I am in a kind of slump of late because my book, SIXTY, SEX, & TANGO is finished, and I am just waiting to get back the layout and design from the publishers. I feel like I just gave birth. I' was pregnant for almost two years, and I finally delivered. It was a joyful moment.
Not to worry: life is good, really, and yoga classes are going well. I've cut back from 8 or 9 classes a day to 6 classes a day - some at UCLA and some private. But when my private clients travel, or get too busy with their kid's school, or have a baby and then decide not to return too soon, or buy a house and have to cut back - well those situations give me pause. Yikes! Time on my hands.
But time on my hands is something new to me and something good for me. Where I once jammed home after my last class at night or in the middle of the day and headed to my computer like a homing pigeon, I enter my apartment slowly and look around and actually take in the beauty of my surroundings. Where once a brought my Whole Foods salad to my computer to eat without enjoying the taste, greasing up my keyboard, I now use my stove a few times a week and sit at my table like a real person. Where once I balanced wine next to my MacBook, I now actually taste the pleasures of my favorite Pinot Noir. I bring a plate to the table (with my book, of course) and I don't eat out of boxes anymore.
Part of my time has been taken up by corresponding with some former high school colleagues and that has been rewarding. We have a Facebook page and a high school website. Then again, you never know what will turn up in life and this side-bar reunion is quite interesting. One of the guys is a writer - not professional - but is a writer because he loves to write. He has sent me his work and I have enjoyed his poems and his musing on his early life in northern California, before this state and this country morphed into a slash and pillage environment capped off by the mantra - greed is good. What I liked so much about Dave's writings is that he describes a time when I also grew up in rural California, in San Rafael, a sleepy little conservative town just eighteen miles north of San Francisco. St. Raphael's church was the center of town and so was our Catholic elementary school. What Dave describes growing up in Soledad, California, is a lot like the way I grew up, having dinner together every night and playing soft ball after school on empty lots in the neighborhood, going to Flash Gordon serials on Saturday afternoons, attending Mass on Sundays, traveling together in one car to visit relatives - a slower life to be sure but a life full of known values and consistent parenting. A flood of memories wave over me from time to time. And since my mother's death in December, there have been so many more family memories that I have recalled that I find myself near tears more often than I would like.
I also place greater value on corresponding with friends in my present life. I waited for my tango dancer friend, Greg, to come back from Buenos Aires to regale me with stories of his three week journey through the darkened tango salons and coming home at three in the morning dead tired, sleeping most of the next day and stumbling that night back into the dance salons. When I didn't hear from him, I was concerned, but I remembered that he was away from his job so long that he probably got smashed by the amount of work waiting for him o his return. So finally, I got an answer from him, and as often is the case, not only was the job overwhelming upon his return, but his mother has to be moved to a care facility in Montana. As with my mother's last year, Greg's mother is failing in body and mind. Boomers face these problems daily. I have to remember that in our sixties, life throws us some pretty astounding surprises.
And I have a new friend in Montreal who has become the major mensch in my life. I adore our conversations and emails and this new and interesting relationship brings a bit of surprises my way during the week.
And finally, David, my long time companion and significant other, is back in my life in the the form of his beautiful and talented daughter, Camille Rose Garcia, a famous artist in her own right. If you are curious, check out her website: camillerosegarcia.com She is the daughter I never had and this week, she is staying with me and we are having a slumber party. I missed not having a daughter but I have Camille and her wonderful sister, Janine, and my daughters-in- law, so I have some pretty terrific surrogate daughters hanging around my universe.
So time not filled with writing a book is time that illuminates my heart and soul even though I may enter that universe kicking and screaming that I don't have enough to do. I understand that I have plenty of things to fill my life and I am full of gratitude.
Namaste
Joan
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