the sparkle when they smile, the tiny wrinkles at the corners that make you want to notice them – a dead giveaway of a soul centered person. Those people. The ones you want in your life forever – in some fashion, the very ones that just by existing – somehow remind you to smile.

The last several days reminded me of who I am, what I love and who I want to be for my girls. It reminded me I love adventures, and road trips and dinners at the bar instead of a table – because you never know who you’ll end up sitting next to. It reminded me that I have the whole world at my fingertips, and a fresh new canvas to re-create the life we want to live – which even still does not quite seem like a consolation, nonetheless. I know that light is there – I can see it every once in a while, conceptualize it for sure, it’s the really getting it that can be tough. At least some days – lately.

Sometimes it’s the old familiar that brings me back to life, sometimes the music, the tiny lines by your eyes, the fresh taste of a clementine, a call from an old friend, a fresh new pack of gum. I’m kinda simple, really I am. Tonight the record player gently fills the empty, eases the unknown and in a strange way takes away time. Which seems to be a good solution to standing in the empty – erasing time. Cheating – I know.

Creating space is the easy part. Standing in it – the hardest part. I’ve never been good at down time, clearly, and the hard work is just that. Staying.

I’ve spent the last several months – actually years – going. From the minute Dean was diagnosed. Fit it all in, squeeze the everything out of life, experience a lifetime in five years, love up the girls, travel, treatment, music, friends, adventure after adventure after adventure and its all been amazing – well done and so right. I wish I could live that way forever actually – everyday a Saturday. But alas – the universe has stopped me from spinning, it’s a good thing I think. It’s brought me to take some time off from work – and just focus on being. With the kids – with myself, with my people, with my errands, with my chores. It’s allowed me time to think, and write and visit with some friends. This week, it’s my practice, uneasy as it is – so necessary. To take things as they come, to complete a few projects, to get through some piles and just be.

What would you do with more space, more time, a clean slate, a blank page? Would you rewrite your future? Your past? Reallocate your time? Move away – energetically – from certain people? Closer to others? Could you slow down, take a breath, stand your ground, have a rest? Have you ever? Really truly?

Step away from the grind – and just dream.

Feeling blessed and supported in this crazy readjustment, that while I thought I was quite through it, appears to only have just begun.

Sitting here on this crisp Sunday morning, with the sunlight warming my face, I think I can finally see the Light again. That the world holds infinite possibility, all there just waiting for us to reach out and grab it. That God or the Universe or whatever you believe, puts the the people in your life you need exactly when you need them. That the trials and roadblocks we experience are there to somehow strengthen our skills or in my case stop me in my tracks. That even true friendship ebbs and flows and that in order to keep living, we need to do exactly that, keep living.

Last week at the studio in our 40Days Program, we focused on vitality, which I had mistakenly interpreted as feeling good – vital, full of life. Sounds great, except I was feeling dead, down and not very bright – for what seemed like an eternity. I was reminded by one of MY teachers, that feeling in general was vitality, and that right then that meant feeling not so great. I sat with that. Somehow finding validation in the fact that I haven’t been able to keep my head on straight for the past few weeks. I wasn’t dead, I was just at the bottom of the barrel. And holy crap, was I feeling.

Several weeks ago I was in Colorado with my Baptiste Yoga family for a mini program of sorts and spent three days focused on getting to my mat. As expected, the process cracked my heart wide open and all the sorrow and disbelief I had been stuffing down – for years at this point, finally began to surface its ugly head. I cried for days, truly, like that cathartic gut wrenching kind of cry that makes everyone around you cry too. Rafter shaking cry. And so it began. Real grieving.

There’s no road map for grief, it doesn’t stop when you get on the plane, or when the tears dry, or even as time goes by, but for me it seems to have eased. It stings a little less, comes in shorter waves, although I know theres no telling when it might pop back up. Im very blessed, I still feel incredibly connected to Dean, in his spirit form. He sends signs and very heady warnings all the time and most times I listen. And I pray. I pray for clarity, I pray for ease , I pray that I can do this alone, I pray that his smile and gentle way will never fade from my memory, and I pray in gratitude for the people in my life. Those who forever have my back, through it all. For you I am so grateful.

