Happy 2012 from the cabin on the creek in Wimberley, Texas!! The robbery sped up my plans a little... funny how that happens. But first, let's back up again to that Summer of 2009...
I had been home from yoga training just a few days. That much time in the Californian desert with my yoga mat left me feeling like I'd survived a lab experiment. My mind was clear. My senses were heightened. I also felt a little numb and disconnected. I would ride my bike to the coffee shop and just sit and watch people, from my recently wiped hard drive that was my brain. From there, I would ride to the yoga studio to cure that "fish out of water" feeling I had. They told us at training that we would experience some psychological shifting when we left the yoga bubble. I desperately missed the 360 students I saw everyday for those 9 weeks. It was like going to camp and attending college on a cruise ship that only offered Bikram Yoga as a recreational activity. And it was mandatory. I could've continued living like that for several more months.
I walked away from that experience knowing that we are meant to live in community. I think we thrive as humans when we have no walls around us; trusting ourselves and each other and openly relying on each other, even if we don't always get our needs met. We are healthier if we face each other and communicate our discomforts and fears, as opposed to shutting ourselves off from everyone and hiding our weaknesses - the very things that connect us. My yoga training helped me break through the idea that I had to present myself as being polished and perfect to everyone around me, or not show up at all. I saw that I could be broken and miserable around them, too. I could be angry, sad, or laughing my head off, and it was all the same to them. I got many gifts from that training experience, but feeling a sense of total acceptance and love from everyone around me, no matter what I did, felt like a rare and special one.
An age-old concept of "living in community" became very clear to me when I got home. I even understood that if I chose to continue living even a somewhat isolated, ego-based life, that I would wind up miserable, again.
I spent a lot of time that summer writing, trying to dump out as much as I could so that I could ease my mind back into some kind of routine, but also so that I could start to imagine my life the way I wanted it to be from my heart's point of view. I took a blank notecard and wrote down what I wanted my life to look like. It was the first time I had ever done such an exercise. I wrote:
"Learn how to garden. Take an art lesson. Find a community - Wimberley, maybe? Paint, write, breathe, spend time alone, do yoga. Give love everyday. Set boundaries. Live with both feet in the boat."
I've been coming to Wimberley since I was a little girl. Our San Marcos neighbors had a family cabin on the Cypress Creek there. The cabin smelled like cedar inside, and I fell in love with it instantly. We jumped off of rope swings hanging from enormous cypress trees into the clear, cold water. I remember swimming with a face mask on, watching fish, and thinking that life from that perspective was absolutely perfect. I loved the energy, the people, the water, and the little town square in Wimberley. Later that same summer post yoga training, after I'd released my intentions of living in community, possibly in Wimberley, to the Universe, by way of a 4x6 notecard, I ran into an old friend, Judibeth, who was living there. She's an artist, a mother of 4, and lives on some land with her garden, goats, cats and beautiful family. I went to visit her. I fell in love with it all over again. I didn't know many people in Wimberley at the time. My healer, Patrice, had worked her magic on me down by Jacob's Well the year before that, but I didn't have many close ties to it. Judibeth introduced me to some wonderful women. A group of them were meeting weekly for something called "EFT" - "Emotional Freedom Techniques". Patrice had already taught me to tap my way out of repeated cycles of anxiety. I know it's very effective. And so I started coming to Wimberley once a week for some tapping on my pressure points, but also to get a sense of how Wimberley felt.
Several months later, I met Rodney, who has lived in Wimberley for 15 years. And for the last two years, I have been back and forth, dating him, dating Wimberley, enjoying the courtship between all of us, while still hanging on to some fear around total commitment to Rodney and to Wimberley. I had one foot in and one foot out for so long that I got used to it. I hung on to South Austin for many reasons. I felt like it was more my home than anywhere else I had been. It was such an important part of my rediscovery of myself. I moved there as fast as I could after my divorce because it felt like home. I experienced a lot of transformation there. I found new beautiful friends, fell in love, fell into codependency, healed some old addictive behaviors and fed some new ones, found my yoga, and eventually my heart again. How could I leave that place?? I didn't have to, really. I think it left me.
My desire to be in a smaller community took over. My desire for wanting both feet in the boat took over. I wanted that clear, spring-fed creek, less traffic, more trees, fewer people, and more like-minded people. My need to let go of my little red wagon I'd been pulling behind me the last 5 years took over. My little wagon full of old journals, pictures, t-shirts, sand and guitar picks. My little wagon full of self defeating habits that on some level I wanted to keep repeating. My little wagon full of my chickens, all belted in and ready to go with me everywhere I went. (If Grace were a toy chicken available in stores, she would come with a tiny suitcase and some running shoes. She's always ready to bolt.) My little red wagon full of what was important to a soul-searching, scared 37 year old woman with a gut wrenching determination to find her place in it all. I now understand that I don't need to search for my place. My place is with me. The "old strings" don't really exist. It was just another exercise created by the chicken coop. I now see that I can easily jump into my life with both feet. The only thing holding me back was me and my chickens.
Finally, an amazing woman named Helen, found her way to Wimberley after many stops through the states over the years. She and her husband, Ron, are Canadian, and they live in their Air Stream trailer on some beautiful land just outside of Wimberley. She was a piece of my puzzle I felt like I needed to get here. She opened "The Still Water Studio," the sweetest little yoga studio in the Hill Country, and she offers HOT yoga classes. I found her last September, and started teaching for her in October. She's full of light, totally inspiring, a great leader, funny as hell, and passionate about healing, and what yoga can do for us while we're here. She's truly a gift, and what she is doing in this small community matters. And I am blessed to be involved.
And so after the robbery in November, and 13 years in Austin, Texas, I set my sights on Wimberley, with my little red wagon in tow, full of journals, one turtle, several anxious chickens kicking around from under their seat belts, and one steadily beating heart. She had been asking me for this since returning on my magic yoga mat from training. It was a mandatory call for community. I didn't skip a beat as I loaded my things and headed deeper into the hills, and closer to that water.
As always, the story is unfolding everyday, and I love being a witness.
I found a magical cabin nestled amongst some pecan trees on that same Cypress Creek. I spent my morning yesterday with my mug of hot tea, sitting beside an enormous cypress tree, watching the water run over the rocks in that timeless, never-ending way, while above me on the bridge, the town parade went by, in honor of the Wimberley Highschool Football State Champs.
The yoga classes are growing. My desire to teach and connect with the students is so alive inside me. Chrislyn came with me, and that too, is a blessing. We don't know what to do with ourselves sometimes. And Rodney is closer to my heart, and my home these days. Life is flowing through me, with me, and I don't have to struggle against it as much. The 37-year-old South Austin chick has turned into a 41-year-old Wimberley resident. My little red wagon is parked down by the creek under the Cypress trees, taking a break for awhile... my chickens are in the back, basking in the January sun.
Jamie, what a wonderful, wonderful story!
ReplyDelete