It was almost perfect, as everything seems to be these days. A little morning light microbiology textbook reading with a cup of earl grey and the last berry bar, someone else’s dog on my lap, and the spacious, quiet gardens in my favorite place spread out in front of me.
And then?
Leaf blower.
The effort of nine days of preparation, which each included a slight mis-step, brought me so close to a curated moment of perfection:
Day1 Mistake: attempt to use the generous gift card in the cafe. The cafe no longer accepts gift cards.
Lesson: pony up.
Day 2 Mistake: unskillful attempt at community met by grouchy professor.
Lesson: don’t talk to strangers.
Day 3 Mistake: ordering tea in a time when the menu is in transition. There is no tea. Unskillfully overcaffeinate with an Americano.
Lesson: BYO tea.
Day 4 Mistake: arrive just after yoga, when the cafe is filled with the most irritating conversations.
Lesson: sit elsewhere.
Day 5 Mistake: order the full berry bar, which costs .50 more total than two halves.
Lesson: order the half. Get another half later if you’re still hungry.
Day 6 Mistake: bring both dogs, juggling their personalties and inconvenient bowel habits.
Lesson: bring one dog, take her for a long march first, where she can do her business elsewhere.
Day 7 Mistake: park in the back alley in the designated retreat center parking. Get trapped by the UPS man for an extra hour while he takes lunch.
Lesson: park in a place where you have multiple ways to exit.
Day 8 Mistake: bring only the text book and sit in the quiet space and learn that your only compatriot in the quiet, ventilation-free space is 7 days post COVID and sounds profoundly unwell. Run (rudely) outside and breathe freely while eating soup in the rain.
Lesson: prepare for outdoor time.
Day 9 Mistake: sit outside without anticipating the massive changes in Colorado weather in April.
Lesson: Bring layers, a hat, sunglasses.
So Day 10, my final day, I arrived wearing appropriate footwear, parked skillfully, took the dog for an epic poop walk, hydrated her, grabbed my pre-made tea, tethered her to the good outdoor spot (with layers!), ordered the half berry bar, cozied up with a sense of accomplishment to learn about the magic antibiotics.
And then the leaf blower.
My capacity for irritation at imperfection. My adorably thin window of tolerance. My iridescent resilience so thin it most resembles a tenderly wrapped and highly vulnerable butterfly in those last cocoon moments before she opens her wings. Can I please just be ok anyway?
I chuckled as the server brought the warmed berry bar and fork to me, “It’s all perfect but the leaf blower.”
“Maybe you’re here to work on your patience?” She suggested.
For fucks sake, yes. I am the yoga teacher. I am like…. A well known yoga teacher in certain very small valleys and corners of the internet. I know that it’s all just an invitation to practice my patience and also ugh. GAH. I have been efforting at this practice for ten days now and am still not getting it all right.
I remember many spontaneous just-right moments. Places where the sun and the sea and the wifi were all just so, when life did not require planning and orchestration and I was just so content. There were so many times in the before where my body felt healthy and my hair was good and my eyes were not puffy and no one was blowing leaves through a parking garage for the exact hour that I had set aside to be in this place.
“Maybe sit on the other side of the building?” She offered.
The. Nerve.
I sat and ate and drank and read my chapter about The Bhagavad Gita of Antibiotics - the epic battle of the underdogs and how frigging mighty microbes truly are - and a trio of women came and sat at the table next to me, preparing for some sort of post-yoga lunch.
I listened to the three of them complain at one another about the class, about their garments, the weather, and then the rice that was served. For twenty minutes they forged and reinforced their connection through the practice of nit picking. I felt solidarity and also shame.
We were in the most magical of places, and I had a sweet dog on my lap and perfectly sweetened tea, studying something I find interesting as I crawl towards the next chapter of my life, wings still wet and sloppy and shellacked to the sides of my body. This was a perfect moment, of course, and also imperfect as moments always are.
The rice-hater admired the necklace of the one who disliked the cloud cover.
“It’s moonstone.” Said the wearer, “It’s healing.”
“What does it do?” Asked the third, her voice desperate for a moment of fucking peace in this gnarly life.
“I don’t fucking know. It’s Vedic. Someone told me it would cure what ails me.”
My hand jumped to my own neck, adorned with a new teardrop shaped stone I had purchased with the gift card that could not purchase tea for many reasons.
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