Enjoy

(The photograph is from the central square in Asheville, North Carolina.)

I am lucky because I have an amazing sister-in-law; she has such a zest for living - even her answering machine ends with the words, clear and sweet, "Have fun!" Erich Schiffmann, the teacher I've been lucky enough to study with for the past 15 years or so is of a similar ilk. If an earthquake happens (we were in a huge one together in Montana, and then another one while we were all doing yoga together here in LA) his declaration is "This is fun." Whenever I mention I am doing anything, even the most mundane chore to him, recently it was registering my daughter for school, his comment is "Sounds like fun," or just like my sister-in-law, "Have fun!"

Yogis tend to be very disciplined when it comes to diet - at least traditionally. So I tested Erich a couple years ago with a lasagna recipe passed down from a Sicilian grandma I know. It is filled with cheese and meat. I figured Erich would eschew this meal offering as inherently unhealthy, but when I offered to it to him he loved it - spicy Italian sausage and ricotta cheese and all.

This morning during meditation I asked for one word of guidance. I've been feeling like a failure as a yoga practitioner; ambivalent about the end of summer and heading back to a teaching job, not writing quickly enough on my second novel - maybe I should be waking up at four in the morning, meditating two or three hours instead of only 15 minutes. Maybe I should type out a regimented schedule for how to navigate through everything from diet to writing to lesson plans to making love. Isn't it a matter of discipline?

My guidance during meditation was "enjoy." What??? Resistance kicked in full force; that can't be right - that's not controlled or organized enough. How will I accomplish anything if I allow myself to do that?

Then I noticed the sun shining through our garden window over Layton's potted ficus plant. I noticed my breath and really started to bliss out on that. I noticed the silence of the early morning. It felt like a great weight lifted from my shoulders, like I'd been tweaking myself the wrong way up until then, and now I was getting adjusted.

Yeah, it feels kind of amazing to "enjoy." Maybe that's the whole point after all.