I spent a lot of my life, as I think many of us are trying to do and it’s driving society, Heather focused on what’s next. The Next Thing. When this happens, things will, I will, life will, be different. Better. Changed.
That’s been me for a lot of it. A life of staccato, of delayed, and even denied, appreciation of the present, the current reality, in all its fullness and truth. Instead, reaching forever for a future state.
in one yoga class in New York City, I remember looking to the teacher or a teacher, taking the class near the front, whatever it was, and seeing how beautifully this person transition from one pose to another. I was so focused on hitting the next one I saw it and sell it I thought about, and felt very little into, how I was getting there I decided to bring more attention to it, more intention, and ideally some grace. I remembered that the other day when I moved into a new position in a class here in Bordeaux, and it felt so good. I felt so in it.
Travel is a state of transition, really, too. I remind myself of that as I board a train, pack for the airport, and sit in wherever I’ve been staying for the last month in Europe. I’m here now in Bordeaux, on a leave from work, and thinking about how in some way, all ways, everything is a transition. I’m learning French in a fun little hopscotch way—reading signs, using a translator, listening to a podcast, asking friends—and I realized how in French many words flow one into another in speaking, and how beautiful it sounds. The stops are indiscernible, the transitions the speech. (“Nous allons,” “We go,” is said like “Nouzallon.”)
Nous/allons, living life in the transitions.