birthday

I didn't quite realize the magic that unfolded for me today until the first few tears ran under the paper towel covering my eyes and Connie the massage thereapist was holding my left palm in hers.

Ah, the sun came down just for a moment now. Peeked around the side of the cloud cover that's been gently resting at the foot of this desert mountain hot springs with me. The lyrics to Going to California remind me that this is a place where i know my dreams are safe.

And, as Ruby Tuesday has always told me, "Lose your dreams and you will Lose your mind."

Right here, right now...no place i'd rather be. It was everything I wished for but didn't know I found.

As I woke up this morning alone, on my birthday, I knew that the day could be rough. I had made no plans and had no one to share it with. I took the day off work, just by default, because working on my birthday would be the only thing worse than spending it alone.

But i soon realized it wasn't up to me.

With my eyes open for only a few moments, and a million unfortunate, self-pitying thoughts already well on their way into my heart, I heard the phone ring.

There was my best friend, J, talking me awake, even when i didn't want to be. From 2000 miles away, she assured me I wasn't entirely alone. We talked about wine country. I thought about the feeling of wine, sun, and my "breeze." That was, after all, what I craved more than anything. My breeze.

Throughout the breakup, logical thought didn't take me where i needed to go. I avoided my practice, my realtionship with God, with myself. I avoided my "yoga" in every sense of the word, and I avoided all the paths of self nurturing I could have taken. I allowed myself to walk a rocky path of self pity, guilt, and contempt; all disguised as the processes of forgiveness and deep love.

As I lay on the massage table, eyes covered, Connie pressed gently on my chest, pulling it open and wider with the pulling apart of my shoulders. I felt the darkness sitting there, and I was ashamed of the strength in her hands it took to move it.

I realized, then, that the magic had shown up for me on my magic day.

Without knowing it, I had chosen to love myself. I had chosen to heal, and I had chosen to once again be new.

I had a choice today, and knew what I wanted it to look like. But on that massage table, I felt my breeze in the most unlikely of ways. In the darkest of rooms, from the slowest of movements, and in the stillest of air, I felt the strongest of breezes.