In the spirit of taking note… I am feeling happier than I can remember in a long time. I think ok-ness has been my own baseline/status quo for forever, all that I can remember. Whether it is due to worry over the world or worry over my children, I have hovered for so long in a persistent state of good enough is good enough and so long as the steady thrum of anxiety doesn’t tip into full panic, then I am winning. Of course! I mean that is a win, right? But these past couple of weeks I have eased my way into something different but familiar, like a well-worn and beloved pair of pants that finally emerged from the pile of cast-offs they were buried under for so long. A refreshing find. Bright and in good repair and made just right for me. It is hard to let myself say that I have felt something close to happy these past few weeks, it feels tone deaf to the very real shit storm blasting the larger national and global reality right now, and yet… I think I am.
It is a huge relief to have a plan for each of the kids this coming year that feels solid and right. The enormity of the burden of trying to sort that out these past few years has been so much to bear. And yeah this next version of us will have its hiccups or not wind up being the right fit but for the moment we are right and good with what is coming. What a relief. Also, a plan for them opens up the possibility of a plan for me too and I am enjoying the growing idea of my own time and space opening up and unfolding into something this fall. I like making a plan to do more of my own work in some larger, uninterrupted, and focused stretches. I am setting a few things in motion for teaching and mentoring and my own study that is exciting as well as measured and reasonable and all of that is something I look forward to.
It is also an immense relief to be on Islesford this summer and in full enjoyment of everything that it is to get to spend time here. Days are full of deck hangs with either a book or knitting or bubbles in hand, blueberry picking and bike rides, chats with friends in the middle of the road and on the beach, looking for lucky rocks and rowing out to the Sea Sauna with friends, delicious naps and afternoon yoga on the deck. Plus, I am so thrilled to be teaching yoga on the island again this summer for the first time in 4 years. It feels like such a reunion: with all these folks who have taken classes with me for years as well as me to teaching here and in general. The same and yet also older and wiser in this really excellent way. I have been teaching gentler/softer more than I ever have in my life and it really feels like the just right offering for people right now- at least the ones that I am finding in front of me. We are all worked, for obvious reasons, and seem to each be ready for the reminder to lean in the direction of greater ease and compassion. I have always had an identity around being a difficult yoga teacher and it feels good to shake that off a bit and teach to what is. Not to say I do not have it in me for challenging practice and helping people grow their yoga in that way too- I just think that maybe I am becoming more adept at not superimposing my agenda over anyone else’s.
Another excellent lived reality of the Islesford summer experience this year is having an almost three-year-old with me. Last summer’s adventures were difficult with a fresh two-year-old. Managing the sleep changes he was going through was difficult away from home and he wasn’t quite so ready for adventure last summer in the way that he is this one. I have been remembering all of the play and adventure we had with Maple and Eider on the island before they were old enough to explore independently. Bike rides and picnics and tide pools and beach afternoons and games and all the rest. Somewhere between 5 and 8, they start taking off on their own and in a place like Islesford, you often don’t see them again til meal time or when someone needs to go poo. So getting to play here with a little one who is discovering all of the magic of this place with his big beautiful fresh eyes and heart I think may be what this place is actually all about. It is the mood of everything here. The adults who live here for all or part of the summers are all crafting activities and projects and days to touch again and enjoy the wonder that is being a child on an island off the coast of Maine during the summertime. It is the central tone of everything we do here. Children and adults alike. I love that so much and I really love being back in the very center of the magic of this place with my own little one and with a deeper and more embodied understanding of the what and the why of it.
Anyhow, that’s it. I’m feeling good and also feeling good about feeling good. That’s all. That’s enough.