Seven days and one dessert

There is a sense of overwhelming discomfort I feel when people name me as a "writer"... it happens when I tell people I write, but for me there is a huge leap between the action and the title. Or maybe it's the title I'm uncomfortable with altogether. And then, when I'm introduced as such, do I need to justify it? I often say well no, actually, I'm a School Counselor. But now I can't say that... no, actually, I'm a person who likes to write and hopes to publish another book someday (okay, sooner than later) and I used to be a School Counselor, but I quit my job this summer and I'm not sure what I'll do next...

Or maybe I should just say sure, yes I'm a writer, and leave it at that.

This is one of the many hundreds of thoughts I've over-processed in the past seven days, while I've been in this completely unreal beautiful place

I am doing many things here, and I find that I don't want to go in to too much of what and why. I am spending time studying the philosophy of yoga and meditation, both the intellectual study, the physical practice, the lifestyle understanding. There is so much more to all of this than the Vinyasa Flow I've fallen in love with over the past few years, and while I feel fairly certain what I'm doing will enhance my physical practice (holy core work) the unexpected has been how much I have been thinking about my work as a counselor, and how deeply the study I am immersed in here will, I think, inform that work. So here's to being without expectations.

I am in a situation where I am meeting new people at each meal, settling in to time with people about whom I know nothing, and wondering how deeply to delve into their lives or let them into mine. My intention in being here, in this time, is of course to write, but it's also to take an inward focus, to step back from the safety of routine, and to learn the ever-illusive state of non-attachment in which yoga is so deeply rooted. But in the meantime, I have done two things that I have intended to do for months. I fixed the holes in my sweaters!

And I stopped stream-of-conscious-rambling and finally set out to begin plotting this novel that has been filling pages and pages and my brain. Good ole' index card plotting.

I have been without coffee, without wine, without my family and my best friends, without the morning routine of the G train and black coffee from Sage General Store and the hometown sounds of the B63 bus groaning down fifth avenue and the endless lines out my office door during Drop-Add. I miss these things in an almost physical way and I wonder what things will look like in October when I step out of this world (maybe almost exactly the same); but I've also been with sunrise yoga and Kale that is, I mean it, still warm from the garden in the sunlight, and the most beautiful walks. In fact this morning, coming around this pond, I thought, you don't have to decide anything right now. In fact, make sure to make no decisions. At least this week. Here's to making no decisions.