Asia's Pranablog

What makes us unsatisfied?

This weekend I was surrounded by so many things I love. It made me wonder: Why am I so miserable?

Friday night my friend Michelle and I threw a BBQ. Dozens of friends came to eat the atrocious amount of food I'd brought (as my mother used to say, "enough food to feed an army") and to meet a special guest of mine - Jay - who'd come up from Ann Arbour. We ate like royalty and laughed our asses off as we took turns on the various instruments in the house. Michelle and I did a particularly compelling rendition of Chopsticks Duet on the piano and Monique nearly made me pee with her "Middle Masch" on drums. Everyone seemed to adore Jay as well, which bodes well for the budding relationship he and I are starting.

The next morning I taught my 10am yoga class at Atlas Studio, which was full to capacity. I love the energy of big yoga classes and this one was peppered with yoga teachers in training, so it took on the extra element of their inquiry and feedback. The class was exactly what I wish for all of my public classes to be: full, energetic, and challenging.

Jay was set to leave Sunday afternoon, but I convinced him to stay an extra day. We filled the time hanging out in Victoria Park, visiting friends, seeing the cities and enjoying each other's company. He's so intelligent, engaging, communicative, and oh - GORGEOUS (thats him in the picture). It's the start of something I think I've wanted for a while but wasn't sure could be found. Seems like a real relationship with substance at last.

So why do I hate life today?

Well, on the flip side of this fabulous weekend is my fiscal reality. The tax man cometh this week for self-employed me, and boy is he bending me over. I'm approaching July and August, traditionally slow months for yoga. That doesn't bode well for my increasingly red bottom line.

And speaking of increasing bottom lines, I've also been walking around in this meat suit complete with extra padding since returning from Spain and it just doesn't seem to want to shed it no matter how much I run. The stark reality is that I'm not 21 anymore. For many reasons that's a very good thing, but when it comes to being lean, it sucks.

I've also got some choices to make. My life in Waterloo is as it has always been: very good, but not great. There is something about this place that brings great contentment but little excitement, an entrepreneurial spirit but a lack of momentum and strong professional community. It's easy to be wooed by the provinciality of it all, but my restless spirit and desire to do and be more just can't seem to stay still in this city.

The truth is, I'm too comfortable. Things are fine, truckin' along, but I feel like I'm in that 'GPA booster' class again. You see, in my undergrad I was taking two very challenging fourth year courses and got worried that they might drag down my grade point average (GPA), so I signed up for "Music in Film" thinking it was a no-brainer and would keep an A+ in the midst of whatever was going to come of these harder courses. Well, I learned something about myself that year. Those two killer courses? They were killer. And you know what? I put heart and soul into them and did some of the best work of my academic career to date. I came out with an A and an A+ in them. That Music in Film class? Couldn't have cared less and ended up with a B-, which effectively dropped my average low enough to lose me the Gold Medal, for which I was in final contention. 

Turns out I like pressure. Turns out I work well with fire under my ass because it fuels my passion. Turns out being in the deep end is where I do my best swimming.

So what does that mean for me now? How do we find satisfaction? Should we? Is it in human nature to actually ever be satisfied? And what is it that makes us unsatisfied to begin with? I mean, shouldn't I look at my overall life and think, "Hmm, pretty damn good. I'm happy."? Is it lack, or drive that keeps me unblissed?

Technical moment - ignore this post

Hi all. Just a technical post here to verify my site for a company I'm working with. Ignore, but stay tuned for plenty more writing starting this week. If you're looking for yoga classes, visit

www.pranalife.ca

Asia

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3 Best things on the Internet this week

Here are the top 3 picks for best things I've come across online this week:

1. Dad Gone Mad (www.dadgonemad.com). Well-written hilarity from a father who isn't afraid to tell it like it is.

2. Escape from Cubicle Nation (www.escapefromcubiclenation.com). Always an interesting and encouraging read for anyone breaking out of the 9-5. I have an additional vested interest in reading her posts now, as she's working on getting published.