The most recent sign came in the strangest form, a story for another day – but a clear wake up call. One that said, “Stop with the melancholy, get out of your head – it’s our favorite time of year in the big house. Go live, go shine, go do all the things you’ve ever dreamt of doing, Im right with you in it all. Don’t wait, don’t be heavy. You are the light that guides and shapes the two beautiful children we have created together and you have a big responsibility to show up and show them the way.” That is  #livinginthewindow I know – it seems crazy, but its true. It’s the magic of Grace. The signs are all there, we just have to listen.

So today, I stand in this: If a man can run a ten mile race six weeks before his body is ravaged by cancer, I can certainly wake up and teach yoga. I can run to buy shinguards in the middle of dinnertime traffic. I can race home for the girls and stand on the sidelines, if even just to see them for an hour.  I can make the list and I can easily and joyfully pull together Sunday dinner. I can speak to my students for my heart. I can support our team of amazing leaders who truthfully have been holding ME up these past few weeks. I can smile again and feel easy. Things that have seemed nearly impossible for the last little while.

I know in my heart it’s all there for me, just as it’s all there for you. Waiting, wishing wanting for you to find your own way, and see you own light. As my friend and teacher Phillip Urso once said, “The clouds do not put out the sun.” They only sometimes get a little heavy – but for today, today its all blue skies. I am so happy to be back in the Light.

Oh Fall, I feel you coming. Transition is never easy for me.

I’ve learned the key to transition, whether in my physical practice or my life is inviting Grace. Allowing it ease me through, knowing deep down that things are meant to be the way they will be. The more I fight and resist the change, the harder it will be.

It’s been a real summer of transition for me. I feel like the girls and I are in a much different place this summer than last. We’ve had time. To heal, to get our head around things and to once again open our eyes to the world. I had a real moment of acknowledgement this morning for all we’ve been through and how it’s shaped who we are and how we live. An acknowledgement of surviving the storm, and the loss and the grief. An acknowledgement that we are ok. I’d typically be dreading the summer coming to an end. This year it feels different.

This year I’m embracing the Fall. The new studio, the bustling soccer schedules, Friday night football, hometown friends and the lovely little town we call home. New adventures, high school, home renovations.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll miss this view for sure. I’ll miss the comfort it gives me, the space I find here and the ease of life that comes with the summer months. The wave checks, and the joy we find in our tiny apartment by the sea, but there’s so much ahead. So much to do and see and learn and love as we head back to the big house for the next chapter.

So this summer: no goodbyes, no closed books – just three more days of sunshine and sand between my toes, jean shorts and flip flops, surfing with our gang. And as for Fall? I’m a big HELL YES! To whatever life has in store. Amen.

“The holy instant is not a moment of creation , but of recognition.”

ACIM (T-21:II:8:2)

Listen.

Look.

step to the front of your mat.

step into the fire.

two simple sentences. and i had lost it. completely.

bawling for the loss

bawling with an exhale.

mourning.

mourning wave checks

mourning soccer games

mourning sailing races

mounring my wingman

In a room full of seemingly strangers, who surely noticed my shaking as I was standing at the front of my mat, as tall as I could at that moment. still i cried.

It didn’t last long, but it was real. real deep, real sharp and real empty – and then it moved through me. like a wave in the ocean or the wind in the sky.

Suddenly, I feel like can climb out from under the rock, where I’ve been sheltered, not so patiently waiting for the exhale, like we survived the first year without him, like suddenly things might be allowed to be easier, because he would want no other way. Maximum joy. How can this day get even better? It’s how his mind worked these past few years.

Summer days even better looked like a nap or a surf or an iced cold corona. Summer nights it meant listening to music in the kitchen or staying out all night, or eating clams. Whatever it was these last few years, it was joyful, always joyful. God bless him.

