A storm cleared the air, finally
scrubbed the sky clean
and for one day it was perfection
the magical lake fresh with a crisp and stunning beauty I know so well.
The still evening called me, alone
down to the dock in just a towel
and I slipped down the ladder in the dark
the cool water sliding over my skin as I swam out to my usual spot.
Just me on the lake
just me watching the last light fade.
One more night, one final dip
less perfect but this time with stars
everything quiet, smooth, peaceful
the water lapping at the edges of my body
blurring sound as I gazed up at the big, dark sky.
Just me on the lake
just me watching the light fade
just me to bid the bittersweet farewell.
-RDP
A Poem on the Elements
Seven years ago I wrote my first poem, prompted by an assignment at a retreat. The only instruction was to reference the five life elements of Ayurveda. And so I wrote a tribute to my favorite place: the mountains I grew up in and still visit once or twice a year. I’m here now and in the quiet of a morning on the lake, the poem found its way to the surface of my memory.
Nothing is sacred, he said
Not even this place.
A sad ache seeps from my heart on into my bones
My experience of the world so different
And I wait days for words to form some sort of reply.
We live separate lives
But here is where we gather.
We set aside our differences and play
Here is where the dirt has soaked up ourselves
Year after year after year
And pulses with our memories, sustains us.
Summers spent one with the water (winters with snow)
No need for shoes, our feet crave the bare earth.
Fireworks enjoyed from the boat
Thin mountain air hot, then suddenly cool with thunderstorms
Backs against the dock, lake calm
Stars burst from the dark ether.
This place is nothing but sacred, she finally said
Knowing words would never convince him.
And so she released it all
Earth, water, fire, air and ether
Trusting the sacred to find her own way to him.
-RDP
Vacation Yoga
I recently had dinner with my friend and fellow teacher, Emily Bedard. Aside from our shared love of yoga, we have a summer vacation spot in common. Emily had just returned from McCall, a lake-town in Idaho where I will head next week to spend time with friends and family. Her recent experience had me laughing and looking forward to my visit even more. I asked Emily to guest blog for me, and her post follows the photo (Payette Lake at sunset) below.
When I started doing yoga some years ago, I started in a city. The studio was on the second story of a commercial building in a busy neighborhood, and the soundtrack from outside was a mix of tires on pavement and bus hydraulics and sirens and people calling to each other on the street. Inside the studio, the crowd was young, mostly, and urban and eclectic and hip. I loved it there. When I went to other cities, I could find more or less a similar experience. But when I went to the beautiful little Idaho town where my husband's family vacations, I had to do my yoga alone and that meant it didn't happen much. There were just no studios or classes or workshops to be found.
The town's name is McCall, and it wraps around the lower half of the deep, cold, mountain-backed Payette Lake and extends south from there. When I first visited in 1997, the town felt considerably more hardscrabble then it does now. No handsome downtown ice rink, no prettily appointed central park, no sushi restaurant. Those features began to pop up as McCall developed more of a resort identity over the last 15 years, but I've loved it in all its phases. And then recently it happened: I showed up one July and a yoga studio had, too.
Of course, I was curious. What would I find in a studio class in my favorite tiny Gem State town? Was this the way to link my Seattle life and my Idaho mini-life? What I found was this:
When you do yoga in McCall, the temp outside might be 95, but the second story room with its exposed rafters will still be mysteriously, pleasantly cool. When you do yoga in McCall, you might set up your mat next to a smokejumper, who probably recently jumped out of an airplane—on purpose—into a wildfire. When you do yoga in McCall, you notice a lot more callouses and a lot fewer pedicures, and this is instantly uplifting. You look east out the window in Warrior II and see the grocery store where you could buy a snap shirt after class, if you wanted. (You find that you sort of want to.) You count more men than in your city class, and more kids, too. You find you are the only one who seems surprised when the teacher asks you to "pistol-grip" your big toe in a forward fold. You take a dolphin pose and imagine your forearms are forks on a forklift, just like you're told to. And, finally, when the teacher closes class with a single Om and a moment of silence and a sincere Namaste, and then tells everyone, "Now, go jump in the lake!" that that is exactly what you ought to do.
So, yes, it was the link. And also, no, it wasn't. The experience was simultaneously familiar and new, comfortable and a bit awkward. It was, in short, just what yoga always is for me: That space and place where "Whoa, look at that!" and "Oh hey, I know you!" are somehow two sides of the same amazing coin.
-Join Emily on Sunday evenings for a 75 minute Slow Flow class at Yogalife Greenlake. View her bio here.