The Lost Decree

I am drinking hot coffee. Not out of necessity, but for the thrill and indulgence of it all. 

It's not spilling out of the small sipping hole of my usual recyclable Peet's Coffee cup. It's in a ceramic mug, home brewed, and steady in both hands. I sit. We have time. We have an abundance of time. So I sip slowly. I sip, and stare into the lucid brownness, wondering what day I should catch the bus to see my grandparents. I am home. I am in Latvia.

It's been three years. Well, it's been over three years, but I prefer to round down. Up until now, I've tried to not over think it, over analyze it - the distance, the time, the gaps. Gaps large enough to change people. Gaps large enough to to fall through and scar, like bungalow floors. I wonder if the hand will fit the glove. If I still fit. Or if it will hurt. Three years. It's never been this long, and it's never been like this. I've always had a ticket back.

I sip. It's my first morning here. I slept well, but my body is bloody mad, as I am severely jet lagged. I sip and think. I don't have to go to work. I don't have a class to teach, or somewhere to be, or someone to meet, or errands to run. I don't even have a car to run errands in. In fact, there is no car anymore. My phone sits quietly. I canceled my plan, and mostly use it to take photos. I sip and look at my photos. I don't have plans for tomorrow. I am unsure about what I am doing next week. The truth is, I don't know what I will be doing in six months or next year, for that matter.

Intellectually, I am fairly used to and comfortable with this concept, this unknowing. I have answered the question many times: what are you going to do? Over the last few months, I have had time to become quite familiar with the sound formation of these three words. I've practiced. I've said them many many times. To others and to myself. When I am in my natural state, in my truth, the questions nor these words rattle me. However, I am not always in this beautiful space.

I 
don't 
know.

Are you going to be back. I don't know. For how long? I don't know. How do you feel? I don't know. Are you worried? I don't know. Lately, it's my answer to the majority of questions the of majority people ask me. Half of them don't really care but I've peaked their curiosity, half of them have no business, (or as I love to say -- bidness) caring, and the ones between the cracks, the ones that do care, the ones that have a right to care, well, I hope they love and understand. Maybe even they know something I do not.

It's my first time without a home studio. It's the first time I can't run off to my favorite class when I feel like the floor is falling from underneath me. I don't even have a yoga mat anymore. The old Jade was stained and worn with hours of feet and hands, vinyasas, and tears. I left her behind at my parents house - partially hoping that one day my mother will miraculously use it. I don't have a mat anymore. There are time when this thought fills me with panic. I don't even have a mat.

And so it begins. The lost decree. Yoga without a mat, yoga without a studio.