It’s a privilege to see someone you love to the other side. a very sacred privilege, one that tests every thing you’ve ever learned in church, or wherever it is you go to pray.

It is sacred, and the most difficult thing you will ever have to experience with your children, I promise you that.

These last few days have been sacred. They’ve been insulated, by those closest to us, at our bold request – and we were grateful for the space. We really needed the space, especially on the 4th. Gloriously, God delivered us a morning filled with “Dave Matthews Rain”, champagne pops and quiet in the streets. We napped, we got to all that unpacking, we swept the floors and we napped again. Exactly what we would’ve done on any rainy fourth of july in the tiny house by the seaside.

Thank you all for your warm wishes and thoughts. Social media didn’t seem integretous that day, neither did my phone. All that felt right was space on that rainy afternoon. Come sunset, we were met by clearing skies and the annual gathering of neighbors. We broke bread with our favorite beach families and ended our day quietly as we began. And now we get to exhale.  And go to yoga, where my head stays still enough to grasp the words.

And that’s all it took today, two sentences, to unlock the door, to set me free.

Thats the beauty of my yoga practice. It gives me space for grief, it gives me time to heal, it gives me clarity and sweat, forgiveness and accountability. It straightens my muscles for adversity and reminds me to breathe, just breathe. My practice is my prayer, my offering. My BIG HUGE beg of God to keep things moving right along, right here on the safe side of our edge – just a little bit comfortable. My practice is my magic, it moves me through the mud.  It’s so good to be back.

Wishing you wonderfully long even better summer days with the people you love.

xx

NDGS

As I sit here watching the sun come up on the North Shore of Oahu, waves crashing in sky turning pink, I can’t help but think there would be any other place you would’ve wanted to be on your birthday this year than right here with these very special friends. These friends who in such an instant, became family. 

It’s incredible, how this all worked out, Hilary and the boys here, just as we were passing through on our way home form Australia, it was as if you had a hand in the planning, as if you knew. There wouldn’t be a single other thing you’d rather be doing today than enjoying the friendships and love that we have with our dear dear friends, in the one place on your list we didn’t get to see together. I have no regrets, as I know the same with you, that we should’ve, could’ve gotten here a moment sooner, for I know we lived every single day to the fullest, our life together could not have been bigger. I also know truthfully, there is no easier place for the girls and I to be on what might prove to be an otherwise very challenging day. 

It’s hard not to look at the ocean in front of me with anything other than awe, respect and with the knowledge that there is certainly a God more intentional and powerful that anyone here on this earth. It makes it easy to acknowledge that we did all we could have done to fight your fight, and that in the end, as in the beginning we are definitely not in charge. It’s one of the first lessons I realized through your fight, the I am not in charge. Sure, we make decisions, and choose doctors, do research and drink green juice, but the bigger picture, our fate in the end, is out of our hands. not in a woeful way, not as if we should surrender, more like an acceptance.  An understanding that every setback, every disappointment, every challenge we face – is for the greater picture. They are all just pieces of the puzzle we call life. They are stepping stones and lessons to a better way, to a stronger character, to a more loving heart. This, I feel is the greatest gift. It doesn’t make it any easier not having you here, it doesn’t help us miss you less, but it does have me know in my heart there was not one single thing we could’ve done differently, not one single moment wasted, not one experience in vain. Everything plays into the bigger picture, every soul we touch, every friend we meet, every stranger whose path we cross every moment, every day. 

You’ve left here with us many many gifts, my love, the most important of this to follow our hearts, chase our dreams and to never look back in regret. Today we will miss you, and for sure shed tears of love, but we will also remember what you have taught us and the importance of spending time with those you love and connecting with the kids and making sure we do not let a day go by unappreciated. We will celebrate you here today in Hawaii, we will dance in the sand and swim in the ocean and we will all miss you greatly, but we will know you are with us, looking over our shoulder, smiling and urging us to move forward, make memories, keep doing and loving and living out loud.