3. Find Bliss (www.findbliss.com). Beautiful site with lots of great content on how to live a more conscious life.

Apologies for the low posting lately. I'm committed to getting back into it after this long weekend. It has been a substantial shift to return to North America after living in Spain - land that invented siesta, mañana, and the 3-hr meal - and working hard to get my life and business on their collective feet again. Can anyone say 'reverse culture shock'? Despite feeling like I've been speed-blasted through a shift in the space-time continuum, I am getting grounded again and remembering what it is I love so much about this part of the world. Namely - YOU!

After a long winter, I hope you'll come out of hibernation and join me in a yoga class. My schedule is up at my fourth favourite site (biased but true):

4. Pranalife Yoga (www.pranalife.ca). Updated schedule with locations, prices and start/end dates for all of my current classes. Looking forward to seeing you on the mat again.

Leaving Eden

Everyone has their happy place. Maybe it was a childhood summer vacation spot. Maybe it's that all-inclusive in Cabo. My happy place is Spain. There isn't a single thing about that country that I haven't grown to love (except maybe their medical system as a non-EU member). It is my Eden. Spain has been where I have found myself, renewed myself, and come to understand myself better.

The first time I came to Spain I was a missionary. I lived in the Salvation Army on Tenerife in the Canary Islands and sang on the streets. I spent two months having what conversations I could with anyone who would listen about why their souls needed saving. It was the first time I really felt like I was doing something important for others, even if I was mislead in my fledgling efforts. I felt like I had come alive then.

The second time I came to Spain I was on a two-week hiatus from my television travel show, and it was a week after 9/11. The world I knew was upside-down and I was in need of a space with some sanity. In those weeks I relished time with a friend who reminded me that even when my country and neighbours seemed to be immersed in fear, I actually love to love. Like everyone living through that terrifying experience close-up, I wasn't relegated to being an ignorance-driven victim. Despite the presence of a darkenss that seemed to poison everything about humanity at that time, we had the choice to be better.

The third time I came to Spain, I was at a crossroads. I was 31, had created a business I loved with clients I adored, had a life of relative ease filled with so much for which I was grateful. Yet, I felt stalemated in many ways. I chose to take five months away to live in Andalusía and pursue the side of myself that doesn't get much air time in my daily Ontario life. In each city, café and cathedral, Spain reminded me that I love to explore, grow even when it's uncomfortable, and be immersed in novelty and difference. I felt once again like I had something unique to offer, and that it's damn time I get offering it.

Part of what I love so much about Spain is that it is so different and so lovely, that it reminds me to open my eyes and notice, to be present for life right now, because it's damn beautiful and it's going to be gone quickly. Leaving my Eden for a third time has been a melancholy process, as always. But I know what my time there is for. Spain rejuvenates me so I can be who I need to be anywhere, everywhere, all the time. It is in many ways like a tangible meditation, a heaven on earth. Even if I am never rooted there, I always grow from there.

Tarifa, land of battling elements

At the southernmost point of Andalucía the city of Tarifa extends like an arrow into the embattled arena where Mediterranean and Atlantic waters clash. Africa lies on the horizon just beyond Tarifa’s reach, where agitated waters of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic push against their sides like two keepers with different intentions for their shores.

Along Tarifa’s coast the wind blows as hard as I have ever experienced. Emerging along the Mediterranean Sea it wails like an angry goddess traversing the gnashing bodies of water and descending on Tarifa’s shores. This violent air is bent on tearing Tarifa apart like a Mad Sorceress driven blindly to reunite with the land yet utterly destroying it in the process.

Rows of small wooden fences have been erected as barricades in the sand in an attempt to hold the beach in place against the gale winds. People dutifully repair Tarifa’s seaside buildings, seemingly in vain against this wind and water war. Regardless of their efforts, the sand snakes its way around every obstacle and across the beaches like whisp-faeries doing the air’s crazed bidding to carry Tarifa grain by grain to the open, opposing seas. These beach-ghosts move like Arabian women’s sheer scarves in dance, with only their effect seen on the surface of the turmoiled water.

The eastern waters appear on the surface like thousands of silver-clad soldiers immersed in intense battle, armour and chain mail and swords and shields clashing and shimmering amidst white tails of Arabian horses and the mist-foam hair atop thousands of helmets. To the west, waves struggle to crash on Tarifa’s Atlantic shores but the powerful wind forces them back on themselves, breaking in a confused edge along the ocean’s shallow swells.

