Mid-Week in Maine

It’s Wednesday and it looks like a second beautiful day.

Exciting things:

Sheiky the African Gray Parrot is staying with us while Ned, who owns both Sheiky and our rental house, goes on a boat trip. Sheiky greeted me with a cheerful hello when I got back from yoga.

Jacqueline Lacoste teaches a yoga class in the beautiful community center, where I love an excuse to go and look at the ceiling; it feels like being in the hull of a big boat. I've been able to go during vacation week for four years now.

The first two years Jacqueline had an old golden retriever who would greet people as they came in and put their mats down, then he would settle quietly during class. Last year, no dog. I hated to ask, but I did. He had died during the winter.

I missed her peaceful dog and my Azalea as I lay there in Savasana at the end of class. I remembered how his gentle stirring and breathing were so welcome at that open time at the end of class.

The writing pages I did (as part of the The Writing Diet by Julia Cameron) just before I went to class were about "Where the hell is what I want? I’m doing everything aren’t I?" I was feeling gypped and frustrated about not having everything I wanted; even on vacation!

The quote Jacqueline read at the end of class took and shook me by the shoulders. I've heard it before, but this time it dropped into just the right place, like a stone.

"Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day."

Rainer Maria Rilke Letters to a Young Poet

I felt like someone took me from where I was fixated on the horizon and turned me around to see what was in front of me. What's on the horizon will come soon enough.

I felt settled and peaceful as I emerged into the sunlight.

There, at the bottom of the steps was an old yellow lab. He looked me right in the eye as he paused in his slow walk home. His mother said kindly to him, "Home stretch." I said, "You can do it Buddy!" But it made me weepy. Sweet old dogs.