Well, it's over.
I got back last night from my final yoga exam retreat. Guess that means I'm legal. And while I do plan on writing a longer post about that sometime, I'm still digesting. Processing. It was a very intense experience. Helped me see some things. Make connections (inside myself, but also along the external skyline). In time, maybe, I'll talk about that.
But for now, I'm rewinding. I'm telling you of easier things. I left for the retreat early in the morning, desperate for the salty smell of the sea, as ever. Rushed. It seems I have less and less time lately to do the things that demand doing of me. One day soon, I fear the world might catch up to me.
I'd just about managed to pack my bags, and cram a suitcase full of yoga things and goodbyes. I hadn't picked out a travel outfit. Once, I would leave it hanging off the doorknob the night before. Now? Now, I take less notice of how I'm presenting myself to the world. I know train rides. I know eyes.
I survey the options.
Truth be told, I've amassed over the past couple of years lots of options. I know, it's something my minimalist aspirations ought to keep in check. Long, blowy dresses and nice low-cut shirts. Mini-skirts, and oversized overalls.
Yet my fingers, inevitably, guided back to old faithful.
I've had this crop-top at least ten years. There's an intensity of plain. I don't remember where I got it, and I'm too lazy to check. Besides. Credit where it's due. It's written its own backstory along the years.
I wore it years ago, stopping off the highway to explore an old abandoned house, driving home from the beach. I saw it now, riding down to the seashore. I thought huh, and the gapes-like-windows peered, and thought back huh. The houses won. The past always wins, even though it doesn't gotta.
I wore it, little-baby-tatter-me, while working on my silly little pop-up thing that won me a trip to Krakow to first meet crazy crypto weirdo people.
In Rome.
When my belly hung low.
When I didn't see how I could possibly be enough.
I wore it on planes. Plains.
And so, ten years went by, and rocked me up to now. When I look at myself as though I didn't have a face, still, but am old enough to know better. I can't trick myself as lightly as I used to, once.
I have deep love for old, faded things. Like this too-big, too-skyfar shirt. Her shirt. And bring her closer to me with very little hugs, mixing mournful and hopeful in the sand until they become a gray, homogenous muck.
I find, somehow, in this world full of darkness, so much space for joy between my right lung and the left. And maybe it's nonsense, but I attribute it to these little bits of past self. Not minimalist, not attributing emotional weight to material things, and yet, can't help myself, so do. Often.
I wear them because I feel safe, and when I'm safe, I'm comfortable. And when I'm comfortable, I get to be myself, and talk out loud to people like ship-shape little moon-glider. In my old past clothes, I am a surfer of past tides, but keep my eye on the present just barely visible along the horizon-line. I don't dare glance back towards the future, curled like a thimble-mouse in the scoop of my palm.
Not yet. It's not for future-gazing, my USED, bellow shirt, my nipple-hanger old faithful, stained.
It's just so I remember to feel beautiful at the crossroads where my present self meets my past. I didn't volunteer to carry the past. I leave behind whenever I can, dig up small moundfuls of dirt or sand. But it's a heavy thing. Days, it's a real balancing trick, wearing myself this light.