This battle of sand and air and great hoards of liquid armies along opposite shores creates near frenzy for anyone who wanders into it. When I did, my skin felt the sharp blasting of lost coastal sand surrendering to the fierce vents of the wind’s exhale. My hair whipped against my face and eyes and I had to lean into the force of the winds just to stay standing.

The scene was so full of this erratic energy I simply broke into broad-smiling laughter as I stood on those abandoning shores. I took off my shoes and sank my feet into the golden-white sand rushing around my ankles toward the water. I ran into the Atlantic tides as they lunged and pawed at Tarifa’s land. The water was icy, clear and turquoise-to-deep-blue in progression away from the break. Immutable rock jutted out from the shore, its strength like skeleton bone that held Tarifa in place. Waters crashed against it in vain, shattering like glass turning to powder.

I looked up and saw the white bodies of seagulls laughing and calling out, butchy from mastering the airs. They had thick wings and took brave plummets in and out of gusts. This wind must be a blend of adrenaline rush and extreme flight training for them. Their movements were jittery but purposeful. Here it would seem that keeping with the battle of resistance in the air, however exhausting, is easier than trying to stay grounded below it.

Opposing forces railing within and outside of us have always created a frenzied blend of excitement and striving like this. Some elements duke it out in what seems like an unending battle. Others parts of us are worn down and lost when our landscapes are carved and loosened by the winds of change. Standing on the shores of Tarifa I realize, maybe for the first time, what a beautiful scene all of this movement is.

Spanish Sunsets and Bread Boys

All the hustle of settling myself in my new pueblo this week kept me from taking in one of Cadiz’s best experiences until today. After a long overdue sleep-in to clear the last fog of jetlag, I spent the day with Justin setting up appointments to look at places to rent in Ronda and Nerja and getting odds and ends neatly tied before the week comes to a close. Afterwards we wandered to the water to watch the sun set.

Myth claims the sun was born in Cadiz and went forth into the world from its shores. Each night it melts back into the waters, extinguishing in a soft and rich outpouring of yellows and oranges against the pale blue sky and ink black, glittering ripples of the windtickled Atlantic Ocean. We watched by the old Moor wall as that brilliant sphere coated in caramel yellow seemed to sink quickly below Neptune’s depths. In a matter of a few breaths, slow souls sighs, evening exhaled into night, the heavens keeping just a sliver of orange lid open between pitch sky and blackened waters to watch as people let go of another day.

On our walk home along the coastal wall we came upon a different bread shop close to our apartment. Like other stores, this one was tucked away behind a stone wall with a small door. Some shops here startle me with how big they really are behind their tiny doorways. This shop was modest, though, with half a dozen shelves of bread behind the sole employee and another few behind a glass counter that separated him from us. It was cozy, and more importantly it had the pan rustica that Justin and I both love – a whole grain bread more like pumpernickel but not as heavy or dark.

Two loaves left; we were just in time. The guy behind the counter was young, probably in his early twenties, and like most of the men here was easy on the eyes. He asked with a sweet smile what we wanted and gave us our change with enthusiasm. I think he was grateful that we knew Spanish, as we wandered into the place speaking English to each other and he looked concerned. Very few people here speak any English, but they’re great at deciphering my Spanoblather.

Cadiz charms me with moments like these. This is the experience I wanted in moving to Spain. I’m learning the corridors and plazas of the place these people know as home. I feel at ease seeing so much beauty without it being sold to me or propped up for my objectification. I now have a favourite bread shop and can order fresh tuna from the market in just the amount I like, cut fresh from the fish’s body. I walked by the vendor where I bought peppers the other day and he recognized me and gave a sweet smile. I’ve bought produce at the same Sobeys in Waterloo for four years and I’ve never had anyone behind the counter recognize or greet me with a big, broad smile. Mind you, it doesn’t hurt that this Andalucian has eyelashes you could get lost in and I’ve got the only blue eyes for blocks, other than Justin. ;) Still, the warmth of this community opens me.

Tomorrow I’m meeting a friend of a friend, Eva. She’s a local of Cadiz who’s dating a Canadian and was very helpful when Justin and I needed information about the city. It’ll be fab having another person through whose eyes we’ll see this town.

Hasta luego y con amor - A