Well, it's over.
I got back last night from my final yoga exam retreat. Guess that means I'm legal. And while I do plan on writing a longer post about that sometime, I'm still digesting. Processing. It was a very intense experience. Helped me see some things. Make connections (inside myself, but also along the external skyline). In time, maybe, I'll talk about that.
But for now, I'm rewinding. I'm telling you of easier things. I left for the retreat early in the morning, desperate for the salty smell of the sea, as ever. Rushed. It seems I have less and less time lately to do the things that demand doing of me. One day soon, I fear the world might catch up to me.
I'd just about managed to pack my bags, and cram a suitcase full of yoga things and goodbyes. I hadn't picked out a travel outfit. Once, I would leave it hanging off the doorknob the night before. Now? Now, I take less notice of how I'm presenting myself to the world. I know train rides. I know eyes.
I survey the options.
Truth be told, I've amassed over the past couple of years lots of options. I know, it's something my minimalist aspirations ought to keep in check. Long, blowy dresses and nice low-cut shirts. Mini-skirts, and oversized overalls.
Yet my fingers, inevitably, guided back to old faithful.
I've had this crop-top at least ten years. There's an intensity of plain. I don't remember where I got it, and I'm too lazy to check. Besides. Credit where it's due. It's written its own backstory along the years.
I wore it years ago, stopping off the highway to explore an old abandoned house, driving home from the beach. I saw it now, riding down to the seashore. I thought huh, and the gapes-like-windows peered, and thought back huh. The houses won. The past always wins, even though it doesn't gotta.
I wore it, little-baby-tatter-me, while working on my silly little pop-up thing that won me a trip to Krakow to first meet crazy crypto weirdo people.
In Rome.
When my belly hung low.
When I didn't see how I could possibly be enough.
I wore it on planes. Plains.
And so, ten years went by, and rocked me up to now. When I look at myself as though I didn't have a face, still, but am old enough to know better. I can't trick myself as lightly as I used to, once.
I have deep love for old, faded things. Like this too-big, too-skyfar shirt. Her shirt. And bring her closer to me with very little hugs, mixing mournful and hopeful in the sand until they become a gray, homogenous muck.
I find, somehow, in this world full of darkness, so much space for joy between my right lung and the left. And maybe it's nonsense, but I attribute it to these little bits of past self. Not minimalist, not attributing emotional weight to material things, and yet, can't help myself, so do. Often.
I wear them because I feel safe, and when I'm safe, I'm comfortable. And when I'm comfortable, I get to be myself, and talk out loud to people like ship-shape little moon-glider. In my old past clothes, I am a surfer of past tides, but keep my eye on the present just barely visible along the horizon-line. I don't dare glance back towards the future, curled like a thimble-mouse in the scoop of my palm.
Not yet. It's not for future-gazing, my USED, bellow shirt, my nipple-hanger old faithful, stained.
It's just so I remember to feel beautiful at the crossroads where my present self meets my past. I didn't volunteer to carry the past. I leave behind whenever I can, dig up small moundfuls of dirt or sand. But it's a heavy thing. Days, it's a real balancing trick, wearing myself this light.
This is the stuff a textiles lecture at an art school is made of. The connection to fabric and form, and function, and how it literally wraps itself around our lives.
I have only had such feelings about a garment once. Its gone now, it was my fathers. He died when I was 19, he wore the shirt when I was younger. I'm 38 this year, I wore it too, until it had just a few too many holes to make it worth repairing or salvaging anymore.
It wasn't even a special tshirt. It was something he got from a trade show, as a fitter and turner, from some engine reconditioning conference thingo he attended.
Based on the age of that shirt, I calculated that I wouldn't need to buy another tshirt for something like 30 years, based on my wardrobe's contents. But just yesterday, I had to get rid of another shirt as it had a hole in it following the gym.
Keep on writing. You can't be stopped, anyway.
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Less and less time lately? Then just go with the flow, troublesome or not. It could lead you through yesterdays to tomorrows, or the other way around. Too early, or late, to tell.
I don't see much of an alternative at this point anyhow ;)
You remind me of a favorite shirt I recently retired. I had found it for $5 at a thriftstore, and it ended up accompanying me on years of adventure all over the world. Even when I probably should have worn something else, I always found myself drawn back to it. Unfortunately, it got really faded in the back, likely from wearing backpacks with it so often. I keep it tucked away now, but honestly have considered framing it after all we've been through together haha
Congrats on finishing your yoga certification!
Congratulations on finishing your yoga instruction! I've been away from yoga for far too long and need to get back to practicing again!
Good luck! Personally, I love the versatility of getting back into yoga after a longer absence - it's enough to take 10 minutes today, and just do that, and there you go, you're back to practicing! :)
Thanks! Good advice! I always feel so much better when I practice.
Oh you!!! This was such a fun read because I could relate to one particular part so well. Wearing old clothes makes me feel safe too and that makes me feel comfortable and confidence in myself. I do things like me when I’m in my old clothes - clothes that people have seen me on countless times than clothes I just bought some days ago, no matter how beautiful and comfortable it actually is I still have my doubts and that keeps me at the side until I get safe in them too.
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Congrats!!! I'd hate to think of you practicing Yoga illegally!
Congrats🎉, and well done! I'm excited for you 😍
Thanks, love! <3
I still have some t shirts from many years ago that has been to a lot of places with me. The only problem is that I can't wear them comfortably now without my belly sticking out. The joys of my younger days are no more 🥲
Sometimes it seems that something in us feels anchored to a part of our past, and it is not that we are living from it, but inevitably there are things that in our present suddenly come with total forcefulness. It is not a simple whim, it is something special in which our feelings have found that refuge to recall things lived that are still latent in us. "One day not too far away, I fear the world will catch up with me", and "The past always wins, even if it doesn't have to" are expressions that reveal a deep reflection on something so common and so simple that it is still special ☺️.